Zefer is UK Garage's Cartographer
Nathan Evans' UK garage and club music column covers the latest songs, remixes, bootlegs, mixes and albums that captures his attention. This edition features an interview Steppers Club’s Zefer, a bunch of minimal, atmopsheric garage tunes that do a lot with a little and a weird football theme. Must be the start of the season.
Cover image credit: Steppers Club
Zefer is UK Garage's Cartographer
Zefer has been mapping out the geographic edges of the UKG one project at a time. As club captain of the melodic and buoyant Steppers Club label, the London-based producer has been finding and shining a light on its global scenes through collaboration, such as the Steppers Globe project, which brought together label regulars with producers and labels from Japan, Australia, India and the USA.
Now, Steppers Club are continuing their nomadic exploration with a European tour touching down at lesser-known hubs of the genre - the first of its kind for a garage label. Looking at the stop list, it’s surprising that countries like Romania, Hungary and Poland even have garage nights at all, and it speaks to the broadness of the genre’s reach today. As we talk about K-Pop group Newjeans’ 2step hit ‘Supershy’, Zefer says, “every time I think I’ve discovered the edge of where garage has gone to, there’s always something else that’s even further removed.”
On his debut mixtape, Before It Gets Too Late, Zefer is using the same principles and bridging the lost partnership of the garage DJ and MC. It’s an idea that has been circling in his head like a Scalextric for the past three years: a soulful take on the Twice As Nice sound with KIWI Rekords’ punch and heavy feature guest presence. He’s used strategic connection-building to bring together MCs like Manga Saint Hilare, Kibo and Cheidu Oraka with UK R&B vocalists Leon Bailey, Tidah and Kadeem Tyrell. In looking to repair the fragmented relationship, he reminds producers of how the genre used to thrive.
You have your Reprezent show where you bring on MCs like Novelist to freestyle. Did being in that selector role impact how you approached this project?
I’ve had the idea for Before It Gets Too Late for three years now. When I didn’t have the reputation and was thinking of a workaround to getting in touch with MCs, I figured that if I did a show on Reprezent, I’d be able to go to them with an umbrella bigger than me. If you look at the tracklist for Before It Gets Too Late, you’ll clock that half of them have been on my show. They would come on and after I’d ask if they wanted to get in the studio, and because it was face-to-face, it was a real conversation.
There’s a theme of the mixtape reflecting on garage’s failings in the past of handling its relationship between DJs and MCs. How do you think the scene can stick together?
You don’t see as many producer/MC collabs as you should do given the roots of the genre. Where the genre is at [now] is very sample-based and it’s spun off into this massive culture around bootlegs. It’s so crazy. When I started out, I got told that being a ‘proper artist’ meant putting original music out. Now I’m seeing people build careers off of edits. I don’t see it as a bad thing, but I do think a lot of people shy away from vocal garage. I guess people find it hard to receive it if it’s not a vocal they’re familiar with or not a chopped-up classic garage vocal.
To build that relationship back up, people just need to be collaborating more. There is a stigma around rappers being difficult to work with, but that’s going to apply no matter what scene you end up collaborating with.
One thing I’ve noticed is that MCs will have their one-off garage tune but rarely do you see it being produced from somebody from the scene. There’s been Conducta with ‘Ladbroke Grove’ and Kobe JT but it’s usually their in-house producer who has a go at making a garage beat. It’s in the roots of the genre, so it’s always going to be there. It’s just about whether people want to put in that extra 10% to make it happen.
I think another reason is because it was all radio, there’s so much that’s buried or lost to history that many see it as an ephemeral relationship without concrete things to point at. Have you seen the YouTube channel Take Me Back? It has classic pirate radio freestyles from Pay As You Go Cartel, Ladies Hit Squad…
I haven’t but please send that over to me.
Do you see MCs in a live setting often?
Yung SBK is at every party I go to, that guy literally goes out six nights a week [laughs]. There’s a dilemma where they’ll show up at events where they were going anyway and then people get MCs to jump on mic, they do it anyway and then afterwards think “I probably should be getting paid for this”. They weren’t on the bill, but having them spit at your party carries a bit of weight, so they probably should be getting paid for it.
How was it working with Kibo?
He’s a funny bloke, mate [laughs]. I had him on my radio show on Reprezent nine months ago. For the session, he turned up on the bus and one of the first things he teased was the bridge where he goes “you dickheads ain’t nang enooough”. You know it’s gonna happen for him in the future.
Seeing the success he’s had over the last month or two with the Victory Lap show and the CRTZ advert. I asked if he could get me some CRTZ 310s and he said, ‘they didn’t even give me some 310s for that’ [laughs]. You need to get a lawyer, bro!
Having Manga Saint Hilare on the project too is such a statement. Was he a dream get?
Yeah, it was a privilege. There was one day in the studio where we had five artists in and were in there for fourteen hours, and he was the last person to show up. He asked, “what are we writing about?” I said, “what do you mean?” He said, “I haven’t written anything, I’m gonna write it now.” He wrote the track in an hour and did his verses each in one perfect take. It’s clear why he’s been so successful for so long.
What impact do you want this project to have ideally?
Do you know what? Over the last two or three years as a producer trying to build a label, I’ve made so many decisions to achieve a goal or unlock a door. Last summer, when I started making the mixtape, I played some festival shows with very small crowds. I went into it with massive expectations and came out questioning why I’m even doing this. The thing that helped me back was going back to a place where I’m doing things I’m passionate about. There was a lot of uncertainty around the LP, but I didn’t care. I wanted to do something that was a true reflection of what I wanted to be as an artist.
Where did the idea come from to do a European tour?
That one goes back quite far. Two years back, we decided we wanted to do more to build the international landscape of the genre and connect with people who were doing it overseas because most other genres of dance music are a lot more developed than UK garage. That’s been expressed in a lot of different ways, like with the Steppers Globe project. We found a load of places that were listening to garage through that project, and this is an extension of that.
It’s interesting to see you’re going to Eastern Europe, you don’t hear about their garage scenes.
I thought when we were looking at Eastern Europe that we’d find promoters that would cover loads of different styles, but those were way more specialist than in the countries closer to home. For the Romania show, I spoke to a guy called Angel who’s been listening to garage for 20 years and is the only one pushing garage nights in Cluj. It’s been cool finding that there are passionate people there.
The tour’s going to be the core four of Steppers Club: Zefer, Sam Deeley, Minista and Drak. Will there be any special guests?
That’s still being worked on [laughs]. We’ve spoken to some close affiliates of the label about flying them out, so something might happen yet.
TQD - there for you
Where Zefer wrestles with the album format on a mixtape, the new album from TQD - the collective name for bassline’s leading front three, Royal-T DJ Q and Flava D - keeps it simple with an unbroken sequence of high-voltage of bassline and 4x4.
The structure of there for you begs for reloads; every track ends at the top of a third breakdown that never comes, perpetuating the feeling of chasing a high that you’ll get in continual supply. Tracks begin with either those all-familiar vocal chops (‘you and i”, “nice and close”) or a guest MC (“Bright light, bodies on the ground,” PVC deadpans on “on the ground”). Breakdowns shove, blare, spray, stretch and pull with distinct character every time.
Unexpectedly, the sole lighter moment on the album may well be the finest. The unblemished keys at the start “too sweet” are a welcome comedown in the context of the tracklist, but the central vocal chop draws the Venn diagram between Todd Edwards’ hard and mottled cuts with the immediacy of Overmono’s ‘So U Know’. With such brazen fun at the top of the menu, TQD proves that they make the best club confections around.
Mix of the Month: Silva Bumpa On Melodic Distraction (Bassline Special)
Sheffield producer Silva Bumpa’s new EP for Hardline Sounds is not just another stellar addition to the run the Bristol label has been on lately. HARD13 is also a feverish tribute to the popping-candy organs of bassline. To go along with the new EP, Bumpa has mixed together a bassline special on Melodic Distraction that reaffirms why the style is so important in the North.
There’s no ear candy like hearing Ashanti sped-up over a cute, plinky organ stab, and his spin of a cover of Livin Joy’s ‘Dreamer’ will make you reflexively curl your fingers into a gun formation. Bumpa still finds the opportunity to throw down INVT and Logan_olm’s ‘IGNITE DEM’, one of the tunes of the summer that will not budge from DJ’s queues. But perhaps his mixing style is embodied in the ending where, with one minute on the clock, he forgoes a smooth landing and shoots up to one final speedy g bassline. If Bumpa has time to throw in a curveball, he will.
DJ Perception - Overload
New label fourbyfour has set its sights on continuing the romanticism of the UKG community through documentary-style artist and fan interviews on Instagram. Once every month or so, they loan out a different producer to release a track on their Bandcamp as a pay-what-you-want download. This month, the scene’s finest crate digger DJ Perception took it back to a time where garage and house were far more overlapped with the track “Overload”.
With a slower tempo hovering around Feel the Music-era Paul Johnson and the loudest drums hitting right on beat, Perception keeps it refreshingly skeletal with three metallic chords in a hypnotising descent. He does so much right with so little, like how it feels airy but never cold, and how it’s stripped bare of the UKG signifiers - the dub sirens, organs and basslines - that it’s sometimes entrenched in today. His record collection is now entrenched in his DNA, and it’s no question who’s the most studious head in garage.
Semtek - Denny Island
‘Don’t Be Afraid’ label head and hardcore jungle archivist Semtek returns with his first release under the moniker in six years, Denny Island. Released only on vinyl, he takes an abyssal dive into garage and named it after an unmarked island out in the Bristol channel. The way the music paints the island, you’d think it was the Island of Doctor Moreau: weird stuff goes on there.
Semtek elicits a mild state of alert here. The title track focuses on creeping drones that look at you funny, a knuckle-cracking breakbeat fill and wooden hi-hats that could have been recorded with a pencil and a table. The eeriness is heightened by a series of fleeting sounds. Bubbling chemical reactions, creaking machinery and twitching piano scurry across the beat like a rabbit across the road when it sees headlights.
You’d think the tension would be released on the flipside ‘Catching Smoke’, but the way it ends with a siren way off in the distance is like watching Denny Island catch alight, just as the track titles prophesied.
Masot - Post Insomnio
‘Soliloquio Nocturn’ by Chilean producer Masot has a bathable atmosphere with rounded synths that arc over a crunchy percussive shuffle. Peer into their new two-tracker and you’ll find some choice influences. You’ll hear the frostiness of Ilian Tape’s catalogue, Overmono’s bass tones and understated yet uplifting melodies, and how Pugilist buries elements into the mix whenever he does UKG.
The counter to the A-side, ‘3am Vitamina D?’, paints the time perfectly with foggy tones masked by echoing synth shimmers. It’s a walk in the dead of night, but not a sad or despondent one. Rather, it’s a trip to see familiar sights in a new light.
Riz La Teef B2B Ghost Phone: RNB UKG VINYL SPESH
Firstly, if we’re going to be talking about love-themed UKG mixes, all credit must go to Jossy Mitsu’s Valentine’s Garage Mixes as the originator. Nonetheless, Bristol’s Ghost Phone has been flipping R&B into incense-rich dembow, reggaeton, jungle and garage, so their team-up with Riz La Teef and his rare vinyl collection makes for a heartache-y Rinse FM special.
Aesthetically, this mix is packed with that bedside guitar that transports you right back to the car stereo of the 2000s, but there’s a deeper tradeoff going on between Ghost Phone and Riz La Teef here. Tracks go from lusty fascination (Dru Hill’s “How Deep Is Your Love”) to abandonment (702’s “You Don’t Know”). It feels like a convo between two mates about love and the many situations and feelings it puts you in. In selecting some of the best R&B, the pair inadvertently show what the best R&B does: distil the amorphous feelings of love into a straight conversation.
Beckett & XL - Ghost Mode
Beckett and XL’s ‘Ghost Mode’ comes from CloudCore, a UK label that is responding to the popularity of “breakcore” and “hardcore” with a hypnotic and milky take on jungle, trance, house, techno, garage and UK bass. Each weekly drop from CloudCore is guaranteed to come with technical maximalism, sentimental synths and an endearing cheekiness.
‘Ghost Mode’ is a slow 2step thumper powered by low drones with a vigorous, lightsaber-like glow and rattling percussion. The sentimentality comes from the vocals chopped into the shape of an arpeggio that intercepts the track from the darkness of one of Semtek’s cuts. You can’t buy this song, as it’s available for one week. But get sucked into the CloudCore bubble and you’ll unlock so much more.
Crosstalk - MAMADA DUB
Brazil is one of few truly boundary-breaking nations club music has today - just look at the way DJ Ramon Sucesso pushes mixing to the limits. But Brazilian garage has been on the climb: 40% Foda/Maneiríssimo thrashes Rio de Janeiro clubs and has some excellent 2step to offer in its great catalogue, such as Sérgio’s “Criança e Os Esquilos”.
Elsewhere, Chediak has been a key export who’s worked with Swami Sound and Camoufly. His label Speedtest Rave label has released the deluxe edition of São Paulo beatmaker Crosstalk’s CT-1 EP, and bonus track “Mamada Dub” is a vulgar garage head-spinner with ear-pinching sonic details. You’ll have heard the oscillating wubs too many times before, but with the tongue-in-cheek swoop into the breakdown, the biting snares and the way Crosstalk slices up the monotone Portuguese MCing, it could have ended up on the rather excellent Pretty Weird label.
Scratch DVA Wheels Up Swan Lake
Incredible. Magnificent. No notes.