- A sharp blend of grime, garage, UK funky and Afro house that distills the sounds of London into a powerful, punchy LP.
- Tesfa Williams has lived many musical lives. Not enough people know that he was behind some of early grime's great instrumentals—including "Invasion"—under the name DJ Dread D, back when he was part of the Blacks Op crew and people were calling that specific style of post-UK-garage "sublow." Fast forward a decade and he's making prescient Afrobeats-influenced house as part of Deep Teknologi, plus low-key anthems like "Heartbeat," the first release on Local Action that just received the lavish reissue and remix treatment it deserves.
Williams has wandered a sort of musical wilderness in the time since, touching on crossover house, pop and even returning to retro grime, but nothing ever seemed to quite stick. The solution? Put it all together. Raves Of Future Past, described by Williams as "the album I wanted to make when I was 20 years old, but didn’t know how," chases its muse to every corner of UK underground dance music, combining the giddy spirit of a young artist with the skills of someone who's been at it for longer than most of their peers.
The title might make Raves Of Future Past seem like a purely retro exercise, as might the gut-punching, sublow-influenced UK garage on opener "Deepest Vibe." But the album feels more like a survey of London's current landscape as much as it is Williams' personal history with dance music. The track that follows, "Climbing Purple," has more in common with the capital's Afro house scene than the UK funky it references, with the boxy snares buffered by quivering basslines and the shove of gqom (plus a decadent breakdown). The sound of Raves Of Future Past, which Williams puts down to his use of his new Elektron Digitakt, is something like a marvel of engineering, mimicking the literal griminess of early '00s UK dance music with lush production values. It's hard to get snares as dirty and cutting as on "Jammy," but even harder to pair them with hi-def, spaced-out synths.
There are lots of unique combinations on Raves Of Future Past, like "Cheery Cola," which can't seem to decide what genre it wants to be. It's built on tinny melodic leads, ear-shredding snares and hats, with a mischievous breakbeat touch that aligns it with the playful yet undeniably banging work of the YCO crew further north in England. The Burning Spear-sampling "Garvey Words" is best described as breakcore dub, and Williams showcases some guns-blazing drum choppage on "She Loves" and "Love All You Squares," the latter furnished with a gut-punching grime square wave bassline.
The LP is so breathless that it ends up feeling like the rare backloaded album, hurtling excitedly towards a climax of vintage junglism and UK hardcore fusion with "You Will See." That one is built around a sample of the Four Tops' "A Simple Game," connecting Williams's own rave revivalism with an even older form of soul, some kind of retrofuturistic sleight of hand. But it doesn't really sound like he's stuck wishing for bygone eras. By flexing both his muscle and knowledge, Williams shows that can he outproduce any kid out there with the hardest, fastest UK stuff in the game.
Tracklist01. Deepest Vibe
02. Climbing Purple
03. Step In 2
04. Jammy
05. Cheery Coke
06. T-4000
07. Love All You Squares
08. She Loves
09. Aggy
10. Garvey Words
11. Set Trends
12. You Will See