As we all know October in Amsterdam is a very special time of the year as yellow and black flags start popping up around the city heralding the beginning of Amsterdam Dance Event. Unfortunately, 2020 had different plans for ADE and so the city-wide festival of music was shelved due to the obvious social distancing and travel restrictions in place. No promoter and record label felt the pang of loss more than minimal crew VBX. Their parties across the fabled weekend usually welcome the biggest names in the business for a handful of the most respected parties of the long weekend gathering.
With the many Amsterdam dancefloors falling silent this year VBX has instead opted to keep the music flowing and for their first release of the year they have collected together some of their nearest and dearest to form the first edition of new digital VA ‘CODE 1’. As you might expect from a VBX release the assembled cast is comprised of some of the hottest properties in underground music and all are in stunning form from the first track to the last. What is also great about this release is that all profit will be equally distributed amongst the artists involved and VBX will be taking no profit from the proceeds.
From the funk-laden, percussion-heavy workout ‘Disco Fucktory’ from Italian house maestro Enrico Mantini, the subtle minimalism of resident Ferro’s ‘So Strange’, the uplifting retro house of Herra’s ‘The Other Side Of The City’ and Ion Ludwig’s robotic ‘D.J.A.’ there is a clear sign from the first half of this compilation that they mean business. Moving on to the latter half of the release newcomer to the crew Joren Edwards turns in a signature high energy jam, while Priku’s ‘Dubla’, Reiss’ ‘Chorusing Dreams’, and lastly SIT’s ‘Under The Radar’ all hit home runs in the differing shades of forward-thinking music that is the calling card of VBX. If the line-up and quality music on this release is anything to go by it is a certainty that the VBX parties that would have taken place over ADE would have been among some of the best of the festival.
The ‘CODE 1’ VA from VBX is now available on the VBX Bandcamp page.
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