Mr. G

British dance music legend Colin McBean has produced the majority of his solo material under the name Mr. G. Moving from the harder, faster techno and electro sounds of his work with Cisco Ferreira as the Advent during the ’90s, McBean split from the duo in 1999 and continued producing tracks in a rugged but soulful tech-house style. Issuing an overwhelming quantity of EPs on his own Phoenix G. label, as well as others such as Defected and Moods & Grooves, his tracks can always be relied on for tough but swinging rhythms. Since the late 2000s, he’s gained a wider audience through releases on Radio Slave’s label Rekids, including the 2013 double-CD Retrospective, as well as a memorable appearance on popular online broadcaster Boiler Room. He’s also released several full-lengths, with albums like State of Flux (2012) and A Part of Me, Vol. 2 (2018) containing his most personal material, and 2023′s Pearls Don’t Lay on the Shore featuring abstract downtempo pieces. He collaborated with Spooky’s Duncan Forbes on the 2023 album All Under One Moon. McBean was born in Derby, England to Jamaican parents. From an early age, he was drawn to reggae and pop music, and started buying records whenever possible, both at home and during his family’s trips to visit family in Jamaica. He would help out with sound systems as a youth, and eventually he started working at a record store in Derby, often venturing to London to go cratedigging. He later moved to the city to study fashion, and formed the acid house-influenced trio KCC with Keith Franklin (Bang the Party) and Cisco Ferreira. Their first single, “State of Mind…,” was released by the small, Rough Trade-distributed Hi Note imprint in 1990. Ferreira and McBean formed the Advent in 1993, and soon signed to Internal Records (also home to Orbital), releasing a string of well-regarded EPs and full-lengths which fused Detroit techno and electro influences, including the 1995 classic Elements of Life. The duo also released material under several other project names, including minimal-leaning tracks as Soul Destroyaz and loopy tech-funk as G Flame & Mr. G. This moniker released a series of records through the duo’s Metalbox imprint, including the 1998 full-length Who Knows!? G. Ferreira and McBean stopped working together in 1999. McBean salvaged an MPC sampler and reconfigured his approach to music-making. A few more G Flame & Mr. G records came out on McBean’s Phoenix G. label, then McBean largely concentrated on solo work as Mr. G (as well as a few other names like Halcyon Daze and Mango Boy), while Ferreira soldiered on as the Advent. Remixes of Hatiras’ 2000 club hit “Spaced Invader” and Tin Tin Out’s “Anybody’s Guess” helped raise McBean’s profile, and he followed several releases on his own label with EPs on labels like Defected, Duty Free, and Loaded. In 2002, he released Me, Myself & I, a double-CD roundup of several tracks and remixes, in both mixed and unmixed formats. 2006 single “E.C.G.’ed” marked Mr. G’s first released on Rekids; the Radio Slave-helmed label later released his first two full-lengths, 2010′s Still Here and 2012′s State of Flux. A 2012 appearance on the fledgling Boiler Room program introduced McBean’s music to a new generation of clubbers, and the compilation Retrospective was issued by Rekids the following year. His third full-length, Personal Momentz, was his heartfelt reaction to the death of his father. The more club-focused Night on the Town? appeared in 2015, with the moodier A Good Place…? following in 2016. A Part of Me, Vol. 2, a sprawling double-LP which ventured into downtempo and broken beat tracks, was released in 2018. Mr. G Presents the Alien with Extraordinary Abilities, inspired by his first performances in the United States, appeared in 2020. The Forced Force Is Not the True Force was released by German label Childhood in 2021. The album featured some of Mr. G’s darkest, strangest material, and he went even further with the experimental album Pearls Don’t Lay on the Shore, released by the same label in 2023. All Under One Moon, a more club-friendly collaboration with Duncan Forbes of Spooky, appeared on 49North the same year. ~ Paul Simpson