[A]t the start of writing his forthcoming album Mura Masa, real name Alex Crossan, was cratedigging, dusting off early 90s jungle mixtapes and dancehall records for inspiration. Now he’s nearly finished it he’s listening to Van Morrison, The Stranglers and whatever’s new from James Blake and Bon Iver. Along the way, the album morphed from a collection of love songs, (‘whether that’s a romantic love or a familial love or even the love of an object’) to a record that tells the story of Alex’s relocation to South London from Guernsey, via a short stint in Brighton. Influences and ideas abound. The album will be the sound of change.

Switching out the tranquility of the Channel Islands for the 24-hour off-licenses and tower blocks of Peckham is undoubtedly a disorientating experience, a feeling that translates to the album – “I sometimes worry that there are too many influences in it – there are little flecks, little nods to the different music cultures in London,” he says. Naturally, a record that embraces London will have a global sound, dealing in snippets of the genres that have been cut and pasted from across the world and then altered by the city. “When I moved to London I came to understand the UK underground scene a bit more closely, especially how it’s linked to lots of different types of music – two step, dancehall, garage, grime,” Alex explains.