Forthcoming on: Fokuz Recordings

M&B · Apr 16, 2016

Hey lads, I noticed there was no thread for Fokuz Recordings, or their sub label Celsius, which have put out some awesome tunes in the past, and have some great things in the works.

I also wanted to take a second to ask... whats up with their website? I want to buy / preorder some 12"s, but theres no "purchase" or "buy" button, and theres no cart/check out on their shop section... I tried to contact them but their Captcha on the contact page is broken :teeth:

.

Anyway, heres the incoming shakers you can soon add to your collection! previews included

Three part 80th release!

http://www.triplevision.nl/release/FOKUZ080.1/

http://www.triplevision.nl/release/FOKUZ080.2/

http://www.triplevision.nl/release/FOKUZ080.3/

Menosance · Apr 16, 2016

Let's use this as a general thread for Fokuz, Celsius and also Citrus.

I would like to add RoyGreen & Protone - Platten Digger EP, that it is worth noticing imo:
http://www.triplevision.nl/release/EXPRESS019/

Regarding thier 80th release, plate 3 is bleeding hot!

SirReal · Apr 17, 2016

Fokuz have really stepped their game up of late.

Loving the fact they are getting a range of people to remix/release for them.

Not always the obvious candidates.

rythmatix · Apr 18, 2016

really like their releases lately...just a shame the pressing of their vinyl can be very hit-and-miss (some are very quiet)

sierra88 · Apr 18, 2016

there are a lot of hidden gems on this label and it's sub labels

Fallen.GeMiNi · Apr 18, 2016

Really feeling Fokuz/Celsius/Influenza releases lately, a lot of artists keeping the standard pretty damn high. Those Polish "young bloods", Malaky and Facing Jinx especially are nailing it.

Also

Sicx · Apr 18, 2016

Such a high quality label, very rare they release anything thats not of an extremely high standard. They seem to churn out releases too with all 3 labels theres got to be a release every week now surely. Hard to keep up

Hurricos · Apr 18, 2016

I should've known that was an Ivy Lab remix lol. I was thinking it was just a VIP. Love it though.

I swear we're gonna need a "Forthcoming Ivy Lab Remixes" thread soon. Not that I have a problem with that.

encounter · Apr 18, 2016

I'm a bit torn, it's great to have labels backing up new talents as such but looking back at their catalogues I rarely find anything high quality / interesting / new. at least not for my taste. As well they are releasing too much music it's an obvious quantity > quality. Just as an example: https://pro.beatport.com/label/celsius-recordings/3951/releases celsius only had 16 releases in these 4 1/2 months. You can't tell me you've bought them all and they're all quality?
What a lot of people as well don't seem to know is that they're all labels of one of the main distributors in d&b: Triple Vision. They run, symptom, citrus, celsius, fokuz, influenza, blendits, the list goes on... which is a bit fishy and seems a bit bias when I look at what get features on stores.

putting that all in one sentence: they are great melting pot for talents and certainly have some hidden gems but all in all are just releasing too much mediocre music.

SirReal said:
Fokuz have really stepped their game up of late.

Loving the fact they are getting a range of people to remix/release for them.

Not always the obvious candidates.

Are you serious? What isn't obvious about Calibre, Break & Ivy Lab? They're most certainly the people that have most remixes out nowadays.

blend107 · Apr 18, 2016

encounter said:
I'm a bit torn, it's great to have labels backing up new talents as such but looking back at their catalogues I rarely find anything high quality / interesting / new. at least not for my taste. As well they are releasing too much music it's an obvious quantity > quality. Just as an example: https://pro.beatport.com/label/celsius-recordings/3951/releases celsius only had 16 releases in these 4 1/2 months. You can't tell me you've bought them all and they're all quality?

putting that all in one sentence: they are great melting pot for talents and certainly have some hidden gems but all in all are just releasing too much mediocre music.

I'd say the majority of releases throughout all the of Triple Vision camp over the past year or two have been absolute quality despite the amount of tunes they put out.

Have a peruse over this if you're in doubt:
http://www.bptoptracker.com/bestof/2015/labels/drum-and-bass/1

It's obvious to me that their releases are selling well within underground D&B so surely they must be putting out more than 'mediocre' music. Fokuz are #9 in D&B best sellers which for liquid D&B is huge, Celsius are at #44 which is amazing for a sub-label and surely a sign of quality.

Just my opinion though and I'm clearly going to back the crew which have been so kind to me and I feel highly privilaged to have released through their labels.

Fallen.GeMiNi · Apr 18, 2016

encounter said:
I'm a bit torn, it's great to have labels backing up new talents as such but looking back at their catalogues I rarely find anything high quality / interesting / new. at least not for my taste. As well they are releasing too much music it's an obvious quantity > quality. Just as an example: https://pro.beatport.com/label/celsius-recordings/3951/releases celsius only had 16 releases in these 4 1/2 months. You can't tell me you've bought them all and they're all quality?

putting that all in one sentence: they are great melting pot for talents and certainly have some hidden gems but all in all are just releasing too much mediocre music.

I would partially agree with that as there are not that much "legendary" tunes being present. BUT! What you're saying is applicable to many other labels with one huge exception. That is their releases are keeping the standard high. It may not be groundbreaking and it may lack the "wow" effect most of the time, the fact is though, there's hardly any imprint in the game which would be able to release so much good music without barely any exceptions. They are also responsible for nurturing many talents who are now forefront runners of the original Liquidfunk Drum & Bass or are making some of the highest quality music out there (even though many people still doesn't pay attention to them as opposed to those "stalmarts" who they invite over for remixing their tunes).

encounter said:
What a lot of people as well don't seem to know is that they're all labels of one of the main distributors in d&b: Triple Vision. They run, symptom, citrus, celsius, fokuz, influenza, blendits, the list goes on... which is a bit fishy and seems a bit bias when I look at what get features on stores.

I would guess most of the people here know that. I don't see it as a bad thing really. As much as I'm not a huge fan of distrubutions in general, Triple Vision are one of the reasons "smaller" labels still can release on vinyl and still do a terrific job for this niche market. They've put their soul to it over the years, so fair play.

lug00ber · Apr 18, 2016

Nice to have this thread. Been buying a lot from Fokuz over the latest 2,5-3 years or so.

And I'll second the quality notion as well. Might not be ground breaking stuff, but it's oh so playable and sounds good. Don't think I have a single plate from them that I haven't played out, mostly in warm up sets.

encounter · Apr 18, 2016

blend107 said:
....

fair enough. I can see that coming from an artist that was/is signed to them and had good experience. that's all fine but I'd argue you didn't really do the calculations with your argument:

Just look at the figures compared to somebody like: Flexout Audio and I'd say they release a lot already.
Flexout: 15 releases in 2015 (https://pro.beatport.com/label/flexout-audio/21097)
Celsius: 47 releases in 2015 (https://pro.beatport.com/label/celsius-recordings/3951/releases)

This is 3 times the amount of Flexout. It's almost a release a week. So basically you're comparing apples with oranges meaning your argument is invalid. These position don't mean anything at all. Well they are, Celsius released 3 times more music (quantity) and only barely made the same position as Flexout (quality).

That's all Celsius tho so back to topic with Fokuz. They definitely have more quality control IMO. Even tho their 47 releases is still way too much either (https://pro.beatport.com/label/fokuz-recordings/3033/releases). But it's definitely harder to get signed on there but realistically speaking what made them "bigger" this year were their remixes by Break, Calibre & Technimatic. Get's even clearer with this: http://www.bptoptracker.com/bestof/2015/tracks/drum-and-bass/1

encounter · Apr 18, 2016

Fallen.GeMiNi said:
I would partially agree with that as there are not that much "legendary" tunes being present. BUT! What you're saying is applicable to many other labels with one huge exception. That is their releases are keeping the standard high. It may not be groundbreaking and it may lack the "wow" effect most of the time, the fact is though, there's hardly any imprint in the game which would be able to release so much good music without barely any exceptions. They are also responsible for nurturing many talents who are now forefront runners of the original Liquidfunk Drum & Bass or are making some of the highest quality music out there (even though many people still doesn't pay attention to them as opposed to those "stalmarts" who they invite over for remixing their tunes).

I would guess most of the people here know that. I don't see it as a bad thing really. As much as I'm not a huge fan of distrubutions in general, Triple Vision are one of the reasons "smaller" labels still can release on vinyl and still do a terrific job for this niche market. They've put their soul to it over the years, so fair play.

Let's say it that way: Critical aren't pushing boundaries with every release but you're not seeing them release every week do you? It's nothing special anymore if you release has 1 week time until the next one comes out

music needs to breathe and I think one problem that we are feeling quite heavily in the scene is the amount of music available. shelflife get's less and less.
I totally agree with your point about getting a voice out for talents but even there needs to be quality control and IMO it's not up there with labels like Flexout.

Most "smaller" labels do invest their own money to release on vinyl. It's not like TV is sponsoring it. Unless they see great appeal with remixes on there to make sure that releases will sell. And who's paying for these remixes?

Regarding your last point I'd agree. They've certainly helped a lot putting d&b where it is, especially when ST Holdings went bankrupt but what you don't need to forget is that they earn money of the back of the "smaller" and established labels, so this is their day to day job. Means all these labels and artists are financing their lifes. That's not per se bad just thought I'd mention it to offer a different view on it.

blend107 · Apr 18, 2016

encounter said:
fair enough. I can see that coming from an artist that was/is signed to them and had good experience. that's all fine but I'd argue you didn't really do the calculations with your argument:

Just look at the figures compared to somebody like: Flexout Audio and I'd say they release a lot already.
Flexout: 15 releases in 2015 (https://pro.beatport.com/label/flexout-audio/21097)
Celsius: 47 releases in 2015 (https://pro.beatport.com/label/celsius-recordings/3951/releases)

This is 3 times the amount of Flexout. It's almost a release a week. So basically you're comparing apples with oranges meaning your argument is invalid. These position don't mean anything at all. Well they are, Celsius released 3 times more music (quantity) and only barely made the same position as Flexout (quality).

Right you are, we are comparing apples and oranges - liquid D&B compared to heavier / techy D&B. Liquid D&B sells far less than heavier styles overall for sure. This makes it hard to compare the two directly (Flexout & Celsius). I don't think my argument is entirely invalid.
The main point I'm making here is that depsite the large output, they do put out quality tunes. They aren't always the groundbreaking tunes people always search for but if you dive deep enough into their catalogue I would say that the quality across all of Triple Vision is very solid.

encounter · Apr 18, 2016

blend107 said:
Right you are, we are comparing apples and oranges - liquid D&B compared to heavier / techy D&B. Liquid D&B sells far less than heavier styles overall for sure. This makes it hard to compare the two directly (Flexout & Celsius). I don't think my argument is entirely invalid.
The main point I'm making here is that depsite the large output, they do put out quality tunes. They aren't always the groundbreaking tunes people always search for but if you dive deep enough into their catalogue I would say that the quality across all of Triple Vision is very solid.

I'd disagree. Flexout isn't exactly Eatbrain so I think you can compare the two. Yes one is more deeper d&b and one is liquid but both push newcomers - mostly rather unknown guys and are niche in terms of what is being sold on beatport. I'm sure there are exceptions to the rule but generally speaking I think they are comparable.
So that's where our opinions differ. they might all be qualitatively good in mixdown perspective but the problem stays that too much music equals less shelf life. It's not all that bad but I'd say 30 releases would already be more than enough per year. This would maybe give more room to labels that aren't run by TV, let's say Soul Deep / Jazzsticks or the likes. Getting back to actual audio, please share those great tracks I must have missed on Celsius/Fokuz...?

blend107 · Apr 18, 2016

Broken Sky · Apr 18, 2016

Have been listening to a lot of Celsius, Fokuz and Influenza over the last year. Glad to see a thread for them.

To add to the above recommendations here are some of my favorites from over the last year or so.
https://soundcloud.com/fokuzrecordings%2Ffokuz15117-silence-groove-hot-one-ep-forthcoming-28092015
https://soundcloud.com/celsiusrecordings%2Finfluenza138-alb-lost-thoughts-ep-forthcoming-26102015
https://soundcloud.com/celsiusrecordings%2Fcls150-humanature-against-the-clock-ep-forthcoming-26102015
https://soundcloud.com/fokuzrecordings%2Ffokuz15110-phaction-vapour-ep-out-now
https://soundcloud.com/hosta%2Fhosta-lost-in-tokyo-fokuz-recordings
Really feeling this one https://soundcloud.com/bert_h%2Fcls-174-bert-h-all-mode-fifty-years-ep-forthcoming

Vydx · Apr 18, 2016

The amount of music Fokuz and its many sister labels churn out regularly is so much I don't think even the biggest fanboy of Triple Vision knows every single release, let alone every single tune. Not only because of the sheer quantity but also the fact that so many releases sound so similar to me, I just can't rate the whole group of labels like some of the people in this thread seem to do. As well as that, the choice of remixes are either frequent label stalwarts (Silence Groove, Malaky, SATL) or common go-to artists (Calibre, Break, more recently Zero T and Ivy Lab) so I'm not sure what's up with that.

But just like every single huge label in the game, there will inevitably be a load of hidden gems (often digital only releases) that hardly anyone will know of or remember, again due to the fact there's so much out there it's physically impossible to keep up with it all, and @encounter is correct it all leads to a perceived diminished shelf life

who knows this early Pessimist outing on Influenza? Autonomic flavours :love:

https://pro.beatport.com/release/close-to-me-ep/279574

what about this one from Blue Motion?
https://pro.beatport.com/release/echoes-ep/230411

This is a proper hidden gem from 2008 by Well Being, whoever that is.
https://pro.beatport.com/track/smoke-signal-original-mix/581466

encounter · Apr 18, 2016

^ couldn't agree more

Forthcoming on: Fokuz Recordings

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