Ed Rush

Based in London, Ed Rush, aka Ben Settle, made his mark on the British jungle and drum and bass scene from the early 1990s with his first maxi releases in 1992. He also featured on the pirate radio station Don FM and developed a darker sound through contacts with DJ Trace and the No U-Turn label. His productions of that period — ranging from breakbeat hardcore and taut jungle to abrasive basslines — accompanied the emergence of techstep, a cold, dense aesthetic that Ed Rush helped define in the mid-1990s. After releases on No U-Turn, Prototype and Metalheadz, he began a lasting collaboration with Optical in 1997, with whom he founded Virus Recordings. The duo Ed Rush & Optical then refined a more futuristic approach, marked by cutting rhythms, metallic textures and a style that fed into neurofunk, notably on Wormhole (1998), The Creeps (Invisible And Deadly!) (2000), The Original Doctor Shade (2003), Chameleon (2006), Travel the Galaxy (2009) and No Cure (2015). At the same time Ed Rush continued DJing across clubs and festivals and formed Killbox with Audio, extending a trajectory rooted in the darker, more percussive forms of drum and bass.