Hi! Tengu here, for those of you who aren’t familiar with me, I am a Brighton based producer who got my name into the bassline scene but recently have transitioned to the drum & bass scene.
My sound is very varied, I don’t like to stick to one ‘genre’ or vibe of drum & bass, I make whatever I feel is right! I am extremely influenced by the
Dancefloor drum & bass scene but I produce and DJ all styles of DNB.
I have had releases on credible labels such as UKF, Viper, DeVice, Korsakov, High Tea + Loads more!
To celebrate my forthcoming release ‘Heavyweight Material’ ft Whiskey Pete on my own imprint ‘TNGU’ here is a list of 10 tunes that really inspire me in the studio, give you a brief look into what I play in my live DJ sets and a little story behind some of the tracks. You can grab my new release here.
I will start off with this track by M&F. The reason I am starting off with this track is because as soon as I heard this when I was a lot younger, I couldn’t believe my ears, I was listening to, in my opinion, pure perfection of a dance track. This led to me becoming interested and wanting to learn music production. M&F influences me highly and I take a lot of inspiration from them into my own productions.
Another producer who really inspires me is Metrik. His sound design and 80’s influenced leads never miss. His latest sound is much more sound design and experimental compared to this track, but I wanted to include ‘Believe’ as this was the first Metrik tune I had ever heard. Being a fan of trance all my life, that lead, and melody just got me!
Now we all know Sub focus is a king… but it’s very difficult to make an album where literally every tune is a banger, and this is his 3rd success in that (as well as portals with Wilkinson). I love this tune so much as this being a more modern sub focus track, this is the direction some of my more ‘mainstream’ drum & bass is going. Not to mention, this tune in my opinion is a hidden gem on Evolve.
This track is in this list as I feel this is also a hidden gem. This track took me by surprise on Simula’s latest album and it’s gone straight into my DJ sets. My more techy / dirty stuff is inspired heavily by Simula. Simple but effective drums + some crazy unique sound design going on here.
A big part of my journey and progression has been from mentorship and guidance from FooR, I was a huge fan of their music and they reached out to me for some music for their label YosH. Since transitioning to DNB FooR have been an even bigger supporter of my music and their track ‘Nights Of Our Lives’ is one of my favorite DNB tunes of the year. It was a huge honor for them to ask me and Ben Rolo to remix this tune after they heard our collaboration ‘Gold Watch’. This track is one of my favorite tracks I have produced!
Both AL/SO and Cliques are amazing producers and I have loved and played their music in every DJ set since playing mainly DNB. I was lucky enough to hear an early version of this tune and then its release finally came around. This is one of the heaviest, grittiest, and comical pieces of DNB i have ever heard. It’s a banger and I will NOT stop playing it
Toronto Is Broken was another very early dance music producer I listened to in my youth. I fell in love with his sound after hearing ‘Spirit Song’ in a Sub Focus set many years ago. I have become good friends with TIB in recent years and released it on his label YANA. Blood Rites is everything I love about dance music as a whole! 4×4, psytrance, DNB, metal and more create this amazing track from TIB. The 4×4 scene is a big influence on my latest sound and this song was on repeat for WEEKS (still is) since it came out.
We all love a bit of the Jungle from time to time don’t we? But it is very hard to replicate and get that authentic sound these days. Andrew Whitwell has blown the roof off with the authentication in Love Fantasy.
Andrew is a huge influence on me as he was my college lecturer and music production teacher when I was studying music tech. The man is a genius on outboard and hardware synths.
Out The Way is one of the first DNB tunes that I made, it didn’t get released until about 2 years after and the B side to my Toxic 2 tracker on Korsakov. I have included this track because it features my brother Whiskey Pete. I first discovered Whiskey Pete back in my Dubstep and Electro House days listening to the old Play Me compilations. Pete reached out to me for a collaboration, and I was kind of star struck. I won’t lie haha.
Our 2nd track ‘Heavyweight Material’ is going to blow the socks off everyone and is arguably a HUGE upgrade in production and lyrical flow to Out The Way!
Last on this list is from my biggest inspirations, a production group who I had listened to since I was a teenager. Girl In The Fire is everything a live styled DNB tune needs, I mean listen to that guitar solo and Jazz organ solo! Pendulum never misses in my opinion, and it has always been a goal to have them like my music, which I actually ticked off my bucket list this year. I was sent a random Instagram story of Pendulum playing one of my tracks at Red rocks and I couldn’t sleep from excitement for days!
