- Beautifully spacey cuts of jungle.
- Warehouse Rave is a new-ish UK label that specializes in—you guessed it—rave music, and which became a must-watch when it released two stellar records on the same day: Thugwidow's Authentic Experience and Fiesta Soundsystem's Inflorescence Pt. 1. Both EPs are great examples of the UK's ongoing rave revival, but for me, Thugwidow's effort edges out Fiesta Soundsystem's just slightly.
Thugwidow is a Welsh artist who makes modern jungle with a sense of atmosphere and space that eludes most of his peers. He releases a lot of music, to the point where even a fan might not feel the urge to rush out and grab a new one. But Authentic Experience is different—it's the culmination of years of fine-tuning a sci-fi jungle sound Thugwidow comes close to perfecting here. Listen to how what starts out as drumfunk in "Black Panther" gradually grows into a familiar Amen break, or how the rambunctious percussion on the title track spills across the stereo spectrum.
Authentic Experience might have been released on a label called Warehouse Rave, but Thugwidow's music has always been about more than that, its astral beats coming from a place of loneliness and solitude. It's beautiful, deeply felt dance music, which makes the name Thugwidow—an alias that's immature at best and vaguely offensive at worst—all the more puzzling. Because one thing's for sure: with records like Authentic Experience, it's a name you'll be hearing more and more.
TracklistA1 Romanticized
A2 Black Panther
B1 Authentic Experience
B2 Prospective Sub-Class
B3 Dwyran