Jimmy Edgar: Majenta Live

Indulging in my own fantasy for a moment, I like to imagine that the Detroit school system is entirely based around two fundamental curricular activities: car production and producing electronic music. The average day probably involves a morning of chassis design followed by double of 303 squelches. If this beautiful vision were actually true then Jimmy Edgar, who was born in the city, would be the kid who passed all his exams early and then left to do something interesting, probably in Berlin. 

Still only 28 and having now set up camp at Hotflush after previously finding a home on Warp and !K7, Edgar has not diverted too far from his original thesis of ramping the sleaze setting right up to maximum, and you’d rather your Mum saw the cover art of his new album Majenta - featuring a dolled-up, androgynous bald character with a bizarre head tattoo - than the track titles on the back. While he’s clearly got a one-track mind, he manages to sustain it over the breadth of an album whether it’s over some R&B dripping with synths, or persistent, driven electro. The triple A support of Dam Mantle, Machinedrum and HARA (HaHaHa and Raksha) knock this one out of the park. [Kenneth Scott]