North-West London producer PIGMNT has been releasing music for the better part of a decade. Breaking through the noise as an independent artist in London's underground is no easy feat, but PIGMNT has managed it: his catalogue spans labels like Sweet Shop, Club Djembe and Funky Adjacent, and his supporters include Ikonika, Pearson Sound and Bok Bok. With his latest release Ginseng, a five-track EP released as part of our Pathways programme, he adds to that output with his most conceptual work yet.

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Each of the EP's four original tracks is named after a holistic herb:Nettle Root, Ginseng, Suma Root, Ashwagandha. The connection isn't just a surface aesthetic either:PIGMNT mapped each herb to its known properties—Nettle Root for its anti-inflammatory effects, Suma Root and its associations with energy and hormone balance, Ginseng and Ashwagandha as regulators of stress and cortisol—and then asked what a sonic equivalent might sound like. The thread running through all of it is a belief that music can function as a healing force.

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"It's something I've wanted to explore for a while, especially after listening to Metal Fingers, also known as MF DOOM, and his Special Herbs series, which originally sparked my interest in medicinal herbs and their properties," PIGMNT says. "I hadn't fully followed through with it until now, but this project felt like the right time to expand on that idea and bring it into my own work."

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Where the concept pays off most directly is in the production decisions. The tracks are built low and heavy, even by PIGMNT's own standards. "I always like my tracks to be quite bass-heavy, but on this project I really tried to push that even further," he says. "I wanted to emphasise the low end, creating a more physical, visceral experience that ties back to the idea of music as healing." Bass here is less a stylistic choice than a delivery mechanism. The same logic that underpins the herb concept, applied to the physical experience of listening.

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The sound draws on a range of influences that PIGMNT has been absorbing since he first started making beats on Music 2000 for PlayStation, via nights out on the UK Funky and dubstep scenes, and into more recent years spent listening to Gqom out of South Africa and the percussive movement of Amapiano. "Growing up in London, the first music I really raved to was grime, dubstep and UK funky, so that bass-driven energy and those drum patterns have always been a foundation in my sound," he says. "For this project in particular, I'd say the bass-heavy sounds of Gqom coming out of South Africa have been a big influence, as well as the percussive freedom and swing of Amapiano and other tribal sounds from the African diaspora."

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The EP came together across a handful of diligent studio days. "Over those three or four days, I was creating constantly and managed to put together a strong selection of tracks," PIGMNT recalls. From there, weeks of listening back through rough mixes on his phone, testing different running orders, until it settled.

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Completing the release is a remix from Roska, a fitting presence given the role UK Funky played in shaping PIGMNT's early production. "Roska has definitely been an influence on me, especially coming up as a young Black producer in London," PIGMNT says. "For this project, it felt right to reach out to a true funky legend to help bring it all together."‍

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Ginseng is the first release developed from the second year of CDR's Pathways programme. As for what PIGMNT wants listeners to take from it: "Honestly, I just want people to enjoy it, feel it and move to it. If it encourages people to explore some of the ideas behind the track names, that's a bonus, but for me it's really about creating a connection through the music and adding my PIGMNT seasoning to the pot."

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Stream "Ginseng" now.

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Photos by Cicely Grace