Son Raw chats with Joker about his new EP, 'Kapsize,' synths, and studio spaces.

Beware the Internet hype machine. That’s probably the best advice to give to young artists, those recipients of a deafening wave that inevitably leads to a (temporarily) crippling crash. Joker saw the tsunami hit hard circa 2009, when his purple variant of dubstep, became the ballyhooed mutation. If you’re keeping track, it was right around […]

Son Raw‘s smoking on that purple kush. You can call it a comeback. Joker’s first run of tunes in the late aughts was truly special, injecting a heavy dose of funk and color into a scene that was on the verge of drowning in its own darkness, but his subsequent pop-ambitions didn’t quite hit their […]

After three years of feverish anticipation, Joker finally dropped his debut and no one was pleased. Chalk it up to the combination of unreasonable expectations and an attempt to get that Magnetic Man money. But times have changed. Quiet as kept, Joker has continued to refine his aesthetic, dropping occasional one-offs that typically get ignored […]

“If you don’t know, check out the bass,” toasts JME on this mix from Joker and Swindle, honoring the third birthday of instrumental grime kings, Butterz. With the honorable Son Raw, somewhere in Southeast Asia, smoking spliffs and enjoying a long sabbatical from the madness of the Internet, there’s a void for fire alarm-frantic and […]

Son Raw wrote a think-piece and killed three releases in one review. I don’t like writing about music as if it were fashion. Some people may find it to be a useful parallel but reducing the meaning of music to the same base level as the endless commercial cycles clothing manufacturers use to hawk their […]

Son Raw is out his head Whoa, what’s gotten into Joker? Apparently the middling reviews for The Vision have lit a fire under the young producer because he’s been knocking tunes out of the park recently with this remix of Redlight’s latest rave revival being no exception. In an interesting twist, he appropriates Brostep’s stuttering […]

The dubstep of 04-07 has gone the way of rap made exactly a decade prior, but that doesn’t mean that it still can’t deliver a frozen rope smack to the nostrils. Hence, Joker and Skream form as Parma Violets (this is or will be a new Sativa strain?) to bring the candy-colored bass assault that […]

Sach O is currently wearing a purple T-shirt. Reactions to Joker’s debut album haven’t matched the thunderous of his early singles but this isn’t necessarily as dramatic as some would have you believe. Yes – he took a risk and it didn’t quite work out but why release an album otherwise? Underground dance music lives […]

Bristol and Gary might be polar opposites, but purple connoisseurs like Gibbs and Joker can easily find common ground. Between “The Vision” and “Highway to Hell,” the former is fast becoming the go-to vanquisher for these electrocution bass cuts. The reasons are pretty simple. You need a wrath of God voice to cut through the […]