Written by Rory Marshall Picture this: a packed dance floor, dim lights, and an intoxicating aroma of smoke and sweat.That’s what’s in store in Pasig-based DJ Bins’ new EP ‘The Body Project.’ This project follows his 2024 debut release “Purgation / On The Upswing” and with it comes a hypnotizing collection of trance-house tracks masterfully crafted to hijack your body’s motor functions, so you can’t help but pick up your feet and move to the rhythm. Spanning across 4 tracks, ‘The Body Project’ showcases the hypnosis of Trance and House, with each song having its own roadmap for body movement. Bins’ shows that the magic of his style of the genre lies in House’s simplicity. Each track keeps it steady with a mellow-paced beat set to 4/4, and ambient synths and sound effects are expertly placed throughout the song to add to the buildups and the comedowns. The atmosphere his tracks create is nothing short of enthralling, and it’s apparent to any listener, regardless of whether they’re familiar with the genre, that Bins knows what it takes to make you lose yourself in the thumping of the beat. Bins has a penchant for soul which he incorporates proudly in his music which is a wonderful yet fitting twist to the House genre. This is seen in tracks like “Body Satisfaction” and “Forever Chemical” with features like a funky guitar riff and psychedelic-esque synths. It’s reminiscent of the glamorous disco scene of the 70s but built for the modern era. ‘The Body Project,’ being only the second ever official release for Bins, is almost unbelievable when considering the quality of the tracks. His sound is a testament to his assuredness and belief in his own style of music production, and really shows how much he planted his feet on the ground and picked a direction for his style. The House is certainly here to stay with talents like Bins in the helm. SUPPORT THE ART AND THE ARTIST: The Body Project by Bins
Tag: Dub
EP REVIEW: Disco Mobile Service – You’re Here Now
Written by Louis Pelingen Sometimes, we wonder what has changed with the places we missed visiting beforehand. We wonder if these places still end up today, if there is a change of tone and presence in the familiar paths and sceneries we always encapsulate in our minds so many times. Did these places, even if met with the chance of being abandoned, still hold up their gentle images to poke our unnerved spirits within sociopolitical events breaking us all apart? For Disco Mobile Service aka Jomied Armancio hailing from Visayas, he aims to form a record that collages samples to compose a tropical dystopian soundtrack for the country given political events that gets harrowing at every turn. It was an idea that he eventually worked on in 2022, moving past the universal mental anxieties most of us have gone through during pandemic lockdowns and steadily working his way to finally put out his first ever project under Disco Mobile Service, ‘You’re Here Now’. In this EP, Disco Mobile Service records still memories, and fragmented ambiance from environments he himself visited, and constructs sonic frameworks around it to formulate said tropical dystopian soundscape. Disco Mobile Service wanders around with this framework with measured ambient dub and downtempo, his compositions never snapping apart immediately and opting to modulate in and out of the sonic scope. ‘Eyesocket’ opens up its observations of this muted concept, the thumping tropical beat marches through as recordings of foggy birdsong are enveloped with these hypnotic synth swells. ‘New Forest Exit’ lurks further in the undergrowth of tactile and grainy field recordings as the dour synths drone through the song. The tempered percussion lines linger and rumble alongside spare yet gleaming keys combat that dourness within the forest of fleeting recordings. ‘Concrete’ ends the EP in its most ominous, waves of noise fogging the start before pillars of worrying synths wash over the track. The drum beat composed of tropical percussion and digital drums consistently stomps all the way through, paving its way through drops of conversations and beeping vehicles as it toughens up its rhythm lines, ending the EP where that propulsive beat lives through the dystopian view of the record. Despite a few instrumental passages that do jitter the flow of a few of these songs, ‘You’re Here Now’ is a statement of affirmation of where we are now currently after a myopic past few years. It reinstates our inner emotions in the present, viewing the rips and pieces of the past that we collected and remembered in our kaleidoscopic memory. It is ominous how Disco Mobile Service utilizes atmosphere and modulation in his compositions. But even with the dystopia that surrounds this EP, that trudging beat reminds all of us that even with the crushing state of the country at large and the environment that we thought to have changed for the worse, we are now wrapped with coats of comfort despite casted shadows that reminds us how much it’ll get uncomfortable in the future. Support the art & the artist: [bandcamp width=350 height=470 album=2609554962 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false]