Paul White

Paul White, a South London beatmaker, constructs tracks around dense sampling drawn from improbable wellsprings such as progressive rock, psychedelic rock, and post-punk. His first commercial outing arrived in 2007 via the two-track single “The Dragon Fly” on One-Handed Music. A second two-track single, “For You and for Me,” appeared the next year, followed in 2009 by the five-track EP One Eye Open and his debut full-length, The Strange Dreams of Paul White. Still in 2009 he issued the Punch Drummer EP, the limited-edition single “Versus the BBC,” and the nineteen-track collection Sounds from the Skylight.

His second proper album, Paul White & the Purple Brain, surfaced in 2010 and was built entirely from samples of the obscure Swedish psychedelic rocker S.T. Mikael. Jointly released by One-Handed Music and Stones Throw’s Now-Again imprint, the set was previewed by the singles “My Guitar Whales” and “Ancient Treasure,” the latter featuring rapper Guilty Simpson. In 2011 White delivered Rapping with Paul White, an album that included appearances from Simpson, Danny Brown, Homeboy Sandman, and additional guests.

Further placements on recordings by Sandman, Brown, and Charli XCX soon followed, after which White moved to R&S for the 2014 album Shaker Notes. That project dispensed with sampling altogether; instead White played “proper” instruments and added his own vocals. In 2016 he teamed with left-field MC Open Mike Eagle for the joint release Hella Personal Film Festival and handled production on the bulk of Brown’s Atrocity Exhibition. A year later he uploaded the single-track instrumental beat tape Everything You’ve Forgotten to his Bandcamp page. His second R&S album, Rejuvenate, arrived in 2018.