Emerging as one of the biggest producing talents out there, the tribal masked SBTRKT has released on the likes of Numbers, Monkeytown and Ramp with his underground techno/2-step/grime/garage melds that have rocketed him to the forefront of all that is fresh on the UK music scene right now. With his second release out on XL subsidiary Young Turks he has upped his game with a cracking selection of his most accessible and original tracks yet.

From his humble beginnings of listening to Masters At Work mid 90’s house to the more drum ‘n’ bass Reinforced/ Metalheadz era right through to 2-step, SBTRKT has developed broken beats in the same form as Burial and Appleblim; steering into the techno/electro realms and into his very own musical base that has been ten years in the making. Step In Shadows is his most defined set of tracks yet, clearly founded from a solid love of UK garage and 2-step, venturing beyond his own tag of ‘future garage’ and into something far more accessible without losing the intricacy in his layering of beats. ‘Look At Stars’ is a sturdy dance track with Sampha on vocals adding a grating gusto to it’s shining housey synths and nuanced inter-playing rhythms. It’s textured, builds to a great crescendo and seems almost too cerebral a track in contrast to most modern techno. With simple lyrics of: “On my way home I look at the stars” reminiscent of a certain Oscar Wilde quote, it almost seems like a fitting dedication to his grime and garage roots from his pirate radio days.

‘Colonise’ with its shaky sub-sections and battering drums burst out into an ecstatic house crescendo. It’s a great expression of SBTRKT’s melding of genre’s and sub-genre’s that acts as some kind of elemental direction. ‘Hide and Seek’ begins as a stubborn, moody bellow that reverbs and revolts into a shattering layer of strings that bursts into that euphoric club drop. It is one of the best tracks on the EP and clearly the most accessible whilst showcasing what SBTRKT does best. If you’re new to SBTRKT’s work it should be obvious that with friends like: Giles Peterson, Sinden, Switch as well as his remixes for the likes of: Basement Jaxx, MIA, Modeselektor Gorillaz and Tinie Tempah, he is certainly worth knowing about. So, with the kind of music he is making and at the level of which he is producing it, this is a sure sign that Step In Shadows is just a taster of things to come on the forthcoming album.