The new school of “chuck it all in and give it a good stir” drum ‘n’ tronica
Who He?
Londoner Dan Clarke is a man who understands the value of decent kitchen sink. In it all goes, electro, hip hop, grime, garage and drum ‘n’ bass and out pops ‘Blink’, the juicy first fruit from your new favourite electronic magpie.
Why Zaflon?
“No matter how authentic the tune starts out, whether it be drum ‘n’ bass, hip hop or post-rock, it always ends up as a mutated, bastardised version of what it originally was,” says Clarke, who is set to release his debut EP in late November. First listen to ‘Blink’ says it’s drum ‘n’ bass like the olden days. Kentucky’s self-proclaimed genre chameleon Mina Fedora on floaty vocals over Clarke’s swollen chord rumble intro is all Diane Charlemagne… but not for long. Acid squelching, runaway sequencers, ocean of strings and in among it all little glistening pools of melody. Dark, crisp and sharp, it’s quite the delight.
Tell Us More
As an in-demand producer and engineer, he should know a thing or two about picking a pair of pipes having worked with some serious up and coming types including left-field voice of choice, Jamie Woon, and fast rising soulboy Royce Wood Junior. And yet the cornerstone sample is, apparently, the work song of a Korowai man. The Korowai, who live in isolation mainly in tree houses in southeastern Papua, were oblivious to the existence of anyone else in the world until the 1970s. Just imagine the state of their record collection. We’ll be posting Zaflon’s newie to them forthwith.
