Deep, Heavy, Soulful: Bristol's Andy Mac

Late last year, this humble little blog debuted with a not-so-humble barnstormer of a mix from Punch Drunk label head Peverelist.  Aside from a boatload of promising new material from Mr. Tom Ford himself, the mix included two other prominent debuts: Kahn's "Like We Used To" and Andy Mac's "Everytime."  In February, Kahn's track was released on the label to great acclaim, a perfect and poppy synthesis of dubstep, garage, and house.  Well, the next Punch Drunk release was the other debut from the mix's other standout, Andy Mac's "Everytime," two slices of dusty garage-inflected house striking the perfect balance between propulsive and catchy and doing it all with a rather on-point sense of age and crackle. I reviewed the single over at FACT, and Andy Mac's subtle and slightly dark tunes remind me a lot of what I love about another one of 2011's brightest new prospects, Kevin McPhee.

But really, who the hell is Andy Mac?  I had certainly never heard of him; I contacted Peverelist to find out more and it turns out he's a DJ ("first and foremost"as Ford puts it).  So who better to to do a Futureproofing post on than a producer with such high potential?  Liking his single so much, and wanting to hear how he would contextualize his sound in a DJ mix, I tapped Andy Mac for a mix and a short interview, and I'm glad I did.  Mac's mix is pretty much exactly what you could expect if you've heard his debut 12-inch, and if you have, then this is worth your time and then some.  Over the course of 90 minutes Mac feels out every tangent and influence that you could possibly pick out of his music: deep, jacking house, garage-leaning tracks, swift and smooth techno, spacey dub, and everything in between.  He doesn't provide a tracklist, but that's just all part of the fun: there are of course familiar tracks, but it's impressive how he manages to make everything sound both timeless and curiously, mysteriously aged, like some old mix unearthed from a decade and a half ago.  Interview and download after the jump.