A while back, I played in Leicester for / with the Tehran dudes, who are also fully involved in the legendary Well Gosh shop there.

I had always assumed Leicester was a simile for 'shite midlands town' but I was properly surprised - as well as the aformentioned shop, and the tip-top mans dem who worked there, the town as whole has a very distinctive feel and there is a buzzing nightlife scene. I'd completely forgotten about the massive impact Leicester has had on Drum and Bass, home as it is to DJ SS and his mighty Formation label group, which has pulled together heavy weight players such as Twisted Individual and Generation Dub.

Before the gig, I went for a pizza with Ben (he of the sneer and hat combo) and we had a thoroughly interesting chat about all sorts of stuff, including but not limited to the potential to find God through archaeology, the relevance of Egypt to our understanding of history, and why Leicester is actually pretty bout it.

At some point, we are going to have a proper interview with him about all the above, and believe we are going to go deep with it, so think of this as a warm-up post, a quick mix that Ben and his Tehran crew have done for us.

MINE'S A MOJITO MIXTAPE - TEHRAN - CLICK HERE

I'll let the man himself take over at this point:

"Tehran consists of me, Benjamin Button, and Snatch Whip Cooper. We have been pushing new dance music in our little east midlands city for some years now, we've been putting on partys for sometime, trying to bring some of the best djs here. We are not stuck in one genre and if a tune or DJ is good then we want other people to hear it (or them). When people come to our nights we hope that they are going to hear something new.

Although we're usually known for our heavy basslines, this time we have dropped a more tropical mixtape, drawing influences for all over the world, as we've tried to represent all the producers we love, from Douster in argentina to L-Vis from the UK. This may well have been influenced by the fairly rubbish summer weather we've been suffering through in Leicester, which was preceded by some fairly rubbish winter weather, so hopefully this mix will bring some much-needed sunshine for everyone stuck indoors.

We have so much time for all the people trying to make non-generic dance music; there are so many producers just are just making big wobble bass tunes and whilst some of them are amazing we think that there is so much more going on around the world. Take L-Vis for example, he is dropping some of the best beats out there at the moment - we love the way he is using influences from kuduro to old school house.

Another favourite producers of ours is Supra1. They have got their sound down perfectly and the Little Jinder remix is so so good, from the way the bass builds to the exquisite use of the vocal, that we had to fit it in somewhere on the mixtape. We figured the best place for it would be right at the end - it needs to be played out to the finish just to show how the progression of the tune works.

We have also been big fans of Dubbel Dutch for some time - they can never be fully pinned down to one genre, but you always know that if they are going to use a big bass, then it will be sick.

Douster is also a big influence on us, as is arcade - those boys have been sending over a steady stream of great tunes. Douster's Badman Place remix was one of the best out there, and whenever we play out, you are pretty much going to hear at least a few of his tunes.

Finally, we'd like to say thar there are a couple of tunes on there from last year, but we don't mind that, we think if music is good then it should stand the test of time."

Check the myspace here - myspace.com/tehranbass