Josi Devil - No More
There's something so primordial about Josi Devil's latest effort. It feels almost ancestral in its presentation. The Sheffield-born jocky somehow captures sound somewhere of memories captured in low kilobits. It's a sound that anyone growing up in Great Britain around the time of early Lord of the Mic's, garage and bassline uploads, not to forget YouTube2MP3 rips, you will remember fondly. It was a time of washed-out colours, pixels, and real experimental expression. Before I get too nostalgic, it should be said that No More (2026) is very much a product of its time, that being 2026, has this slew of up-to-date musical ideas that will go into it, just encapsulating a very striking sound that sounds as if it came straight out of 2006.
The particular part of No More that strikes me is how similar it is to the work on school records, sister to Swamp81. It's a mix of dark garage, UK techno, and early tech/bass-house. The raw, minimal, and super gritty sound of street-inspired club music has been dying for a revisit. There's an unrelenting club-designed momentum to it. Everything's greased to the gills with delay and reverb, but it has so much room to breathe because of the heavy reliance on bass.
The title track has this throughline of vocal stabs that bounce around, almost in opposition to the rest of the track. The beats roll and roll, with a real fear-inducing weight thanks to the heavy bass groove. Adversely, 'Duinpan' finds more kinship with the old dubstep/industrial 140 techno that came out of Mønic, Killawatt and Kryptic Minds on Osiris Music UK. It's no carbon copy, though. Josi is focused on groove and bounce. Tension is there in spades as scratchy atmospheres and sharp percussion create a sense of immediacy. 'M.e.S' looks to the Birmingham scene and beyond as rumbling kicks and haunting metallic scraps that call back to dark industrial warehouse clubs and tunnels. The halftime bangs eventually evolve into a grimy trap extravaganza, showing Josi Devil still aims to innovate.
The whole EP is laced with a bit of reduced, distorted crunch that immediately excites the imagination in the same way that finding her an old grim cypher on YouTube does. It feels fully rooted in new musical ideas, whilst stylistically and sonically it links all the way back to the heyday of flip-phone recording. Josi Devil's distinct style is instantly recognisable while oddly nostalgic. This contrast between grit and intentionality makes the EP shine, and it's also a record that will most likely sound timeless due to the perceived throwback bit reduction. With that in mind, I'm still biased in thinking it will sound better on wax.
Label: Nervous Horizon (2025)
Josi Devil - No More
