As a producer MJ Cole’s influence on british dance music, and more specifically garage has been enormous. You see words like ‘legend’ and ‘inspirational’ bandied around a lot these days often without any real justification, but in the case of Matt Coleman all hype is fully justified.

From early tunes like Guilty and (the career defining) Sincere right up to more recent productions like the Riddim EP, his tracks maintain a level of quality and consistency that make him as essential as ever. 

His musical background (he was classically trained in piano and oboe, and attended the Royal College of Music) shines throughout his work. Early tunes saw him draw on Jazz and R’n’B influences to create garage infused with delicate melodies and chord structures. More recent productions reflect a musical palette drawn from Grime & UK Funky, making bass heavy tunes that place the focus on rhythm. Yet even with a move into harder territories his tunes retain a sense of melody that sets him apart from his peers. 

We caught up with MJ earlier this week to chat about UK bass music and what he thinks about garages return to fashion.

Your new song, ‘from the drop’ features Wiley, how did this collaboration come about?  

We bumped into each other at YOYO one Thursday night. We’ve always had a mutual musical appreciation of one another’s work so we swapped digits and made it happen.

You’ve got L-Vis 1990 on the remix, one of the leading faces in dark UK funky. You’re ‘Riddim’ EP was essentially an entirely UK Funky release. What drew you to the genre?

Funky really reawakened some of the feelings I had for UK Garage. It has the energy which inspired me to make those earlier records. L-Vis is a great producer.

VOLCANO RIDDIM (snippet) by MJ Cole

Garage is making a massive resurgence back out from the underground scene in the wake of the dubstep movement. How long do you see it lasting this time round? What do you think the long-lasting appeal of garage is?

I don’t think Garage has come around again as such. I think it’s become cool to like it again. Genres don’t ever come back around in the same way. It’s great that we’re hearing UKG influences in Dubstep, Funky and Future Garage. I’m proud to have been part of it’s birth and now part of it’s inclusion in present day music.

What’s the song that you’re most proud of and why? 

I’m still proud of Sincere as a record even though it’s my best known work. I think it’s stood the test of time well as it was made honestly and with creative purpose.

Where’s your favourite venue in London to play?  

No one favourite at the minute but have had some great nights at Fabric, Egg, East Village, Lightbox.

With you knowledge of the dance music scene from the past decade or so, where do you see the scene in five years time?  

Things are really hotting up in the UK. I think we’re going to see even more collaborations between producers and artists from different genres.

What else have you got in the pipeline that we can look forward to?  

I’ve been working with several artists as a producer. These tracks should pop up next year. I have an EP of deeper stuff planned for release before the year is out. The remix inbox is massive at the minute - will be doing 2 or 3 more before xmas.

Head over to Boomkat to pick up a copy of MJ’s latest track with Wiley (the L-Vis remix is amazing!)