Son Raw is everyone and their mother
The art of DJing is undervalued in 2014, what with anyone and their mother being able to download cracked software and it give it a go. So when it came time to solicit mixes for this series, I didn’t just want a producer who happened to mix, I wanted a selecta who really valued how mixing could elevate two tracks beyond the sum of their parts, and who could do so in ways others couldn’t. Mixing strictly on wax and dubplate – and posting pictures of those dubplates to social media to make sucka DJs envy – South London’s Riz La Teef was the obvious choice. Representing a new generation updating the UK’s dance music traditions, his selection is refreshingly free of genre orthodoxy without dipping into eclecticism. Instead, he’s found a sweet spot between new instrumental Grime, dark Dubstep-inflected Bass Music and slower, woozier sounds and has been able to mix and balance those approaches with aplomb.
For this edition of our series, he’s delivered a mix with dubplate after dubplate – some of which were cut fresh for this session – drawing for selections from The UK but also Texas (Rabit) and Australia (Strict Face). It’s an approach emblematic of how things should be done in 2015: sticking to tried and tested methods when they can’t be beat, but leveraging the Internet and new technology to get music from places underground producers wouldn’t have dreamed of a decade earlier.
Download:
Rabit – More Memories (Different Circles)
