With the release of his 8th studio record, drum and bass icon BCee is back on our radar! This year has been a busy one for BCee. In addition to leading his label, Spearhead Records, he has made appearances on SoundCloud’s Voice Notes series, BBC Radio 1, and Insomniac’s Sunday Sessions. Much to our surprise, he even found the time to chat with us here at FUXWITHIT. I dare say after listening that These Are The Days might just go down as BCee’s magnum opus, his pièce de résistance.
I wanted to explore songwriting and drum & bass in a way I hadn’t done before. Something new compared to my previous albums is that every single one of the tracks is a full vocal song collaborating with different vocalists throughout. The title ‘These Are The Days’ reflects a duality: celebrating the good times while recognizing that these are the only days we get. Whether you’re enjoying life or facing tough times, it’s about seizing the moment and making the most of it.
I never got to ask BCee what inspired the title of this album, but I’d like to think it’s a pang of nostalgia for the early roots of drum and bass. These Are The Days is lavishly adorned with a throng of different vocalists that each bring an uplifting vibe to their respective songs; the feature list is stacked with the likes of Zara Kershaw on the eponymous track, Liam Bailey (who you might recognize from collaborations with Halogenix, among others) on ‘Hurt Each Other,’ and Abi Flynn on ‘Colours.’ There are far too many names to list individually here, but it’s worth saying that despite having a whopping 14 featured collaborations on this album, the mood is remarkably consistent. I imagine it’s not easy to keep a project sounding this cohesive with so many fingers in the cookie jar, but BCee’s managed it just fine.
One of the salient points that stood out to me from our interview with BCee earlier this year is that the kind of soulful, emotionally-charged tracks featured on These Are The Days have a difficult time topping charts in 2024 (e.g. the Beatport Top 100). It really seems that the raunchiness of jump-up style drum and bass has garnered more attention in recent years, especially on the dancefloor. But there’s something to be said about the timelessness of BCee’s heartfelt and sincere style. Tracks like ‘These Are The Days’ and ‘Hurt Each Other’ are deeply profound and that emotional paradigm isn’t something that fades over time; the lyrics on this album are an ode to the human experience, to love and loss and everything that comes with them. A song you relate to today in 2024 might just be a song that transports you back in time when you listen again in 2034. There’s an authenticity here that, as BCee said, you likely won’t find much of in the Beatport Top 100.
If you’re a fan of drum and bass in the slightest, you owe it to yourself to listen to this album. Stream below… and get lost in it.
