Bug In The Bass Bin

Brit breakbeat fave Krafty Kuts (aka Martin Reeves) once DJed “alongside” The Rolling Stones – or so his bio says. “It was a festival that I was on and I was just on another stage,” Reeves confesses. “You couldn't even get anywhere near them!”

Indeed, he's always been one of dance music's least braggadocio DJs – today he humbly refers to himself as “little old me”. The Brighton native is talking up his first Aussie tour since he and A Skillz hit the festival circuit together in late-2012, and for Reeves, it feels like ages to be away from his second home.

“I've been really busy – I've been setting up a new band, [and] a record label, being a dad, and also DJing and touring the world and stuff.” This month Reeves will headline Villa's fifth birthday celebrations – and he has fond, and kooky, memories of Perth over the years. Playing Breakfest one time, he and A Skillz had to fight off an infestation of bugs. “They were all hitting us on the decks and they were on the turntables – they were on the back of our necks going down our T-shirts…,” Reeves shudders.

Reeves started as a teenage turntablist, later running a record store. In the '90s he slid into production. Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim) signed his Gimme The Funk to Southern Fried. At the height of the nu-skool breaks phenom, Reeves teamed with A Skillz for the cult LP Tricka Technology. Reeves was involved in the SuperCharged and Against The Grain labels with Skool Of Thought (Lloyd Seymour). He's now launched his own, Instant Vibes – through which he issued 2012's bass-fuelled album Let's Ride.

Reeves has just remixed two Australian acts – Melbourne's “extraordinarily talented” Dub FX and the “poppy” outfit Northbrook. Then he's wrapping a mix-CD, Back To The Beats – to surface locally on Central Station. “I've come up with this concept of doing a mix-CD which is kinda like bringing it back to the funk – and making a mix-CD that you can play any time of the day. It's not old-school, but mixing old with new and getting back to funk and the beats, rather than just one style.” Meanwhile, he's developing a live band, Wicked City, with Erb N Dub plus old ally Dynamite MC, to perform “funky music” for the post-dubstep era.

Reeves regards himself as “a DJ's DJ” – and an edutainer – but he's also a serial reinventor, understanding the inherently hybrid nature of 'breaks'. “There's a lot of things that I love. I think that some of the EDM stuff is really good... It's something different, it's fresh, it's exciting.” And Reeves rates Skrillex's album, Recess. “He's really pushed the boundaries there – he's kinda adapted, he's moved on, but he's still got some of his old flavours. So he's very clever. He doesn't really care about what people think – he does what he wants.” Like minds?