Faze 2 Agency

After spending the last couple of years working on their 4/4 alias Black Noise, Aquasky are going back to their roots. With a history that was forged at the start of the Acid House era and a career that has followed the progression of that scene from acid, to jungle, to drum and bass, onto breakbeat and now bass music, the trio return to embrace the passions that has kept them together for so long.

It’s been 16 years since the debut release by the Bournemouth trio on the legendary Moving Shadow label. During their years of making drum and bass they recorded for a host of cult labels including Reinforced, Good Looking, Hospital and R&S. Championed for their liquid vibes by the likes of Fabio and LTJ Bukem, they were soon snapped up by major label Polydor where an album emerged titled ‘Orange Dust (1997)’. A few years later they were back with Moving Shadow and released another batch of 12” singles with the label and two albums ‘Bodyshock (1999)’ and ‘Aftershock (2000)’.

The following year they recorded a disco/latin house album as Tenth and Parker titled ‘TwentyTwelve (2001)’ for the label Mr.Bongo/Disorient which featured profile guests from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s and host of remixes including King Britt.

Over the course of the millennia Aquasky’s musical tastes and interests shifted from d&b to the fledgling Nuskool Breaks scene. Feeling the music was a little too laidback for their tastes the trio spent 1999-2001 rebranding their sound into a rawkus bass frenzy which was branded in 2002 by DJ Mag as ‘Bassline Breaks’. This sub-genre accelerated, converting many producers and saw the guys tour the world heavily, sharing their latest studio creations.

The pinnacle of this era came together in the form of the album Teamplayers (2006) where Aquasky collaborated with 30 other artists to create one of the most memorable and encompassing breakbeat albums of recent times.

During 2007-2008 the trio were heavily influenced by the electro house scene and created a sound that bridged their rowdy breakbeat vibe into 4/4 beats. In perusing this musical off-shoot a new alias was devised, ‘Black Noise’, which saw the boys signing to Fatboy Slim’s Southern Fried Records and remixing the likes of Crookers, Diplo, Sidney Samson, Don Diablo, Engine Earz and many others.

In 2010 Aquasky celebrated their 15th year as a production/DJ outfit and a decision was made to bring the Aquasky sound back to the rowdy days of old. A breakbeat mashup, twists of drum and bass and anything else that gets the ravers jumping. A celebration of the rave culture and everything that helped create the trio into what they are today.

Novenmber 2011 saw the release of their 7th artist album titled ‘Raise the Devil’ a smasher of an album with Aquasky flexing there skills alongside the vocal talents of The Ragga Twins, Tenor Fly, Daddy Freddy, Acafool, Deja, Bex Riley, and Rosin Brophy, Diane Charlamagne and also stepping into the studio to collab with breakbeat dons Pyramid and kings of the dustup The Engine Earz experiment.

The early part of 2012 sees Aquasky continuing on the path forged out by Raise the Devil, with exclusive remix packages being released in Australia of selected album tracks on Kid Kenobi’s Klub Kids label (the first one “You Take Me There” having charted in a high position in the ARIA charts). Also a string of remixes are already lined up for different Labels there will definitely be some huge sounds coming form the aquasky studios over the next few months.