In the context of grime and dubstep in 2008, Starkey is a gleaming bright anomaly.

Whereas so many producers’ default mode is darkness and gloom, Starkey’s music is saturated with colour, and through melody he harnesses a powerful, alien rave energy.

For years, his Street Bass Anthems mixtapes have reworked US r’n’b and rap into heavy Philly-via-London club bangers. Then a personality split resulted in the emergence of Starkey’s alter-ego/arch-enemy, Moves!. Paralleling the insane hi-lo snyth experiments of bassline house, Moves! contrasted Starkey’s productions with wonky, off-the-wall house driven by big bass. “It started when Drop the Lime did Curses!, Mathhead did Passions and I did Moves!” explains Starkey. “Starkey stuff gets deep sometimes, but Moves! is my dancefloor alter-ego that I speak about in the third person”.

Recently the grimier work of Starkey and Moves!’ four-to-the-floor bangers have began to converge, producing one of the most distinctive styles in underground club music. “When I started DJing for real the Starkey tunes didn’t feel right in my sets. I wanted to be able to play out more of my own songs. I never thought I would put a 4×4 kick pattern in a Starkey tune!”

When his debut album for Planet Mu, Ephemeral Exhibits, drops later this year all will apparently become clear, but for the time being Starkey breaks down his sound like this: “I like dubstep but I like grime more. Street Bass Anthems had a Philly slant and in Philly, hip-hop is the dance music, period. I think that’s why we were able to throw the first ever grime party in the US. I operate on the fringes of dubstep, like Vex’d, Darkstar and Joker. So much music nowadays lacks melodies, that’s why I stick out I think. For mostly instrumental music, my stuff has hummable melodies…”

Alex Sushon