It’s been a minute since his 2019 seminal EP U Want It on Eatbrain but that doesn’t mean AKOV hasn’t been busy in the past year. Bass music’s beloved Space Bear has been traveling the galaxy of sound, exploring different genres (including metal!), releasing a number of collabs and showing up on pretty much every label imaginable. Even with touring stymied for many artists during COVID, AKOV’s had an international release schedule with tracks on Mainframe, Bad Taste, Program, RAM, Korsakov Music and Blackout, with a massive collab EP on Bad Taste called The Syndicate.
All that great music said and done and with his D&B career starting before his first releases on Eatbrain, it always somehow seems like AKOV is returning home when he comes back to this imprint. His two upcoming tracks “Wumpa” and “Losing Time,” however, are neither standard Eatbrain nor standard AKOV, if such a thing exists.
It’s interesting to see how an artist can be so diverse but also have such a strong core sound the way AKOV does. No matter what genre, subgenre or style he’s doing (and there’s a lot of them), fans can always track the quality, sound design and, of course, bass reverb as categorically AKOV. With the a-side “Wumpa,” neuro fans expecting fast, techy vibes need not worry as this track has a distorted, metallic bass synth that not only creates a good portion of the track’s melody but also adds a syncopation to the beat that makes the track both more steppy and more complex at once. It’s not your standard neurofunk, as the Space Bear loves going off the beaten path and marauding through the woods, but it’ll definitely track with the tech heads.
The wildcard out of these two new tracks is our Bassrush premiere today, “Losing Time.” It’s no secret that AKOV’s been experimenting with melody and more ambient sound design on recent tracks such as “No More” and “Lights Out,” released in March on RAM. The intro to “Losing Time” continues that trend with its jazzy, jungle-inspired and, with vocals done presumably by AKOV himself, downright liquidy vibes.
“Losing Time” is a beautiful homage to all the jungle and drum & bass that’s come before; a bass timeline, if you will, but it still rocks with the best possible modern precision and AKOV’s own classic heavy, echoey bass kick. After the jazzy, ameny intro, “Losing Time” goes into a sort of funky groove of a bassline which drives the musical line of the track until the vocals, amens a bit of rap verse and the classic “we on fire tonight” sample come back in. It’s a genre and time period mashup in the best possible way, with AKOV adding his own stamp to the drum & bass timeline.
As the Space Bear rushes all over creation, hitting up different labels, genres, techniques and styles with reckless abandon, fans have come to expect the unexpected with AKOV and that’s just what he’s set out to do. Tracks like “Losing Time” continue to shatter any preconceived notions the D&B scene has about the Austria-via-Bristol producer over and over. Even on an Eatbrain release where some may feel AKOV’s style is at home, this track reminds his audience not to pigeonhole the Space Bear; he’s too big to fit in any one mold.
“Wumpa” and “Losing Time” drop on Eatbrain on Monday, June 8. Click here to pre-save/pre-order.