Treehouse: Todd Edwards

Littlefield; Wed 18

Photoillustration from Kate Glicksberg photograph

If you find yourself at a gathering of egghead DJs and hear the phrase Todd is God, be warned: An attempt to impress them by quoting the lyrics of A Wizard, a True Star will put you on the receiving end of some bemused stares. The all-powerful Todd in question isn’t Mr. Rundgren; instead, it’s Todd Edwards, a revered figure among the clubland cognoscenti, though practically unknown by the American dance-music public. It’s a different story in the U.K. and, to a lesser degree, the rest of Europe, where Edwards is a major star. (The man was even namechecked in the 1996 Daft Punk track “Teachers,” along with iconic figures such as George Clinton and Joey Beltram.)

The reason for the New Jersey resident’s overseas props? In a roundabout way, his music helped to give rise to the gritty sound of U.K. Garage in the ’90s, which in turn mutated into dance-music subgenres like two-step, grime, bassline, U.K. funky, dubstep and a host of other microcategories. Edwards’s big contributions to U.K. Garage’s ascension were his rhythmic sense—he prefers a spare, driving staccato beat—and, more importantly, his sampling technique. Though sampling in dance music had been common for years (think of the stuttered vocals in ’80s freestyle and the collages of Double Dee and Steinski), Edwards was one of the first to use the sampler as an instrument, slicing and dicing vocals and instrumental passages before rearranging them into an alien, intensely captivating sound that was unique among house-music producers. (Until those Brits bit his style, that is.) Edwards is spinning a rare Gotham gig at Littlefield’s Treehouse party this Wednesday; miss at your own peril.—Bruce Tantum

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