Ed Solo

Under the name Ed Solo, Ed Bickley has built a career in the UK focused on bass music, spanning ragga jungle, drum and bass, breakbeat and dubstep. Active since the mid-1990s, Ed Solo first cut his teeth as a sound engineer at SOUR Records studios before settling in Brighton in 1997, a city with which his name remains associated. His early productions placed him within the orbit of the British jungle scene, notably through several tracks made with DJ Brockie; in the 2000s his work broadened into nu skool breaks with regular collaborations with Deekline, Krafty Kuts and Skool of Thought. The album Random Acts of Kindness, released in 2007 with Skool of Thought, marks a period in which Ed Solo blends breakbeat structures, ragga vocals and thick basslines in a format more open than drum and bass alone. Between 2008 and 2010 he also explored dubstep, notably via the Sludge label launched with Deekline, and from 2009 they developed the Jungle Cakes imprint together. Across these projects Ed Solo maintains a recognisable signature founded on broken rhythms, sound-system energy and a constant link between historic jungle and British bass music.