HARD ASS SESSIONS VOLUME IV

Savage Skulls, French Fries,
Martelo, Canblaster, Seiji and Dubbel Dutch team up for our latest HARD ASS series. Out in December 7th in JUNO and December 14th in all other digital stores.

Cannibal – Martelo vs Canblaster

Martelo (UK)
- I’m Martelo a DJ/Producer from London. I play fun stuff and love drums. I love music from around the world and love trying to tell a story so it all make sense when im DJing.
I make stuff that you can dance to. Most of the time it ends up pretty moody but with a glint of hope in there somewhere
- I’ve been playing kuduro and other types of music from around the world for a while so I kind of already had the idea in my head. I sat down on youtube one night and ended up spending 4 hours watching documentaries about cannibals etc and thats where the idea came from, there are a lot of samples from random cannibal clips in the track..
FUN FACT: the original demo was called ‘Kuru’ which is a disease the cannibals got in certain countries from eating people that were ill.. kind of like mad cow disease/CJD for humans.. scary shit!!
So I sent a demo to Canblaster to see if I was going crazy or if it actually sounded ok and he loved it, he had ideas straight away so I sent him the project and “Cannibal” is the result!!
- 5 songs I am into: Sbtrkt & Jessie Ware – Nervous; The Phantom – Night Game (Zeppy Zep Remix); Mizz Beats – Physical Revoloution; Cabo Snoop – Windeck; Braiden – The Alps

Canblaster (FR)
- Yo Im Canblaster from the “Club Cheval” crew based in France. I make some Detroit/UK/Japan inspirated tracks using a bit of hardware synths. Recently did remixes for Jwow, Drop the Lime, Teki Latex, Rusko, Klever … Right now Im finishing my 2nd EP, “Master of Complication”, out in december on Nightshifters.
- We were planning to do a collab with Martelo, he sent me like 20 rough demos, but that precise one, Cannibal, was really over the top, with crazy drums, narrative mood, I told him I wanted to work with him on that one. And he answered me it was a beat he was preparing for HAS. At this time I just finished an other remix for Jwow, so that was exciting to work on this whole thing.
The project he sent me was the most ghetto thing I ever saw … Martelo used youtube rip drums and mp3 of other tunes as fills for that track, can you really beat this ?
Enjoyed a lot working on that one, finished pretty fast, we’ll certainly work together again in the future !
- 5 songs I am into: James Blake – Postpone; Machinedrum – Dont Wait; Homework – Fissa Tune (Untold remix Dub); Cubic Zirconica x Bokbok – Reclash; Gradius OST – Free Flyer

Dead Pool – Dubble Dutch (US)

- A little about myself: I’m originally from New York but now live in Austin Texas. I had a fairly successful EP called ‘Throwback’ this past year on Brookyln based label Palms Out Sounds. It got a lot of praise from some great DJs and artists whom I admire such as Sinden, Bok Bok, R1 Ryders, and Kingdom to name a few. That EP was kind of a current take on early rave music with elements of classic house, bmore club, jungle, and hardcore. A lot of my recent music in the past few months has been very inspired by kuduro, coupé-décalé, soca, tribal, dutch bubbling, chicago hard house, and dark east coast club music. A few tracks have taken on a more big room experimental vibe. I’m not really sure what I’ll do next. I’ve also got an original song coming out on a sublabel of Untold’s Hemlock which is a kind of reinterpretation of the grime instrumental but heavily nods to the rhythms and themes of Mexican tribal guarachero.
- I was really excited when I was given the opportunity to release with Enchufada. Mostly because it felt really natural and that this was already a direction that my music had been heading into. I had done a few remixes with a kuduro flavor – one being an unofficial remix of Makongo and another remix for French Fries’ cohort Manaré. Part of the challenge for me was to give respect to original angolan kuduro by focusing on producing a kuduro inspired track rather than just simply attempting to imitate kuduro. I gravitate towards sounds that are dark, percussive, and have always focused on creating music that amalgamates many influences.
- 5 songs I am into: Wildlife ft Sammy Dread – M16 (L-Vis 1990 Remix); Samo Sound Boy – Burning & Stealing; DJ Znobia – Fruta de Tarracho; T. Williams – Getting Mine; Dark Sky – High Rise

Buzzcut – Seiji (UK)

- Right now Im back making club beats and bass, just trying to mix up all the good electronic sounds up in my own style. Apart from this HAS release I’m concentrating on my next release, seiji3.
- Well, I didnt need to be asked to make a track influenced by Kuduro because its already been a big influence on me! Of course to be ‘challenged’ like this is great for firing up the creative spirit, and I did have to stretch myself to make sure I delivered something that I was proud of, especially given the other names on the project!
- 5 songs I am into: Funkystepz – Fuller; Major Notes – Friend of Mine; Mista Men – What You Do to Me (C.R.S.T. remix); WAFA – Deep Allstar; 2 Bears – Curious Nature

Marawa – Savage Skulls vs French Fries

Savage Skulls (SE)
- We run a convenience store outside of Stockholm where we specialize in Halal meat and tropical fruits…we always make sure we carry the freshest produce and stock the most prime quality cuts…so if you’re ever in Stockholm and you’re craving a nice piece of lamb or a really juicy pineapple, be sure to come see us at Kistagrossen in Kista Centrum.
oh yeah, we also make some music in our free time under the name Savage Skulls.
- we didn’t think that much about it at all. J-WOW asked us if we wanted to do a remix for a track that he was licensing to Enchufada. We agreed to do it and French Fries happened to be in town during that time. We did the remix together and a after a month or so J-WOW hits us up again and tells us it’s not gonna happen with the licensing and asks us if we wanna turn it in to an original track instead. So we did….
- 5 songs we are into: Willow Smith – Whip My Hair; Dj Hooligan – Imagination of House; Lloyd Banks – Trackstar; Billy Boyo – One Spliff a Day; James Blake – Limit to Your Love