In Depth: "Nothing Is Ever Retired", A Short Storied History of Headhunter

“Nothing is ever retired.” Headhunter, real name Antony Williams, seems as surprised by the question as to whether or not he ever canned his dubstep alias as fans might have been to see it cropping up record sleeves and club line-ups again. “It was just a shift at the time into other music that wasn’t necessarily dubstep,” Headhunter says of his decision to first debut and then focus more heavily on his juke-infused Addison Groove alias back in 2010. But in this case a shift into something new didn’t necessarily mean a reciprocal shift out of the space in which he’d made his name. A string of well-received releases from 2007-10 for scene-shaping dubstep imprint Tempa, signed by Rinse FM’s DJ Youngsta, helped to cement Williams’ position as a bag-on-sight producer within the scene. His debut album, again for Tempa, is one of the sound’s few long players that managed to achieve both relevance and longevity. Along with the likes of Pinch and Peverelist, he was responsible for infusing what was at the time still a relatively London-centric sound with an unmistakeable Bristolian curiosity. And then, in 2010, Addison Groove arrived, footworking all over Loefah’s fledgling Swamp 81 label. That Williams’ would introduce his new direction via Swamp now seems – with the benefit of some considerable hindsight – quite fitting. Loefah’s name had become almost synonymous with the kinds of sub-charged, cavernous half-step honed and popularised by Headhunter’s mentor, Youngsta. The first releases on Swamp appeared to extend this vein, with Kryptic Minds bringing clinical precision to the formula and Skream offering some additional pioneer credibility. The arrival of ‘Footcrab’ completely flipped the script. Looking back, the release is now considered a key turning point for Loefah’s label – and his outward show of disillusionment with the scene and sound he’d helped to create. But while the former DMZ affiliate appeared to actively turn his back on dubstep in pursuing a housier oeuvre, Headhunter never fully fell out of love with the sound – largely due to Youngsta’s enduring influence. “I’ve always been casually making more Headhunter tunes for Youngsta, and that never really stopped,” he tells us. “I think if it wasn’t for Dan [Youngsta], I’d probably have never bothered to keep it going.” It wasn’t just Youngsta’s taste for the Headhunter sound that needed satisfying, though. Dubstep, in many ways, retained its original draw for Headhunter – particularly its unique way of exercising a sub-woofer cone. “If I’m honest, after a while of playing clubs and festivals with mediocre sound systems,” he admits, “I really did miss playing out on a good ‘dub’ system. So yeah, I am working on more stuff now so I can get a chance to get my eyeballs rattled.” And patient fans will be pleased to hear that this means more releases. He’s resurrecting his Transistor imprint to release new Headhunter material currently being repped by Youngsta (who else) and Gilles Peterson, among others. The first record is due out at the end of May, vinyl only, and there are plans for a follow-up release in the winter too. Before then, though, a clutch of ‘Footcrab’ edits were made available worldwide on April 26^th – this was a wider release of the reworks that came out on Record Store Day (which, according to the man himself “wasn’t really planned but was quite nice timing”) – and “four tracks more geared towards the footwork jungle things” as part of a collaborative EP alongside DJ Die for Gutterfunk Records are expected to drop “around mid May”. One might assume on this evidence that Williams’ is finally achieving a sense of balance between his polar aliases. But in many ways he’s just revelling in the same eclecticism that drew him and his Bristolian counterparts towards dubstep in the first place. (He told Clash magazine in 2007 that his ambition when it came to writing music was simply to “do something no one else has”). This is something that he says he’s looking forward to exploring when he plays back-to-back with dubstep scene figurehead and fellow west country resident, Pinch, in May. “I’m hearing good stuff out of Bristol from people like Piezo, Facta and Hodge. Really decent soundsystem stuff,” he says, even if the setting for this match-up with Pinch isn’t quite the same as it was the last time they played together. “I think the last time was in Mexico,” Headhunter recounts, “we did a back-to-back at the end of a really sick party in Mexico City, obviously fuelled by mezcal and tequila.” London might not have been showing off its best Mexican weather over the past weeks, but Williams’ excitement at performing under the Headhunter banner again is palpable. Just don’t call it a comeback… Words: Will Pritchard (@Hedmuk)