One of the UK’s most respected electronic artists, Al Wootton (formerly known as Deadboy) presents his first album under the Al Wootton name, Witness.
Since emerging in 2009, Wootton has been behind some of the biggest dance records of the last decade, releasing on labels like Numbers, Local Action and Aus Music. In 2019, he re-located from London to the seaside town of Ramsgate (following a period spent in Montreal) and re-branded under his birth name, building a home studio and honing a style of dance music that draws heavily from his long-term loves of garage and dub.
Wootton has enjoyed a rich run of form since going back to basics: he’s released five 12”s in two years through his Trule label, copies of which now swiftly sell out as standard, and has also expanded the label to house releases by Melbourne producer Pugilist and old foil Julio Bashmore. On Witness, he channels this focus and momentum into an 8-track album that explores techno, garage, jungle and more, all tied together by the dub-inspired effects and atmosphere that has characterised his Al Wootton records to date.
The tracks that became Witness flowed out within a couple of weeks during a period of real creative ease that I cannot remember having before or since”, explains Wootton.
I have struggled and failed to make ‘dance’ albums many times over the years. I’ve tried to avoid making something thats just a collection of club tracks or noodley electronic self indulgence. What I realised is that the only albums I really love and repeat listen to are drum and bass albums. Albums like Photek’s Modus Operandi, Goldie’s Timeless and Roni Size’s New Forms perfectly capture that raw club energy and yet are intricate and textured enough that they still sound fresh to this day and still bear repeat listens.
I allowed tracks to develop and mutate as I introduced new sounds and textures with a much greater sense of freedom than when I am focusing on making tracks work solely in a club context, but I don’t feel like that dampened the energy of any of the tracks. The creation of Witness was for me one of those rare times when the practical and technical conditions are just right and creativity flows from some unknown source beyond yourself and all you have to do is get out of your own way.
TRULE presents its first release and the latest from Deadboy, the Klint EP. Four swung out club focused tracks exploring the meeting point between techno and UK garage music. Deadboy uses a stripped back percussive sound palette with shuffling drums and a hands on hardware approach to create four individual, jacking, crisp joints for the dancers.
Klint is the first release on TRULE, a label operated by Al Wootton aka Deadboy to release straight up dance floor club tracks from across the spectrum.
On the second TRULE release Al Wootton (AKA Deadboy) drops his first ever record under his own name. Traces of dub, UK garage and techno inform the forward leaning, club-focused sound.
On SELAH, Al creates a driving steppers rhythm shot through with dub manipulations and UK swing.
OMEGA and UNTITLED on the B side continue in the percussive, tracky, swung techno vein of the first TRULE record.
Al Wootton presents the second part of a trilogy, following on from the Maenads EP, of sparse, percussive techno drawing influences from UK Garage and Dub. Heavily textured and weighty music for dancefloors and forest floors.
Stefàn Dubs is part of the Folklore crew operating out of Toulouse, and is also the producer behind the excellent Maquis Son Sistem records. Stefàn Dubs and Folklore have been pushing their own style of contemporary, dub influenced dance music spanning Garage, Techno, House and Jungle. The Spring Tones EP is a perfect fit for Trule, drawing on these influences to create something new while remaining focused on dance floor functionality.
Pugilist steps up on Trule with a four track EP of sound system club heaters across various styles and BPMs. From the broken UK garage of the title track, the crunching breaks of Untitled with ILK, the dub wise Junglism of Adversity with Tamen, and the techno dancehall variation of Portal. Something for all the dancers.
Al Wootton continues pushing the Trule sound with the Operator EP. Spanning from the Ragga Garage of Levi, the UK Techno Breaks of Teresa, the UK Funky/dubwise stepper of the title track Operator and the minimal 2 step techno of Franz. All primed for the sound system and the dance floor.
Bash (AKA Julio Bashmore) graces Trules fifth release and the first in a series of ten inch singles with Jubilee, a sub heavy, minimal, UK garage dub that manages to marry the sparser techno vibes of his Conch releases with the subtle anthemic quality of his other alias. A real dance floor sneak bomb.
Al Wootton provides a two-stepping dub remix on the B-side, chopping the drums and echoing everything out to infinity.
Bakongo comes proper with two stripped back drum workouts for TRULE’s 10” series. UK Funky pioneer Roska has been making great percussion tracks under his Bakongo alias for some time now. On Thirteen/Level Cowbell he continues this with two rugged, skeletal drum tracks with minimal bass and the faintest trace of texture in there that absolutely demand to be moved to.
Following on from his EP on Livity Sound, Al Wootton comes home to TRULE with the Maenads EP. Four percussive, textural rhythm tracks. Sparse and weighty, psychedelic but focused, and scattered with dub echoes. Al’s core influences of UK Garage, techno, dub and drum and bass are organically reshaped into new forms that never lose sight of dance floor functionality.
Al Wootton comes with 4 more UK Soundsystem bangers one on his own TRULE label. on the A side Body Healthy layers dubbed out breakbeats over a heavy 4x4 garage dub while Graver is a clipped and rustling swung out warehouse techno 2 step shuffler. On the B side Bad Sound is a heavy breakbeat rave steppers dub and Prophecy is all garage techno dread.
Trule presents the second release from Al Wootton, the Natural Forward EP. More UK dub wise sound system bangers for the club. The A-side ‘Natural Forward’ is a rolling 140 jungle dub breaks mover primed for the sound system.
‘Rahma’ on the B-side is another swung out dub wise techno garage shuffler, and ‘Power Must Change Hands’ is a muscular percussive hardware 2 step tweak out for the dancers.
One for the dub heads, the techno heads, the garage heads, and the dubstep heads.
Trule drops its 9th release and the second in its 10” white label series with a collaboration between label boss Al Wootton and Montreal’s Priori. Al Wootton heads up the A-side with JL, a deep, dubby and minimal house/techno number. Priori reworks it into a ‘Sharp Tool Mix’ for the B-side, a rolling, drum heavy techno workout primed for dancefloors. Priori co-runs the labels Naff and Garmo with Ex-Terrestrial and is one half of the Jump Source project with Patrick Holland.
The third and final part of a trilogy of EPs from Al Wootton of deep, textural, off kilter techno, influenced by the forest. Sparse, rolling, minimal percussive tracks, dubbed out and primed for soundsystems.
Big Hands teams up with trumpeter Abraham Parker on Trule with a trio of deep, dubbed out percussion jams. Layers of drums and sparse synth work overlaid with Abrahams jazz inflected trumpet parts, all run through with dubwise echoes.
Al Wootton provides a minimal techno dub remix on the B-side.
a1. Big Hands & Abraham Parker - Aperta (Improv. 1)
a2. Big Hands & Abraham Parker - 278 Dub (Improv. 2)
b1. Big Hands & Abraham Parker - Doppio
b2. Big Hands & Abraham Parker - 278 Dub (Al Wootton Remix)
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