For the Hard / Match release, Scratchclart and NKC have traded places. Scratchclart’s ‘Hardbody 999’ is an overdriven 4 to the 4 drum slammer. As Scratchclart put it when he sent the track over to NKC, “no synth, no arps, jus drm.” 

It’s a track built for sweaty basement sets with tops off and hands in the air. NKC’s ‘Shuvvin Match’ is a hypnotic UK Gqom workout. Sparse turbocharged kicks, menacing sound design and relentless chants.

Artwork: Rory King
Hardbody 999 mastered by Scratchclart
Shuvvin Match mastered by Doug Shearer

Hardbody 999

Scratchclart - Hardbody 999

Tracks on. Brain off.

Massive Music is the new massive mixtape from MM. It’s Dumb Dance Music – DDM – don’t think too hard about it. The EP draws on tribal house, raptor house, Dutch bubbling sounds and heavy filter techno to create six tough ‘n hard drum tools.

Mastering: Fausto Mercier
Artwork: Rory King

Anyone Got a Filter?

MM - Anyone Got a Filter?

Massive Music

MM - QBT20

MM - Tompocalypse

MM - Timbo's March

MM - Floorfiller

Headbutt is a four track release from a longtime ETS supporter and talented percussive club music producer – Strick.

The release is OG hard drum – setting up hypnotic, rolling grooves through shifting drum patterns, expressing all melody via tonal percussion and crushed samples, and saturating the shit out of everything for maximum dancefloor impact.

It also perfectly encapsulates Strick’s mission as an artist – to supply raw body music for the dancers, in a way that doesn’t get caught up in any self-seriousness. Propulsive and twisted club communications, pared back to their most essential message of liberated movement.

Mastering: Fausto Mercier
Artwork: Anthony Flores

Note: part of the profit from this release will be donated to a charitable organisation or initiative, chosen by Strick. Details TBC

Headbutt

Strick - Propane

Entering the world of microchips and solid state memory, Even The Strong presents PCB 1: high intensity scuzz drum straight from the motherboard.

Using input data from the last six years of ETS — beginning from the very first warehouse party in 2016 — PCB Rhythm Select serves up a hard-hitting collection of blown-out techno, ready for clubs worldwide: from London to Tokyo, Devon to Amsterdam.

Mastering: Roc Jiménez de Cisneros
Artwork: Rory King

PCB 1

PCB Rhythm Select - PCB_Diode

Following on from their 2021 joint single on Even The Strong – ‘Yeyeyeye / Hammerhead’ – Bristol based percussion-heads DJ Polo & NKC drop Lab Rat, a hard-as-nails four track EP including a melodic, groove-led Bok Bok remix.

Lab Rat

DJ Polo & NKC - Lab Rat

DJ Polo & NKC - Fonkeh (Bok Bok Remix)

☠ GRINDHOUSE ☠

The new hit record from MM & NKC

☠ Art by Cormac McGoldrick
☠ Mastered by Lurka

https://massivemusic.bandcamp.com/album/grindhouse

Grindhouse

MM & NKC - Airprox

NKC drops a fresh solo EP that finds the balance between grimey overdriven basslines and grown ‘n sexy percussion rhythms; four funky house grooves drawing on amapiano, gqom, and UK funky influences.

Produced & Mixed by NKC
Mastered by Lurka

Artwork by Rory King

Menace

NKC - Make Nice

ETS000

MM - Drum Pit

NKC - Blocked

DJ JM - Runaway

DJ JM - Cosa Nostra (EP)
ETS001
Release date: 19/01/2018
@deejay_jm
Mastered by Sam at Precise

DJ JM - Interjail

NKC - HD Anthem (EP)
ETS002
Release date: 26/03/2018

In 2016, NKC began Even the Strong with the intention of bringing together relatively new DJs and producers working at the crossover between tribal house, UK funky, dutch house, kuduro and other drum-heavy genres. Doing away with eclecticism, the idea was that the highly percussive 130bpm club sound that MM, NKC, Superficie, Tash LC, DJ JM and many others were playing and making would be tested, built up and developed in front of a solid crowd of dancers. At some point in the process, the term ‘hard drum’ emerged as a jokey shorthand for the sound, and has now firmly stuck. 

These three tracks were developed in 2016 and became set-staples at the parties. The title track ‘HD Anthem’ is just that - a hard drum anthem - combining rugged tribal house hits, tuned perx pushed just off the grid, and the rattle of chain-link fences. ‘Next Life’ centres around a hypnotic crash processed to an extreme crescendo, before breaking out into a brutal tom loop. ‘Codeine Crash’ samples the robotic dembow roll of Akito’s 2016 track Codeine Claps, phasing it and layering with hard cracks to create a whipped back groove. 

Artwork by 3000000000am and Nate James 
Mastered by Jeremy Cox

NKC - HD Anthem

NKC - HD Anthem (EP)
ETS002
Release date: 26/03/2018

In 2016, NKC began Even the Strong with the intention of bringing together relatively new DJs and producers working at the crossover between tribal house, UK funky, dutch house, kuduro and other drum-heavy genres. Doing away with eclecticism, the idea was that the highly percussive 130bpm club sound that MM, NKC, Superficie, Tash LC, DJ JM and many others were playing and making would be tested, built up and developed in front of a solid crowd of dancers. At some point in the process, the term ‘hard drum’ emerged as a jokey shorthand for the sound, and has now firmly stuck.

These three tracks were developed in 2016 and became set-staples at the parties. The title track ‘HD Anthem’ is just that - a hard drum anthem - combining rugged tribal house hits, tuned perx pushed just off the grid, and the rattle of chain-link fences. ‘Next Life’ centres around a hypnotic crash processed to an extreme crescendo, before breaking out into a brutal tom loop. ‘Codeine Crash’ samples the robotic dembow roll of Akito’s 2016 track Codeine Claps, phasing it and layering with hard cracks to create a whipped back groove.

Artwork by 3000000000am and Nate James 
Mastered by Jeremy Cox

HD Anthem (EP)

NKC - Next Life

NKC - Codeine Crash

DJ JM - Sorriso
ETS003
Release date: 21/12/2018
@deejay_jm

Sorriso is a snapshot of DJ JM's toughest club patterns: five idiosyncratic tracks drawing from UK funky, tribal house, syncopated techno and the halftime pulse of ‘00s dubstep to push hard drum music in varying directions.

Artwork by 3000000000am
Mastered by Doug Shearer

Sorriso

DJ JM - Sorriso

DJ JM - Quiet Lyf

DJ JM - So Money

DJ JM - Waterwheel

MM - Terrible Muscle
ETS004
Release date: 15/03/2019

Terrible Muscle layers and switches percussion over fields of bitcrushed energy; HFL Track is hard drum via hard style, an unruly audio laser-show to grind your jaw to.

@djdoublem94
Artwork by 3000000000am
Mastered by Jeremy Cox

MM - Terrible Muscle

MM - HFL Track

NKC - Posh Buzz
ETS005
Release date: 05/07/2019

01. Posh Buzz
02. Hissing

NKC follows up his April release on Martyn’s 3024 label – ‘Honest Drums’ on the FYE mini compilation series – with a hard hitting two track single: Posh Buzz (ETS005).

The title track – named after the way his friend described MDMA when they were teenagers – is hard drum meets tech house: a hypnotic spin-cycle layering warped carnival hits atop choppy cymbals. For the B-side, NKC finally unleashes Hissing – a dramatic drum tool featuring warehouse-sized claps and punishing kick stabs. Use it wisely.

@nkc
Artwork: 3000000000am
Mastering: Jeremy Cox

NKC - Posh Buzz

@lobbyuk - 3D Thinking
ETS006
Release date: 06/09/2019

01. 3D Thinking

3D Thinking, with its broken drums, patterns swinging off-grid, and glitched-out chord stabs, is focused entirely on creating a solid, mind-expanding groove. It’s an understated, hypnotic work-out, driven by deep toms, striking the perfect balance between syncopated techno and new UK funky-inspired sounds. 

@lobbyuk
Artwork: 3000000000am 
Mastering: Jeremy Cox

3D Thinking

Lobby - 3D Thinking

@Limatraqs - Samba X (ETS008)

In 2016-2017, Lima travelled down from Glasgow, where he lived at the time, to go to the first set of ETS warehouse parties in a converted commercial unit in Manor House, north London. Inspired by the industrial take on UK funky, tribal house and latin rhythms played at the parties, he produced Samba X between these trips – a shuffling, shifting hard drum track with cavernous hits and menacing low subs.

The track circulated as a favourite dub among the producers and DJs involved in the parties, and the extended crew, from then on. A perfect snapshot of the early ETS vibe that sounds just as fresh today.

Art by Rory King and 3000000000am
Mastered by Doug Shearer

Samba X

Lima - Samba X

Drums like a truck dumping gravel on your chest

@Nic_As_Well - Hard Hat Area
01. Hard Hat Area
02. Morcego

Available on Bandcamp now:
https://eventhestrong.bandcamp.com/album/hard-hat-area

Morcego

Nic As Well - Morcego

Drums with a safety warning

@Nic_As_Well - Hard Hat Area
01. Hard Hat Area
02. Morcego

Available on Bandcamp:
eventhestrong.bandcamp.com/album/hard-hat-area

Hard Hat Area

Nic As Well - Hard Hat Area

HARD DRUM MUSIC

CLUBNIGHT SINCE 2016
LABEL SINCE 2018

EVEN THE STRONG

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