alek biotic – DOPEVECTOR

Tag: alek biotic (page 1 of 5)

Woodchuck

September 11, 2012 / admin / Comments Off

What started out as a simple percussive beat became a two-track release, titled Woodchuck. Centered around organic woody hits and deep, rolling synth, the Original Mix is layered with a dubby soundscape. The Acid mix takes a different direction, with driving basslines taking things over. The latter also features a sample from a friend’s presentation at Adobe Max, recorded years ago. She seemed cool with me using it. Thanks, TK.

Pull the project from Blend:

Or, pick up the final version from Beatport:

Woodchuck (Acid mix) has been removed but it might reappear here in the future.

Ghost re-released in 2009. Twice.

April 2, 2012 / admin / Comments Off

I recently signed up for Spotify and couldn’t help ‘spotifying’ myself. A search for “Kill By Inches” revealed a few releases, including Down to 3hree released in 1999 with yours truly on guitars. I’m not exactly sure who gets paid for streaming that record – certainly not me or other band members – yet, I’m paying for the service.

A search for “Alek Biotic” returned most of the Gotham Grooves cuts, as well as the track Dirty Yellow which had appeared on compilation CDs after the original, vinyl release on Robert Natus’ Planet Natus label.

But the most interesting discovery was the 2009 re-release of Ghost (covered on Dopevector previously) which is my first ever release. Due to a typo, the artist name was “Alex Biotic” and appears that way on not one, but two 2009 re-releases of this track. The first is From Goa with Love 2, a compilation from the German Wax n Soul imprint. The second is Goa Universe – The Top 50 of Psychedelic Trance.

Weird shit.

Opek

March 26, 2012 / admin / Comments Off

I recently updated my studio setup and even found some time to produce some music. Producing on an iMac for the first time ever has been pretty sweet. After using Nuendo for years I’ve also made the switch to Ableton Live for composition and arranging. UAD-1 became a UAD-2, and I’m trying out some of the new Signature Series plugins from Waves. The first product of all this is Opek, a percussive techno track with a thick ambience and a cut-through main riff.

Brand New Alek Biotic Production: a double dose of Eezvor

June 16, 2011 / admin / Comments Off

After years of hibernation I finally managed to piece together just enough time to complete a brand new dance track titled Eezvor, coming your way in two mix variations.

While less percussive than some prior Alek Biotic works, Eezvor’s minimal techno influence is heard while its driving bass and synth lines provide enough energy for the prime time sets. The Dark Mix provides a more focused, flatter vibe while the Original Mix reveals the melodic, source riff.

Eezvor is my first completed production whose structure was created largely using Native Instruments’ Maschine. This amazing piece of kit combined with great, upgradable software is super fun to use and arrange on. Individual tracks were exported to Cubase (also a first as I’ve previously used Nuendo) where they were processed further and augmented with additional tracks, elements and effects. The final mix was mastered in WaveLab using Universal Audio, TC PowerCore and Waves plugins.

Eezvor by Alex Kolundzija

Eezvor is currently shopped around and hope is to have the original wav files available asap. Guest remixes are also in the works. Stay tuned.

Nastee Stuff

September 21, 2010 / admin / Comments Off

Nastee Stuff is a funky techno jam with a thick bass line, a quality it shares with a few previously covered tracks including Overtone. About 4 minutes into the track the bass riff is stripped down but the beat is augmented with lots of percussion. I’ve contemplated making that break more dominant in the track since it was more along the lines of material I would play when DJing, but ended up preserving the original format of the track.

While the track is over 6 years old, it was never aggressively shopped and therefore never released. So here it goes. Let me know if you want the original (.wav) version and I’ll get you a copy.

By the way, the title is a quote occasionally used by Walt “Clyde” Fraizer when calling Knicks games. If I remember correctly the last Knick to stuff nastily would have to be Latrell Spreewell, so he deserves partial title credit.

Download: Nastee Stuff (mp3)

Mantra

August 6, 2010 / admin / Comments Off

Released in 2002, Mantra appeared on one of the first Made On Earth compilations released by Bush Records. As Bush was one of my favorite labels at the time having the track picked up by Eric Powell (label owner) was a real treat. Alongside Mantra were productions by Sean Colt and DJ Kruze, another bonus.

Mantra itself is a raw, loopy track inspired by one of my favorite producers, DJ CZR. In fact, if I remember correctly, a part of the beat was sampled from a DJ CZR record.

As it turns out I can’t for the life of me find the original digital file of this track. Its either buried somewhere on some disc, or maybe exists on a DAT someplace. What I do have is a CD with it which has since become almost unplayable and is the reason you may hear some digital crackle on the MP3 link below. (And yes, I do have a few vinyl copies of the record, but the decks are not accessible at the moment and the busted CD was the best available option for this post.)

Exclusive Video Set: Alek Biotic and PS11 Live at DownShift Radio

May 12, 2010 / admin / Comments Off

DJ Eleven and Preston Space, aka the acid techno tag team PS11 had a weekly Sunday School show on DownShiftRadio.com – the original NYC dance music podcast! I was fortunate enough to join them on a couple of occasions and will now subject you to the video recording of the first of those. Apologies for the low-res’ness of the footage – the sets are pretty long and I tried to keep the audio quality decent. Anyhow, back then the sets were faster; records hand-mixed; beats packed with tribal elements and sounds of the techno house producers from Naples were all over my crates.

By the way, previously featured on trak.fm was the awesome Time4Machine set by Preston Space. If you missed it, go back and check it out. I’m happy to report that Matt aka DJ Eleven (sporting the Brazil soccer jersey in the video) is now producing new material under the handle Open Source, and has branched off into Dub Step as well. I’ve heard some of the latest works and was 100% digging it. The word is that some of those works might grace trak.fm pretty soon. Word.

Lastly, it appears that downshiftradio.com is no more. It now sends you to its founder Dan Bino‘s MySpace page which is definitely worth checking out.

[flvplayer http://media.dopevector.com/flv/AlekBioticAndPS11AtDownShiftRadio.flv 320 240]

Exclusive: Balkan Express

April 20, 2010 / admin / Comments Off

Balkan Express is a 2002 effort with a driving groove which earns it its name. The track has a very clean, unprocessed quality and would probably benefit from either further post-production or just plain old loudness(!), so keep that in mind when listening.

High quality wav is once again available. Enjoy.

Download: Balkan Express (mp3)Download: Balkan Express (wav)

Stack Trace Common Ground

March 19, 2010 / admin / Comments Off

Due to a mixup with the label, the title of this track on the record is Common Ground, instead of its actual name: Stack Trace. (Common Ground is a different track, now titled Stack Trace, which I’ll cover here in the future.)

Common Ground appears on the Kazumi label’s 39th release, titled Afterglow. A focused three track record, Afterglow EP is likely the release I’m most pleased with overall and having it out on Brixton‘s awesome Kazumi label was a real treat. Its long repertoire also features releases by Headroom, Invexis, Andreas Kremer, Robert Natus and Yamaoka, just to name a few.

The track itself is an unusual introduction to the release but I haven’t heard it in years and sort of stumbled on it so I’m sharing it here. Its a hard loopy banger based around a sample from an old Jeff Mills record. About 5 minutes into it the track takes a small departure from its driving, loopy vibe and breaks the beat down before getting back to work.

I haven’t seen any sites which sell digitized versions of this release (or other Kazumi releases for that matter), but a few vinyl copies should be in circulation; in fact, there’s one on eBay (UK) at the moment. But if you just want to listen, here you go:

Exclusive: Blasted

March 12, 2010 / admin / Comments Off

Its time for another exclusive! Blasted is a hard track with all of the ingredients I like in my techno. Groovy kicks, crispy hats, dark metalic samples and vocal stabs. If you remember the track Dirty Yellow (covered here a few weeks ago) the shuffled hi-hat should sound familiar, very likely since its was sampled right from it! Blasted also has a nice breakdown mid-way through the track which features the Enigma effect from the awesome Waves collection.

Download: Blasted (mp3)Download: Blasted (wav)

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