When dubstep ruled the roost in the late '00s, electronic music had no shortage of icons and spinoff variants to rally around. But one rumble from Bristol stood out: the Purple sound. Popularised by Joker, AKA Liam Mclean, with Guido and Gemmy in support, it hit like a beam of bright light flooding through the basement dank.
When America cottoned onto bass quakes in the next decade, Mclean's taste for chiptune-coded synths and maximum intensity kept his vision alive at arena level, even while he retreated from view as an actively touring performer.
This year's gargantuan "Juggernaut"—Mclean's first solo single in six years—crashes through the speakers with as much glorious crunch as earlier classics like 2009's "Purple City." It reminded us that the fact Joker had never laid down an RA Podcast before was a blemish in our copybook. RA.962 fixes that in style.
