Drop the Lime revives T&B: "We needed an awakening. So we died."

Last month, all signs were pointing to Brooklyn label Trouble & Bass closing up shop. The bass collective replaced their website with a picture of a tombstone, label founder Drop The Lime and signees AC Slater and Star Eyes all alluded to the end of the T&B on Facebook and the label made a cryptic statement that didn’t deny the rumours (though it didn’t do anything to confirm them, either).

Well, turns out T&B isn’t dead after all. Instead, they’re reborn. In a letter posted to the label’s (once again functional) website, Luca Venezia (better known as Drop the Lime) wrote what he’s called not just an explanation, but a love letter. “The bigger the electronic music scene has grown, the more limited it’s started to make us feel,” Venezia’s letter reads. “We’ve found ourselves lost in a battle with all that is personal and real about the music business. Sound palettes and formulas have become monotonous and routine, dance music endlessly imitating itself. Everything is losing the edge and soul that the electronic music pioneers taught us.”

“We needed an awakening. So we died,” he continues. “In September 2012, we are reborn, fresh and ready to venture onto a new path. We’re expanding our palette even further, releasing everything we love (but not only club music). T&B will reflect the depth of what we find exciting in music and art, making new connections while referencing our legacy in underground dance music”. You can read the letter (or manifesto, if you will) in full at the Trouble & Bass website.

So what’s this expansion in scope mean for T&B immediately? Forthcoming releases from the label include an EP from bass legend Plastician, trap duo Guerilla Speakerz and Toronto’s Damn Kids. And on it goes.