At the start of March Mall Grab aka Jordan Alexander dropped a new club classic via his label Looking For Trouble. ‘Metaphysical’ hails promising things from the Australian producer.
Mall Grab calls this track a ‘homage to London’ and it certainly feels like that. Written in his ‘adopted home’ of London this track was created in December 2021 as the British were finally getting back into the swing of club nights after years of lockdowns and restrictions. ‘Metaphysical’ feels like it was built for UK dancefloors post-covid.
What makes this track great is the strong breakbeat drums throughout. Reminiscent of 90s jungle, Mall Grab pulls this off well. This track signals a move out of his comfort zone, embracing breakbeat to create a track crossing over various electronic genres.
‘Metaphysical’ shows the producer’s style developing. Earlier in his career, Mall Grab was originally popular for lo-fi tracks like ‘Pool Party’ and more house inspired tracks such as ‘Liverpool Street in the Rain’. This track continues the evolution of Mall Grab’s sound we heard last year on Steel City Dance Discs Volume 20, but with more obvious influence from the UK sound. ‘Metaphysical’ shows off Mall Grab’s skill as a producer and the hard and fast tempo of this single, blows his other tracks out the water. Metaphysical stands by or even surpasses Mall Grab’s best tracks like ‘Leaving Tokyo’ and ‘I’ve always liked grime’ which embrace a darker sound than his other tracks.
The music video for this premiered on the 3rd of March is a great accompaniment to the track. Directed by Liam Oz the video follows Mall Grab and his friends cycling through London through blurred and distorted visual, it’s reminiscent of trying to navigate your way through a city in the early hours of the morning after a night out.
Hopefully the now London-based producer will find more inspiration from UK old school jungle and ‘Metaphysical’ will be followed up by an EP continuing this style. This track undoubtedly will be added to the set of many professional and student DJs alike and probably will be heard pounding from basements in Fallowfield for the foreseeable future.
If you want hear Mall Grab himself in Manchester, you can catch him at Parklife in June.
Check out Metaphysical here on YouTube and if you like it enough get a copy from bandcamp.
