Since 2016, London based Forest Drive West has been building a rapidly growing catalogue of releases, receiving critical acclaim for records on labels such as Livity Sound, Hidden Hawaii and Rupture London. He's a dope selector too. Enjoy!

ITPS068 FOREST DRIVE WEST

Recorded live in Brooklyn on 05/28/2022. 

@forest-drive-west

CNC LIVE - FOREST DRIVE WEST

DATUM CUT (CA/QC)
North America Premiere at MUTEK Montréal | Édition 24
A/Visions 2 on August 26, 2023
Mastered by @pheek (audioservices.studio)
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Post-digital and analog meet in this performance by DATUM CUT, where creative methods associated with experimental cinema and video art merge with those of digital technologies.

MUTEKLIVE306 - DATUM CUT

If you can judge an artist’s quality by the company they keep, then FaltyDL is up there with the best of them. The label history of the producer known to his friends as Drew Lustman reads like a “who’s who” of 21st century electronic music imprints - Ninja Tune, Unknown to the Unknown, Planet Mu, Studio Barnhus, the list goes on.

With In the Wake of Wolves, we can now add Central Processing Unit to this illustrious roster. The Sheffield label joins the party at a notable juncture - while FaltyDL has kept up an impressive clip of releases throughout his career, In the Wake of Wolves is both the NYC-based producer’s first LP for two years and his first full-length release away from his own Blueberry Records for almost a decade. 

In the Wake of Wolves proves to be both a great match for CPU and also further evidence of the label’s burgeoning sonic palette. While CPU has built its reputation on top quality electro joints, recent releases have delivered adventurous electronica experiments (Proswell’s People Are Giving And Receiving Thanks At Incredible Speeds), hard-wired breakbeat techno (Baby T’s I Against I) and golden-age synth explorations (twenty-fifth anniversary reissues of Bochum Welt’s Desktop Robotics and Feelings on a Screen, both of which first emerged via the legendary Rephlex Records). In the Wake of Wolves takes things further still - this is a brilliantly genre-voracious record, one which marries the rhythmic cut-and-thrust that we have long known FaltyDL for with all manner of adventurous stylistic choices.

Those familiar with the FaltyDL experience will recognise the trademark blend of synthetic grit and harmonious softness in album opener ‘I Need You’. This could pass for Four Tet or even Hannah Diamond at points, the steady build of pulsing synths and looped vocals recalling a more mysterious version of the PC Music sound. ‘I Need You’ stands shoulder-to-shoulder with any of FaltyDL’s other great atmospheric album openers - no small feat given the competition. ‘Further’, the following number, is yin to ‘I Need You’s yang. This is a pulsating track which gleefully skitters between machine-funk, tubing darkside bass and breakcore-adjacent drum programming, all of which is peppered with some genuinely beautiful work in the higher synths.

‘Further’ sets the scene for several of the more club-facing cuts here. ‘Minds Protection’ similarly features all manner of strange percussive sounds to surprise the ear, and it also boasts a thrilling mid-section in which the bottom falls out the track to incorporate a short snippet of blown-out junglism. With its tunnelling low-end and clattering drums, ‘Full Spectrum’ kicks off a delightful run of grime-influenced joints which take cues from Mr. Mitch, Logos and many of those other producers who took the Eski sound to exciting new places in the 2010s. ‘Forget Me Not’, the album’s longest track which is placed three spots from the end, feels like the record’s climactic point - a pitter-patter post-house joint that has a hint of Caribou in its DNA, it’ll take the clubs by storm.

But as much as FaltyDL may consistently bring the heat in terms of the beat programming, the thing which has long marked Lustman out as a special talent is the musicality of his compositions. No matter how much drums clatter or bass bangs, FaltyDL always hooks the ear back in with a sonorous synth or pleasing nugget of melody. Nowhere is this more apparent than on In the Wake of Wolves’ more weightless numbers, each startling in their prettiness. ‘Half Spectrum’ is a new-era beat track packed full of ear candy; the keening keys of ‘GasGas’ are potent with feeling; and on the album’s closer, the evocatively-titled ‘Mila Stans In A Meadow For The First Time Eating Strawberries’, we get a gorgeous synth vignette that joins the dots between the modern mastery of Yung Sherman and the most emotionally affecting moments of Aphex’s Twin’s catalogue.

In The Wake Of Wolves

FaltyDL - In The Wake Of Wolves

Trusted label cohort Stenny really knows how to warm up the room. On opening duties in the Warehouse for the Ilian Tape x Transmissions party last December, he refused to hold back in delivering a stellar set, exploring his trusted sounds in techno, IDM and bass music.

@stennyyy
@ilian-tape

Stenny — Live From The Cause (ILIAN TAPE — DEC '23)

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Prior to her gig at Nowadays upsammy presents an hour of trippy electronics, the experimental side of DnB and oddball techno.

https://www.instagram.com/upsammy_

upsammy @ The Lot Radio 03-30-2024

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Ilian Tape Show with Deetron presents Soulmate & Forest Drive West - 03 May 24

https://www.nts.live/shows/well-street-records/episodes/well-street-records-robert-fleck-scar-4th-april-2024

NTS w/ Robert Fleck & Scar (03.04.24)

@tammohesselink

For cheeky pi Q&A.... please visit our website ----> pipipi.life <---

Tammo Hesselink - -15.9˚C

25th Anniversary: 20_25.08.24 | International Festival of Digital Creativity & Electronic Music

MUTEKLIVE306 - DATUM CUT

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