Mr Scruff is Manchester’s cheekiest DJ. Ask him on a good day and he'll tell you he’s a producer too. Or in his own words “a producer indoors and a DJ outdoors.” Following the phenomenal success of his debut long-player “Keep it Unreal” and the commercial attention tracks like “Get a Move On” brought him, Scruff has finally put the vinyl to one side and finished his second album, baptized 'Trouser Jazz.” So first off, what’s with the title? “It’s what I tell journalists I make! It’s just a daft title — it suited it, I liked it and it's cheeky. That's probably the best way to describe my music. It's got a grin. It's not always silly, but there's always a smile.”
In fact, listening to Mr Scruff’s music is quite a silly experience. The quirky, chugging sampled bumps and bops of “Ug” testify to that. So do the other dozen or so electro-ska-hip hop tracks that unintentionally form a naughty uneveness. The songs are so neither here-nor-there, that even their maker ceases to know how to define them. “Once you give something a name, you’ve got to do this if it’s a breakbeat tune — or, that if it’s a house tune. If you’re not sure what kind of tune it is, you can go anywhere with it.” And that’s exactly where he went.
Despite his fondness for Djing, you won’t see Scruff take his music live on stage. He’s not exactly the head-nodding type and even admits to being un-flashy on the mixing desk. As he neatly sums up his production technique, he also captures the essence of his goofy sound: “I'm not King Tubby and I’m not an equipment nerd — I prefer programming slowly in the studio with a cup of tea in my hand…”. Very English, very Scruffy. “Trouser Jazz” (Ninja Tune/Pias) out Sept 9
