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With only a handful of releases on Hessle Audio, Hotflush and his own Hemlock Recordings, London based Jack Dunning has made serious waves already. An Untold tune is highly distinguishable; all compact bass lines that punish and clean percussion that clicks and drives instinctively; finding a balance between meticulous detail, deepness, and pure dance floor sensibility that is very rare indeed.
Cited by BBC Radio One’s Mary Anne Hobbs as one to watch in 2009, Untold’s output includes both new material and remixes for the likes of Milanese, Pangaea, Naphta and Toasty, forthcoming on labels including Hotflush, Square Records, Hessle Audio and many more.
User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL.Jack Dunning aka Untold is currently releasing some of the finest boundary pushing music around, simultaneously blasting dancefloors and attracting worldwide critical acclaim. So how did we get here?
Having produced music in a bedroom set up for years as a young 20 something, a draining stint of higher education forced him to down tools “an Electronic Music degree ruined my enjoyment of writing for ages”, Jack remembers. But these were just years of hibernation and the time to develop a career in graphic design that put food on the table. The catalyst for a musical renaissance came in 2005 after a lesson in sub bass at the then fledgling DMZ, the world’s most important dubstep night.
“It was the purity of the atmosphere and the sub bass that got me. Everyone in the room seemed totally locked on to each tune, there was a crazy energy in the place. After going to my first dance at Third Base I knew I had to start writing music again.”
Picked up in early 2008 by Hessle Audio, his Kingdom EP was the third release of the then fledgling imprint, introduced a sonic palate that was nuanced, understated but with bags of bass weight. Here were the early indicators of what was to become a fierce sonic arsenal – the mutant, blunt edges of his synth play, an intricate tapestry of detail which added depth and longevity, but barely audible to even to the geekiest of listeners.
By early 2009 Jack had been hammering a selection of awesomely anachronistic and symptomatic music on CDR; fuel for an ever growing DJ schedule. For those that were lucky enough to be caught in a rave when the awkward, staccato bleeps of Anaconda assaulted the ear drums, you knew this was an artists to take 100% seriously. Played by DJ’s spanning genres, countries and vast age groups, this 12” release on the Hessle Audio label showed the electronic world they had a new artist with a highly distinctive sound to get their teeth into.
2009 unfolded with a slew of essential remixes for 2nd Drop and Planet Mu, alongside original material on Hotflush and Brainmath. Jack’s largest body of work has been the 6 track EP on his own Hemlock label who he runs with his mate Andy. The Gonna Work Out Fine Ep was a collection of tracks that pushed the genre boundaries - this wasn’t dubstep, if dubstep was half step wobble than this was the anti-christ – and could be seen gazing off into the near future of progressive dancefloors and vinyl connoisseurs everywhere. Stilted rhythms meet, jilted synths and squashed drums with the ever-present specter of grime lurking on the peripheries. But this EP also provided an insight into Jack’s wider music palate, your can here classic house in the keys of Don’t Know Don’t Care and Never Went Away, the ravey synths of later day hardcore and jungle on Palamino. But it’s not always about looking back, exploration of bpms creates new hybrids, and the low-fi swing of No One Likes A Smart Arse demonstrates his twisted take on dark garage and the funky skeleton of Palamino offsets the aforementioned nostalgic melodies.
2010 holds further promise. Having just remixed Ke$ha’s #1 Hit “Tik Tok” and signed a collaboration with Roska to Numbers coming later in the year, more releases on Hemlock of his own material is a given. Jack continues to show his A&R spurs with the likes of Mount Kimbie, James Blake, Cosmin TRG and Ramadanman gracing the label.
Website: http://soundcloud.com/untold
