The perfect artist for Monday: Outrage Beats! In the Drum & Bass scene, there are those who follow trends and those who pave their own way. Those who flock to the flavor of the month, while others stay true to the sounds within their souls and produce what they feel, and do so smashingly. Outrage is one of those producers, and over the last decade, he’s seen himself rise from a pirate radio DJ to a prominent producer, teaming up with the likes of Amit and Digital, and releasing tunes on a number of the scene’s finest imprints. Outrage got his start as DJ Rage, who at the age of 15 in 1994 got a spot on Shock FM, a pirate radio station out of Bedford. This of course led to more gigs within the town of Bedford, bringing his brand of Drum & Bass to the clubs, where he started to network and linked up with Stomp & Weaver, with whom he first started producing tunes with, leading to his first major release, “Snakes” (with Stomp), on L Double’s Flex Records. With his production career on the rise, his DJ career also started to flourish, with gigs in the United States lining up, helping this now 18 year old DJ truly start to gain some speed within the international scene. This lead to what was a likely link-up with Amit, then known as Tronic. This duo worked together, honing their talents and releasing tunes on labels like Nu Urban and Chemical Warfare, all the while still concentrating on their own individual sounds. 2002 was the year that they both got massive exposure on their own, and Outrage started dropping HEAVY tunes on labels like L-Plates, Spirit’s Inneractive imprint, Goldie’s Metalheadz imprint, Klute’s Commercial Suicide label and many other dynamic Drum & Bass institutions. By this time, 2007 rolled around, and Outrage decided to embark on his own label venture, thus Backlash Records was born. Backlash helped Outrage nurture his flair for the abstract, helping him bridge dancefloors with tunes that bring experimentation into the mix, which in turn infused a rebirth of sorts within the scene. While there are many flavors of Drum & Bass out there, Outrage’s work with Backlash opened up new doors for newcomers, as well as gave those who appreciate the dubbier, more classic Drum & Bass sound (the DnB that was unafraid to try new things, freak new sounds) into play. Finding kinship with the likes of Digital and Randall, as well as his reuniting with Stomp, Outrage helped reimagine the Jungle Techno sound of the early Nineties with their new collective imprint, J-Tek, which gained a lot of positive response from fans looking for that epic bloodclart jungle tekno! Outrage also started to work with Aperture and the legendary vocalist Kirsty Hawkshaw; these experiments went over quite well with fans worldwide, heads who appreciated their use of vocals, orchestration and future beats, leading them to set up a new imprint, Whisper Audio. 2009 saw what could arguably be considered one of Outrage’s biggest achievements in releasing an LP with the legend known as Digital. Their collaborative efforts became Red Letter, a blinding excursion deep into the belly of pulsating riddims. Sought after for a while, the tracks that fleshed out this album were second-to-none, and loved by many. With so much work as a producer, labelhead and DJ, it’s amazing that Outrage has the time to do things like create curriculums for music schools in Bangkok, Thailand, where he’s a lead instructor. That really speaks to the work he’s put in – he got his feet wet as a teen, and now he can teach teens the art of creating music, helping them find their voices and push the limits and boundaries of sound… much like he has done in his career from day one. More recently, Outrage has taken on the roll of student and teacher, studying a Masters degree in Advanced Music Technology, and a part-time lecturer in music technology and music performance. Embracing his new knowledge and experiences, expect to see Outrage unleashing a new beast very soon. With his dedication and natural need to be different, there’s no telling where Outrage’s sound will take him in the years to come…
Posted on: Mon, 09 Sep 2013 19:17:40 +0000
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