About 20 minutes into Above & Beyond’s landmark ABGT 350 set in Prague, they dropped a pleasant surprise from Mat Zo: The Next Chapter. The track has a raw primal vibe about it thanks to a menacing bassline and aggressive percussion. Though the drum pattern gets simpler at the drop, it managed to be even more satisfying to chair-rave to(or actually rave to for those who were in Prague). All in all, the song was highly anticipated from that point last September up until today.
“There was a period in the mid-2000s when trance was starting to get really dark,” Mat says in a press release. “For ‘The Next Chapter’ I wanted to rekindle that dark trance energy.” A huge highlight of the production is a sprinkling of vocal hype from famous Drum n Bass MC, GQ. Zo sampled a clip of his MCing at Westfest. “It reminded me of a drum and bass roller, but in trance form,” he says. The track is one of the rare kind to win over both sides of the Anjuna camp, finding its way into A&B and Anjunadeep captains Jody Wisternoff and James Grant’s sets as well.
Though the collective output of the label has proven plentiful this week, is only the beginning of their 2020 schedule. The label A&R had exciting new to share in that respect:
Think we have 20 or so artists making their debut on @anjunabeats in the next 4 months with originals and remixes. Slightly terrifying how much good music there is out there at the moment.
Very much….. The Next Chapter (lasso dances into distance listening to @Mat_Zo)
— Gareth Jones (@GarethJones1350) January 31, 2020
Check out The Next Chapter above and stream via your service of choice.
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