Plastician

Born Chris Reed and hailing from Thornton Heath in the borough of Croydon in south London, Plastician has developed a career since the late 1990s that is closely tied to the shifts in British bass music. Initially active as a DJ in the local UK garage scene, he quickly gravitated toward the darker variants of the genre and helped foster the emergence of instrumental grime, dubstep and breakstep. After stints on pirate radio stations Desire FM and then 2GFM with the Fearless Crew, Plastician released his first tracks in the early 2000s, notably on DJ Slimzee’s Slimzos label as well as on Soulja and ROAD, while his sets found a home on Rinse FM and at FWD nights at Plastic People. Originally known as Plasticman, Chris Reed adopted the name Plastician in the mid-2000s. His debut album, Beg to Differ, appeared in 2007 and reflects the crossover of grime rhythms, dubstep bass and sound-system aesthetics, with tense, direct production and a style strongly marked by the London scene. Plastician also founded the label Terrorhythm Recordings, launched in 2002, which has issued both his own releases and records by artists such as Joker and Om Unit. Over the years he has broadened his palette toward more open forms of bass music while remaining associated with the history of Croydon, Rinse FM and the early grime and dubstep scenes.