Over the past few months, 1tbsp has been teasing us with a steady stream of indie-house gems, ‘Starchitect’, ‘Limosina (featuring Cherry Chola)’ and “The City Never Felt So Good.” Each track is a breadcrumb leading us into the expansive, experimental world of his new album ‘Megacity1000’, a metaphorical metropolis built from the ground up on grooves that are uniquely 1tbsp.
A new strain of dance music that refuses to be boxed in – think House with a splash of UK Garage and a sprinkle of something so fresh it doesn’t even have a name yet – the Australian DJ/Producer’s latest project is contained within its own sonic urban sprawl where basslines form the infrastructure and beats represent the pulse of a dystopian concrete jungle, or in this case, cardboard, with 1tbsp and his girlfriend spending an entire summer building a miniature city from the material, in which they shot the visuals for this album – an ironic nod to the pro-capitalistic world the album critiques.
Inspired by everything from Fritz Lang’s ‘Metropolis’ to the ultra-futuristic ‘The Line’ in Saudi Arabia, the album’s thumping beats and intricate rhythms, dive deep into the anxieties of our generation – expanding populations, climate change,gentrification – all set against the backdrop of a city doomed to fail, it’s the kind of escapism we crave with just the right amount of reality-check sprinkled in ““It feels like DJing & dance music can exist as an escape from reality which I really value, but it was also interesting to find a way to bring these concepts into my music as well.”
In Megacity1000, 1tbsp isn’t just giving us music to dance to; he’s offering a world to get lost in, and a warning of what happens when the beat finally drops.