Exegene.com is one of the many net-labels out there that specialises in drum’n’bass and jungle from unsigned artists worldwide. It’s a completely non-commercial thing, and they have all their releases up for download under a Creative Commons license, which is great.
What’s even better is that at one point I downloaded all the releases up until XGN021 I think, and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the tracks available on the label.
It’s easy to start a net-label these days, and a lot of people do so a lot of them turn out to be a project to get their own mp3’s and those of a few friends on the internet and give them a more professional allure. Exegene is not one of those, and the fact that an artist like Alpha Omega did two exclusive tracks for the label proves the fact that you can be sure you are not wasting your bandwidth downloading shit quality productions.
In fact after queueing all those mp3’s in WinAmp for a week or so, I selected my favourites from the list to compile myself a best of CD of my own. I started by selecting the harder tracks first, cause we like it raw, but I came up with a enough not-so-hard tracks of excellent quality that I couldn’t fit them all on a single CD. Sod that, lets have two then, all for the same price, whoohoo!
So CD number one contains the hard shit, the craziest beats and roughest bass-lines, and CD number two contains more chilled beats, the dubby steppers and smooth bass-lines.
This post is all about the hard shit, the first CD.
NJs XGN selection 01 – the hardness
Nebulae is one hell of a roller to start off with. That reece bass-line gives me the chills and the work on the breaks is superb. Time for the The X-Gene with a cool sci-fi vocal sample before that savage bass drops in. Teh shizzle! Kromatik Kollapse turns it up another notch with one of the phattest bass-lines and drops in here. Wicked amens btw, boh! Blal is just plain sick. Check out those beats man, crazy shit. No rest for the wicked as we continue with Dead Effects bass-line pumping through the speakers and it’s rolling breaks, to prepare you for the insane drop Galactus has to offer. I can’t keep myself from turning this one up way too loud in my car actually… so.. fucking… phat!
The Alpha, the Omega, with the excellent stepper Skullcrusher to let the adrenaline flow out of your system after the last killer, but still keeps you in the zone so you’re ready for Nekura*s amen roller No More. Typical Nekura* stylee, which we dig, followed by the stuttering and grinding Obey. This track is another killer. A+ for those chopped up beats man, respect! Supernova is less hectic compared to the previous track, but hey, what do you expect, but it’s still out there on the edge though. Chopped breaks, great effects, a eerie good synth-line in there, great track if you ask me. To finish things off and come to our senses again I slapped in one of the Sound Engine remixes, the one I felt fittest best in this CD filled with chopped up breaks and wicked beats.
So it’s the remix with stuttering and choppy beats, just the way we like it! It has that funky oldskool jungle break in it I love so much… ffs, I think I’ve just come…
01. Auan & Cube – Nebulae [xgn001]
02. Beatoko – The X-Gene [xgn004]
03. Paradigm X – Kromatik Kollapse [xgn008]
04. Blal – Carnivore [xgn020]
05. Medium – Dead Effect [xgn020]
06. Auan – Galactus [xgn002]
07. Alpha Omega – Skullcrusher [xgn009]
08. Nekura* – Not Now [xgn020]
09. Throttler – Obey [xgn020]
10. Psychodelic – Supernova [xgn003]
11. Cube – Sound Engine (Paradigm X remix) [xgnrmx001]
All these releases are up for download on exegene.com of course, so get your arse of there and treat yourself to some hardcore drum’n’bass goodness! In a next post, CD n° two, if I’m up to it, cause writing this one took a lot longer than I expected, hehe.