Cat No: NB018
Artist: Ekaj
Released: 8th March 2010

Tracklisting – click track title for 320kbps MP3 download

1: “Detox”

2: “Fission Battery”

Paul Reset’s notes:

We’re going back to our roots at Nerve Breaks with this two tracker from Lancaster based producer Ekaj. Big chunky breaks is the order of the day here. “Detox” open’s Ekaj’s attack and whacks the listener around the head with crisp drums and deep bass wrapped around some spacey stabs and razor sharp vocal snippets.

“Fission Battery” is up next – wandering down a slightly rave infused path but retaining the spacey feel by wrapping some ethereal pads around the tough beats and bass.

We’ll hopefully see a lot more Ekaj material on NB in the future so enjoy this opening salvo!

Cat No: NB016
Artist: Temper D
Released: January 8th 2010

Tracklisting – click track title for 320kbps MP3 download

1: “Nu Skool Robbery”

2: “Nu Skool Robbery (Ingen rmx)”

Paul Reset’s notes:

I’ve been a huge fan of Temper D’s work since back in 2002 when I heard his amazing “Project Mayhem” track and over the year’s he’s consistently delivered top quality drum n bass (including an affiliation with Raiden’s Offkey imprint). In the past year or so however he’s branched out a bit style wise and now produces a bit of everything – breaks, house, dubstep etc. So for the first Nerve Breaks outing of 2010 I’m chuffed to have him on-board with the big chunky breaks of “Nu Skool Robbery”. It’s a bit of a monster with big chunky drums and rumbling sub and showcases another side to his production talent.

If you’d like to hear more of Temper D’s output then head on over to this guest mix he put together for us earlier this month. With a reputation already in place as one of the finest drum n bass dj’s around this mix also shows his diversity in switching between tempos with ease.

On the remix tip we’ve recruited Edinburgh’s Ingen. He’s been dazzling Edinburgh crowds for the past couple of years with his live electronica sets. He’s taken Temper D’s original and twisted it into a slice of dark n doomy dubby techno influenced breaks. You can catch Ingen live around Edinburgh and at his residency at Split at Cabaret Voltaire. He’s also signed to Carbon Logic so watch out for more material from him in the near future!

Cat No: NB013
Artist: Diazepam
Released: September 26th 2009

Tracklisting – click track title for 320kbps MP3 download

1: Departure

2: Autumn Tides

3: Distances

4: Sunkheart

Paul Reset’s notes:

I stumbled across “Departure” on Diazepam’s Soundcloud page and it literally blew me away – an absolutely beautiful slice of downtempo beats with slick production and an epic feel. I dropped Diazepam a message and after hearing more of his material, knew I had to get some of his work signed up for Nerve Breaks!

Each of the tracks stand alone as beautiful pieces of music, with the tempo reaching as high as 170 on “Distances” without losing any of the space and atmosphere, but I highly recommend listening to the EP from start to finish to get the full experience. I think the tracks sound like a meeting of minds between Max Richter and Burial and the production is on a par with both of those amazing producers.

Diazepam is a 19 year old Parisian and this is his debut release, I’m extremely proud to have him on-board and hope we’ll see much more from him in the future!
Find out more about him on his Myspace page.

Diazepam’s notes:

I’ve been making tunes for about 2 years now. I don’t really belong to a specific style, and my productions simply reflects my desire to blend acoustic instruments and minimal electronic atmospheres. Also, I would like to personally thank Paul for believing in me and letting me release my debut EP! Enjoy !

Cat No: NB012
Artist: Phuturelabs
Released: 2009

Tracklisting – click track title for 320kbps MP3 download

1: The Herd

2: Foregone

3: Childhood

4: What’s Behind Door 23…

Paul Reset’s notes:

After Basepair’s EP on NB010 featuring tracks from his archive between 1998 and 2001, we decided we’d go back in time once again and resurrect these tracks from the Phuturelabs archive.

Phuturelabs was a collaborative project between myself and Scott English AKA The Noisy Minority. We made our debut with “Code 420″ on NB004 and worked on these tracks around the same time in 2000-2001 also.

“The Herd” is a moody downtempo breaks track featuring an inspiring sample from the legend that is Bill Hicks. The other three tracks take things down a darker route with the beatless “Foregone” leading the way. It’s moody ambience and evil drones throw a dark atmosphere over the EP while “Childhood” is erm..a tad strange even by our standards. Nothing really to say other than give it a listen.

“What’s Behind Door 23″ closes the EP and it’s more dark downtempo breaks. I was never really sure about the flute in this but I love the muffled drums and glass smash samples so we decided to have this on the EP.

We always talked about working on more Phuturelabs material but never got round to it, the darkness may yet return!

Cat No: NB011
Artist: The Figures Of The Lost Dawn
Released: 2009

Tracklisting – click track title for 320kbps MP3 download

1: Not In My Town

2: “Lone Standing”

3: “DeadF”

4: “Mullen Cholly

Paul Reset’s notes:

The Figures was a short-lived collaborative project between myself and Martin BSE – we scratched out heads and sent samples back and forth and these are the four tracks that were born of that. Ranging from moody downtempo breaks to weird ambience and with some randomness inbetween.

I was really chuffed with the way these tracks came out and we always meant to work on more material but life and alcohol got in the way. The Figures may one day rise from the darkness.

Cat No: NB010
Artist: Basepair
Released: 2009

Nerve Breaks bursts into life for 2009! First up in our new release schedule is an EP from my good friend Basepair – lovely mixture of breaks, ambience, drum n bass and downtempo bizness. I’ll let Basepair explain more! Find out more about Basepair…

Tracklisting and info – click track title for 320kbps MP3 download

All were completed using Emagic Logic Audio sequencer running on a PC, Yamaha QY70 tone module, SU10 sampler and various outboard rack gear. As with all my tunes I like to mess about with stereo panning/ phasing and including sub bass in my tunes. A decent set of speakers or quality headphones to listen on are recommended…..

“Code 420 (Basepair rmx)” by Paul Reset vs The Noisy Minority – remixed by Basepair

From 2002. An unreleased remix submitted for Nerve Breaks 004 which didn’t make it onto the pressing. Quite a dark moody version & one I really enjoyed working on at the time. Additional mastering by the Rephase Engineer.

“Mobius Incursion”

From March 2001. Minimal dnb track with some harsh stabs, spacey pads and sub bass action…..

“Ambient Journey Trip”

From May 2001. Recorded this live using just my voice, two mics and a handful of delay pedals which I manipulated on the fly.

“Another Day (Beginning of)”

From early 1999. Begins with ambient samples I recorded in and around Byres Road in Glasgow’s West End, June 98. Features Iain Kennedy on Trumpet.

“Good Looking”

From late 1998 I think. Written in the classical form of the “Rondo”!
Submitted at the time as part of my music degree portfolio. Begins with some samples I took from the Shipping Forecast. Features Iain Kennedy on Trumpet.

“Claustraphobe” (Open Source mix)- by Piccardo – remixed by Basepair.

From April 2001. Guitar by Piccardo. At the time I had been messing about remixing a couple of Piccardo’s songs and this quickly became my favourite. Had to do a lot of editing on the guitar parts so that the delays and pitch shifting worked. You can hear some audio artefacts caused by the pitch shifting in places which I quite like.

“PIL”

From June 2000. Started (and almost completed) after returning from a heavy night of d’n'b clubbing in Glasgow. The seashore samples were recorded on Westport beach near Campbeltown on the Mull of Kintyre.

“Place in your Mind (Boom Boom dub mix)”- by Moje, remixed by Basepair

From 2001 I think. The things that sound like tom drums are actually children’s toy bats for playing tennis with.

Basepair and Paul Reset getting drunk on Islay, pretending to discuss this EP..

Cat No: NB009
Artist: Paul Reset
Released: 2008

Tracklisting – click track title for 320kbps MP3 download

1: Wake Up

2: “Self Sufficient (Stabilizer rmx)”

3: “Self Sufficient (Dubwise Selective rmx)”

4: “Dark Dawn”

Paul Reset’s notes:

I decided to bring Nerve Breaks from the grave in 2008 with an EP of my own tracks that had previously come out on vinyl but weren’t available anymore. The first track “Wake Up” was originally released on Breaks4Ever coupled with an AMB remix which was then featured on one of Distinctive’s brilliant Y4K mix CDs. It’s a big chunky breaks track with nice ravey stabs and a bowel troubling bassline.

Next up it’s two remixes of my track “Self Sufficient” – originally released on Backroom Records. The original isn’t here unfortunately as the file was lost – I’m still looking for it (after all these years) and hopefully it’ll feature on another EP of bits and bobs from me on NB later in 2009. To the remixes – first up is Stef Stabilizer’s remix – a lovely slice of progressive breaks with a kinda early morning/really late night type vibe about it. Secondly, Dubwise Selective delivered a lovely old skool-esque remix with a garagey bassline.

To finish up the EP I dug out a track from the archives called “Dark Dawn” – this was originally a remix of Martin BSE’s “Skeeb Dut” for Space Industries. It’s a bit ambient, a bit eerie, a bit moody and a bit dark. Inspired heavily by Future Sound of London’s “ISDN” album.

Cat No: NB008
Artist: Subscience / Hedrock Valley Beats
Released: 2005

Tracklisting – click track title for 320kbps MP3 download

A: “Plaedoh” – Subscience

AA: “Darklight (Subscience remix)” – Hedrock Valley Beats

Paul Reset’s notes:

I’ve already given a bit of background info on Subscience on the NB007 notes so I won’t go over it again. Needless to say – after the amazing remix he turned in for that release – I was keen to have more material from him on NB. I snapped up Plaedoh as I thought it was an amazing bit of breaks – lovely, clean drums, nice bass, quality atmosphere and so on. I had planned to have this as a vinyl release, my distributor however had other ideas. They were initially keen on the release and then went a bit strange – asking if we could remove the “ravey” stabs. Amusingly these days they’d be asking if we could rave it up even more…aren’t musical fashions fun.

Neither myself nor Tom were keen to change the track to keep a distributor happy so we put this out as the first MP3 only release on NB.

I still love the track as much as the day I first heard it, Tom’s gone on to bigger and better things with his Konx-Om-Pax project, working on video and artwork for labels like Warp and artists like Jamie Lidell and Hudson Mohawke and I highly recommend you check out his stuff.

For the flip, Tom had produced two remixes of HVB’s “Darklight” from NB003. This one was my preferred version, a nice stripped back electro-esque number that keep the atmosphere of the original but completely changed the vibe.

Artwork to follow….

Cat No: NB007
Artist: Gridlok
Released: 13th January 2003

Tracklisting – click track title for 320kbps MP3 download

A: Solarium

B1: Electric Chicken

B2: Electric Chicken (Subcience remix)

Paul Reset’s notes:

Obviously Gridlok is mostly known for his brilliant drum n bass productions, but here he dips his toes into the world of breaks! He was keen to experiment with other genre’s (as he does very often these days) and the amazing “Solarium” was the fruit of those loins. One of the best breaks tunes I’ve ever heard and to make things even better – Griddy then dropped “Electric Chicken” – a chunky slice of electroesque beats!

I’d recently met Tom Scholefield aka Subscience, a young student at the Glasgow School of Art – his productions really impressed me so I asked him to do a wee remix and he did a belter of a job! He’s now moved onto bigger and better things and calls himself Konx-Om-Pax these days, making videos for the likes of Jamie Liddell etc – I highly recommend you check out his work!

Cat No: NB006
Artist: Contax
Released: 2003

Tracklisting – click track title for 320kbps MP3 download

A: “Hit List”

AA: “Hit List (Paul Reset mix)”

Paul Reset’s notes:

Dan (Contax) was working on some amazing new breaks tunes and I signed this badboy up within minutes of hearing it. I also thought I wouldn’t mind a wee bash at remixing it! Quality bassy breaks are again the order of the day and I was really proud of my remix, although it never came close to the original!

The artwork was designed by usual Nerve designer Nick at Yuva.TV.

(oh and I’ve nicked the artwork from Rolldabeats temporarily until I get my own versions online)