4 years on from his 1st mix, one of Bristol’s finest producers ….Pinch has returned to EE with a classic ‘old skool’ dubstep mix for the shows 5th birthday celebrations …. the timing could not be better either … Pinch’s new compilation M.I.A. has been released today, November 19th, featuring 5 years’ worth of original production and remixes for the likes of Planet Mu, Deep Medi, punch drunk and swamp81

Later on this week I’ll be publishing another mix commissioned for the 5th birthday celebrations from Indigo, boss man of Manchester’s finest label Mindset

Pinch:::: With dubstep having trail-blazed across the globe and becoming a household term in the last few years – I feel it’s a good time to take a breath, look back and check where all this came from originally. I’ve just released a compilation of older tracks/ rarities of my own (Pinch: Missing In Action, out on Tectonic), predominantly from that earlier period of dubstep and I’ve been revisiting that vibe and flavour myself in the hope that it can bring inspiration for new wave of UK dark rave music in the lineage of hardcore-jungle-garage-grime-dubstep to come and take it’s place. It’s about time. In the spirit of the era this mix is 100% vinyl – and all tracks are from around 2003-2007. I did it in one take and over 80 mins and I couldn’t have began to fit a mere fracture of all the important tracks in from that period – so I went for a loose approach, grabbing tunes from a pile and selecting as the mix unfolded. It is in no way a comprehensive best-of-that-era mix or anything like that. There are also lots of ‘ropey’ mix moments in there – but if anything – it makes for a more authentic ‘old skool dubstep’ experience. I hope you can put up with the mistakes and focus on the good bits instead!

The following blurb comes courtesy of Oli Marlow on his fantastical Sonic Router website

Pinch just released his MIA 2006-2010 compilation, an artefact that is essentially a collection of his tunes and remixes that have come out on labels other than his own Tectonic imprint. And whilst, as a result, the MIA collection doesn’t quite have the type of narrative thread that crept through his as yet still un-followed Underwater Dancehall album, it does open your ears up once again to the strength of Pinch as a producer. A very welcome fact that I think a lot of people forget.

Coming with the same kind of bassweight as Distance, with whom he regularly collaborates as Deleted Scenes, Pinch has always managed to reign in a bit of the brutality that Distance’s heavy metal indebted productions posed, managing on numerous occasions (probably the most referred to, and deservedly so, is ‘Qawwali’) to marry that kind of end of the world quake pressure with something rhythmically more engaging than a half step beat.

It’s not that there’s anything wrong, or even that simple about being able to do that ‘proper dubstep’ thing purposefully, but on a track like ‘Attack of the Giant Killer Robot Spiders’ (released on Planet Mu) where that’s pretty much exactly what he’s doing, the little dribbles of percussion and mis-stepped kick drums absolutely make that beat sing, more so than the airy pastel textures that come in later do.

One can only hope this compilation is the action of someone who’s tying up the loose ends before hitting out with another full length project. Yes, the album he released on Honest Jons with Shackleton was amazing, truly it was, but, as an ardent follower of his career, listening to MIA just kinda makes me ponder what else he’s got buried on his hard drive. It’s sick to have the skeletal sonics of the Punch Drunk released ‘136 Trek’ blasted at you again. Oh, one thing though, where’s ‘Croydon House’ in all this?