Producer’s Cut: Macabre Unit
Grime’s roots are often traced back to East London, home to pioneering producers like Wiley, Jammer and Dizzee Rascal, who helped push the sound away from UK garage. While East London takes much of the credit for grime’s early development, artists from across the capital also played an important role in shaping the genre. But what about beyond London altogether?
@macabre_unit were a crew from Bedford, a town northwest of London in the East of England. Despite being outside the capital, their productions have cemented their place in grime’s legacy, helping to establish the blueprint of the genre’s foundational sound. With early support from the likes of DJ Slimzee, their tracks featured in some of the scene’s most influential sets, providing the foundations for many of your favourite MCs to cut their teeth on.
When I caught up with Raff (aka Nurve, R.Demon), he explained how the crew came together:
“Macabre Unit was founded by myself and 9er, back when we were just two jungle and drum & bass kids, me as a DJ and him as an MC. Out of the blue, 9er came to me one day and said, ‘Yo, there’s this new sound coming out of London called grime. I’ve already got a couple of tunes down, you should jump on it.’ As a DJ and producer, I was all for it, so we gave it a try. Not long after, 9er had the idea of building a crew around the sound by bringing MCs into the mix, and before we knew it Macabre Unit was up and running, carving out our place in the grime scene.”
Talking through some of their most iconic productions, including Dem Na Ready, Sense and Take Time, Raff and 9er recalled how much of their early work was made in Reason using nothing more than stock plugins: “For a lot of my early grime material, I didn’t even use an EQ to tweak any sounds. I just relied on sound selection, and if it worked as it was, it would stay in the track. If it didn’t, I would find a sound that would.”
Scroll through the post for a deeper look at some of their most influential productions, along with a taste of what’s coming next.
