The London producer on 6Music presenter also delivers remix on Fake’s new ‘Blizzards remixes’ EP
Cooper guests on new Allergies album Promised Land
Crosstown Rebels boss Lazarus enthuses about the Bristol d&b don
Damian Lazarus of Crosstown Rebels: “In the mid to late 90s, drum and bass was the only music I wanted to hear in the club and Krust was for me the best producer of the music. On my first ever DJ mix release, PM Scientists – Drop the Beats, I placed a track that I had just produced next to ‘Going Nowhere’ by Krust on the album, simply because I felt that it was important to have my own early attempt at making music closely associated with the artist that I considered to be the true master of the craft.
Shoot forward 20 or so years, the pandemic is just beginning and I am in the studio working on my most recent album, Flourish, and I am playing my engineer the music of Krust. I am telling him to listen to the quiet moments and wait for the big explosions of sound, to adjust his head closer to the speakers to feel the power of his baselines and experience the depth and quality of his production. I make a mental note to call him and catch up.
A few weeks later I have now persuaded him to sign his new album, The Edge of Everything, to my label Crosstown Rebels. “It all adds up” I tell him, “It all makes sense” and within a year from these small seeds of belief and respect, we find ourselves releasing one of the most important electronic albums of our generation. Krust is king. End of story.
- Krust’s The Edge of Everything remixes vol2 is out now and you can preorder your copy of vol3 here
- Read our in depth interview with Krust
The Death In Vegas mainman pays tribute to the US noise/techno fusionist
Richard Fearless on Container (pictured)
“Container is an American artist whose music straddles noise and techno. My path to him was through the fantastic label, Spectrum Spools. I found myself submerged in Bee Mask’s stunning ‘Elegy For Beach Friday’, and I was desperate to hear the label’s other releases. Container’s ‘LP’ blew my mind. It’s got an anarchic punk energy, mental time signatures, elements of dub and industrial. It instantly elbowed its way to the front of my record box and has stayed their since.
I had the good fortune to have Container play live for a Drone night at The White Hotel. The energy he brings to his machines is off the chart. It’s a mental fusion of sounds, and he just rips the place apart.
Last year I was going to be in Ireland for five weeks and knew Ren (Container), who had recently moved from Providence, Rhode Island to London, was looking for a place to record. I offered him the use of my studio ‘Metal Box’ while I was away and told him that if he wanted a home to release his recordings from that time, I’d be an honoured to put it out on Drone. To my great delight, he accepted,”
Drone releases Container’s four track ‘Creamer’ EP on 12″ vinyl on August 27 – pre-order your copy here
Our guest editor rounds off his week in charge by paying tribute to one of his favourite producers
Amon Tobin (pictured): : There are loads of artists I could have picked out but in the end I picked out someone quite recent who I thought could do with some more likes. I think he’s German and he’s released…. I think recently he had an EP on Dome of Doom, which is such a fucking great label – they did that record with Current Value that I did a track with him on. Muadeep also did an album on VISION last year that was really good. There’s an album of his called Chronicles as well, I’m not sure which label that’s on but that’s really good.
What’s it like? It’s beats, it’s bass music. Beats but so expertly put together and such excellent production. A lot of soul and feel to it. I don’t love everything he’s done but the things I do love I think are incredible. It’s not particularly highbrow or experimental. It’s just really fucking good beats to play in a club. Really, really good.
Seefeel’s Mark Clifford and Sarah Peacock big up 80s dreampop pioneers Cocteau Twins
Pic by Barry DA Stewart
Seefeel’s Sarah Peacock and Mark Clifford (pictured, above) are not only big fans of the Cocteau Twins, but even had experience of working in their West London studio and, eventually, being taken on tour as their support band of choice. Here, the pair tell us what the Cocteaus mean to them.
Sarah: “They’re the original experimental guitar band. We were huge, huge fans of theirs and Mark was possibly the biggest fan of all. To have them endorse what you do is the biggest thrill of all.
Mark: “I don’t think I would ever have developed in music if it wasn’t for the Cocteau Twins. Because I’m not really a musical person really. It’s kind of like a punk moment, the Cocteaus, it sort of makes you feel you can do it.
Sarah: “Also, the way they used electronics – they had a tape machine on stage with them and used drum machines, . They weren’t ever a straight ahead rock band, so that was a really big influence on us too.
Sarah: We were mostly left to ourselves when we recorded in their studio (the sessions ended up as part of the Succour album) – there were the more technical guys who worked there who helped them out, but the band themselves would pop in and say hello and it was always nice to see them.
Mark: “One of my main memories of that time was exactly that – Robin (Guthrie) would pop in with a cheeky grin on his face, and he’d always be chewing gum. He looked so cheeky and you could never quite read what he was thinking about what you were doing. They’re sort of ethereal beings, like gods, the way they get written about – and that’s how you expect them to be from the way their music sounds. But he’s, got a very, very dry sense of humour, very sarcastic.”
As part of our week long International Women’s Day knees up, we’ve asked female artists to nominate another for special Big Up attention
As part of our continuing IWD celebrations, we invite female artists to give an official thumbs up to one of their comrades. This time it’s the turn of Laura Nunez of multilingual pop project She’s Got Spies
Jamecia Bennet gives a massive Big Up to gospel, soul and house legend Ann Nesby – who just happens to be her mother too!
In our series where artists Big Up other artists, Warp and Global Communication star Pritchard tells us about his admiration for the renegade queen of mutant blues Polly Jean Harvey
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Pan Amsterdam bigs up Jason Williamson of Sleaford Mods.
“I met Jason through a BBC World Service interview in which I was to host featuring Iggy Pop, Anna Calvi, and Jason.