Just as any good mother or nagging auntie will tell you, pride always comes before a fall. In terms of music blogging, it’s the arrogance that you may begin to feel like you’ve finally conquered the mountain of new sounds that have been swirling about, that you may just about be coming to terms with all the best and most exciting noises being made. But then, just at your arrogant peak, you stumble across something so ridiculously good so stupidly late that it almost makes you question whether it’s all been worth it at all.
it only takes about 20 seconds of XXXY’s ‘You Always Start It’ to make you forget that you’re nowhere near as on the ball as you once thought, and only a few moments more before you’re completely submerged. Beautifully tagged as ‘Not Fucking Future Garage’ on soundcloud, in less than 3 weeks it’s already amassed over 5,000 plays – figures most other bedroom producers would sell their Macbook for in a moment. Whether or not the term post-dubstep is more or less offensive, it still seems largely ill fitting – this is a man possessing the same ear for a beat and ability to mesh together a tune as Star Slinger, though perhaps with J Dilla perhaps a less prominent role. Just when you thought every nook and cranny of Manchester that you hadn’t heard was filled with by the numbers indie pop and balladeers with acoustic guitars, it turns out there’s a superstar lurking not so inconspicuously in the mist.
XXXY – You Always Start It
[soundcloud] [featured on mind on fire's 'great minds' compilation]
