Warp Records' new boy blends hip-hop and techno.

In spite of what Eminem reckons, hip-hop hasn’t killed techno. Indeed, in the records of Jimmy Edgar the two sounds are getting along famously. “I am a fan of hip-hop but I’m more into the innovation of techno,” states Edgar. “I want to put the soul and urban feeling back into electronic music.”

Like Mr. Shady, Edgar is a white resident of Detroit yet apart from his slightly foul-mouthed rap on No Static, the lead track on his Access Rhythm EP, there the similarities end. For Access Rhythm is a largely instrumental affair, with cut-up hip-hop beats and spacious chords sounding much closer to a more thoughtful Prefuse 73 than the screaming tantrums of America’s biggest brat.

“I respect Prefuse 73 a lot. He’s a great producer and I’m glad we’re label-mates,” Edgar opines. “But what I’m trying to do is to give people a glance of inner city life.”

And Access Rhythm offers us a new perspective on the heritage of America’s most musically innovative metropolis, as well as a glimpse of what the future holds. Still just 19 years old, Edgar soaked up the sounds of Detroit from an early age, getting into computers and electronics when he was just nine and DJing alongside techno forefathers Derrick May and Juan Atkins in his mid-teens. Now he’s squeezed them back out to create a deep lake of sound which will be further fathomed on his upcoming Bounce, Make, Model LP.

“It’ll really capture the transition of music now,” he enthuses, “because it’s experimental with an R’n’B tinge. Detroit always has something unique to offer and a lot going on. From an outside perspective I think Detroit is looked on as a hardened, tough, dirty city. Which I don’t disagree with, but that makes it very real, very immediate and very competitive.”

But if Detroit is a dog eat dog world then Jimmy Edgar has just proven that he is the bollocks.
Paul Clarke 16 January 04

Jimmy Edgar – Access Rhythm, released 12 January 04 on Warp Records.