Beat Street

If we think of breakbeat itself as a clever young entrepreneur riding the mid-nineties storm of musical confidence, then the noughties saw our kick-snare hero down on his luck, relegated to niche nights and backstabbed by the electronic community at large.

The sweeping modern success of Baltimore, dubstep, experimental glitch and even disco as sub-genres owe much to traditional breakbeat, something Jason Laidback of UK breaks alumni Slyde acknowledges."That's it - it's no longer a dirty word," he says. "Breaks is having a bit of a resurgence in the UK, it's big in Spain and Germany, the Lady Waks parties in Russia are huge, but you hit the nail on the head ... it just hit hard times when it shouldn't have. It spawned a million little sub-genres, so I'm happy that it's starting to make headway again.

"The future garage stuff is inspirational, as is the crossover between techno, rave and dubstep. I'm not really into the slow rinse dubstep, but the faster, broken stuff is great and is really breaks to me, just under another sub-genre. People seem to like to do that when something new comes along. The producers Martyn and Joy Orbsion are doing good things. Kode 9 is pretty cool, his DJ Kicks mix was tasty. My staple favourites are Stanton Warriors, Deekline and the Plumps when they play breaks."

Slyde recently joined Fingerlickin' Records, arguably the most successful and enduring of all the nineties UK breaks labels. "It’s the best, most consistent label that's ever been about in the breaks scene. Some of the best, biggest artists and tracks have been released on that label over the years and it's a total privileged to be associated with it.

“I like to think we're flying the flag well for them. People have splintered off doing their own digital labels now - we're doing Slybeats - so everyone's sort of in control of their own destiny, which I quite like. I'm enjoying having control of what and when we put things out ... we're looking to release something every six to eight weeks this year.

“An album? I'm not sure ... people's attention spans aren't what they used to be, and people tend to cherrypick albums for their favourite tracks. I'll give the dubstep kids props, they seem to have the patience to sit down and listen to a whole album.”

Jason's earliest exposure to electronic music was an orgy of old school, an influence that shines through the layered breaks he creates. "Early days, right back in the eighties. I saw the film 'Beat Street' and really got into Afrika Bambaata and all the early electro coming out of New York alongside Run DMC, early Beastie Boys and LL Cool J, and then onto Chemical Brothers ... The first gig I saw I was about 15 and I saw Run DMC in Camden, their first ever UK gig. Inspiring times, man."

After two banging shows in Sydney and Melbourne followed by a decent bit of downtime, he's amped to show Brisbane what's up his sleeve. "Australia's always a great place to play. I'm out here by myself this time; Rob's in Miami at the music conference. Last time we came out it was Parklife with the Plumps, and that chunky breaks sound really works at a festival. Every track I'll be dropping this time around will be brand new, fresh remixes and re-edits and only a few Slyde singles get played that have been released - there will be a lot of unreleased stuff and I think that's what makes it special.

"I'm not a fan of Serato, I tend to think you should take tunes with you and make the best of what you've got and you're not cheating, bringing your whole bloody collection with you. We've used CDJs for a long time now, and I really like what I can do on them, little tricks and doubles and loops and samples.”

Slyde play Barsoma March 26.