Future Funk Squad – Darker Days + The Fortess

The third album from Breakbeat stalwart Future Funk Squad, Darker Days, drops May 12th digitally everywhere. (Pre-order HERE) The cinematic-breaks hybrid long player is a modern day breakbeat masterpiece and really shows his production skills, writing prowess and dance music knowledge to the maximum.

Today we can bring you an exclusive FREE DOWNLOAD of one of the tracks written in the recording sessions for the album, ‘The Fortress’. Read through our review and interview to grab your download at the bottom of the page.

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The twelve track album kicks off in fine style with the haunting, string laden soundscape of ‘The Hunted’. Imagine a grungey/breakbeat/rock version of the exorcist theme and your somewhere close. This leads perfectly into the first of many collaborations on the LP, ‘The Rattlesnake’ featuring Mechanical Pressure. This time that grungey bass sound gets melded with acidic synth lines and epic stabs, with some very handy animal safety knowledge, to provide the first big dancefloor track.

Track three ‘Rat Race’ sees long time guest vocalist Mojo return with his unique vocal flow at the forefront.  The tempo drops a touch for the next track ‘Tactics’ featuring Wrexx but the funk levels are increased 100%. A big, squelchy electro funk bassline drives the track, with snappy drums and tech fueled lead lines taking the tune into unstoppable body moving territory. Definitely one of the standouts!

Next up the title track, Darker Days, which takes the listener on a darker trip, as expected really. Starting off like a scene from the Walking Dead before industrial drums slap you around the face and finely tuned strings and pad atmospherics combine to take you into horror movie perfection. Just watch out for the fierce, distorted synth at the end.

Nine Errors, track six, is a tasty little electro number leading us into the collaboration with Karl Sav ‘Monologue’. Karl has really been making some waves recently with his outstanding productions and here we see him pair up with FFS with an inevitably awesome outcome. A fairly light track but one that has so much depth to it.  A perfect track for those sunrise moments.

‘Soundwaves’ sees FFS get all glitched out, electronica on us taking us onto track nine ‘Cold Matter’ alongside Refracture. Refracture is another breaks artist whose productions are shining through at the moment and this collab is probably the most dancefloor orientated track on the album with its huge, chunky bassline, electric chirps and hard hitting beats.

Number ten hits us and we have another collaboration track, this time with Slighter taking up co-production duties on ‘Disease’, a fast paced, techno-breaks rock out. ‘Past Tense’ drops the tempo again into a groovy, trip hop vibe which leads into the fairly low key vibes of album finale ‘The Colony’

All in all an outstanding long player which will no doubt be in the running for Best Album at next years Breakspoll awards.

I caught up with Glen to delve a little deeper…

1. Hi Glen. Thanks for speaking to us. For anyone returning from space that may not know, who are you and what do you do?

I’m a producer / composer / remixer possibly better known for my Breakbeat alias Future Funk Squad under which I’ve been producing countless singles, 3 albums and remixed heaps of artists such as The Prodigy, Mylo, UNKLE, Sia, White Lies, Ladyhawke, Hybrid, The Stanton Warriors and many more…..

2. Your 3rd album, Darker Days, is set to drop May 12th. What has inspired you to write the album?

Since my last album (around 5 years ago) I’ve been doing more music for film, tv and some games and so have been inspired by some of that stuff and decided to combine the two sounds to see if I could do an album a little bit different to my previous 2. I actually started writing a specific trailer album for a company in LA but got a little lost a few tracks in and decided it was time to do another FFS album so fused the elements from those with my beats and other sounds I’m known for.

3. How does this differ from 2009′s Disorders Of Skill?

I would say it has a more mature sound and it’s a lot more epic! obviously there is only one vocal track on Darker Days which was intentional as I wanted to try and take the listener on more of a journey without the distraction of vocals, kind of like a film score does.

4. Which are your stand out tracks from the new album?

I would have to say the first track The Hunted really sets the tone and was one of the most fun tracks to write! I had a lot of fun on this album both programming and playing live bass and a little guitar which I think gives the sound that slightly more ‘organic’ feel. I also really enjoyed doing the collabs as apart from vocalists, I haven’t really done many collaborations but also wanted to do this on an album.

5. Tell us about the track we have to give away “The Fortress”?

This was a track I did pretty early on at the start of the album process and although I really like it, in the end when it came to decided which ones to mix and put on the album, sadly this didn’t quite fit the vibe so I decided to give it away instead!

6. You have drawn upon a lot of collaborators for this one, was that intentional from the start?

like I said earlier, I always wanted to do a heap of collabs with various producers and everyone I worked with on this album are great producers so it was heaps of fun

7. Anyone that you wanted to collab with but it didn’t happen?

There were a few people I spoke too but in the end due to deadlines and there commitments it didn’t happen but there is always the next one

8. What’s your studio like these days. Still a lot of analogue hardware or are you all computer based?

I used to be pretty hardcore on outboard, mainly processing but now with the technology, plugins sound pretty amazing! I’m endorsed by UAD (Universal Audio) and pretty much religiously use all of there stuff! Sounds wise I have a massive sample library of old synths I used to own etc and heaps of Kontakt libraries which I think are pretty incredible! especially for scoring films. I do still own an SH 101 and recently purchased the new TB-3 which is amazing. I think for the next album i’m going to get a few old synths and some of the new modules as they are heaps of fun to create inspiring sounds.

9. You are probably one of the most qualified to answer this question. Do you think there is still a market for selling music these days? Especially breakbeat based?

Well, I’m quite fortunate in that there are a few people out there who know my music and am very fortunate that they still support me! I was very surprised when I decided to do a CD & Vinyl (plus limited poster) for this release and all the limited pressings sold out in a matter of weeks! I think there is definitely a market out there, people will always buy and support good quality music, although i’m not sure there are enough buyers for all the producers out there!

10. So what can you advise the up and coming producers to do to help?

For people just getting into releasing and selling there music I would say that if your doing it for the love and passion of creating music then some money will come later down the line but don’t put focus on ‘making money’ as this is pretty tricky in todays music industry. The main thing is to enjoy the process, and as they say, it’s all about the journey!

11. When can we expect album 4th album?

I’m working on some music for the 4th album now and have a handful of great vocalists awaiting some rough sketches to write too! I want the next album to be a little more cross over in a good way (not commercial!). I’m aiming to have it finished by the end of the year for a possible early to mid 2015 release!

12. Anything else you would like to add?

I’d just really like to thank all the people that support my music and who happily pay for products I create, I am very fortunate to be in this position and hope I can keep writing FFS albums for many years! ha ha

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Many thanks to Glen FFS for his answers now get your free download below and be sure to pick up your copy of Darker Days when it is released. You can pre-order HERE.

Don’t forget you can grab another exclusive cut from Future Funk Squad and Free Breaks Blog HERE.

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Future Funk Squad – Darker Days + The Fortess