Drum&BassArena 2015

Scene bastions Drum&BassArena add another essential edition to their best-selling annual album series with the ultimate drum & bass document for 2015.

Featuring 60 tracks, 13 exclusives, three massive CDs, Drum&BassArena return with their longstanding annual spring collection. Once again, it leaves no sonic stone unturned. A vinyl version limited to 1000 pressings featuring 12 exclusive tracks will be released on Record Store Day Saturday 18th April with 100 hand-stamped vinyl pressings available the week before.
 
Uniting the most important players in the game with consistency and clarity Drum&BassArena 2015 explores, embraces, represents and celebrates the entire spectrum of the scene, shedding light on all its many corners: –

Heavyweight chart-topping influencers? Check: The Prodigy, Sigma, DJ Fresh, Wilkinson, Chase & Status and Matrix & Futurebound…

Unequivocal scene legends? Check: Calibre, LTJ Bukem, Calyx & TeeBee, Spor, TC, Drumsound & Bassline Smith, Digital, Break, Spectrasoul…

Super-sharp underground heroes? Check: Black Sun Empire, SCAR, Serum, Serial Killaz, Current Value, Eastcolors, L 33…

In the wake of Sigma scoring two massive UK number one hits, more D&B artists achieving daytime A-list playlist airwave action and more D&B artists representing on festival main stages around the globe, Drum&BassArena 2015 testifies the genre’s strength, size and influence in all directions. Not just in terms of context and success, but its stylistic elasticity too. At points super-soulful, understated and slick. At others electrifying enough to power a sleepless city, Drum&BassArena 2015 is a widescreen technicolour print that portrays the true breadth of drum & bass in a genuinely unique way as 12 of the tracks are 100 per cent exclusive to this album and have never been heard before.

Correction: never been heard before unless you’re one of the lucky few who have made a claim on the 100 hand-stamped dubplate version that will be released a week ahead of the gatefold double vinyl package limited to 1000 pressings on Record Store Day, April 18. Featuring incredible specials from the likes of Total Science, Bladerunner, A.M.C & Six Blade, KG, L 33, Mark System and many more, and yet another example of Drum&BassArena’s dedication to all aspects of the scene – in this case, the mystical, hushed-toned holy grail that is the dubplate – the vinyl version is an early sign of the full album’s explosive content when it drops on Sunday April 26.

Few genres owe as much to vinyl as drum & bass jungle. A scene thrust to the very fringes of the forefront by wax, both technically and sonically, every blistering breakbeat, bruising bass and suckerpunch drop you experience within drum & bass exists because of the scene’s once-ruthless dedication to the dubplate.

Rewind to the mid 90s: the UK-born, globally renowned genre is a technological nuclear arms race as young pioneers such as Adam F, Andy C, Grooverider, Ed Rush & Optical, Fresh and many more elite D&B marksmen all swap tactics and battle weapons at London cutting houses. Big bad business behind closed doors, plates would pass hands on a need-to-know basis. Only the best tracks would command dubplate status and only the best of the best would continue to enjoy full releases months later.

19 years deep into the game, Drum&BassArena continues to celebrate the scene with open-armed, and open-eared authority. No other album comes close to representing the entire genre.