KRUST: Moving in cycles

Along with Roni Size, Krust was at the forefront of jungle in the 90s, helping to launch the genre and one of its most legendary labels, Full Cycle Records. After taking a seven-year break from music production, he is back with The Edge Of Everything, his first album in 14 years, an extraordinary cinematic production that came together with the best of old and new technology…

Krust (aka Kirk Thompson) first tasted success in 1989 as part of Fresh 4 (along with Paul ‘Suv’ Southey, Krust’s brother Flynn and Judge), with the top 10 track Wishing On A Star. After immersing himself in his local Bristolian music scene – growing up with the likes of The Wild Bunch before they became Massive Attack – he became one of the city’s jungle pioneers, producing break-led, furious tempo tracks like Warhead, Music Box and Soul In Motion on labels including Moving Shadow, Talkin Loud, V Recordings and Full Cycle, which he set up with Roni Size in 1994. Krust was also in Size’s Reprazent, along with fellow Bristolians Die, Suv and MC Dynamite, who won the 1997 Mercury Music Prize for the album New Forms.

Krust’s solo albums include his critically-acclaimed debut Coded Language and 1999’s Hidden Knowledge and he has remixed everyone from Alex Reece to Moloko. In 2008 he took an extended sabbatical away from music production, setting up a successful life-coaching business, but in 2016 he returned to resurrect Full Cycle with Roni Size and embark on an album project, The Edge Of Everything, which has just been released. As he reveals here, the new album reflects his extraordinary journey, a cinematic project that has arguably been three decades in the making, updating the original jungle sound for the 21st century but throwing in three decades of huge experiences into the mix. For its recording, he spent a year collecting the sounds, the gear and the plugins and utilised a unique DAW-production process to put it all together.