Mix of the Week: Trends and Boylan
Responsible for some of the biggest instrumental grime tunes of recent years, Trends and Boylan deliver a monster set in our Mix of the Week.
Despite only recently coming to prominence, Trends and Boylan are veterans of the British bass music scene. Long before they started making music together their careers followed parallel trajectories. Starting off individually as drum and bass producers, they discovered grime through legendary DJ and founder of Rinse FM Slimzee. Inspiring a change in style they soon carved a place in the emerging instrumental grime scene, the rise of which coincided with the grime resurgence lead by the likes of Skepta and Stormzy.
After a slew of well received individual tunes, the pair first linked up at a Boxed rave, one of the key parties in the instrumental grime scene. Working together they released “Norman Bates” one of the hardest instrumentals of recent years which found it’s way into the crates of Kode9 and Slimzee and forced multiple rewinds whenever it got played. Not resting on the success they followed up in 2017 with “Krueger” featuring a vocal from Riko Dan.
Both aforementioned tracks are featured in the mix with “Norman Bates” kicking things off and also closing the mix blended with Trends’ “Hypnotized” remix. In between it’s an unrelenting hour of dirty bass lines, distorted drums, dark strings and epic horns. While some instrumental grime producers use the lack of vocalists to focus on the melodic side of the genre, Trends and Boylan take all the hardest elements and turn them up even more.
Almost exclusively instrumental aside from a couple of vocal tracks, the mix is packed full of dubplates and remixes. Play it loud and you’re sure to drive your housemates, workmates or neighbours crazy.
