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Music

Liminal Sounds is Grime Worldwide

How the little label from London tapped into a worldwide network of new-school grime producers

Much has been said about the revival of grime recently, while tracks like Skepta & JME's "That's Not Me" and Wiley's latest drop "On A Level" providing DJ's with ultimate war-ready tracks. Concurrently, club music has literally been turned up in the process by internet generation kids making beats that fit in somewhere between Donkey Kong and the rave.

One label that has enjouyed a steady rise thanks to a variety of boundaryless, slick productions sitting somewhere between grime and this newfangled computer music is London-based Liminal Sounds. They've engaged an international cadre of producers all sharing a similar and unique perspective that intertwines the two disparate genre bases.

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"The whole thing started pretty organically, first as a club night – the label soon followed out of that," says label head Sam Elsewhere. "When we started, one of the things that we were doing to promote events was getting people to remix each other, as a way of promoting the nights…We'd booked Youngstar for a night and I got in touch with him about doing a remix and he was really cooperative and sent me the samples."

"It went really well and he suggested that we should do an actual release of something so I got Visionist and Blackwax to do new remixes, pressed it to vinyl and that was how it started," Sam explains.

Similarly to the first EP, the second Liminal release was a straight grime EP, by Birmingham (UK) born/Melbourne bred producer Arctic. Since then, the tide has shifted both sonically and culturally. Producers from across the globe have been brought into the equation. "It's just so happened that everyone lives abroad, which is cool, but where possible it's always good to meet them," Sam said. "It's all been done over the internet, skype, email, that sort of thing, but when the guys come over, like Air Max pretty recently, we always try to put on a party."

Of all the releases to date, Air Max 97 has arguably had the most success, with big support coming from Australian dance music queen Nina Las Vegas in addition to Night Slugs producer Neana, who added some extra flames when remixing his track 'Progress and Memory'.

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"About a year ago I found the LS blog and was vibing on the mixes and interviews," says Air Max. "When I next had a few new dubs, I emailed them to Sam and we talked from there." Those tracks sealed the deal on the spot. Elsewhere explains, "Air Max literally just sent me three tunes and those were the ones I signed just immediately after that, so that was a pretty quick process."

"Being on the other side of the world, only connecting through the internet and releasing to a predominantly UK audience is not something that Air Max struggles with. "I feel like this is true for most people involved in the scene, regardless of where they are," he says. "Being based in Australia might help me feel more free aesthetically than if I came up somewhere with really set genres or scenes…It's cool and humbling to see my music resonate in places like London and for people to be interested in doing releases, even though I live on the other side of the world."

With a couple of EP's in the pipeline (one forthcoming on Liminal) and a few tour dates, its pretty likely that you'll see the Nike donned producer making waves across the globe in the future. And also, for all the Hypebeasts out there, if he weren't Air Max 97 he'd be a Total Air Foamposite Max.

Liminal's most recent release was by German producer She's Drunk, which came about as a result of an entirely different creative process. "I'd heard an EP that She's Drunk had put out on a small label in France a while ago and I got in touch with him and it involved a much longer process," explains Sam. "He makes a hell of a lot of music, so he sent over like 50 or 60 demos over the course of the year and we kind of picked the ones from there."

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Named after, well, that girl that's probably been sippin' the grey goose a little too hard, She's Drunk broke through with the Mariah Carey-heavy 'Mariah Believes.' He makes some pretty cutting edge concoctions of sound, but it's taken him a while to get to this point.

He explains, "I started DJing about 15 years ago and producing about 6 years ago. I created 'She's Drunk' in 2010 but I spent the first three years working hard at home to improve my production knowledge. I can say that it took me four to five years from the first time I wrote the name She's Drunk on a sheet."

As we descend into dark depths of q4, new releases and collaborations are both in the pipeline for She's Drunk. "I'm probably going to give away some tracks and make collaborations with other producers. I am already working on my next EP which will feature singers and MCs, as well as spending some time working on my side project called 'Sabrina' with my friend LE FEU."

For Liminal Sounds, there's also plenty in the works, with their potentially being another She's Drunk EP, as well as a commemorative release to mark 2 years of the label. What they have shown a way to be is homegrown yet worldwide in this age of emoticon conversation and online raves.

Although some look back nostalgically to when labels and scenes developed in local communities, nurtured by nearby record stores and nightclubs, this age is about connecting with the right people however you can – whether that be your local grime head in Bethnal Green or a Yugoslavian diplomat locked in to the latest video stream from his favourite teenage producers garage.

Find Liminal Sounds on FB // Soundcloud // Twitter
Find Air Max 97 on FB // Soundcloud // Twitter
Find She's Drunk on FB // Soundcloud // Twitter

Patrick Mills is a THUMP International Correspondent and all-round stand-up guy - @PatoMills