A1. Wish U Were Here B1. Here 4 U B2. Ain't Gonna Lie Sales Notes: Deadboy’s own brand of garage flecked melancholia rocketed out of the stables on the single sided ‘If U Want Me,’ our very first release in early 2010, and the Brighton based producer hasn’t let up since, remixing artists like Cassie, Jamie Woon and Romy xx's CREEP. Working overtime on his public appearances - he just completed a huge US tour – Deadboy’s achieved another level of popularity after superstar rapper Drake recently pronounced him as ‘ill’ live on BBC Radio 1. A response no doubt to his slow mo reworking of Drake’s track ‘Fireworks’ which spread like wildfire around the internet late last year and eventually received a limited vinyl release on Well Rounded. Inspired as much by glam R&B as he is UK garage and dancehall, Deadboy returns to Numbers next month with HERE - a three track EP that veers ably from his own brand of stylistic, woozy dancefloor heartache to deep gilded disco on the 8 minute plus opener, ‘Wish U Were Here.’ Still chopping vocals and twisting them into his gloriously bittersweet fragmented shapes, this opener finds him playing with his evolutions, suitably adding and subtracting elements, through lush breakdowns, to keep the stomping pace at a constant whilst his bassline bubbles up and down the octaves. ‘Here 4 U’ is built around a solid but broken house groove that’s peppered with a purely London snare pattern, funky to a fault, its own fault it’s that funky. With his now trademarked sample play flanked by the snatches of rolling conga lines and hyperactive bass pulses, Deadboy unleashes one of his super long chords that’ve been emulated to lesser impact by many a producer, to devastating effect. Becoming something of a trait in his newer work, Deadboy seems to be building on and constantly developing the sorts of ideas and styles he displayed on his early releases and with ‘Ain’t Gonna Lie’ he really harnesses the power and melody of the vocal hook. Something he’s continually threatened to do, he takes the vocal line to dizzy heights, pairing it simply with stuttered kick drums, warm, charm oozing chords and real life ping pong percussion.