Ascend.

I think after three and a half years as an instrumental label, it felt like a good time to try and work with MCs and vocalists, but obviously only when I feel like we've got the right record or the right artist. - Tomas Fraser, Coyote Records boss in our chat last year.

I can now say Coyote have definitely found the right combination and most certainly on the right record.



AJ Tracey is one of the brighter MCs to emerge from what was previously a very boring and stagnant period for Grime MCs. Throwaway mixtapes and rushed free downloads have declined in popularity during the last few years and thankfully that's scattered many of the spitters who never really seemed to be destined for anything other than floating annoyances on sets elsewhere. With Grime's massive reboot on the radio and club scene coupled with a reinvigorated interest from wider audiences (some might say the Stormzy effect), the time is now for the top MCs to be heard. After appearing on Boiler Room alongside Skepta, spitting on DJ Slimzee's sets and rubbing shoulders with P Money and Tinchy Stryder on remixes, AJ is now in amongst the scene's elite and anyone with half working ear drums should be impressed.

With AJ being the only MC to appear on Coyote Record's list of releases, I wanted to know if the label's architect and owner, Tomas Fraser, felt confident that this was the right vocal to put out.

"I never really felt assured to be honest" explains Tomas. "I just picked the beat from a batch Marco (Last Japan) had sent me with a view to building an EP at the time. There was something about 'Ascend' that just stood out, but it's quite an easy task with Marco's work as a lot of it is made with emcees in mind. It just so happened that I'd met AJ at radio a few weeks before, so in my head it made sense to send him a beat and see what he thought. In another weird coincidence, AJ had actually earmarked Last Japan as a producer he wanted to work with in an interview three months earlier, before he'd met either of us. It was probably meant to be!"

Last Japan is no stranger to Grime's more accomplished names either, having collaborated with Trim and Rapid on the vocal side as well as Boxed stalwart Mr. Mitch. Whilst his catalogue isn't one hundred percent Grime, there's enough base for the die-hards to appreciate and having witnessed his sets first hand at many venues over a good few years, it's more than safe to say he knows what makes listeners tick. His 2014 mixtape 'Ride With Us' is still a favourite of mine and was a brilliant display of zoned-out rhythms with vocals in the perfect places: this meeting of two exciting names provides much of the same on 'Ascend'.

Starting eerily with a subdued intro, Japan's beat threatens to take off behind AJ's gripping flow (not ridiculously skippy nor too lazy to captivate the listener) and at 1.22 the two's work culminates in a fashionably nasty hook: Grimey enough to persuade even the most innocuous folk to generate a full-on screwface.

1.13: "I don't wanna hear anyone talking about fear / Eskimo Dance man feared my presence".
2.06: "If you wanna talk hard like lobsters / me and Sketch will check your pulse like doctors / then take your blood like nurses / bare likkle man holla for my verses me vs. you that's not a fair versus"

A striking feature of AJs mic ability is the way he can flip between a nonchalant-yet-concious approach but switch into delivering a far mightier and unreserved flow when required and that is hand in glove with Japan's style of beat. For a piece of work that sounds reasonably practised, Tomas alludes to the laid-back nature of the recording session.

"It was so easy and fluid, which I think made the whole thing work right from the off. We had everything recorded at Marco's home studio in a little over an hour and a half last July, which is incredible considering neither of them had met each other before. Since then, I made a conscious effort to get them playing sets together (including our Boiler Room takeover back in September, where they debuted the track live) and building a relationship, especially as I knew that the record wouldn't be out for another 6-8 months. It's worked out pretty well I think."

Silk Road Assassins and Impey must have been in serious competition to see who could serve up the darkest remix: Silk Road churn out a real sinister reworking on their attempt, an ominous sounding thumper that waves in and around the vocal, so if you prefer something a little more tense then that one's tailor-made for you. Impey's offering plays on similar themes but opts for a bouncier approach on the verses, leading into a much murkier hook section that follows it's gloomy, atmospheric intro quite well.

The track has received mass support from the wide DJ community Grime is currently sporting, with BBC 1Xtra's Sian Anderson spinning it for the last few weeks and Mary Anne Hobbs also including it in her Six Music Recommends segment earlier in the month and Tomas goes on to talk about the track's reception.

"The feedback has been great, which is always nice, although it's never something I put too much of a focus on. A lot of it has come down to timing too - when we first recorded, AJ wasn't anywhere near as high-profile as he is now and his career has really taken off, plus Silk Road Assassins have just released their debut EP on Planet Mu which a lot of people were waiting on. I think I'm right in saying it'll be AJ's first feature on wax too."

The writing process for beats has always fascinated me, to the point where I've watched and read countless pieces and biopics with producers and even composers (albeit I doubt Bach had anything like Pulse X in his locker) with the way they find new inspirations being one of the most intriguing aspects. I put a few questions to Last Japan, trying to get him to reveal how he decides what purpose his beats have and what amount of influence, if any, his love for club nights has on his music. But first I wondered what got him focused behind the buttons on 'Ascend' - his answer - "space".

"That was my influence for the intro and melodic flutters you hear in the verses. The instrumental was born out of the image of being in the vastness of space, appreciating the beauty but being in a constant state of suspense and nervousness caused by your unnatural surroundings. When I write music it generally has a movie or imagery that runs alongside it and one of the main places I used to draw that imagery from was here:



For those who cannot play that video, a plethora of stars are cascading the universe, presumably filmed by an astronaut (well, it wouldn't be the milkman).

I think as listeners we all have our own way of evaluating the basis of a track. We like them because they sound good on the radio or in a rave and but it's most often when I'm browsing YouTube to find little unknown gems or instrumentals ripped from sets that have never seen the light of the day - release wise - I start to wonder: why? Maybe nobody wanted it. Maybe it was made just for a set or it's a dub that just got left behind. But this isn't a think-piece as such, and L.J gives us some insight into his own process.

"That’s really a decision that I make during the first stages of a tune and can be affected by my mood, surroundings or just life in general. I don’t usually set out to make a club banger or whatever, I let the music and my inspirations take me where the tune or my mind wants it to go. As far as MCs, all the music I write is for some sort of vocal be that an MC or singer. I don’t think I've purposely written an instrumental since 2012. Around the time Ascend was made I had recently written a batch of tunes that I was playing in my sets as instrumentals but always knew they needed someone on it, the Ascend instrumental was one of them. I sent a zip over to Tomas and he was like “…we need to get AJ on this one"

However he denies the club scene having any major influence on his style and reveals what he believes DJs should be playing. "It doesn't really. I would say the only way a club night would influence my music may be to put in an intro that's mixable, but I wouldn't in anyway let that jeopardise the overall aesthetics of a record. Interesting DJs play songs with a range of structures in them and great MCs or vocalists shouldn't be thrown by experimenting on something a little different."

All in all: 'Ascend' is a track that should get everyone excited. This is very Grimey MC working with a producer who much like the rest of Coyote's roster continues to re-draw the borders of what we define as Grime. A banger for all of the aforementioned platforms, the combination of Last Japan and AJ Tracey is one I hope to hear many times more and is another great stride for Coyote who never fail to impress. Out early June, pre-order by clicking here.