’16 for 2016: Ones To Watch’ – Mura Masa

‘Future-based electronica’ (or futuretronica, apparently) has been one of those growing genres that’s amassed a small, yet wholeheartedly devoted audience over its short time. Whilst the likes of Diplo, Hermitude and Porter Robinson have all been dipping their toes where they can (particularly the latter’s most-recent Sad Machine and Divinity), there seems to be a sub-side of the genre now trickling through, and it’s the Brits who have grabbed the bull by its horns to push lo-fi electronica into the masses.

Lapsley started the trend earlier in the year with her sublime Understudy EP; same goes with Shura too (both, funnily enough, we propped as two of our 15 for 15: Ones To Watch almost a year back), however it’s Mura Masa who’s also coming on leaps and bounds too.

Adding layers of trap to his work (an element which is often more suited to dancefloors than sit-at-home-in-reflection-mode), we could probably put a tenner on the young producer (who’s still not even in his 20th year yet) being under the microscope from his more established peers, akin to HudMo, Flume and James Blake.

Masa (aka Alex Crossan) seems to throw everything at his work, but yet it still comes out more finely-tuned and mature than some of those more experienced within the industry. His 2014 Soundtrack to a Death mixtape really turned heads with musos from the UK to further ashore, and his follow-up Someday Somewhere EP (which dropped less than six months later) further helped add to the acclaim – no thanks in part to the Nao-featuring standout, Firefly.

Crossen’s most-recent release hears him team up with the aforementioned Shura for their moving joint Love For That, and with sonics as eerie, irroestiable and swelling as what we’ve heard over the past 18-months or so, that all-important debut album could not come soon enough. In fact, fuck ‘all-important’; Mura Masa’s long-player is all-anticipated.

Grab a listen to the full Soundtrack to a Death project, below: