Veröffentlicht
Nov 11, 2024
- A dubstep legend roars back.
- When dubstep ruled the roost in the late '00s, electronic music had no shortage of icons and spin-offs to rally around. But one rumble from Bristol stood out: the Purple sound. Popularised by Joker, AKA Liam McLean, with Guido and Gemmy in support, their twist hit like a beam of bright light flooding through the basement dank. And when America cottoned onto bass quakes in the next decade, McLean's taste for chiptune-coded synths and maximum intensity sustained his vision at arena level, even while he retreated from view as an actively touring performer.
Dubstep has been flush with renewed energy in 2024; following Beatrice M. last week, this is our second dubstep podcast in a row, which would have seemed a remote possibility only a few years ago. Even with a new wave of artists on the up, what's clear is how much Joker's style still has the capacity to put us in a headlock.
This year's gargantuan single, "Juggernaut," crashes through the speakers with as much glorious crunch as earlier classics like 2009's "Purple City," and it's fundamentally a pleasure to have such an influential producer back in the hot seat. McLean has kept busy in the studio applying his perfectionist streak as a producer and engineer to many a sound system anthem, which means his touch is never far from a dance floor being turned inside out.
The fact that Joker had never laid down an RA Podcast before was, in honesty, a blemish in our copybook. RA.962 fixes that in style. As well as tons of fresh IDs from producers in his circle, there's classic '00s sublow, sharp edits of everything from "Gabriel" to "Hyper! (Hype the Funk)" and, in a moment of pure flair, the rousing horns and drum fills of Duke Ellington's "Caravan" mixed seamlessly into some wobble. Turning Whiplash a rich shade of Purple? It could only be Joker.
How and where was the mix recorded? And can you tell us the idea behind it?
The only thing I'll prepare is this mix that I've done for you. I usually play in front of a crowd, and I never know what I'm going to play until I hit go. Maybe I'll have an idea about a few songs that can mix well together, and if the atmosphere needs changing you can do that. Sometimes I'm the only guy on the lineup playing 140-ish dubstep and grime. What I have to bring is my USB stick and my own energy to feed off. I won't pack tunes I don't like, but if you commit to a blend, you have to see it through even if you realise it's off-key—like, "you know what, this isn't the best, but we've started it now." Whereas here, I've sat down and gone through lots of ideas, tested new stuff out and had a lot of fun.
Earlier in 2024 you released your first solo single in six years, and this is your first studio mix in at least seven. Walk us through your approach to perfecting mixdowns—do you know when a piece of work has gone as far as you can take it?
Nothing's ever perfect, but we should still try and strive for perfection. Sometimes things will feel good, and it's quite easy to take an idea to a very good point really quickly, but you will know something's missing to the point where it feels incomplete—so you want to keep going in. A lot of this comes down to acoustics, how deeply the room allows you to hear. If you're exercising loads of options and a tune is relatively thumbs-up but you're just hitting your head against the wall, then maybe it's time to call it a day. Do you know what I mean?
A point worth making is that something can sound like money and it's not a bad thing. I don't think music being mixed shit makes music bad—my favourite music as a kid was garage and grime. You had amazing tunes coming from both camps, but with grime, there was only a handful of people who had access to hardware or a decent studio. It was a lot of people on bad computers making vibes without the idea of an EQ or compressor ever coming into it. Garage had labels and more adults involved, so it sounded cleaner. But then you compared it to hip-hop and R&B, and even as a kid, my brain would be going: "why is that crusty, and why does that sound like money?"
Higher quality studios, engineers, room acoustics, speaker setup—you should look at all of it, and study to try to get a little bit good in each field, then you'll end up in a place where you're able to manipulate audio in your own certain way.
What's one club or party that had a major impact on you as an artist?
It's a hard one, as I guess there's loads. But the main one that's coming to my head right now is Subloaded, one of the first nights I played for Pinch. At the time I was still 100 percent a grime kid with dubplates, going to certain clubs where some people think there's going to be violence involved. This was different. People were here for the music—you could just go there and play rhythms and see people nodding their head, listening deep. A few MCs but mostly DJs. It seems normal when I say it to you now, it's close to home when everything gets grouped together as 140, but back then it was not normal for the music I was involved in. It was very sick.
Skrillex has been a long standing supporter of your work, and your collaboration "Tears" was a big moment in 2023. Does it change your approach to making tunes at all, knowing that they could end up getting aired to enormous crowds in America and worldwide?
The world's always there and there's always a chance for anything to happen. The best I can do is be on top of my own thing. Let me put it this way: I like driving cars, drifting around a racetrack, and I like to do dirt jumps too. But jumps on a bike are a lot scarier than even driving a car at 120 miles an hour sideways, because if you fly off, it's going to hurt. Doing back flips and 360s and jumping off buildings sounds sick in your head, but the risk makes it scary, right? In music, nothing hurts. So we should be trying to do back flips while jumping off buildings, all day, shouldn't we? Walk through the flames and allow yourself to go that bit further, make a tune that bit crazier, because you'll be fine. Do that jump.
If you had to mirror another Purple legend and change your name to a symbol, what symbol would it be?
A push bike. Just me flying on a bike, like fucking E.T.