Mark E - Stone Breaker

Who would have thought Birmingham would have bred a king of slo-mo beats and deep house, or to be more precise: Wolverhampton. The success of Wolves achieving Premier League status somewhat draws parallels to the impact Mark E’s had on the ‘disco-not-disco-meets-deep-house’… whatever you want to call it scene.

It’s fair to say Mark E has put the ‘chug’ in ‘chugger’ from his early days of edits and slipping tunage into the hands of GillesPeterson, so it’s refreshing to bare witness to an extended piece of work that not only fulfils E’s ongoing potential, but is entertaining and captivating at the same time.

‘Stone Breaker’ doesn’t tease you, it doesn’t lure you, it doesn’t even give you time to expect what we’ve come to love from the Brum-based producer. The album from the first beat is built for the dancefloor and it makes no apologies for that, quite rightly. By ‘Belvide Beat’, track three, you’re slammed into an acid-house heavyweight after the Balearic yet uncompromising ‘Black Country Saga.’

When ‘Got to Get Me There’ drops in, you’re well and truly absorbed into a futuristic, industrial techno banger (with a sun-soaked twist), stripped back and re-rubbed for a disco audience, which is quite something – aside from the reoccurring high-pitched tom-like sound akin to pressing the flight attendant button on a plane. But hey, we’re not all perfect.
Like Marmite, you’ll either love or hate the length each track goes on for, with some clocking in over ten minutes in their entirety but from a personal point of view, the quality is exceptional and each record has enough personality oozing from there bassline up, it’s hard not to be drawn into Mark E’s way of thinking.

‘Stone Breaker’ has a bit of everything but not curated in a way it doesn’t make sense. There’s structure, rhythm and diversity, all encapsulated into the pace and sound we’ve been familiar with from the MERC boss in the past. From the jazz influences of ‘BlackMoon’ and ‘Oranges’, through to the soul-inspired, early r’n’b-smoothness of ‘The Day’ rounding off the album in an eloquent and memorable style.

Ticking pretty much all the boxes  - whilst retaining E’s trademark identity -  ‘Stone Breaker’ exhibits what a true talent Mark E is from start to finish.