On 27 June, Gunsta celebrates its third anniversary at Tunnel club in Saint Petersburg. The guest at the party will be Cause 4 Concern.
Cause 4 Concern (Optiv, Tobie, Mark C and Stuart) are a quartet from Guildford. Although they are a relatively young team, they have already made an impression both on the UK drum and bass scene and on the worldwide jungle community. Their tracks received positive reviews from Andy C, Bad Company, Ed Rush, Optical and many other well-known drum and bass DJs and musicians.
Cause 4 Concern opened its own label just nine months after joining together as a single collective. Before that, Optiv was a member of the project Pressure Rise, and also recorded tracks under the alias nCode. With the C4C project already in existence, one of his tracks appeared on the compilation “Killa Bites” (mixed by Dom & Roland) on Moving Shadow. Tobie worked at the label Aspect, which at one time was the home label of Pressure Rise, which contributed to their friendship with Optiv. Mark C began his career as a producer in 1994 and, together with Stuart, worked at Vinyl Distribution, so creating a label was not particularly difficult for C4C. Each member of the collective already had considerable experience (by the standards of electronic music), and this fact had a positive effect on the quality of their work.
The first release by C4C came out on Cause 4 Concern Recordings in December 1999; it consisted of the tracks “Phat Cap” and “Euthanasia”. The second (“Epox” / “Infections”) and subsequent releases achieved increasing commercial success and support from well-known DJs, earning the collective a reputation as headliners of the nu-school scene and innovators in drum and bass music.
As for the sound of their tracks, there was room here for a whole range of styles and directions: techno, electro, hip-hop and funk — ultimately, a symbiosis of styles against a backdrop of a high-tech rhythm. C4C opened up to the masses a new level of dnb music that no other musician or project had managed to show before that time.
In addition, a significant role, according to Optiv, is played by how a composition will sound in a DJ set, how harmoniously and cohesively it will present itself against the backdrop of the other tracks sounding immediately before and after it. After creating another track, they check its sound in a mix literally the next day, and only after a successful result in this kind of testing does the material go to release.
The sound of C4C is becoming sought-after. A request comes from Perspective for the release of several of the project’s compositions. C4C remix “She's In Your Mind” by Optiv’s longtime acquaintances Pressure Rise, for which the project receives substantial financial support; the proceeds go toward technical equipment for their studio, allowing C4C to constantly improve their sound.
Their work attracts the interest of DJ Lee and Clayton (a member of Usual Suspects), who offer releases on Timeless and Renegade Hardware, while Suburban Base request a remix of “Phuture Sound” by Phuture Assassins. C4C, having opened its own label so early, acted somewhat unusually compared with other musicians and projects; by releasing material on their own imprint, they attracted the attention of other labels wishing to release their work.
Throughout 2001 and 2002, the collective’s popularity grew at a crazy pace, and the following releases came out: “Peepshow” (Virus), “Sarin” (True Playaz), “Vapour Space” / “Shiver” (Metro), “Psyke” / “Face Lift” (1210), “Blindside” / “Skewer” [Rob F and Impulse remix] (Renegade Hardware), “Timestopper” (Industry / React) and “White Window” / “Volcam” (Subtitles). C4C remixed Deep Blue’s “Helicopter Tune” and David Carbone’s “Innocense”. C4C Recordings released “Sensor” / “Synergy”, “Soul” / “Eurotrash” and “Soul” (Matrix & Fierce remix) / “Bad Head”, while Renegade Hardware released the “Symptom” EP.
They are setting up a new label, C4C Ltd, where they plan limited runs of remixes of their tracks and compositions by other musicians, such as TeeBee, Ed Rush, Optical, Matrix, Stakka & Skynet, Fierce and Shimon. The collective now receives regular support from Andy C, Ed Rush & Optical, Grooverider, Bad Company, DJ Hype, Doc Scott and DJ Lee, as well as press coverage in Knowledge and Atmosphere. Thanks to the interest in their work shown by DJ Hype, C4C made it onto Kiss FM radio. Their material appeared in the Top Ten Rollers chart on the Grooverider and Fabio radio show on Radio One.
Demand is high for C4C as DJs; they are invited to clubs in London and take part in major raves such as One Nation in their hometown of Guildford, while in the busy touring schedule of C4C are cities across the UK and around the world.
On 27 June, Cause 4 Concern will visit Saint Petersburg to play at Tunnel club, where the Gunsta crew will celebrate its third anniversary. SPbDnB strongly recommends that dnb fans attend the event, congratulate Gunsta on its third anniversary and hear the artists who raised dnb music to a qualitatively new level.
Translated from the Russian original published by SPbDnB (spbdnb.ru).
