Rough Trade East

Just some quick updates. We're playing an In Store at the mighty (new-ish) Rough Trade East shop off Brick Lane on Monday 23rd Sunday 22nd of Feb, supporting Gang Gang Dance The School and Opium Factory. This is off the back of "The Bits ft Trim" from our album being signed to Rough Trade's Counter Culture 08 compilation, which is selected by the employees of the shop. It also features Flying Lotus, Rustie, 2562 and a variety of other acts from myriad genres.

Elsewhere we've got Rinse on the 26th, and Dub Pressure in Brighton on the 27th, playing one hour upfront dubs and one hour "Roots of..." set. We don't do the latter often but they're usually alot.

Gotta say thanks to Starkey and anyone else patiently waiting for the "Gutter Music" 12". We've had several technicals with the pressing but trust me I'm on it, daily. When it's ready to drop, I'll put the word out. Following the Starkey EP there's a whole bunch of new Keysound releases ready. Hold tight for them.

The Roots of El-B 2x12" vinyl sampler is out now at Dubplate.net. This can only mean one thing: that Roots of El-B CD is dropping soon, which it is. It features the best of El-B's Ghost canon and extenstive sleevenotes from me chronicling the brief but influential history of the crew. I spent nights digging up my old interview tapes with Lewis, remembering what it was like sitting in Ghost Studios or in some cafe in Streatham and re-reading Kode's interviews with him. I'm really happy with how the notes came out.

Finally, out to everyone asking about my Pitchfork "Month in dubstep and grime" columns. The situation is that they've asked all the specialist writers not to contribute columns for Jan and Feb. I offered to write it for free - trust me, I've not been doing it for the money - but this didn't help. So, we'll see.