!K7 Records

Ten years after his first release, UK artist Lone is putting out his first ever commercial mix CD. His entry into the celebrated DJ-kicks series lands on 29th September and features four of his own new and exclusive tracks.

Born Matt Cutler and raised in Nottingham, Lone has emerged as a standout artist over the last decade. Starting out making hip hop, he has distinctly evolved with each new release. Yet whether making house, breakbeat or jungle, his music always remains identifiable thanks to its bright melodic colours. As well as running his own Magicwire label—home to early albums like Emerald Fantasy Tracks and recent music from Ross From Friends, who features here, and Project Pablo—he has also released on Werk Discs and Dekmantel. Over the course of three full lengths since 2012, though, he has also become an essential artist in the modern R&S family.

This mix represents Lone as a producer: it starts out with the hip hop of his roots, then moves through some of the music of his childhood and on to a range of his enduring influences. Along the way, he stitches in his own newly produced sounds. “I’ve stepped out of my comfort zone with this,”: he says. “I’m so used to programming my own material on my own albums, that’s sort of how I approached this one.” Purposefully mixed in “a loose, rough way” in his living room on a pair of CDJs, the idea was to make listeners feel like there were in there with him. It’s designed for dreamy late night listening, or intimate headphone sessions, and “plays out a bit like a weird midnight radio show: it’s purposefully all over the place, dreamy and trippy, so you can zone in and out.”

The mix kicks off with dusty beats and dayglow melodies from Casio Versus Japan and Heads of Change, then comes Lone’s first exclusive, ‘Brooklyn Banks’, which is a loose beat instrumental with jazzy pianos. Things get tougher with Camu Tao’s ‘Hold The Floor’ and an unfussy mixing style allows the selections to do the talking as Lootpack and then more Lone exclusives in ‘Cali Drought’ and ‘Alpha Wheel 4 (Ambient Mix)’ help bliss you out. From there, things turn into more drum lead territory with the frosty breaks of Boards of Canada and colourful kaleidoscopic bounce of Gnork. After the euphoric house of John Beltram comes Lone’s lo-fi and stripped back ‘Arc’ which switches up the mood once more. Playing out through similarly raw and machine-made grooves from E.Meyers, Protect-U and Ross From Friends, the last Lone original is ‘Saturday Night (Hippy)’, a swirling, pad-laced groove full of summery warmth. Slithering Drexcyia electro, Plaid’s found sounds and the serene digital melodies of Radiohead’s ‘Worrywort’ then bring you down gentle to close things out.

Lone’s DJ-kicks very much feels alive, lived-in and authentic. It is a hugely personal view into his unique musical world and marks another landmark entry into !K7’s long running series.