Seasons, eh. One moment it’s all the light, bright and emotional summer height and then (with a swift, distinctly Schulzian rug-pull) we’re back to black! The Coldharbour Family’s bloodlines are getting mixed this fall, and with results most tonally dark & thrilling in nature. Legends both established & new are in the mix, with an incestuously interconnecting cabal of producers pulling the studio levers.
Wave goodbye to your comfort zone. Next stop Rabbit Hole: Level 5!
Your cast for the trip, well presiding, naturally, the darker arts master himself, Markus Schulz (and by natural extension Dakota). Also in the mix are trance immortal Jam El Mar and Gotham’s (alright Leeds’!) finest, Arkham Knights. The occasion: the bottle-break for Coldharbour’s new Black imprint, which, going forward, will quarter the most suspenseful and technofied offerings the label has to supply.
Born out of Global DJ Broadcast’s Afterdark show, the fourth edition of Markus’ annual winter-wave-in, aired last week. Premiering over the course were three new creations, that today form up as the ‘Afterdark Volume 1 EP’.
Markus Schulz & Jam El Mar – The Lotus: The second collective studio spawning (after ‘Hymn Of The Replicant’) from Markus & Jam this year, ‘The Lotus’ hastens ‘Afterdark’s arrival. It dials up the night with a drive-shaft inexorably turned by riding perc loops and open hi-hats. At its drop point there’s a sultry vocal intermission from a highly recognisable singer, before the black lightning of its doubly-Deutsch mainline splits the tree.
Markus Schulz pres. Dakota vs. Arkham Knights – Something About You: Where (you’re asking!) would a Coldharbour Black launch be without a Dakota submission?! Masks donned Markus enters the ring alongside Arkham Knights for ‘Something About You’. The trio pressurise the track with stalking drums and rimshot percussion, compressing moodier-yet frequencies in with its bassy prowl. Ethereally indistinct vocals swirl the waters deeper, before a few shafts of synth light finally release its Olympic-levels of tension.
Arkham Knights & Jam El Mar – Wake Up: linking up with Jam El Mar, Arkham Knights complete ‘Afterdark’s first circuit. The most tech-noir of the pack, ‘Wake Up’ thematically connects Frankfurt with the north of England. Staging industrial FX and mechanized drive against its prominent reverb-heavy percussive rhythms, its mainline surges, recedes, but keeps coming at you, and every time stronger than the last.
Music to lose yourself in, ‘Afterdark Vol 1’ paints the clearest of portraits of the coming sound of Coldharbour Black. You can pick it up here.
Markus Schulz Presents Afterdark Volume One tracklist:
01. Markus Schulz & Jam El Mar – The Lotus
02. Markus Schulz pres. Dakota vs. Arkham Knights – Something About You
03. Arkham Knights & Jam El Mar – Wake Up
