forged sketches by loopdrive

In 2016, Wataru Kobayashi, known as loopdrive, recorded the album "forged sketches", howerver, it was not officially released. Two years later, outlines released "Groove 9" – the debut cassette of the Japanese producer. It maintained the sounding of "forged sketches", keeping in touch with the tradition of Berlin labels such as basic channel and chain reaction. In 2020, as guides (outlines’sublabel) was founded, the opportunity has arrived to properly present to the audience the loopdrive’s musical evolution as well as the beginnings of Wataru Kobayashi's artistic path.

"Forged sketches" is an album that combines dub-ridden Detroit techno sounds with the latest child of Chicago ghetto house - footwork. It is as if monochromatic chords and a minimalist pulse were mounted on a speeding footwork motorics. This resembles the achievements of Paul Rose, a British producer known as Scuba, in his albums "A Mutual Antipathy" and "Triangulation", which featured over a decade ago a visionary fusion of dubsetp and dub techno.

loopdrive took on a similar path. His productions explore the land between fast, broken techno and the footwork rhythm. One of the most exhilirating moments in "forged sketches" is a nearly fifteen-minute long melodic suite running at 160bpm. Since "forged sketches" (2016) there have not been any footwork-inspired producers that would create such a non-obvious and original hybrid as loopdrive.

outlines is a searching label. It starts with Chicago Footwork and aims at new forms, outlines and intuitions.

guides, is the more frivolous branch of outlines, where releases are characterised by greater freedom of form.

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