Mikal - Immaterial EP - Data Transmission

Label: MetalheadzScore: 8/10

You know how you pique my interest? Do a collab with Break. So what has Metalheadz man Mikal gone and done? You guessed it… exactly bloody that. Interest is piqued further when the tune is a glorious riot of a stomper. Mikal opens his latest EP, Immaterial, with the formidable Status Low. A tune that takes your face and crumples it like paper. A tune that grabs you by the ears and steadfastly refuses to let go like some playground bully. The lead riff is deadly, the drums are hard and precise, shuffles fill the space where the snare punches through and the bass line is weighty.

As if anything else was to be expected. Collaborations come again in the form of Clear, featuring Nymfo, a gutteral steppy affair and title track Immaterial is a percussive workout, riddled with breaks and rides and blissed out vocals to tame the edges ever so slightly. Killa Soundboy is a brutal 2-step riddim, pitched ragga vocals in amonsgt the ratttling drum patterns. Cool, if not my favourite of all that’s on offer here. Nevertheless, a strong all round selection presented by Mikal. Status Low has been on my oft-repeated list for a while and with good reason.

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Grahame Farmer

Grahame Farmer’s love affair with electronic music goes back to the mid-90s when he first began to venture into the UK’s beloved rave culture, finding himself interlaced with some of the country’s most seminal club spaces. A trip to dance music’s anointed holy ground of Ibiza in 1997 then cemented his sense of purpose and laid the foundations for what was to come over the next few decades of his marriage to the music industry.