From the ends to the art gallery: meet the producers making grime without the MCs – or even the beats

Grime is more buoyant than ever. Beats 1’s Julie Adenuga is broadcasting it to the world, lo-fi Stormzy freestyles are getting 7 million YouTube views, and Skepta and Drake’s love-in is so profound they’re probably comparing trainer whitener over fireside glasses of Alizé as we speak. Its central rhythmic premise – feinting jabs of bass and clap – is still at the heart of the “scene” but often these happily stand alone as “instrumental grime” and its champions, club nights such as Boxed and labels like Local Action, are also thriving.

But two albums released this month by Visionist and Rabit show how far out the production style is spinning. The former’s tracks are artful little instrumentals, while the latter makes explosive work out of gunshot sounds; it’s all high-gloss, heavily processed electronics that could sit in an art gallery as well as a club. That off-kilter rhythmic core is definitely there, but neither feature any MCs, and sometimes not even beats. Is this even grime any more?

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“The word grime gets used so broadly, it’s lost any meaning,” says Visionist, AKA Louis Carnell. “It’s very hyped at the moment, and the word grime protects a lot of music that isn’t very good. People just want the past, and that’s why we have legends getting big again. But I don’t want to sell you the past, I want to give you the future.”

His debut album, Safe, is miles from the self-aggrandisement of grime stars, borne instead out of his battle with anxiety. “I’m just someone who is highly competitive, highly frustrated,” he continues. “We all have our own struggle. I can’t write happy music.” And while repping one’s ends is another grime staple, Carnell is morose when discussing London. “It’s a millionaire’s playground. There’s no space for us now, the original Londoners.”

Over in Houston, Texas, Rabit got his start by “trying to emulate different [grime] styles and failing, and then realising it doesn’t sound half bad, and pushing it harder.” As Visionist draws out grime’s latent melancholy, Rabit, AKA Eric Burton, taps into its latent violence. He says his album, Communion, reflects on “extremism in contemporary culture, even on a pop cultural level. You can’t just have a belief, you have to oppose the other side. You can’t just be a fan of someone, you have to be on their team. When you combine all of this on a 24-hour basis, it changes you.” Again, this is far from grime’s essential solipsism; like Visionist, he doesn’t feel an affinity with today’s scene. “It’s not my culture. And I don’t need its approval to create my own thing; if you don’t like me using a sound, go fuck yourself. But I try and pay respects, as I didn’t come up with this all by myself. It’s a balancing act.” So as grime goes global, it’s worth remembering there’s a whole universe for it to play in.

Safe is out now on PAN; Visionist plays Unsound festival on 17 Oct; Communion is out 30 Oct on Tri Angle Records