The rise of big, noisy electro in recent years has been interesting to observe, particularly for trainspotters watching the evolution of the genre from the underground right up to stranglehold over dance music. Whilst it was arguably French twosome Justice that kick-started the electro boom, fans have since moved onto the buzzing sounds of other acts like Boys Noize, MSTRKRFT and electro’s current kings The Bloody Beetroots. But when inthemix got on the phone to the man at the top of the electro totem, Ed Banger boss-man Busy P, the man known as Pedro Winter told us that he and his Ed Banger crew have become almost disinterested in the extremes to which electro has progressed, saying that the raucous ways of the ‘Beetroots are at the root of the problem.
“We all have to understand that this stuff with acts like The Bloody Beetroots that is happening all around the world right now, it’s not dance music anymore,” Pedro told inthemix. “It’s like punk-rock and the kids are not dancing anymore, they’re just stage-diving and jumping around.”
While he’s yet to swear off dropping bangers himself, Busy P explained that his disdain for the extremes of The Bloody Beetroots came from a yearning to see more dancing in clubs and a renewed faith in classic house music, citing the recent Carte Blanche – the all-star collaboration between DJ Mehdi and Riton – release on Ed Banger as a step in the right direction.
“[Carte Blanche] is was our way of telling the kids ‘okay, we’ve done this crazy partying thing with acts like Justice for the past three or four years, but we are really talking about dance music, not stage diving or any of that’. This is house music, it’s what people dance to and we want you to do it, love it and understand it too,” he said.
“We really just want to bring the dancing back to the clubs,” Busy P explained. “You’ll experience it when we play at Parklife, DJ Mehdi has been doing house music for the last year now, real house music, not coming to the club and banging a crowd.”
As well as Mehdi’s house focus with Carte Blanche, Busy P explained that the change reflected some new attitudes across the whole Ed Banger label, which is now well into its seventh year of operations.
“It’s about challenging ourselves and what we’re doing at Ed Banger,” the label chief added. “It would be easy for us to go to a club and play all these loud and noisy things and get the kids crazy, but this is not what we want to do.”
The Ed Banger impresario also told us that fabled electro-heads Justice had recently re-entered the studio to work on album number two, so with what Busy P has said about the label’s shifting vibes we can only wonder what that next Justice record will sound like…
Stay tuned to inthemix for more Busy P gospel ahead of Parklife’s grand arrival this September! All the festival dates are below, proudly presented by inthemix.