Lorin Ashton is again blasting off into the bright future of Bassnectar music with Into The Sun, an epic and diverse 16-track compilation which is currently the #4 album worldwide on Apple Music.
For over 15 years Bassnectar music has been a constantly changing clash of sound, and the difference in tone, theme and colour from album to album has always reflected this. From 2004’s Diverse Systems of Throb to 2014’s Noise VS. Beauty, Bassnectar has been creating distinct sets of songs that flow well together, and Into The Sun is no exception.
It’s perplexing that Ashton himself considers I.T.S. to be more of a mixtape according to an interview with Rolling Stone, which is apparently why he released “Mixtape 13” as a companion to the album. As we’ve come to expect with Bassnectar, both compilations are awash with low frequency sound which is mastered and produced to near-perfection. Stylistically, however, Into The Sun touches more genres and sub genres and creates arguably a wider soundscape than any previous Bassnectar album (though that type of fusion is common in mix tapes).
Yet it’s difficult to describe Bassnectar music in terms of genres.
A pin from March One Music, whom Bassnectar has worked extensively with on live events
If anything can be said of the genres represented on I.T.S., dubstep is dubiously absent. Regardless, the entire album is still saturated with the familiar flowing synth lines that originally separated Lorin’s style of dubstep from the rest in 2009 and 2010. Perhaps more so than ever before, Bassnectar is focused on using these synths to create euphoric bombardments of all-encompassing sound (think Timestretch’s title track) rather than the “impossible sonic spaces” which traditional dubstep is known for (think “Upside Down“).
You can hear it in his remixes of The Naked and Famous and Wintergarten. The tracks are similar versions of the originals which retain the progression of a rock song while being bolstered by a loud waterfall of synth bass and manipulated guitar tones. “I wanted it to just sound like a thicker, heavier, more intense version of the original,” Lorin told Rolling Stone, “like if a death-metal guitarist was playing the parts or something.” Sommarfagel in particular is unique as it highlights the heroic Northern European folk scales offered by Wintergarten’s original. Bassnectar’s melodies are often times heroic and adventurous to the ear, so it’s easy to see the connection.
Bassnectar has always collaborated with artists inside and outside the bass music world, and every song except the title track on I.T.S. is the product of Lorin and at least one other artist.
He work’s with Levitate on “Chasing Heaven“, a blast of high frequency synth and trap drums that also appears first in Mixtape 13. “The Mystery Spot” featuring the weighty production talent of G Jones turns the album toward a heavier groove. The low end of Greg Jones’ experimental trap appears influenced by Bassnectar, and their track together is aggressive yet sublime, and filled with Jones’ trademark 8-bit pops and buzzes. In Lorin’s words to Rolling Stone, “[The Mystery Spot] is this mysterious place in the Santa Cruz mountains where there are these gravity defying rooms and all these unexplainable natural phenomena inside the building.” The track certainly invokes mystery, magic and an extreme amount of energy.
“Speakerbox” ft. Lafa Taylor functions as a proverbial “banger” on the album with Taylor’s percussive raps coinciding well with the cadence of Lorin’s stomping 808 drums. “Sideways” ft. Zion I co-produced with Louis Futon plays with more experimental trap vibes, blending an ambient, flowing soundscape with a punchy, low-end one much like “The Mystery Spot”.
The next four tracks form the wet, crunchy bass-filled center of Into The Sun, first with an adventurous Bassnectar remix of David Heartbreak’s “Rose Colored Bass”. The next track, “Generate” ft. Gnar Gnar was first dropped at EDC New York in May. With familiar Bassnectar synth lines and a shifting, amorphous drum track, we imagine this cut as the quintessential addition from Into The Sun to the ever-evolving and always-banging Bassnectar live show. The lyrics boast, “this is live and direct”, in reference to the live production at a Bassnectar show. Another of the manipulated vocal samples says, “it’s my life”, words which can be seen on screen when the song is played live. This could perhaps be an allusion to Lorin’s career and the direction of Bassnectar music, a direction which has always been set by the DJ himself, not corporate interests nor his dedicated but often critical fan-base.
Bassnectar’s 808, bass-boosted remix of “One Thing” by Psymbionic & Of The Trees adds to the diversity of remixed tracks on what is essentially a mixtape, and “Science Fiction ft. LUZCID” is our favorite new original track on the compilation. The lyrics and theme of the song echo the “It’s Just a Ride” interlude from Bassnectar’s Red Rocks run, and the music itself sounds like its being blasted in a space ship soaring through a galaxy far, far away.
An intriguing aspect of Into the Sun is its revitalization of decade-old Bassnectar tracks. Since Divergent Spectrcum Lorin has remixed and remastered one of his earlier tracks for his new album, from “Laughter Crescendo” to “So Butterfly”. Now in what he calls a “return to old-school DJ sensibility” he’s redone five; “Blow”, “Dorfex Bos”, “Breathing”, “Dubuasca” and “Enter the Chamber”. In succession, they create a downtempo session on the back end of Into The Sun that would please a long-time Basshead and perhaps confuse newer fans brought to Bassnectar music by albums like NVSB. The tracks highlight the use of sub-bass and harkens back to a time when the artist’s music was driven by it far more than it is today.
Bassnectar has been dropping music from I.T.S. for weeks now, at Red Rocks Ampitheater, at Bonnaroo and at Electric Forest. He even released the Nectar confetti to “Dubuasca ft. Kang (2015 Version)” at Electric Forest accompanied by Michael Kang from the String Cheese Incident on violin.
With so much collaboration and a spectrum of sound not present on any of his recent albums, Lorin Ashton is clearing taking Bassnectar music to a new level of diversity and popularity. All the while he’s still coming correct with deep messages, subliminal and overt, about the human experience as he sees it. What’s more, by reworking tracks from 2005’s Mesmerizing The Ultra he’s displaying the timeless quality of the music which made him popular so many years ago.
With no Fall tour on Bassnectar’s schedule, you’ll have to hit a festival or two this summer if you want to hear Into The Sun live. He’ll be throwing down at Camp Bisco, Moonrise, WayHome, Lollapalooza and many more. You can stream the album live from his SoundCloud, but we highly recommend supporting the artist and purchasing the album from iTunes.
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