Replete & Newton take us through their hellish new release!

Fire and brimstone in the hole!

This month’s free download release comes courtesy of Replete and Newton. Strap up your seatbelt as tightly as possible, take all the safety gear you can find, do not open your doors or windows under any circumstances and hope and pray that you get through this alive as we bring you… MISSION THROUGH HELL.

That walloping intro. Those skin scorching basses. That drop into utter chaos. The jagged, chainsaw style funk. This is a straight up banger with absolutely no apology. And we signed it through our Demo Drop streams.

The third free download release to be signed to 1 More Thing (following Apom – Gangster and Sonnet – Running), Mission Through Hell was first aired on our November session when James from Sola joined us to give his own breakdown. James declared it to be one of Replete’s best tunes so far and we even had a bit of label negotiations on who would sign it.

In fact this isn’t Portsmouth producer Replete’s first 1 More Thing rodeo. He also released Raptor VIP with us on the second 1MT x GTA EP in 2023.

It is Newton’s first 1 More Thing rodeo though. Situated just down the road from Replete in Southampton, Newton is a resident DJ with one of the biggest and most consistent rave promoters on the UK south coast On A Mission and has so far put out a few downloads and lowkey releases. If Mission Through Hell is anything to go by, we’ll be hearing a lot more from him in the future.

We love a mission here at 1 More Thing. We love a banger as well. And while we’re not particularly keen on religious concepts that are literally designed to create a moral division, instill fear and enforce someone else’s rules, we’ll take a little stroll into the bowels of Hades for these chaps, too.

Sunblock factor infinity applied, we’ll see you in hell…

Easy guys. How did you both link up?

Newton: We met through Tribal Drum Syndicate. I know quite a lot of the Portsmouth boys but until that time I hadn’t met him. Then we met at one of the nights and clicked straight away. He’s a good lad. Solid.

Is this your first collab?

Newton: With him yeah. I’ve done other collabs with people but not many. We done it remotely through stems, it would be cool to have a proper session. It’s hard going back and forth over message, trying to describe what you mean.

Replete: It took a while didn’t it. Myles sent me some stems. He started it!

Newton: Yeah I got some basses and little bits and pieces and pieces and intro bass harmonic reese thing. Jonny rearranged them and put his influence on it. Re-arranged the basses on it and did his thing on it. I like how it’s ended up sounding like both of us.

That’s what you want from a collabo isn’t it?

Replete: Yeah I think so. That intro you sent me with those basses started the whole thing off. I was like, ‘Woah’. It needed something heavy on the drop. How many different drops did I send you?

Newton: Oh loads. They were all really good. You just weren’t happy with them.

Replete: They weren’t good enough!

That’s a mission through Hell – the battle!!

Replete: Sometimes you just know you can make something sound better, you know? When that reese bass happened, that with the intro from Myles was like ‘yes! This is it!’

Tell me some more stories of your own personal missions from Hell

Newton: Doing my music degree pretty much over Zoom during lockdown was one mission through Hell.

Ah yeah that must have been tricky

Newton: We had to do performance pieces and had to do them on Zoom. It got hectic because of bad connections and Zoom being down and all that type of stuff. It was so difficult and frustrating. One of the pieces we had to do was a live performance of individual parts. Because it was such a pain in the arse they let us pre-record it.

Nice. What did you get?

Newton: A first! So it was worth the stress in the end. But I would say music production is a mission full stop. Everything – mixing and mastering and mixing down and everything, it takes so long to get your head around. So so long. And then when you finally feel like you’ve understood more and had more practice, it feels like you’re at the start again because you realise there’s even more of the album to climb. It’s not necessarily Hell, it’s part of the process, but it’s that feeling like you’re never going to get to where you want to be… Juggling production with DJing and day job and everything in life. But it’s all character building isn’t it?

Absolutely. Replete – what’s your mission through hell?

Replete: Having a toddler! She’s 14 months now so it’s chaos.

Love that!

Replete: She’s properly into stuff now, talking, walking shitting machine. It’s intense!

The studio is your solace. Have you played this one out yet?

Replete: Every set I play!

Newton: Yeah I’ve played it a few times.

What’s the reaction like?

Newton: Really good!

Replete: Yeah it goes off!

Any videos?

Newton: I’m playing a 360 at Engine Rooms. I’ll get you one.

Written any other tunes together?

Newton: Not yet but we definitely will. I need to get a car sorted so I can get to Portsmouth and we’ll be getting on more tunes.

What do you think of his studio?

Newton: It’s a little piece of heaven mate. I got a little set-up at home in a spare room but his is purpose built. It’s beautiful.

Lush. Did your learn anything from each other during this whole process?

Newton: What I learnt was even just hearing back how Jonny interpreted my sounds it’s made me realise what I can do with my sounds. He’s so creative and his perspective had made me think about how I can manipulate and transform my sounds. It was a real eye-opener.

Replete: Yeah that’s a good point. For me I’d have never thought about doing about doing a build bass with really long notes and the changes. Your bit is my favourite part of the tune. I’d have never thought about doing that.

Nice! Let’s sign out with a little shout about the demo drop – you’ve been on it every week

Replete: Without fail!

Newton: I wasn’t aware of the Demo Drop until Jonny said you’d heard the tune and wanted to sign it. I’ll be tuning and sending demos from now on though – I’ve got demos for days mate.

Replete: Do it mate, I really enjoy the shows and hearing everyone’s feedback and how you react to the tunes. The community of people who tune in are all really friendly and it gives you things to aim for. You have said about putting things forward to other labels or Vision Radio so that’s really aspirational as well. It gives you an aim. I’ve loved the ones with James Sola and Tyr Kohout as well as that’s even deeper insight into the process.

The one with James Sola blew my mind a bit in the way he used the spectrum analyser. Kinda removed a wall of mystique from the process for me. Newtown where are you with the detail-side of production. The more mathematical side.

Newton: I’m pretty good actually, I learnt a lot from my degree. I struggle with sound design. I want to make my own sounds – it’s easy to pull in a load of samples but I want songs to sound like me. That’s the goal; for people to hear it and know it’s mine.

You’re a technical person! What’s your day job?

Newton: I’m a forklift driver

Replete: Same!

Nice. Two forklift drivers on one call. Never been in this situation before. I’m jealous. I’ve always wanted a buzz in one. Good fun?

Newton: They are good fun to drive you know. I loaded up big trailers so it’s like a puzzle to unravel. You put things in a fit them nice and neatly. Very satisfying.