The Best Rustie Productions

Release: Unreleased

Year: 2009

Genre-bending is the name of the game for Rustie. He's built a career on melding disparate influences into one white-hot melting pot, and what comes out is never anything less than exciting. Here, he took on a Keyshia Cole break-up anthem and imbued it with fury. The track is characterized solely by a mid-range synth that skitters with such force it sounds like it could only have been issued by someone like Zeus. Instead, it came from a Scottish bedroom producer quietly turning in destructive club tracks built from elements alien to traditional dance music. It's an auditory tantrum, creating a tableau for Cole's heartbreak with a heartrendingly intense, bouncing beat that just never lets up.

Release: Unreleased
Year: 2013

An unreleased jam that we've heard only in Essential Mixes from both Rustie and Jacques Greene, "Frazzle" typifies the sound Rustie's been perfecting over the years. He's walking a tightrope between dance music and hip-hop, between a club banger and something more emotive, and the thin line on which he operates is addictive. This track, available only in set rips and low-quality YouTube clips, had us obsessed from the get-go, and just goes to show that Rustie's got some jams up his sleeve that are better than what most producers turn out in an entire career.

Release: Dress 2 Sweat Vol. 1

Year: 2007

This relatively unheralded rarity makes a lot of sense when taken with Rustie's output over the past few years. He's been drawing ever-closer to hip-hop with tracks like "Triadzz," and his recent collaborations with Danny Brown marked a full on crossover in production style. One listen to this track, though, which Rustie made back in 2007 (!), and it's clear he was on an entirely different plane back then. The beat is a raucous breakbeat driven club riddim, a throwback instrumental closer to an old skool rave tune than a rap beat. An overload of synths, syncopated percussion, and horns, "Click Clack" would work extraordinarily on its own, the Rich Boy and Polow Da Don acappellas thrown over the top just give it an additional, very recognizable edge. The combination is pure Rustie, albeit a side of the Scottish producer we don't hear much from anymore.

Release: Play Doe / Tempered

Year: 2008

The combination of Bristol's Purple Prince (Joker) and Rustie makes a lot of sense on paper, and their collaborative track "Play Doe" was as good as anyone could have expected, oozing personality and vibrant colour. Starting off like it might be a bouncy club rap beat, "Play Doe" quickly descends into glorious technicolor insanity, with the bright, cascading melodies, the guttural bass, and that Busta Rhymes sample coming together to create something awesome.

"HAH!"

Release: Glass Swords

Year: 2011

It's hard to find standouts in an album that's uniformly excellent, but "Ultra Thizz" is a mid-album moment of pure euphoria. It's a brilliant mix of unashamedly sugar-coated, poppy parts and the occasional hard-edged piece of Night Slugs-esque futurism, an it's the kind of song that gave Rustie more mainstream appeal and exposure, while never once alienating die-hard dance music fans.

Release: Jagz The Smack EP

Year: 2007

This b-side off Rustie's 2007 Jagz The Smack EP, which was limited to 400 physical copies, has less of a maximalist bent than his later work on Glass Swords and beyond, but still has those diamond-edged synths that give that "Rustie" sound. While the extremely full sound that he now embraces now is brilliant, it's great to hear something rough and raw from time to time, and "pendulum" gives you just that.

Release: Mush 12"

Year: 2008

Rustie keeps things fairly restrained on his remix of Zomby's "Spliff Dub," and for good reason. The original, with its instantly memorable vocal sample and menacing lurch was a simple, but perfectly built song, and this remix doesn't change the song's structure or feel too much, instead adding various embellishments and offering a a glitchy, futuristic alternative to Zomby's original vision.

Release: Glass Swords

Year: 2011

It's worth mentioning here that Rustie's Glass Swords is something of a modern classic, and almost any of the tracks on his only full-length to date could have made this list. However, when cutting down the Rustie discography to just ten tracks, "Cry Flames" is an easy pick. The title alone describes the song handily, a pulsing inferno of escalating synths and guitar undercut but a stuttering, wordless, desperate vocal sample that gives the whole track a mournful, furious feel. It's a balancing act that not many producers are even capable of dreaming up, let alone executing like this. The end result is undeniably one of Rustie's under-hyped best.

Release: Triadzz / Slasherr

Year: 2013

"Slasherr" has no right to be as good as it is. After the success of Glass Swords, Rustie should not have the time to drop off a single out of nowhere that's as innovative and effective as this track is. The first thing that's striking about "Slasherr" is how concise it is. There's no wasted moments here, just a straightforward build and drop that's so to the point that it's impossible to notice everything else that's going on here. The sounds Rustie's designed for himself over the years have always seemed brighter and crisper than the competition's, and on "Slasherr" he hit a peak. He's throwing down a bubbling synth that's effervescent enough to sound like a completely new instrument. That he's able to meld bass and melody so inextricable from another is the achievement of an obsessive, and it so neatly takes the form of EDM and elevates the game that we're confident that this will have to be amended as soon as Rustie starts letting loose more of his solo work.