sound off surrey

Jamies Bea

As an in-house engineer for one of London's top underground studios, and a local favourite on dub DAB stations, J.B. has donned secret disguise and is bringing his unique blend of deep-electronica and indie-pop songwriting to the masses. His first track, the upbeat sizzler 'tw10' (named for his favorite postal area in the capitol) has innovation written all over it, from the stylistic sub-throb of the re-taped 909's and funk guitar, effortlessly melting into roomverb-drenched vocals and sonic squelches of abrupt, abstract bleeps, blips and blops. Then there's 'sound off surrey, a ballad-tastic slower groover, combines more of the experimental, surprising production elements into an even catchier, poppier, saxophone-laiden ambient masterpiece. More recently, he put out his take on r&b-meets-alternative-ambience in the shape of 'dreams', a full-on glitch-soul sound incorporating live drum sounds, his signature deep-tuned bass and an infection melody, a modern-day cult classic and this years answer to 'Jasmine'. When asked about his sound, he simply shrubs and, without a pause of though, simply utters, "Not sure, just what I hear, you know, before I make it appear". Recently, he added an upbeat, ear-piercing, percussive-drenched funk-hop-step blistering banger to his page, entitled 'right way', quite ironically on Christmas Eve. Fans felt he was offering them an evening present. Others felt he was merely trolling them. His thoughts? "When I fixed the phase issues on the multi-tracks, sorted the crest factor of the master and balanced the RMS levels, as things turned out, it wasn't that long 'till Santa was going to arrive. It seemed like it was time to let the track go." Just before Easter (one week to be precise) he uploaded what could be described as his most ambitious offering yet, a funk-tastic, downtempo, chilled-out bubbler of a hit, drowning in tape-like warmth, saturation and darkness, with tight, polished, minimal and modern edge. "That track came out quite quickly, but it took weeks to whittle the perfect mix down. I think I must have listened to it 30 or 40 times whilst walking around, just to make sure it was bang-on." And we are all very grateful he did.