20. Jimmy Edgar – No Static

Jimmy Edgar was just 19 when he made No Static, which is either impressive or sickening, depending on which side of the bitterness gap you fall. However, Edgar’s years are merely a side show here; backstory or context isn’t required to find No Static a remarkable piece of music. Instead, what really makes the track pop is that for a genre as rigid as electro, No Static is gloriously loose. Right from the off, the keyboard throbs sit just behind the beat, lending the track an instant sense of instability, of ever-shifting velocity. Then comes the deliciously wonky speech sample, cramming too many words into too few beats and, just as you begin to parse that, the beats are cut down and, isolated, that synth wobbles further still. Edgar’s youthful mischief is on full display, and No Static refuses to sit still. However, its volatility is borne of confidence rather than incompetence, and that’s why No Static is so compelling – it knows its own charm, this is no fluke, and observing something so capricious but cocksure is great fun. Only when the speech is diced and repeated over the final minute is there any obvious sign of planning, but in general, No Static is a sort of Mr Blonde character: unnerving and exciting in its unpredictability, a miniature electronic maverick.

https://thedecade.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/01-no-static.mp3