Get to know Poté, the bleeding-edge talent merging percussive prowess with psychedelic flair

Presenting tunes to a genuine music icon like Damon Albarn could be a daunting prospect. But 24-year-old Sylvern Mathurin seems to have taken it completely in his stride.

“‘Spiral’ was actually the first track made for my album,” he tells us. “I took it down to my friend Remi [Kabaka Jr] from Gorillaz and Damon was there too. We all ended up working together on it, and that was literally how it started.”

Backed by Albarn, Poté continued piecing together the project, enlisting the likes of Kojey Radical and Chelou to join him in the studio as he brought his highly personal debut album to life – with a little help from Deviation head honcho Benji B.

“Benji emailed me in October or November last year, saying that he would love to put out something but he had no idea I had been working on this album,” Poté remembers. “So I went and played him the entire project and he stood up and said, ‘Can we shake on this now?’ and I was like, ‘Yes definitely!’”

Fusing raucous underground sounds with a hearty dose of Britpop nostalgia, Poté’s unique sound is explored on the new full-length release as he draws on his colourful, cross-genre past to paint a picture of bass music’s future.