Grime Int'l: a few of the current grime musicians from around the world

May 24, 2014 3:30 PM

Grime is an electronic music style that is largely regional, associated most strongly with the Bow/E3 district of London (prime example: Wiley - "Bow E3"), but in recent years, grime has grown in style and station, moving out from London and expanding to Canada, Australia, Japan and beyond. (NOTE: audio is likely to be NSFW to some degree)

Fact Mag -- 10 grime producers to watch in 2014:

1. Moleskin (interview; Soundcloud; Mixcloud; blog) -- Moleskin: "I like the sense of mystique. Tracks like "At Sea" represent something real - like it's describing a scene or something"
2. JT the Goon (interview; JTtG production mix; JT's tracks in mixes on Mixcloud) -- producer of "a slew of synth-led solo instrumentals"
3. Flava D (tagged posts on Da Grime Princess; Soundcloud; Mixcloud; Bandcamp) -- "hailed as garage’s fresh new hope ... [with] a wealth of spiky edits" on Soundcloud
4. Murlo (interview; Soundcloud; Mixcloud; Last Dance EP and Quartz EP on Bandcamp) -- "splashy, spring-loaded, soca-infused instrumental grime sounds like a four-dimensional double-rainbow climbing out of your speakers, with added flutes"
5. Gage (interview; Soundcloud; Bokah mix) -- Telo/Shiftin was "one of 2014′s most anticipated grime singles"
6. AWE (interview; Soundcloud; Zachary Urman previously produced as Zaku Chan, with his music on Soundcloud and Bandcamp) -- "Imagine if Rustie relocated to Los Angeles and fell hopelessly in love with a pink stuffed animal and you’ll be on the right track – it’s blissfully cheesy, but anchored with beats that are simply hard to fuck with"
7. Inkke (interview; Soundcloud; album on Bandcamp) & DJ Milktray (interview; Soundcloud) -- "they don’t necessarily come as a pair, but the Glasgow pals do collaborate (most notably on the brilliant ’848′), and both look set to capitalise on a steady stream of 2013 hype this year"
8. Dark0 (interview; Soundcloud; Bandcamp; Tumblr with auto-loading audio and a link to a mixtape) -- "has come a long way since crafting R&B-sniping, 2-steppers like ‘Hyli’ a few years back. [His mixtape] featured plenty of sawtoothed bangers [and] showed off Dark0′s hand at birthing technicolor synth melodies"
9. Shriekin’ (Specialist) (bio and a mixtape; Soundcloud; Mixtape with some Shriekin' tracks and remixes) -- "honing the ‘cloud grime’ touted on 2013′s ‘Last / Evening’ single (on Little League Records) into a brasher, bolshier aesthetic that’s as ambitious as that of any of his elders"
10. Wen (interview; Soundcloud) -- "exploring the dread of early dubstep with – as Joe Moynihan pointed out - a gift for suspending disembodied vocals in the ether"

Despite the fact that grime has spread to a world-wide style, the Fact Mag list is very England-centric. To balance that, here's an article from The Independent on "grime going local," with a focus on (and an interview with) the Canadian musician known as Tre Mission, who gave away his first album (direct download linked in there; stream and download individual tracks on Soundcloud).

For an earful of grime as informed from another location, check out Fatima Al Qadiri's "distroid" sound ("a combination of disturbing, dystopian, android and steroid," as coined by Adam Harper). You can hear her second EP, Desert Strike, in full on Soundcloud, which has a different sound from her debut album, as found in Dragon Tattoo, Shanghai Freeway, and Shanzhai featuring Helen Feng, which is a nonsense Cantonese cover of Prince and Rosie Gaines's Nothing Compares 2 U. That album, Asiatisch, earned her a well-regarded place in the tiny sub-genre of sinogrime. The there are her "Second Life day trip" music video.

Two last specific artists of interest: Strict Face, from Australia, who is giving away three compilations of "Birthday Riddims", with the third volume on Bandcamp. And then there's Taquilacci from Japan (a few words and a link to an EP; Soundcloud).

There's still a broad world of (free!) grime to discover. Enjoy your journey!

Parting note and perhaps another interesting way to browse grime musicians: in September 2013, there was a furious few days of world-wide producing, rhyming and remixing by names big and small, following a tweet that stared off the War Dubs. Grime Forum has an extensive listing of the resulting tracks.

posted by filthy light thief (17 comments total)

Excellent roundup! I remember some time back when Dizzee Rascal came on the scene and briefly brought grime into the spotlight. I'm also a huge fan of The Bug, who has done some excellent work.
posted by Frobenius Twist at 3:39 PM on May 24, 2014

Great post. Today I learned Grime's still around - I would have assumed it would have evolved three sub genres down by now. Nice.

I still listen to Dizzee Rascal's and Wiley's first albums 10 years later, and they still stand up well.
posted by sektah at 3:44 PM on May 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

Ooh, the Fatima Al Qadiri tracks are rather lovely.
posted by scruss at 3:57 PM on May 24, 2014

Slackk is another one of my favorite of the wave of grime producers that are doing stuff these days. This track from a release he put out last year is immense, and by no means the only good thing he's done so far.
posted by sparkletone at 4:21 PM on May 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

If you're going out I'm going out too
posted by jcruelty at 4:41 PM on May 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

Previously.
posted by effbot at 4:52 PM on May 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

Great post as usual on one of my favorite genres.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:11 PM on May 24, 2014

My favorite track from the first wave of grime:
posted by Divest_Abstraction at 6:17 PM on May 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

Wow grime is not a common topic among my friends and I'm a major poser but it feels like a major coincidence that I was thinking about the Run the Road Comps completely out of the blue for the first time in forever today!

My favorite song was Riko and Target "Chosen One".
posted by SharkParty at 7:03 PM on May 24, 2014

superb!
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 7:14 PM on May 24, 2014

Very cool! Can't wait to dig into these links. This is all new to me.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:53 PM on May 24, 2014

Great post. Thank you!
posted by greenhornet at 8:58 PM on May 24, 2014

Thanks for the kind words.

I listened to a Run the Road comp a while back and I found it sound dated. Like sektah, I kind of assumed grime had fractured into a dozen sub-genres, like dnb producer DJ Zinc slowing things down with his "crack house" style.

Then I heard Tre Mission's new track, "Stigmata," which starts out with what could be a pop electronic track, then gets into stuttering beats and rapid-fire vocals that definitely sound like some form of grime. I searched for more info on him, and I was stoked that he still had his debut album up for free, even after he signed with Big Dada for three albums, considering that Young Fathers had their free first album pulled and re-issued for sale by Anticon.

Anyway, if you want to dig for more (old) grime gold, you can dig around the 'net to find Wiley's eleven volumes of "leaked" material from back in 2011. Most of the links to the archives are dead, but I think you can still find the tracks around and about.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:40 PM on May 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

man that tre mission track is great , FLT
posted by raihan_ at 10:01 PM on May 24, 2014

I met Fatima Al Qadiri on Friday night.

WOI.
posted by ACair at 12:51 AM on May 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

It kinda already spun off dubstep, which was kind of a Frankenstein's monster mix of grime and two step.
posted by empath at 4:30 AM on May 25, 2014

I like the top chizz-flixxers in the mectasm funge scene.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 6:13 AM on May 25, 2014 [1 favorite]