Dead Players Freshly Skeletal

Veterans of two of Britain’s most omnipotent rap crews, emcees Jam Baxter (Contact Play) and Dabbla (London Zoo) present as the scene's odd couple: the former an opioid-swilling, post-modernist poet, the latter a grimacing Problem Child with a wit like a knuckleduster upper-cut. Holding down beat-making duties, producer GhostTown pilfers from every genre that encircles hip-hop – trap, grime, dancehall, even a little 90s R’n'B - to create a sound which violently defies convention. At times both comic and deadly serious, each cut - peppered with war cries, splinter-sharp bars and Balkan folk samples - swings gleefully off its hinges.

Fans will be particularly hype to hear Runcorn local celebrity/Blah Records CEO Lee Scott on the Dre- inspired slow jam ‘Do It', plus appearances from Sox, Ocean Wisdom, Illaman and Orifice Vulgatron (Foreign Beggars) on posse cut 'Infinite Limousine Pile Up'. There’s also ‘Nah’, written in response to 2013’s smash single ‘Yeah’, and shady Shopping Channel send-up, as well as first single, 'Call Us Now', released on the 23rd of September 2015

2015 has been a good year for Dead Players. After an (decidedly un)healthy run of the UK’s festival circuit, they have just confirmed they will be touring Australia this November with label-mate Edward Scissortongue. As Baxter recalls, ‘Freshly Skeletal’ was forged “over many an intoxicated night in my living room, and on smoky summer afternoons on Dabbla's veranda, with lyrics penned everywhere from Barnet to Brazil." Having brewed in the studio for two years, the trio hope the record will receive the same open-armed praise as its self-titled predecessor (“genuinely original and forward thinking... unstoppable” – Broken Culture).