Erik Jabari - Sky Sailor

Hardwax is arguably the greatest platform for electronic dance music vinyl in the world. Held up as a Mecca of locked grooves and hypnotic rhythms, the famous store has seen countless legendary works pass through its bins. Really, it shouldn't come as any shock that those working for the exalted store would know a thing or two about dance music. Insteps Eric Jabari, a relative newcomer to the underground scene but a clear student of the art form. His latest work, Sky Sailor (2026), is a fast-paced and gritty expression of a to-the-point, raw, and energetic sound. Jabari blends subgenres with relative freedom, ignoring rules in favour of a more free-flowing and richly textured sound.

Eric's flirts with d techno off-the-wall dub throughout the Sky Sailor EP. The sound seems to be influenced by the early UK future garage era, as shown by a gentle use of quite hasty hi-hats and filtered pad sounds. There are shades of deep house and Bristolian dub techno littered throughout. It's a rather weighty, bass-heavy project, DIY club quality. It has the feeling of being newly finished, like Eric was putting the final pieces together on his laptop on the way to the club (like Pev in that one documentary). By no means does this mean it's amateurish, but it has an immediacy that is clear throughout: a turn-your-brain-off, let-things-flow, don't-overthink-it sort of dance-floor aliveness.

These early UK genre conventions are revisited throughout with more liberal use of 808-style drums and dark, moody reverbs that begin on 'Sound Reflections' and continue into 'Sky Sailor'. Jabari starts things off really understated, very by-the-book, that is, until the first drop, when Eric introduces wafting, switching, expanding, and floating dub chords that both anchor the track's modernity while showing a real understanding and appreciation for what's come before. It lends itself to study as well as to dancing, as the more you interrogate the sound you're listening to, the more variety and micro-rhythms present themselves.

Possibly the most UK-friendly track out at the minute, not only just on the EP, is the absolute killer 'Megalo don', which takes inspiration from the key Big Apple players such as Hatcher and the like. The heavy, grinding bassline is the anchor as Eric revisits these classic early dubstep wobbles and incorporates them into a track more lined with industrial techno, with a little less distortion. Unrelenting and a little bit scary, but the perfect thing to play in a gritty UK club circa 2012-16.

'Dark Illusions' is a true mashup in the best sense of the word. It says, though, that the basic channel was released on RIP Productions. It's fast and energetic, but its vibrancy's been tailored off. It's a lot more smoky, insular, and purpose-built. Interesting little sections develop as the frequency shifts. Haunting strings are introduced on the track, building and building to a crescendo that strips everything back, leaving bouncy, crunchy, crispy drums to keep everything going until it just evolves again, constantly building and cutting back to the right of sparseness. The flow of the EP is stellar, building, dropping the right back down, and finishing off with a real vicious left hook.

Eric's raw musical knowledge, coupled with a proverbial treasure trove of inspiration, has fostered a sort of neo-dubstep-inspired bass that dances across the line between techno and two-step. It's an exhilarating EP that takes UK elements and rejigs them with heavy distortion and an unconventional disregard for conventions, making each track an easy mainstay in record bags and playlists.

Label: Self-Released (2026)

Erik Jabari - Sky Sailor