had never been to London before. That changed when he arrived in the capital and, in the process, found a new setting for music that already existed. ‘Alive In London’ isn’t a collection of brand-new songs. Instead, it captures Slim Krusty’s existing music performed and reimagined in London, a live document of an artist encountering a city for the very first time.

And that distinction feels important. Because Slim Krusty isn’t particularly interested in doing things the obvious way. He’s difficult to categorise and even harder to pin down.

There is an irreverence to Slim, but also a genuine warmth; a slightly skewed way of looking at the world that makes the everyday feel strange, and the strange feel completely natural. His music inhabits that same space, melodic, unpredictable, funny in places, vulnerable in others, and always unmistakably his.

Rather than presenting London as a backdrop, the EP captures the collision between Slim’s existing world and a completely new one. Familiar songs take on a different character in a different place; the live setting brings a looseness and immediacy to the recordings, while the city itself becomes part of the story.

For anyone discovering Slim Krusty through Alive In London, the EP offers an introduction to an artist who doesn’t seem particularly interested in explaining himself. There’s humour, eccentricity and genuine feeling, but never a sense that any of it has been carefully packaged. Slim is Slim, and London is London. This is what happened when the two met.

The project also marks the first release from Cutting Teeth Records, beginning a new chapter for the label and establishing a home for music that sits outside the obvious boxes.

There’s a wider London connection too, with the project growing from a creative community that includes links to Strummerville, the organisation established in Joe Strummer’s name to support emerging artists and champion the same spirit of independence, collaboration and adventure that has always surrounded London’s more interesting musical stories.

But ultimately, Alive In London belongs to Slim. These aren’t new songs. They’re songs we’ve heard before, heard differently. Tune into his music, brought to London for the first time, captured live and given a new context.