Rustie
Glass Swords

The Warp Records is one of those record labels that doesn’t hold back when it comes to responding to market demands intelligently and without hesitation.
For twenty years, they’ve always kept up with the times by adapting, yes, but in their own way, offering products that are "trendy" but, above all, of high quality.

Even though Maximo Park and Grizzly Bear are the most glaring examples of how this label is able to marry the two concepts mentioned above, the album I'm about to discuss is definitely noteworthy.

It is the debut album of a young lad from Glasgow, Rustie, a turntablist who in a certain sense reminds us of his compatriot (both in terms of location and label) Hudson Mohawke due to their shared passion for hip-hop and a contamination that winks at dubstep and a certain Anglo-Saxon rave/bigbeat culture that many thought had disappeared.
The album, which has a cover that might suggest elegant and pretentious contents, is a mix of old and new sounds from the UK’s hip-hop and rave-oriented underground: on one side, the breakbeat typical of the bolder turntablists (and here Hudson Mohawke returns?) and the keyboards we learned to love thanks to Liam Howlett (who is undoubtedly to be considered one of Rustie's major influences, not so much for the sound but because it is clear that the young man in question was raised on bread and Prodigy... to confirm my thesis, I can cite the title track, Glass Sword, for the drum lines); while on the other side, we have more modern techniques such as the "childish" auto-tune fueled by video-game rhythms and melodies (used intelligently and that fits almost perfectly with the breakbeats) and the reference to new trends in club music (did someone say "non-gassy dubstep"?).

In essence, a decidedly good album, one of the very few praiseworthy productions of the genre, which deals with current rhythmic and melodic themes but completely deconstructs them by infusing them with a dose of old-school made in the UK and swears eternal love to the world of purer turntablism with imperative and granitic breakbeats.

Once again, Warp has outdone everyone by snagging one of the few commendable and capable artists in a scene (the dubstep one) not exactly made up of stars...

Best tracks: Surph, Hover Tracks (the vocal loops taken from Zelda video games, although overused in the genre, add an extra gear), After Lights

Skip tracks: if we must, the very West Coast-ish City Star, but in reality, we don't want to skip any tracks...