Hamburg duo Adana Twins, aka Benjamin Busse and Friso Traas have long sought to blend a variety of genres in their productions, with their deep, emotionally charged tracks appearing on the likes of Afterlife, Diynamic and Watergate, as well as their own Tau imprint, launched in 2018.
Their latest release, Darkness, sees them team up with experimental electronic artist Upercent, with Applied Magic label founder Aera also contributing a remix. Darkness was released on Tau on 4 October, and can be found here.
For this week’s #MyRecordBag, Adana Twins’s Friso Traas serves up a playlist of the duo’s favourite broken beat dance stompers – expect plenty of classics. Over to you, Friso! 🙂
“I’m always a bit lost when it comes to defining genres, particularly breakbeat, drum and bass, and jungle. That’s why there are different genres in this top 10. Since the new track is clearly based on kick, snare, and bass, in addition to the striking vocals, I’ll nonetheless try to list some of the tracks that have influenced me in these genres.”
Josh Wink – Higher state of Consciousness (Tweekin Acid Funk)
“We have to start with this song! No question, it’s a very important track in the big picture. Its iconic acid bassline and frenetic energy helped bridge the gap between techno, acid house, and breakbeat. Genre-defining, and we had the honour of doing a remake a few years ago! But you know what? The original bassline got lost, so we had to do it ourselves. The ‘accolade’ came when Josh asked us directly if we could provide him with our new Higher State of Consciousness bassline!
“We also made two versions: one more breaks-oriented and another that’s straight ‘4 to the floor’. I wanted to pay tribute to the Acid Funk version but also have one that anyone can play anywhere. Solomun even asked why we didn’t combine breaks and 4/4 time, haha. Our remix can be found here.
Liquid – Sweet Harmony
“The moment the piano kicks in on this track, it’s almost as if everything in life has a purpose. Combine that with the undeniable vocals, and you have one of the most recognisable melodies of all time. I believe the original vocal sample was by CeCe Rogers. It still touches my heart like it did back then.
“I remember playing this song one morning at Watergate on the Waterfloor when the sun had just risen, and I had a deep feeling of ‘all is well.’ I’m a bit sad when I think about Watergate closing at the end of the year. There were a lot of drum n bass parties there at the beginning as well.”
Silver Bullet – 20 Seconds To Comply
“One of the first tracks I remember hearing on big speakers. Suddenly, everyone in the club was jumping around, going completely crazy. Great! This 1991 release is probably a prime example of early hardcore breakbeat. The vocal sample, “You have 20 seconds to comply,” comes from the Robocop movie.”
The Prodigy – Charly
“Technically, you can choose many influential Prodigy tracks, but this one is the first that came to mind. It’s so ravey, beautiful, raw, and aggressive. Just freaking great.”
4 Hero – Universal Love
“One of the first drum and bass tracks I can remember. We were at an afterparty after being in the club. It was just a perfect morning. A bit later, around 1996, the sports programme Sportschau had a drum and bass jingle in the intro, and as a teenager, I thought that electronic music was over.”
James Brown – Funky Drummer
“Of course, the song doesn’t fit into the theme, but I can still remember when I found out that countless – really, countless – tracks are based on this drum sample. If you turn up the speed on YouTube, you can recognise it immediately.”
Plump DJs – Scram
“Plump DJs were the first act I saw live that were more breaks-oriented. Crazily enough, it was in Istanbul at Indigo Club. I must have been about 19 or 20, and we somehow ended up in this club where, years later, we had countless great nights with sometimes very long sets! A friend got lost at the party, so we almost missed our flight…”
Leftfield – Phat Planet
“An essential big beat track from one of the legends of the post-rave era. I used to listen to this track particularly loud when I wanted to annoy my neighbours. I love the sounds in this song; it still sounds great today!”
Awesome 3 – Don’t Go
“Great house piano; it immediately makes me feel like I’m back in the ’90s. When I started listening to electronic music, there weren’t many radio programmes that played my kind of music. I recorded this track together with KLF’s What Time Is Love from the radio and played it over and over again on a cassette. Repeat!”
Baby D – Let Me Be Your Fantasy
“A big radio hit that has made it onto the list. The seamless combination of dreamy keyboard breaks and catchy vocals made this song a huge success. Not to mention the crowd noises – because a track isn’t really a rave anthem without crowd noises, is it?”
Thanks to Adana Twins for this week’s playlist. Keep up to date with their latest releases and performances here.
About Post Author
