Dark Utopia, the boundary-pushing alias of Manchester’s Ricky El-Qasem, channels a lifetime of sonic rebellion. Once known as DJ SHO in the ’90s, El-Qasem carved his legacy through gritty Hip-Hop sets and Rave-ready Techno, earning a reputation as a purveyor of dance-floor chaos. Decades later, his evolution into Dark Utopia defies categorisation, merging his storied past with a maverick approach to production. “The Change Board” – his forthcoming four-track EP on Sweden’s imprint When Disco Goes Wrong – embodies this ethos, blending warped basslines, unrelenting rhythms, and lysergic textures into a defiant cocktail. It’s a manifesto against genre orthodoxy, where anarchic acid squelches and primal grooves collide, daring listeners to abandon expectations.

Premiered here, “T-Jazz” is a misdirection of the finest order. Despite its title, the track sidesteps Jazz entirely, instead hurling listeners into a vortex of frenetic percussion, rubbery basslines, and neon-lit synths. Its frenzied energy channels the lawless spirit of early Rave, with speech-like vocal snippets and a searing 303 line amplifying the chaos. Built for peak-time havoc, the theme thrives on contradiction – its “Jazz” lies not in instrumentation but in the improvisational clash of elements: Uptempo beats spiral alongside hypnotic loops, creating a track that’s both unhinged and meticulously calculated.

You can find (and buy) this and other music pearls on the Bandcamp page of the label.

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