Focus is the sophomore EP by Jon1st & Shield. Forced by the pandemic to write the EP remotely online from their home studios in Leicester and Copenhagen, the EP follows the success of their widely acclaimed collaborative live show, which they toured regularly across North America throughout 2019 and early 2020, and their online live performance mixtape, Remote Research Vol. 1.

Focus sees the duo continuing to combine their production influences with their shared backgrounds in performance, as world champion turntablist and percussionist respectively, to create an EP that truly represents the ‘anything goes’ approach they have explored in their live show, creating a vivid and colourful EP that melts together a variety of tempos into a meticulously produced selection of soundscapes and grooves.

The EP’s title track’s rolling 140bpm bounce, along with the dubby wobbles of “Swang” and frenetic half step jungle groove of the EP’s first single “Distortion”, which features guest vocals from veteran Manchester MC Strategy, showcase the duo’s focus on the dancefloor, while the laid back melodic hip hop vibes of “Kombucha” and “Co-Op Mode” and dreamy second single “Strangers” explore a more cinematic aesthetic teeming with lush melodies that are brought to life with punchy drumwork.

Rather than taking the approach of writing material that could later be deconstructed to be performed live, the duo incorporated performance throughout the creation of the EP. Blending Shield’s live instrumentation and sound design highlighting Jon1st’s turntable wizardry with a bevy of studio techniques, Focus sees the duo take on each track as a meditation on a motif, evolving each idea through the use of re:sampling the recordings of their live instrumentation using turntablism and samplers, resulting in a collection of music equally suited for headphones as it is the dancefloor.