Often the best dance music is utilitarian in its approach. Rather than stroking the chin, you are in fact flailing about demented as if possessing two broken legs is the best thing that has happened to you.
One man named Rustie is such a producer making the bandy legs break. Having been born as an artist into the turbulent slipstream influence of Modeselektor, Three 6 Mafia, Phon.o and MIA, he is wasting no time in hacking up the shadows of his heroes and reprogramming them into a bastard offspring which channels devilish musical filth into massive dancefloor cuts.
“Glasgow has one of the best, most enthusiastic audiences in the world without a doubt.”
It’s hard to define Rustie’s music. He likes the description “Bass fuelled party aquacrunk”. And although this may be too much a mouthful for Terry Wogan, it’s unlikely his ragga, glitch, rap-assassinated crunky techno is going to get anywhere near Radio 2’s airwaves. Not for 30 odd years anyway.
His formative influences are as wide as they come, as he reveals: “To start with it was Beatles, Kraftwerk, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young, David Bowie, Led Zepplin, Black Sabbath – at a very young age. When I got a bit older I got into stuff like Nirvana, Beastie Boys, Rage Against the Machine…”
Yet it’s his production idols that reveal the fathoms at which he obsessively cuts and pastes his sonic collage – when he says: “Drexciya, Neptunes, Timbaland, Jay Dilla, Prefuse 73, Machinedrum, Modeselektor, the whole grime and dubstep thing, crunk, hyphy or anything else I hear that I think is sick.”
On the same timeline it’s been Glasgow’s nightlife that has firmly gripped him. It’s a place that’s always had a rich vein of excellent live music dating back for years and years; evidenced through many a famous band. These days the passion is still there but underneath the legends of Franz Ferdinand and Primal Scream the electronic scene bubbles weekly at higher temperatures than most places in the world.
Rustie continues: “Glasgow has one of the best, most enthusiastic audiences in the world without a doubt. And people in Glasgow like to party and electronic music can be perfect for that. Also there are a few really dedicated nights on the go that continue to bring amazing guests down every month and there’s pretty much something on every week that’s going to be decent.”
“Being a relatively small city, lots of people know each other and the numbers in attendance at nights stay quite healthy, mostly through word of mouth and Internet forums. Plus hearing DJ and live sets from the best artists from all round the globe on a regular basis definitely raises my standards and sets the bar high.”
Rustie’s first proper vinyl release comes at the hands of Wireblock, a new imprint from the Rubadub boys, one of Europe’s most consistent underground music retailers. However this debut release belies his various seminal club sets, a rip-roaring exchange in online forums and slick cyber representation and dissemination. Back on wax he has also been asked to remix a forthcoming Modeselektor track, a current option for immortality, whilst Kid606 has commissioned a track for his Tigerbeat label.
Elsewhere there’s a few tunes that will be out on new label Dressed To Sweat recordings whilst Phon.o, Berlin’s other Godfather of glitched up acid dancehall, gets a remix on Alex Smoke’s new imprint ‘Hum And Haw’ which promises even more Caledonian sewn splendour.
Rustie, it seems, is anything but what his moniker suggests.