Few artists have the deft ability to genre-hop without alienating vast swathes of their audience, but for Django Django, and the four-part Off Planet expanding their sound palette to channel the vibe of their formative dance music influences, as well as introduce an array of guest lead vocalists, has yielded a galaxy-sized bounty. Take the Self Esteem-fronted Complete Me, a pulsing slice of early ’90s rave-pop, led by one of the UK’s most in-demand vocalists. Then there’s the Jack Peñate-centred No Time, a joyous slice of euphoria, pre-soundtracking the baking summer we’re set to have this year. Cuts that sound a world away from Django Django’s earlier work, yet share an exploratory through-line with them.
Founded in 2009, the stuttering indie-rock oddity Default launched the four-piece as an unconventional addition to the UK’s indie canon. Subsequent records found the troupe investing in more ’80s synth-pop influences (Marble Skies) and sci-fi tinged psych-rock (Glowing in the Dark). Now Django’s core creative instigator – former house DJ and beat crafter David Maclean – felt it was time to gearshift into a dimension not a million light-years from the dance music culture that he spent much of his youth living.
This story is from the September 2023 edition of Computer Music.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the September 2023 edition of Computer Music.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
The Bitwig round table: a decade of innovation
In 2014, a DAW landed that not only rattled the industry's big players, but brought a workflow that encouraged experimentation. To celebrate ten years of Bitwig Studio, we brought its key figures around a table to reflect on a journey that’s still they promise just starting...
Sampleson Drumbada
IF you're searching for more dynamic and rhythmically complex drums, Drumbada can help you change up the pace
Ray Volpe
A titan of the bass scene, showered with acclaim by both his peers and an enraptured audience, Ray Volpe's contemporary spin on dubstep is both earth-shakingly impactful and sonically multi-hued. We caught up with Volpe and discover how he assembles his brand of crowd-pleasing ultra-bangers fully in-the-box...
JASON GRAVES
Harnessing sounds wrangled from a bespoke, hand-crafted sculpture, alongside a legendary synth and a deft mastery of software-shaping tools, composer Jason Graves further justifies his position of the world’s most in-demand score providers with nis latest project the oil rig-set horror Still Wakes the Deep...
A virtual future?
Like many tech-focused magazines, we've been entranced by the latest glut of augmented and virtual reality headset releases from the likes of Apple and Meta. Our question: how good are they from a music production POV?
LOLCOMP LITE CM
As much as we love creating chains from scratch, for quicker results, Computer Musics very own edition of LOLCOMP Lite could be just What youre after, and it’s free with this month's issue
Everyone loves an efficiency hack, so if you're looking for ways to cut valuable time from your mixing process, then it's time to join the chain gang...
When we mix, it would be ideal if we could load up a simple one-knob-style plugin, choose a preset, set an amount and simply move onto the next sound.
BLEASS Arpeggiator
Classic synth-based arpeggiators' up-down patterns can be tedious, says Stuart Adams. Can Arpeggiator bring the variability he craves?
Synthogy Ivory 3 German D
One of the most highly regarded piano libraries around gets an update. Does it strike a chord with our reviewer, Herr Roland Schmidt?
MODALICS BITFUZZER
Distortion can be a great effect for enlivening and mashing up sounds, and this month we've got you a plugin that can do both
