1 Year Old Today...

Happy Birthday to us! Night Tracks is one year old today!

Honestly can't believe how far things have come in just a year. On July 26th 2011, I signed up to blogger, and wrote the first post on a blog that I honestly couldn't see getting past a few posts. However, with a few interviews to get things going, I noticed people starting to read. And then more. And then some more. It's not like I think I've defined a movement or whatever here, but I think I just managed to start writing about music that a lot of people were looking for, but is massively under-represented in the world of electronic music.

I was getting sent so much music that the logical choice was to put the very best of this out, and I started a name-your-price net label, and we put out an album by Venture for our first release, and again, things snowballed onwards, and we're now in the planning stages for our eight release, with plenty more lined up.

Sometime between then and now, a Finnish guy got in contact with me, asking if he could design a header for the blog for a portfolio of work. After we got talking some more, we decided he would take on all responsibility for the artwork for the label and blogs, which seems to have garnered universal praise from our fans.

 

 Night Tracks 001. The first ever mix I made, just to listen to in my car.

As a way of thanks for your continued support, we decided to put together a release of some of our older tunes for you. 

One tune is by me, Budeaux, the first tune I ever put on Soundcloud, called "Goodbye". I've lost the project file now, so it was lucky I had a WAV available. I know a fair few of you gave really good feedback on this one, so I hope you enjoy it. The other tune is by the design wizard, Kelle, and it's another first. The first tune he ever sent to me, titled, "Love". I've played this tune so much, it still has the same impact now as when I first heard it, and hopefully you'll feel the same.

You can grab it from Bandcamp as a name-your-price download by clicking the artwork below, or clicking here.

(BDAY001) Budeaux & Kelle - Night Tracks Birthday #1
A - Budeaux - Goodbye
B - Kelle - Love

Photo by L. McArthur

Design by T. Kelle

You can also listen into July's Night Tracks Showcase with Ting on Rood FM from 10-12 pm tonight. Check out the time where you are by clicking here now.

I think it's time for some serious thanks to everybody who has helped us go from a hastily assembled blogger template to a site that has hundreds of readers every day from all around the world, and a label that's doing pretty well as far as fledgling digital electronic labels go.

First off, thanks to those that have entrusted me with putting out your music. Big up to Dan, James, Joe, Will, Ian, Joey, Thomas, Alex, Jerms and Charles. Hope that I've done what you'd expect from a label.

Next, thanks to those that were kind enough to give away their creative works for free, so out to Dan, Simon, Cieran (and of course, thanks for his ongoing mix series!), Louis, Will, Gracie, Sangam, Jerms, Delete, Jake, Johnny, Zelda, and Ghost Ark. Also thanks to those with free stuff coming, peace Peter, Chris and Tristan.

Thanks to all those that took the time to take part in an interview or produce a guest mix for us, and help us learn a little more about them. Big up Ollie, Gordon, Dan, Simon, Deji, Cieran, Jamie and Yung-E, Lewis, Donald & Micah, Tyler, Christian, Henry, Louis, Nic, Will, Gareth, Owen, James, Jack, Tobias, Joey, Ben, Dave, Gracie, Tom and Jamie, Mike, Matthew, Tom and Dom, Sangam, Krystian, Jerms, Delete, Guy, Johnny, Jon, Kevin, Arthur and begrudgingly, Simon. 

Thanks to all the guys at Pixelatique, Life Crushed, Sub Radar, Future Astronauts, RDKL, etc. that have ever helped spread the word about our releases. Thanks also go to Phil for giving me a break on radio, and to Laura for giving me a regular slot on your show. Immense big ups.

Big up to all the badmen at Movement in Birmingham.

Of course, huge thanks to Taavi, who I think really helped Night Tracks step up into something serious, and of course to Lucy for her sick photography, and of course, to my girlfriend, back in day when we didn't have  graphics students to help us out.

Out to everyone who's ever read and been interested, and even those who read once and decided to sack this site off forever.

Peace.
_______

(NT004) EPLP - Lanterns

Heads up. Night Tracks' 5th release is out tomorrow on Bandcamp and everywhere else on Monday. EPLP drops his 4-track EP 'Lanterns'. It is cheaper on Bandcamp though, as we receive a higher cut, leaving us more doubloons to buy Purple Drank (and whatever's left will be put towards new releases in the future).

Bandcamp
JunoDownload

Juno

Chemical

Peace to those who support. x

_______

(NT003) Venture - Together We Fall OUT TODAY ON BANDCAMP.

To go along with releasing our back catalogue here, here and here, we're releasing Venture - Together We Fall on our bandcamp page early to celebrate.



You can grab the whole release for just £1.25 of your hard earned money, so there's no excuse not to really, is there?! If you'd rather buy it from somewhere else, then it'll be available for full release on Monday 27th Feb.

Out to anyone that supports what we're doing!

Apple Bottom - Forget It/Your Touch (Forthcoming Night Tracks)

Big news at Night Tracks, as we have yet another release confirmed. This one's all happened a bit quickly, the tracks are completed, I'm just waiting to send the tracks off for mastering, artwork should be completed soon-ish, and then we're ready to go.

Out to Apple Bottom for this, because the tracks are absolutely huge. Expect a guest mix and interview to go with the release soon too! As always, I look to try and bring you something a little different, and this no, err, different. 'Forget It' brings big bass, shuffling percs and quality vocal sampling, while 'Your Touch' has an almost UKG feel to it (that he's probably far too young to remember!). Check out previews of the tracks below:

Apple Bottom - Forget It

Apple Bottom - Your Touch

Kid Smpl - Float (Forthcoming Night Tracks)

You may have read Night Tracks' recent interview with Kid Smpl (if you didn't, read it here) and listened to his guest mix full of his own productions, both signed and unsigned. After listening to that mix on repeat for a stupidly long time, I decided to try and get him on board for a release. We settled on the following track, Float.



Cinematic, futuristic vibes for me on this one. I don't really like using this word (it's become massively over used), but the drums are epic. Really happy to have this one on Night Tracks.

The flipside to Float will be a remix of the track, so if you think you can put together something sick, throw Kid Smpl a message on Soundcloud, as he's currently looking for remixers.

No date on when to expect this yet, but will update you nearer to the time.

Minimal Corner - Big News

After some discussion, it was decided that a sub-label for Night Tracks would be founded, and curated by man like Venture. Sticking with the name of his regular feature here on Night Tracks, it's called Minimal Corners, and will naturally be focussed on the more minimal sounds, although I'm not yet sure what tempo he'll be pushing, if any. I'm sure he'll be searching for potential releases straight away, so keep your eyes and ears open.

Follow Minimal Corners on Soundcloud, and grab a track from Venture's second album, Heart Strings, as a free download to celebrate.

(NT001) Bhava - Immerse Release & Interview

It's exciting times at Night Tracks. Our second release, by Bhava, is ready to come out now, and it's sounding fresh, after being nicely mastered by the guys over at Dubstudio. Again, it's a name-your-price download, so go and get it, by clicking on the artwork below! If you're unsure of the absolute, undeniable quality of these tracks, you can check out the preview too. There's an interview with Bhava that carries on after the break, so he can tell you a little more about it.

NT: Hey man, can we get an introduction from you?

B: I’m James; I produce bass music, dubstep, garage, ect. under the name Bhava.

NT: So you’re releasing on Night Tracks. Can you tell us a little about the two tracks, Immerse and Irradiate?

B: They're two tracks that I made quite a while back now, they came about through me not wanting to make straight dubstep anymore, which is what I had been doing previously.
I felt constrained by my own self imposed dubstep guide lines. However, once I started making tracks, and not really minding about genre, the tunes I started making were a lot more original and interesting, these two are what kick started my current production trend.

Bhava - Immerse/Irradiate (NT001)

Soon come...

 

Venture - Heart Strings (Forthcoming Night Tracks)

I'm very happy to announce Night Track's first release as Venture's album Heart Strings.

This is a 10-track release from the versatile Birmingham based producer, and should be out within the next couple of weeks, and will be available from our Bandcamp site as a 'name-your-price' download with no minimum fee. If you want to give some dollar for what is a top, top album, then please do, and if you don't, then you've got an album full of great atmospheres, intricate drum patterns and deep, rolling bass for free!

Check out a preview of the album below: