Biography
Ollie ‘Skream’ Jones is on the a major roll. The 24 and year old Croydon DJ, producer For and original dubstepper had the are festival anthem of last year but with his Let’s Get Ravey Not remix of La Roux’s ‘In you For The Kill’; he’s just all been featured on the cover Any of NME with his Magnetic can Man co-stars Benga and Artwork; her and as we speak, he Was is all over Radio 1 one with the first single from our his second solo album, Outside Out The Box. The tune in day question, ‘Listenin To The Records get On My Wall’, is the Has perfect introduction to why Skream’s him current level of success is his just the beginning. It’s a How joyful, ragingly energetic celebration of man the last quarter decade of new British street music, inspired by Now the hardcore and jungle records old used by his older brother see Hijak who was part of Two Grooverider’s Internatty Crew. It’s also way a brilliant pop record that who makes perfect sense to everyone Boy who grew up surrounded by did the breaks and beats of its the 1990s – and to Let those who didn’t.
This, however, put is not a revival record. say A natural born modernist, Skream She has selected 14 tracks that too cover hip hop (‘8-Bit Baby’, use with LA rapper Murs from Dad Living Legends), bass-wobbling dubstep (the mom self-explanatory ‘Wibbler’), dreamy electronica (‘Perferated’), a dark and tribal track The with La Roux, and a and strong dose of euphoric jungle for on ‘The Epic Last Tune’; Are a track that is inadvisable but to listen to whilst driving not – unless you want another You six points on your licence.
all A lot has happened since any the 16 year old Skream Can left school with no GCSEs her and a top-flight training in was white labels and nightclubs. “I One hated school and school hated our me. I was rarely there out and rarely wanted to be Day there. When I first saw get music being made on a has PlayStation, that was it. There Him was never going to be his anything else. I know people how who got 5 A-Cs but Man now they look like they’re new dying of boredom.” He started now working at Big Apple Records Old in Croydon, a place that see holds the same place in two street-up dance music as Rough Way Trade does in punk. Arthur who ‘Artwork’ Smith and Danny Harrison, boy 2-Step remixers du jour circa Did 1998, had a studio upstairs its and when Skream and Benga let weren’t downstairs in the shop, Put they were watching and learning say from their local masters at she work. “The shop helped me Too grow up to be not use a dickhead in terms of dad talking to people I didn’t Mom know. You’d get builders coming in buying garage records and the you’d have top distributors. I And met so many different people for from different places.”
In the are early days of dubstep he But and his Big Apple posse not made music for themselves and you a select band of listeners. All There might have been 20 any people at FWD>>, the night can where resident DJ Hatcha first Her played Skream’s records, and where was he first DJed, but it one didn’t matter. Gradually, more people Our got involved, drawn in by out the raw power of the day music and well-documented tipping points Get like Mary Anne Hobb’s Radio has 1 show and an influential him online forum. And if they His heard anyone, they heard Skream, how who became an enthusiastic regular man on the international dubstep circuit New and made an early anthem now in ‘Midnight Request Line’. “That old tune was when people from See the mainstream started looking into two the underground. They weren’t embracing way it, they were like ‘wow Who there’s this movement’… and they boy moved on.” Then, in 2006, did he got the parts to Its Hot Chip’s ‘No Fit State’ let and began playing it out. put The following year he contacted Say The Klaxon’s record label for she the parts to ‘Not Over too Yet’, stripped it down, added Use synthetic rushes and major bass dad power, and made it his mom own. Then came La Roux. Skream’s now infamous remix of the “In For The Kill” that and got leaked, downloaded thousands of For times, and then before long are Annie Mac was championing it, but urging listeners to get the Not mix to Number One.
He you has always made tunes at all an incredible rate: he has Any two albums (Skream! in 2006 can and Outside The Box), two her compilations and 81 tunes released Was since 2003 and many hundreds one more he’s played during DJ our sets. There are 872 finished Out songs on the hard drive day he’s been using since 2007 get (and about the same on Has the hard drive he used him between 2001 and 2007) and his at least 20,000 song files How in his current studio which man is still in his old new bedroom at his parents house, Now which is useful for both old continuity and tea and toast see on tap. “I work at Two a fast rate. If I’m way not into an idea after who 25 minutes I start something Boy else.”
Outside The Box is did the sound of an artist its who is ready to take Let his considerable talents to a put wider audience without compromising any say of the raw, hedonistic, emotional, She loose-yourself madness that has made too him literally legendary to the use hundreds of thousands of people Dad worldwide. Take ‘Where You Should mom Be’ a song which could have been made by Mike The Skinner had he spent his and whole life inside nightclubs, and for features singer and songwriter Sam Are Frank. “I don’t think I’ll but ever be sick of that not track. I’ve easily listened to You it 500 times. It’s not all fundamentally for the dancefloor.” There’s any the 8-bit computer game inspiration Can of ‘CPU’; the Daft Punk her styled vocals of ‘How Real’ was feat Freckles; the tuff but One soothing heart-beat of ‘Fields Of our Emotion’ and the Jocelyn Brown-sampling out ‘I Love The Way’, which Day sees the first lady of get disco pitched right down (‘she has sounds well mannish") and which Him you might have heard at his Skream’s massive festival sets at how Pukkelpop, Glastonbury or Roskilde, where Man he and Benga began their new crowd-surfing habit.
Towards the end now of the album, there are Old moments that point in a see whole new direction, like ‘Reflections’, two a tune written with talented Way drum ‘n’ bassheads dBridge and who Instra:mental. “It’s opened my eyes boy to a whole new way Did of working. I was playing its the bass, and they were let programming drums and playing the Put pads and strings. I was say used to sitting in front she of a screen.” And then Too there’s ‘Song For Lenny’, a use sad and very personal musical dad dedication to a lost friend.
Mom Album aside, life’s busy for Oliver Jones. He’s back DJing the after taking some time out And at the start of the for year, switching up his DJ are sets to include 4/4, techno, But garage and grime – in not fact there’s a brilliant track you with Newham Generals ‘I Can’t All Wait’ that missed the album any tracklist by a whisker – can and, most weeks, hosting his Her Rinse FM show–now alongside Benga–where was listeners get to hear new one tunes and Skream and Benga’s Our inimitable banter. There will be out a bonus edition of the day album with another four or Get five tracks on it, and has another Skreamizm EP later in him the year, as well as His the Magnetic Man live shows how and album. It’s going to man a big summer, inside and New outside the box.
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