Timo Maas, Basti Grub, Eric Volta’s ‘We Were Riding High’ is out now on Mobilee. Grab your copy here: http://bit.ly/2GK3mR8
Uncompromising, unique and completely unimpressed by fads and fashion: The fresh and multi-faceted sound of Basti Grub’s productions resonates innovation based on curiosity and an open-minded approach to music, life, everything and beyond. Whether it’s lengthy, introverted and relaxed piano passages, or the novelty sound of the hang instrument, animal samples from the country side exotic drums, interesting use of voices and song structures, or just plain fat tech house sound–Grub, who was born in Frankfurt, makes it unpredictable what’s next, and never limits himself by thinking in conventional terms.
From a very early age on, it became clear that Basti’s fascination with music would play a main role in his life. Reggae, a Roland MC 303, turntables, and his life-changing trips to Omen, Stammheim, U60311, and Robert Jonson layed the foundation to Grub’s concept of club-orientated sound. It was just a question of time until the Frankfurter started to promote his own events, and worked regularly as club DJ, which served him as a solid base in the studio. Crucial in his innocent, self-centered search was his essential quest to find the perfect drums, a benchmark sound, which was omnipresent in Grub’s productions from the very beginnings.
It was his friend Brian Sanhaji who brought the results of Basti’s experiments into daylight and supported him by being his mentor. Through him Basti was able to find his own sound: a fluid and thought-through mixture of grooving minimal techno and African vocals, swing, ethnic sounds, and the typical Grub- esque drums, his trademarks-to-be. Not willing to compromise, Basti soon felt the necessity to call his own imprint into life, as his sound would stand out in the way-too-homogeneous club landscape. The label for Grub’s own productions, Höhenregler, was founded in 2007 and dedicated to playful Africa sounds – swiftly followed up by the sub label Geregelt–a tribute to swing music, combined with dub sounds.
Both labels were picked up by Discomania distribution after few releases, which instantly resulted in growing recognition. Not only Basti was soon wellknown around the globe, his tracks also got picked up by famous artists like Ricardo Villalobos, Loco Dice and Luciano–as well as other headliners. This was the definite turning point in Grub ́s career. Merkesdir, founded in 2008, would add on to the spectrum, giving path to the floor- orientated Jungle House Partysound. In 2009, Grub celebrated another huge breakthrough moment with one of his tracks on Matthew Dear’s Bodylanguage Vol. 7 mix album, and the release of his first album Dschungelorchester. His debut, released in two different versions, is ram-packed with tracks full of humor and exuberance, that Grub is famous for, and became an instant success. Another highlight was the club bomb Sick, which promptly got picked up and compiled by Sven Väth on his Sound of The 11th Season. His labels’ rosters would set the pace and its restless outputs would soon mark a tendency. Remixes for the Italoboys, The Glitz, Aldo Cadiz and many more go down really well on the dancefloor–as they make a real difference with their wild- and recklessness, and his sound got noticed and signed up to labels as well-known as Desolat, Cocoon, Compost , Cr2 records , Movida, Get Physical, International Freakshow, Style Rockets and many more. In November 2011, Basti got joined by the mysterious studio force Basti And The Gang for the second time, and releases on an even more successful EP on Desolat Records. The massive record, whose A-side Walking In My Blues turned out to become a huge hit, while the flip broke even more boundaries and introduced the mystical sounds of the new hang instrument to the electronic music scene.
It seemed like Grub found his perfect form of expression. After years of being an exotic producer rummaging the multi- facetted club fauna by dabbling with rare sounds, styles and rhythms, he got lots of respect for his forthright, joy- and playful attempt to take the seriousness out of the contemporary music scene. With his funny track titles, absurd concoctions, out-of- boundary sounds and surprising combinations, Basti manages to make the exotic sound domestic, and the domestic cool. The second long player, about to drop at any given moment, will be evidence for this. Right now Basti Grub is working on his third album.
