Premiere // qgb on Present Tense Recordings

Brighton’s electronic music scene always seems to have always remained under the radar somewhat. Although not necessarily immediately apparent, it has a deeply ingrained noise scene – home to enterprises like Voyder, Lost Property and The Outer Church. Dance music has also thrived in Brighton, notably with the likes of Aka Aka Roar, Well Rounded and the recently revamped Patterns nightclub. It is arguably the crossover between these scenes which Present Tense Recordings, a newly emerging label in the city attempts to explore.

Their latest release comes from label co-owner Alex Jacobs, aka qgb, in the form of Hornets — an Austin Caesar-reminiscent hybrid of digitised house, glitch-laced techno and delicate, angular sound-design. Indeed, speaking of the album Jacobs noted: “lots of the tracks have references to insects, present in many of the samples used”.

This nod to the microscopic world of creepy crawlies is taken further by the fact there will be a limited run of USBs designed by Sam Illife, an innovation design engineering student at RCA, available alongside the digital version, cast in amber. With the release upcoming on June 11th, the label have kindly offered up an exclusive stream of ‘Alarm Bells (If Language Was Pretty)’, a warp-speed amalgamation of jackhammer kick drums, nagging metallic percussion and medicinal ambience. Listen in full below:

• Published
• Jun 5, 2018

• Credits
• Words by Theo Darton-Moore