It’s time to think about time—time for the first of the 2026 Elektronauts Drum n Bass n Jungle Battles!
As any philologist of bass music will tell you, there’s few words as overused and wrung out as the perennial mangle. But this month we’ve mangled the beats of our own beating hearts, and strung together one seriously mixed-up bag of maniacal melodies, loping loops, asymmetrical swings, and beautifully broken breaks.
And so I’m proud to present to you our selection of fractured tracks: Elektronauts Battle in Uncommon Times
ALL VOTES MUST BE IN BY END OF DAY SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 15th!
• You can only vote if you contributed a track to the battle.
• Constructive feedback is strongly encouraged even if you didn’t submit a track! but it won’t count toward the results unless you played!
• As usual, please vote for your top three
(not including your own beat of course):
1st Place =3 pts | 2nd Place =2 pts | 3rd Place =1 pt
• NOTE: YOU MUST VOTE to qualify for the CD,
or it goes to the next-highest vote-getter.
3pts to Track 1 - If I heard this on a Spotify list I wouldn’t bat an eye, it sounds like a proper professional track. I think it’s 10/8 if I hear correctly which is very cool
2pts to Track 7 this is really off kilter and keeps you on your toes the dark vibes are awesome.
1 pt to Track 2 - Love the wonky buddhist samples. I’m all about this stuff. It’s got some really crazy time that’s quite hard to count (Is it changing time signature at points)
Having a weird dilemma here . . . What do you do when your favorite track in the playlist isn’t necessary the one you think is “best” (most technically accomplished/best response to the prompt)?
This is a funny kind of challenge. It sort of scrambled my criteria for how I judge a battle.
Are those the generally accepted rules for judging? I wouldn’t think too hard about it. I don’t tend to think of music in that way, and I might be disappointed to learn that other people are judging entirely on mix over composition or technical assembly over feeling.
Not judging the judgers because each person will determine the worth of art on their own terms but for me, I’m more moved by art than I am by brushwork. Although I really do enjoy the brushwork, but it doesn’t contain the feel of an image unless it’s used so effectively that it becomes one with the image itself.
Interesting. I usually try to rank each track very specifically by how it responded to the battle prompt. Otherwise I worry I might choose totally different tracks on a two different days, just based on my mood, which seems unfair.
So I made up a rubric back when I started taking part in these & the hip hop battles:
How well does the track answer the brief?
How catchy is it?
(tie breaker) Which song is shorter?
Also, since I know who made each track, I feel like this helps me not subconsciously pick stuff based on favoritism.
Sounds like a fair and reliable process but in a way it also sounds like a job interview.
is as much a personal opinion as
meanwhile
sounds like an honest response to music.
Like I said, to each their own but you’ve boxed yourself into criteria based upon opinions which you are loosely saying are being used to remove opinion from the equation.
If someone missed the objective completely like the objective is use X sample and they don’t use it then that’s disqualification based on not following the rules.
I think anything beyond that might just be ways of normalizing personal choice.
There is no correct answer though, it’s a personal choice and that’s the function of casting a vote is making a personal choice.
Anyways I’m only saying choose based on what feels right, not what feels wrong.
I mean, my entire career has been about choosing creative executions based on how well they answer a brief and how catchy they are, so, guilty as charged.
I don’t necessarily agree that how these things are entirely subjective, though.
Like, there’s a lot of art (and advertising and tech) that I don’t personally respond to, but I still think is good because I see how it’s meant to land with whatever genre it’s in or audience it’s for. Or if it takes a place in history or culture.
It’s kind of like when someone asks me who my favorite singers are. I usually say that there are signers who are my personal favorites, and there are the people who I think are the best at singing, and only a few of those are the same people.
Same with catchiness. Like, there’s a ton of pop songs out there that don’t do much for me personally, but I can’t say they’re not catchy.
