Premiere: PSSΠGR - Forest

Step into a dark forest with this Gloucestershire producer's ominous hip hop beats.

PSSΠGR is producer based out in the glorious English countryside who makes hip hop beats that sound like they just crawled out of the darkest depths of the woods – so appropriately enough, we've got the premiere of his new cut Forest. Building gradually from vinyl crackles and distant jangling to encompass the steady thump of claps, distorted voices, creepy snares and what sound like owl hoots, the track is richly evocative, and sounds like the evil twin brother of Texan producer Botany's sun-streaked hip hop experiments.

We had a chat with the Gloucestershire man to find out what we can expect from his debut EP – out next month on Tape Club Records – and what's going on in his neck of the woods.

Hi, PSSΠGR! Could you introduce yourself to Dummy readers?

PSSΠGR: "Hey, I’m Jon / PSSΠGR, a 26 year old beat maker from the UK. I’ve been working on an EP which will be out on Dec 9th with Tape Club Records.

"Thanks for checking out my stuff."

You're based in Gloucestershire; what's the big news from out there right now?

PSSΠGR: "It might sound strange but in all honesty I really wouldn’t know. I have a close group of friends that share music, art and ideas with each other, which is amazing. For me, Gloucester is more about smaller pockets of people into similar things than any big scenes or anything like that. It’s cool, kind of like you’re in a secret club like the Famous Five.

"Outside of that though, I find a lot of interesting stuff online through blogs or Soundcloud or random Google searches or whatever. I love how location or background is becoming much less of an obstacle in sharing and communicating with likeminded people."

So how did you get into making music?

PSSΠGR: "I’ve played guitar since I was small, which led to me playing in a couple of bands in my teens. It was pretty much best friends jamming, playing whatever style we were into at the time, it was great. Around this time I was also making beats that we used to mess around with. They weren’t good beats but this is how I learned about sampling.

"This new computer/sample based stuff happened over the past few years really, when I moved away for uni. I started getting really into all these amazing producers who were making crazy sounding beats, stuff I had never heard before. I got back into the sampling thing again but from a different perspective. I’m basically just trying out some new things and it’s nice because I can work on songs on my own using a really minimal setup."

The 'Breathe' EP is out just in time for Christmas. Why should people get it for their loved ones' stockings?

PSSΠGR: "Oh I love Christmas stockings so much. Well, sweets and beats are always a great combination."

Tape Club Records will release the 'Breathe' EP on the 9th December 2013.