Ben Khan - 1992

When Ben Khan goes big, he outmuscles everyone else in the game. On ‘Youth’, the opening track from debut EP ‘1992’, he throws in funk guitar licks, a Rob Base sample, the sound of a gun being loaded - out comes the killer shot. Dense to the extreme, it’s also a celebratory song, the sound of a musician making his big breakthrough.

The past year’s been a series of next steps for Khan, a producer initially compared to Jai Paul (he played the mysterious card to begin with and his muffled, futuristic take on pop did and still does bear similarities). ‘1992’ - its title referring to Ben’s jealousy-inducing age - documents everything from the previous year. In one sense it’s a neat summation of all the excitement surrounding the Londoner’s name. But this is also the kind of first work that could’ve taken years to produce. There isn’t a single misstep. Each sharp dart produced within the space of a three minute pop track exists for a reason. Precision and purity its undying motifs, ‘1992’ lives up to initial hype and creates a whole new chapter without a second to spare.