Kraddy is one of the people responsible for shaping the west coast bass music scene. Glitch music has been around since the 90s, but it wasn’t until artists like Kraddy came along and started hitting the underground hard with glitched up electronic beats that it really started to spread and grow into the massive scene that it is today. Kraddy, born Matthew Kratz in New York, had been DJing and making music for years when he finally released his first full album Truth Has No Path in 2003. The album was met by the underground San Francisco electronic music scene with huge success. It brought to the community an album that fully encompassed their need for breakbeat, techno, and hip-hop all in one precisely chopped, sampled and rearranged package. This album was different than anything that had even been released and the people were dancing their asses off to it.

Kraddy continued to DJ around San Francisco for awhile until he eventually decided to move to LA.  It was there that The Glitch Mob was formed in 2006.  While touring with the Glitch Mob, Kraddy released his second full length album The Illegal Album in 2007, and his single “Android Porn” in 2008.  Kraddy spent a couple more years touring around as a member of the Glitch Mob before he decided to focus more on his solo career in 2009.

He kicked off the summer with the Westside Manifesto mixtape.  His fan base kept growing and he continued to play gigs all over the country.  To start 2010, his single “Android Porn” was used to kick off the season of “America’s Best Dance Crew” which he gained some mainstream exposure from.  We got to see Kraddy on MTV?!  He also made some music for a commercial for the Scion xD Explosion.  The glitch genre was growing fast and Kraddy was still at the top.

The rumor that another Kraddy release was coming out soon kept his fans anxiously awaiting its arrival until two weeks ago when he released his Dirt Got Soul mixtape, and last week when he finally dropped Labyrinth with several remixes on the digital version.

Kraddy’s sound is distinctly his own, a sound which he describes as “hybridized hip-hop, dubstep and dancehall with face-melting panache and rock and roll bravado”.  This uniquely Kraddy sound is one of the reasons he has continued to be such a huge player in the glitch-hop bass-drop scene here in California.  He consistently pushes the boundaries and shape the direction of this revolutionary music that we all love so much.  This album joins his others as being a masterpiece, as well as a snapshot of what the bassheads were listening to in 2010.

Thank you, Kraddy, for being such an amazing artist and human being…keep doing what you do.

Buy Labyrinth here!
Follow Kraddy on Facebook, Twitter, and Soundcloud.