Audio By Carbonatix
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Straight out of Bristol, Joker is a 20-year-old wunderkind whose hybrid club experiments might be the next big step in the ongoing evolution of dubstep. Just don’t tell him that — like many stridently independent studio jockeys, he shuns genre tags. (Joker prefers to describe his tunes, cryptically, as “purple.”) And he has a point. His sound is weirder and wilder — dabbling in G-funk, ’80s synth-soul, and classic Nintendo noise — than what’s usually dictated by the puritanical formalism of dubstep. Basically, though, Joker still brings the deep, dark bass and erratic, druggy rhythms at 140 bpm. It’s just that his cuts are classic, sexy, and funny too. And recently, Joker has transcended simple blog stardom. Thanks to trademark tracks such as “Gully Brook Lane,” “Digidesign,” and a tag-team effort with Ginz called “Purple City,” he has won major props from Pitchfork and NME. That’s in addition to a top spot — alongside occasional collaborator MC Nomad — on Mary Anne Hobbs’s BBC Radio 1 showcase, Generation Bass. Now, touring the States with Nomad, Joker will take over the monthly Get Low party presented by (((Shake))) this Thursday at the Vagabond. New-school dubsteppers, get ready for a fat taste of that old-school party music.
