Back To Mine with Jung Latch

Jung Latch is the alias of East London-based composer and sound designer Rupert Galea. Using an array of modular gear, vintage 8-bit samplers, world instruments and his own written algorithms for randomised generative melodies and rhythms, he makes his own distinctive style of avant-garde rave music, playing with intricate sonic collages and underpinning them with hard-hitting breakbeats.

Born into an Irish/Maltese family and diagnosed with autism at age 4, Rupert was classically trained in music from an early age, starting with piano and moving onto saxophone, violin, drums, bass and guitar. During his teenage years, Galea developed a fixation on old records by Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream and Enigma that his father used to play, eventually sourcing old analog synths that had seen better days from car boot sales, then taking them apart and re-wiring to experiment with different timbres.

Channelling the freewheeling, frenetic energy and exploratory spirit of electronic artists like Batu, Throwing Snow and early Max Cooper, his debut EP Esoteric out now combines elements of breakbeat, glitch and electro across four memorable tracks.

Here he’s selected 10 varied cuts for our Back to Mine series. And it is a very special 10…

 

Kraftwerk – The Robots

When I was really young I could never get to sleep without my dad driving around the car park with me in shotgun and it was always this tune playing as I was drifting off. In that sense it was probably the first song I ever heard. My dad has always been a die-hard Kraftwerk fan and that’s definitely rubbed off on me over the years.

Talking Heads – Listening Wind

An often ignored Talking Heads track but definitely among the most psychedelic and sophisticated tunes they have. The atonal guitar licks combined with the heavy emphasis on melody on the rest of the song make for a surreal listening experience. I love pretty much everything they’ve ever made but this one is their magnum opus.

Burial – Endorphin

This song has brought me to tears before with its combination of bleak and beautiful. For me it really encapsulates what London was like in the mid-2000s: dark, gritty and sort of depressing. Before I came across Burial I mostly just listened to electronic stuff for the beats but he actually introduced me to the emotional aspect of it.

Massive Attack – Risingson

This, along with everything else on their Mezzanine album, is perfect for being alone at night, with its oppressive low-end rumble and occasional glimpse of pallid light it captures a very specific kind of mood. Also the sentiment behind the lyrics, being stuck on a night out surrounded by people you can’t be bothered to deal with, is a highly relatable feeling.

Enigma – Sadeness Part 1

This is a main influence on my own music, that gorgeous blend of ethereal new-age vocals over a solid old-school breakbeat. For something that came out in 1990 it feels both really nostalgic and incredibly ahead of its time. I love the variation in the instruments used, especially when combined with the meditative hip-hop beat.

Death Grips – Hustle Bones

Death Grips blew my mind when I first heard them and the abstract chaotic energy behind this track really resonates with me. This whole album is a solid 10 but I particularly love when the chorus hits in this song, it just feels so fucking cool.

Rene And Angela – I’ll Be Good

My go-to song for kicking back on a Sunday morning with a cup of coffee and a spliff, it’s a very easygoing kind of happiness. This track makes me think of my girlfriend a lot, I’m not sure why. The sample of it used in Foxy Brown’s ‘I’ll Be’ is also a sick groove and never fails to lift my mood.

Azelia Banks – 212

Pretty self-explanatory, it’s the best song ever written.

Peter Schilling – Major Tom (Völlig losgelöst)

I found this old FRG synthpop track while browsing a tucked away record shop in Kreuzberg back when I was living in Berlin, and it carts me straight back there in my mind whenever I put it on. Probably the one vinyl I won’t sell. I miss that city.

Tay-K – The Race  

This pretty much soundtracked my university years, it was my mates there that really got me into modern hip-hop and trap and this one really stood out to me, I could listen to the hook on a ten hour loop and not get bored. Murder conviction aside, the man knows how to write a tune.

 

Jung Latch socials…

https://www.instagram.com/jung_latch