News NIKE7UP

There are lots of things to be worried about in modern life, and it all depends on your own personal preferences as to what you fixate upon. Here’s another thing to care about: with the amount of information that we imbibe each and every day, through the internet, through the television, through the sheer noise of every day life - far above what any other generation has had to go through - is it a concern that our brains might one day become overloaded and we’ll all absolutely lose it?

If / when it does, after years and years of gorging on pop culture, it wouldn’t be surprising if the noises that played out in the back of your mind whilst you stare blankly at a wall were akin to the works of NIKE7UP. About 12 months or so ago, the elusive US producer has spent hour after precious hour destroying some of the most important sonic cultural artifacts of our times - amongst the best being the jaw-dropping takes on Rihanna’s ‘Rudeboy’, The Beatles’ ‘Elanor Rigby’ and the countless mashings of Britney Spears tracks.

But these are far from simple remixes - instead, NIKE7UP acts as a puppeteer, melding the songs to fit his own twisted scheme. Originally, it was clumped in with the Witch House rising, but a re-evaluation shows a level of skill that far surpasses the countless symbol bands that signified that particular movement. Instead, the overwhelming sense was that of a frustrated genius taking whatever tools he had available in order to create a skewed world of his own making - and that doesn’t really fit into a genre.

But, after the glut of demos that appeared online in 2010, news soon dried up. Had he been cornered by one of the multinationals he’d taken trademarks from to make his moniker? Were the majors trying to take him to court for using their licensed material? Well… erm… no. Not really. Instead, he’s probably just been stocking up on MP3s to melt - and he’s come back with a band, the pinaccle of which takes in a 40 minute, hand crafted mix that sounds like the backwaters of your mind processed into an unmissable mix.

Undeniably talented, it’s almost as if he’s been cursed with the talent to make some of the best music of the internet era, but only being able to do so with the raw materials of artists that would cost the GDP of a small country to license if anyone wanted to put his stuff out. Still, that’s just another thing to tip onto the bonfire of things to fret over.