(le) poisson rouge

Trouble & Bass is the sound of staying up all night and getting wild in the streets, sweat dripping off the walls and speakers pounding in your face. For the last four years, these rowdy ravers have brought raw energy back to the world’s dancefloors by effortlessly flipping bass music in all its forms. Taking influences from house, electro, dubstep, drum & bass, metal, and hip-hop, T&B has created an entirely new genre known simply as “heavy bass.”

Trouble & Bass was born in the dirty streets of New York City, fulfilling Drop The Lime’s vision of a futuristic mob of DJ/producers playing hard-hitting warehouse beats with no rules. The crew—DTL, Star Eyes, The Captain, AC Slater, and various affiliates worldwide—has built that vision into a reality with hype DJ sets and mind-blowing monthly parties featuring the most cutting-edge talent from the US and Europe. Along the way, T&B has fused subcultures to make a whole new audience for their sound, while creating an aesthetic that’s now recognizable around the world.

Trouble & Bass has grown even stronger in the last year, adding the amazing AC Slater to the line-up, as well as affiliates from all over the globe, including Paris’ Mikix the Cat, Stockholm’s Little Jinder, Philly’s Starkey, Krakow's Supra 1, Lisbon’s Zombies For Money, Hell Spawned - Deathface, and Melbourne’s Acid Jacks. You can hear the sounds of all these groundbreaking artists on the Trouble & Bass record label, now almost 40 releases deep into heavy bass world domination. But even as the T&B movement grows bigger every day, the crew isn’t afraid to take chances and remains true to its DIY drum & bass and punk roots, doing all the production, promotion, and design for themselves.

Check out the T&B podcast

Think of the newest craze in the international House scene and only one name comes to mind: Bart B More. After the massive international support on “So It Goes” and Bart’s “Freak” remix for Sandy Rivera(both crowned “Essential New Tune” by Pete Tong!) the buzz seems to be growing by the minute! And everywhere his name shows up, dancefloordopeness is guaranteed.

Combining his love for beat-driven, looped techno music with big room house and electro, Bart has been able to create a refreshing new cross-over sound. Resulting in highly successful remixes like Chocolate Puma’s “ Touch Me”(Beatport nr. 1!), Sandy Rivera’s “Freak”(Pete Tong Essential New Tune) and Ron Carroll’s “Walking Down The Street”. Not to mention original material like “Make Some Noise”, “Killing It” and “Finally” vs Oliver Twizt, which reachedBeatport’s nr. 2 chart position!

Formerly known as Plastic Man, Plastician is a recently appointed Radio1 DJ on the “In New DJs We Trust” show. He is a talented DJ from Thornton Heath, South East London, and has been producing music for over 5 years now, having worked with big names in the grime and dubstep scene, such as JME, Wiley, Lethal Bizzle, Skepta and many more. In 2008, Plastician released “Rinse 06”. His compilation has a wide variety of well known Dubstep such as Skream down to the lesser well known producers like K Rio and Ed Solo and even down to grimey sounds.

Everyone comes from somewhere, but some people wear the cities they’re from like badges of honor. Drop the Lime is Luca Venezia, one of those people whose identity is intrinsically connected to his hometown – New York City.

And while many have only just heard of the magic of Drop The Lime, Luca has been honing his craft for years. From humble beginnings as a choirboy to a childhood obsession with 50s rock’n’roll, the 25 year old has been experimenting with sound for years via the underground electronic scene of Kid 606’s TigerBeat6 label, Mad Decent and French label Institubes (under his alter ego “Curses!”).

Drop The Lime’s influences range from Brian Eno to rockabilly (he’s well known for his 50s doo wop and soul sets) to Sonic Youth to Wu Tang but things don’t just stop there. He also runs Trouble & Bass, an influential New York club night and label since 2006. The Trouble & Bass crew are the DJs who are defining a new New York sound.

“Having a crew from NYC behind you, pushing the sound you produce, is essential in creating a movement. We’re all producers and DJs so sometimes we’ll collaborate on production — or I’ll have one of them help out with one of my basslines - since they understand my sound better than anyone else”.

AC Slater, hailing from Philadelphia but now residing in New York City, was one of the biggest american hardcore and freeform DJs. In 2001 started the Pitched Up record label as an outlet for american hardcore music. The label saw 5 vinyl releases and 10 digital releases.

In 2007 AC Slater moved away from hardcore and raves to focus on fidget house, getting commissioned to do remixes for artists such as Freestylers, Moby, Shwayze, Human Resource, and Drop the Lime.

The first time Star Eyes touched a turntable was at the age of 15, when she decided she wanted to take up Djing. Sick of listening to rave DJ's with bad taste in breakbeats, she began buying jungle with the intention of playing to her bedroom walls. After giving out tapes to her friends and having her mixes featured on L.A.'s Underground Source info line, friends began asking her to play out at local jungle events. At that time, she was the only female junglist playing out in the Los Angeles area. In 1995, Star Eyes moved to the Bay Area to attend UC Berkeley. Star Eyes' name would soon become synonymous with the San Francisco jungle sound. Founding the B.A.S.S. Kru with original members DJ Abstract, Flux, and Hak from San Jose, she helped throw a series of weekly clubs and one-offs (Bass Instinct, Audio Impact, etc.) that would establish S.F. as a hotbed for drum and bass to this day. Star Eyes also released Ruffage during this time, a tape which has passed through ravers hands from the West to East Coast and back again.

The Captain, 26 – part time model, full time hustle and Manager of Trouble & Bass Recordings – The Captain came to New York City in the hot summer of 2004 from the dirtiest of the south, Savannah, GA, where he first started DJing / coordinating events. He has traveled all over the world, Across the US and Canada and into Europe bringing his blend of Electro House, Baltimore Breaks, Dubstep and bass heavy music to unsuspecting party goers. The Captain has been featured in The Fader, Village Voice, Time Out New York, Useless Magazine, BPM, Missbehave Magazine, Big Shot Magazine, Metro Pop and XLR8R.