If you’re looking to discover your favorite new artist, you’ve come to the right place. Focus Five Volume 76 highlights a producer blending trap and wave expertly, an evolving creator impressing with recent remixes, a Left Field bass magician, and two new aliases from seasoned veterans. Dive in below.
c8o
DC-based producer c8o (pronounced Cato) has been impressing us for months, becoming a regular in our FUXWITHITFRIDAYS segment. With a sound that blurs the boundaries between OG trap and new age wave his music possesses a weight of emotion without ever sacrificing the knock. His latest release ‘TRIPLE7s’ serves as a perfect introduction to his sound. The captivating banger mixes a childlike earworm melody with snapping trap drums, pounding 808s, and mesmerizing wave textures for an addictive and hard-hitting package that you won’t be able to get enough of. If you’re looking for something moodier, ‘alluneed’ and ‘!UNSPOKEN’ are assured to satiate your desires for a darker direction with a wealth of emotion. With under 500 followers on SoundCloud and just over that number of listeners on Spotify, his following comes nowhere near to reflecting his talent, but we expect that to change soon.
-C
chosename
From making fun and catchy dubstep pieces to his skills evolving to a whole new level with his recent projects, chosename has always shown pure energy and perseverance in his journey. Creating hypnotic spaces throughout his discography and showcasing what makes his sound stand out. Driven passion combined with intoxicating production has developed his project to evolve throughout the years.
A perfect example is his recent bootleg of KILLMATTER‘s ‘GAIL HARPO.’ Being so spacey and unique already, the artist completely harvested the elements of the original and created a beautiful new vision from his mind. Paying pure respects to the original while integrating his own wonky and elemental sound design. The slower-paced rhythmic structure combined with that electric bass lead shatters your brain in the best ways. Making it an addictive track to listen to wherever you are.
His most recent bootleg of bbno$‘s ‘it boy’ is a real bass-heavy treat. Taking the original vocals and building a whole new state of mind. Using that similar bass lead to really follow the vocals in a trippy and comforting fashion. Really bringing out a balance of sound as he carefully implemented each element to combine with one another to form this hard-hitting and memorable rework. Ready for any dance floor!
-JV
huck.jorris
Hailing from Denver, CO, huck.jorris is yet another standout coming from the ever-expanding bass music hotbed. His distinct take on Left Field bass is assured to impress offering a mixture of emotion, grittiness, and hip-hop influence. ‘hazard’ offers an exceptional sample of the producer’s sound. The ominous and epic intro weaves spellbinding images of ancient gods readying for battle. Pitched rap vocals descend into an impeccable onslaught of swampy womps countered by moving synths and snappy percussion. The track blurs the boundaries between filthy and stunning for a captivating listening experience. His remix chops are no joke either, as he takes on FUXWITHIT favourites seeyousoon‘s ‘Shut Up.’ Leaving the raw energy of the original while taking it to another depth of filthy. If gritty bangers aren’t your forte, his Nocturnal Memory EP alongside Supernatural pulls from the natural world taking listeners on a transcendent journey that’s part meditative part bass music mastery. I haven’t been as tapped in on the Left Field Bass sound as of late, but stumbling on huck.jorris offered a timely reminder of how good the sound can be when executed at a high level.
-C
Jukaa
Here’s another long-time-coming Focus Five five pick. In truth, the Jukaa project has only been running for a little over a year, but it had all the credentials to do well right from the start. Real name Jozef van der Veen, before launching his new Jukaa alias the Dutch producer has been releasing music for the past eight years under his previous alter ego Ecepta and as one half of the duo The Outsiders (in tandem with Sorza). Not a bad curriculum to start with. While still playing at events such as Liquicity Festival and High Tea Music’s nights as The Outsiders, in the past year Jukaa paved the foundations of the project by releasing a series of highly successful bootlegs that made some serious waves on SoundCloud and TikTok. Digging on his social media, I found out that discovering clearcast‘s music was what sparked his pop bootleg obsession and “played a huge role in starting Jukaa this way“. This was an apt choice, to say the least. His Taylor Swift and Ice Spice edits currently sit on more than 300k and 200k plays respectively. If you’re into this pop party vibes or a fan of our Bootleg Business column (or both), be sure to check out his ‘i wanna show u off‘ audio/video set. A 30-minute jam perfectly described by a viewer as “a BASS top 50 pop playlist, but it’s a Porter Robinson Secret Sky 2020 DJ set“. If, on the contrary, you are a grumpy purist who only wants to listen to “serious music,” here are a couple of goodies for you: Jukaa has been pretty active as co-producer too, putting his sign on songs like ‘Easy For Them’ (by Rohaan) and ‘Don’t Leave’ (by Tom Frane, RJ Pasin), just to name a few. With his debut EP on the horizon, I’d say we have enough reasons to keep an eye on Jukaa.
– AA
kollaba
This is a bit of an odd pick this month, because kollaba is likely not a stranger to many of our readers here. One half of the legendary duo and beatmaker pioneers X&G, kollaba, aka Xian, is already a well-established name. After a phenomenal 8-year run as a duo, Xian and Gaszia parted ways in 2022, with kollaba being Xian’s follow-up solo project.
My lord, what a project kollaba has turned out to be. Xian has really grown into his own sound since going solo and I have nothing but hype for the endeavor. His latest track, ‘FUNCTION FLIP,’ a remix of Justin Martin and Ardalan, is a masterclass in nuanced, grimy beats. The phrasing of this track is so seamlessly blended, not a beat is skipped as the in-your-face sub-bass gives way to a gentle piano outlerlude. Many of kollaba’s recent releases all exhibit a similarly steady rhythm and heartbeat-like tempo that I can only imagine is a love letter to the originators of dub music. His drums have a crunch and crispness to them I can’t even really describe with words, but when you hear it you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.
I’m a little surprised at how little attention kollaba has garnered since X&G’s split, hence the Focus Five pick for this month. Every track is perfectly engineered to drive a crowd wild, so here’s me hoping and praying that this alias blows the hell up. I seriously can’t get enough.
– BG
Written by Alessio, Braden, Colin, and John.
