Mackwood: The Drummer Who Stepped Out From Behind Everyone Else’s Kit

Tru Thoughts introduced him the way a label introduces a signing it believes in. On the September 13 episode of Unfold, Robert Luis played a track by Mackwood and billed him, in the show’s own notes, as the newest artist the label is working with, drummer and producer. Two more plays followed, October 4 for “Sammy” again, then October 18 for “Battle” with Meron T. Three spins in five weeks is not a courtesy. It is a label putting its name on someone, weekly, in public.

Mackwood is the solo project of London-born Harry Ling, a drummer, producer, songwriter and bandleader who spent years making other people sound good before stepping out front. His resume reads like a tour of the UK’s most interesting rooms: drums and production for Jordan Rakei, Nilufer Yanya, Col3trane, Blue Lab Beats and Eliza, plus the Levitation Orchestra and The Silhouettes Project. His six-piece records at 5dB Studios in West London, warping jazz through UK soundsystem and electronic culture. The hook is simple enough. London’s most in-demand young drummer stepped out from behind everyone else’s kit, and the jazz he is making sounds like a rave remembering it is a band.

The debut album, Master Changes, arrived October 17, 2024 on 5dB Records, and its title is borrowed from a science fiction novel about nuclear apocalypse, which is exactly the kind of sense of humour Antidote can work with. Ling started writing the music in 2020, during lockdown, when he was cooped up like everyone else and, by his own account, journaling random ideas on his phone while making beats. The record blends organic and electronic elements into something that refuses to sit still: harmonies dug out of Joel Ross, Ambrose Akinmusire and Gerald Clayton, and electronic weight borrowed from Chase & Status, Kode9, Dub Phizix and maybe Noisia. Curtis Mayfield to Nubya Garcia, Holst to Four Tet. It is a record made by someone who loves jazz as much as dance music, punk, hip-hop and reggae, and who sees no reason to pick a side.

That refusal to pick a side is the whole method. Until the past year or two, Ling was making mostly instrumental music, grabbing bits of sound from YouTube and other sources he was into, back in his SoundCloud days. Master Changes keeps that magpie instinct and gives it songs to land on. “Habits,” with anaiis and Quinn Oulton, is the clearest example: a stream-of-consciousness first verse that does not rely on a strict rhyme scheme, just thoughts poured out in a rhythmically coherent way, and a chorus that lets the band breathe. The album is diverse and talented in the way debut albums rarely manage, because it was written by someone who had already spent a decade learning how records are actually made, from the drum stool.

The new singles show the same instinct sharpening. “Sammy,” the track Robert Luis kept returning to, is Mackwood in his element: a drummer’s record, built from the kit outward. “Battle,” released October 13 via Tru Thoughts, adds a voice to the frame. Meron T, singer Meron Tilahun, carries the track over production by Ling, with trumpet from Laurence Wilkins and engineering from Onehand. It is a collaboration rather than a feature slot, and it points at where the project is heading: the six-piece is not a backing band, and the guests are not decoration. The music is getting bigger, and it is getting more social.

There is a useful contrast here with the way jazz debuts usually arrive. Most young bandleaders introduce themselves with a statement of seriousness. Mackwood introduces himself with a record named after an apocalypse novel, made by a drummer who spent lockdown writing songs on his phone and who counts Chase & Status among his teachers. The remixes EP that followed in May 2025 makes the point explicit: he discovered drums and production around the same time, and giving his own music the remix treatment is something he always wanted to do. The dancefloor is not a departure from the jazz. It is where the jazz lives now.

That is why the Tru Thoughts signing matters. The label has built its reputation on exactly this borderland, where jazz, soul, funk and club music stop being separate rooms. Robert Luis playing “Sammy” twice and “Battle” as the freshest evidence in the file is the label doing its A&R in public, on its own radio show, week after week. When a radio host who has heard everything keeps coming back to the same new artist, the smart move is to listen to the host.

For a Monday relaunch, Mackwood is the right second piece: not a legacy act, not a nostalgia play, but a working musician stepping forward with a band, a label and a sound that is still forming. The drummer has left the back of the stage. He brought the kit with him, and the room is louder for it.