ben hauke: future bruk
Francisco Espregueira
South London producer Ben Hauke’s discography moves between house, UK garage and broken beat, with groove as the common thread. Beyond running his own imprint and contributing live sound effects to King Krule's band, his previous releases on labels like Touching Bass and CoOp Presents highlighted a knack for raw groove. He now returns to his own WOOP Records with his latest full-length, Future Bruk. The ten-track album acts as a deliberate counter-reaction to broken beat's softer, jazzier tropes. Taking a nod from Mark Mac's Vintage Bruk, Hauke opts to strip away the smooth polish. Instead, he steers the genre into darker territory, incorporating electro, two-step, and unrefined club energy.
The album emerged from a prolific late-2025 studio run, where Hauke whittled twenty-five initial ideas down to ten tight compositions. "FYS" focuses purely on raw drum-and-bass mechanics, while "SPOOOOKY" brings in vocalist Sheiva for a haunting backdrop. On "No Regulation," Nigerian artist Meso-IX injects a dark yet hopeful energy into the mix. Hauke also finds humor in genre categorization on "No Bruk On Splice," poking fun at sample libraries that overlook the style. Meanwhile, cuts like "Tuned Into Happy" channel his London upbringing, capturing moments where youthful optimism met city grit. Engineered equally for headphones and club sound systems, Future Bruk gives the genre jolt forward to the darker days ahead. Available on vinyl.
“I feel the style has more room to evolve. I wanted to explore that and think about what the future of electronic music looks like to me.”