Spokes
Spokes has been Coyote Records and Boxed's secret weapon for a while now. Time to get due shine.
About this mix
The aim of the mix was to showcase a bunch of mostly unreleased dubs, edits and forthcoming bits from various producers who I'm into right now. It took a couple of weeks to put together and I recorded a couple of different versions but this is the one that I enjoyed the most when I listened back.
I'm really drawn to sino grime influenced stuff so it was great to pull out dubs from G3 (who made me a VIP special for this mix), Fallow and Letta; as well as some new stuff from Yamaneko, who is consistently one of my favorite producers.
There's a couple of bits in there from me including a half done edit of an old Kode 9 tune that I did for Sagepay and a demo ("Giftshop Ideas") that I made late last year on a flight and forgot all about until about a month ago when I found it on a memory stick. There's also some forthcoming Boxed and Oil Gang bits plus a nuts re-edit of "Panda" courtesy of Strict Face.
Boiler Room says...
2015 was Spokes' best full year to date: his Green Eyes release on Coyote, and contributions to Boxed's first full EP, showed a big leap in terms of ingenuity and complexity of his productions. The Loose Synths show he co-steers on Radar Radio never falls short, and we're happy to finally get him on here.
His Upfront – comprised of almost entirely exclusives from the likes of Last Japan, Lloyd SB, Yamaneko plus a healthy dollop of his own – is pleasingly off the wall, and doesn't cleave to what we were expecting (softer tones, basically). It's not got a "Pulse", but it's definitely got a pulse.
The flow is just a little bit too hyperactive for conventional club assault, and tunes just a little bit too tweaked for any of the bright melodies to feel saccharine. The springiness and inventiveness central to his sound shine through.
With three years on the clock since the scene blew back up again, there are now undoubtedly some 3rd-rate coattail riders in instrumental grime + out-there club music's second wave; Spokes is not one of them.
The mission's not gone cold yet.
Tracklisting
Upfront mixes
Our weekly audio mix series where we call upon the most interesting artists/DJs/record labels and ask them to peer into the near future. How they take it from there is entirely open to interpretation.
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