The rise of drum and bass producer Wilkinson is probably only a couple of asteroids short of being meteoric. He first came to attention with a tidy release on the Hospital Records compilation Sick Music 2, a cute, uplifting, number entitled ‘Hypnosis’, which despite being one of the better tunes on the compilation seemed to slip under the radar somewhat. As a result, when he was signed exclusively to (arguably) the biggest drum and bass label in the business, Ram Records, many brows were furrowed and several ribs were nudged. “Who’s this Wilkinson fella?” we muttered incredulously. “He’s just signed for Ram, apparently. But who on earth is he?”
I guess this is testament both to Ram’s knack for spotting unpolished talent, and also to the relative uselessness of drum and bass watchers (i.e. me). For what followed was rather astonishing. His first single, released in 2010, was called ‘Moonwalker’. Innocuous enough title, you may think, but deary deary me. Hell fire and brimstone. When I first heard it, I was, like everyone else, completely unprepared. Consequently, when that drill-like synth and those space-age beeps came whirling out of my speakers, my face melted like Swiss cheese on a George Foreman and my eyes widened to the size of Mystic Meg’s crystal ball. It was quite simply one of the biggest tunes of the year, and it came out of absolutely nowhere. Then, on the other hand, we’ve had releases like ‘Tonight’, which refrain from liquefying your face and instead lull it into a blissful state of hands-in-the-air euphoria. Thus, we have the two main styles of Wilkinson’s music: the face destroying (Moonwalker, Overdose, et al) and the face soothing (Tonight, Every Time, and so on). This is not to say that the face soothing is not dancefloor orientated: it absolutely is. With these few singles under his belt, both approaches have now been thrown into a melting pot, the result of which is his debut album, ‘Lazers Not Included’.
With this, Wilkinson becomes the latest drum and bass producer to poke his head above the parapet of mainstream success. It has become somewhat of a blasphemy to do this recently, as, in drum and bass circles, mainstream success is now almost instantly associated with selling out: with betraying your ‘original’ fans for money and wider recognition. This is, of course, utter nonsense in most cases, and is even less the case with this album. The majority of the ‘face soothing’ tunes on here absolutely sparkle. ‘Afterglow’ is the obvious contender for such a critic-bashing, having reached No. 8 in the UK Charts, but it is a superb, dreamy affair, with Becky Hill (the one off The Voice) layering a pleasant vocal over a stunning arrangement of sparse breaks and deep bass. If Rudimental gave Calibre a massage, it might sound like this. Further down the tracklist, ‘Need to Know’ features a nice guitar intro, reminiscent of Marky and Stamina’s seminal ‘LK’, before the deep, smooth bass and euphoric synth take over. ‘Take You Higher’ and the vinyl only ‘Casino’ fit into this mould rather well too, and it is all very well done: laser (or, more aptly, ‘Lazer’) precise and skilfully arranged.
The ‘face destroying’ sound is well covered as well. For instance, ‘Like It Hard’ is a brutal, swinging Dillinja-esque affair, while I expect listening to ‘Sleepless’ on an even half-decent sound-system will induce a facial expression not dissimilar to the one depicted in Edward Munch’s painting of The Scream. In fact, the bad parts of this album are very few and far between. There is only one tune on it that I heartily dislike: ‘Heartbeat’, with P Money and Arlissa on vocals. I’m not sure if it’s trying to be a moody, grime tinged clash or a no nonsense drumstep banger, and in the end it unsatisfactorily ends up being neither. Even if it succeeded in being one or the other, I probably still wouldn’t like it. The fusion of grime and drum and bass has never sat well with me for some reason, and neither has drumstep. But this doesn’t really matter. For the real selling point of this album is that Wilkinson’s seamless standard of production permeates through at every turn, oozing through both the face destroying and face soothing sounds. I don’t like ‘Heartbeat’, but to deny it is expertly produced would be as silly as removing your trousers in the middle of a shopping mall.
All in all then, this LP is simultaneously a very good drum and bass album and a very good breakthrough album. It achieves a happy (and hard to achieve, it should be said) balance between the fizzy, over-polished sound of the likes of DJ Fresh and Sub Focus and the dark, gritty sounds of Dillinja and Mampi Swift. As a consequence, it is easy to recommend, whatever style of electronic music you may happen to be into. So, dear readers, pick it up and give it a listen. You may be pleasantly surprised.
Words: Matthew Scott
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