Scarper Opens His Archive With Off-Cuts (2014-2021) on Plexus Records

UK producer Scarper has gone back through his hard drive. Off-Cuts (2014-2021) is out now on his own Plexus Records, gathering eight previously unreleased tracks written during the years that produced his debut album Warmer Squares and the single E-Funk.

Those two records did a lot of work for him. Warmer Squares drew support from Orbital, Laurent Garnier and Carl Craig, picked up plays on Rinse FM, Sub FM and BBC 6 Music, and landed coverage in Mixmag, DJ Mag and XLR8R. E-Funk, released in 2020, became a proper floor weapon and is having a second life right now, helped by a new imprint pressing it up on physical format for the first time.

Eight Tracks From the Archive

The collection is a curated look at material that never made the cut first time round, though plenty of it sits comfortably next to his best known work. It opens with the big, emotional chords of Skynet, drops into playful acid squelch on Steppe and later reaches the string arrangements of Halocline. The artwork, a butcher’s shop front with the Scarper name over the door, makes the joke for him.

Scarper framed the project as a retrospective rather than a new chapter:

“I realised I had quite a few demos, jams and ideas on my laptop from that period, some of which were decent enough to polish up and get out into the world. It’s a snapshot of where I was musically at the time, so I thought I’d package them together as a retrospective rather than a proper release, giving people something to enjoy while I crack on with the next project.”

An Independent Operator

Steve Young, the man behind Scarper, releases almost everything through Plexus Records and doesn’t tie himself to one genre. He is as likely to turn in a gentle melodic piece as a heavy underground cut, and his records tend to mix classic sounds with more current production. That approach keeps winning him respected supporters and a growing fanbase outside the UK.

Off-Cuts (2014-2021) is out now on Plexus Records, with Scarper already at work on what comes next.

Scarper Online
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