Carl Craig and Djammin

The man you see in the picture above is pretty much singlehandedly responsible for Drum and Bass being the genre we know it to be today. Whether you’re into the music or not that kind of innovation should be respected, but like any innovator worth their salt, Carl Craig didn’t just stop there and rest on his laurels. Hailing from Detroit it was his 1992 single Bug in the Bassbin that paved the way for Drum and bass as we know it but since then he’s been branching out, taking his Techno bedrock and adding samples and influences from Jazz and Soul to give his sound an earthier, more natural feel. The best way of seeing this is in his live shows, where he seems to perform from a decently sized home studio and improvises over synth hooks, pitched up samples from world music, drums breaks half inched from Funk and general electronic weirdness. Needless to say it’s a pretty incredible sight, flying in the face of those who claim that DJ’s can produce nothing but vacuous EDM or other people’s songs. This is Techno as art. The same way Radiohead is Rock as art or MF Doom is Rap as art, and it’s as much a treat for the head as it is for the heart and the dancing shoes. Highly recommended.