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The Large Has Better Taste Than I Do

2026-01-28 · 11:02 UTC ·First Floor ·4 min read

Brief

First Floor’s 2026-01-28 guest-pick entry is a short music recommendation centered on Suze Webb, aka The Large, whose career spans London record-store culture, DJing, promotion, label-building, and artist strategy in New York. Shawn Reynaldo positions Webb as a seasoned behind-the-scenes operator, noting her role in expanding Mixpak with Dre Skull during the 2010s and her current work through the Sound + Vision newsletter and a monthly NTS radio show. Webb uses the recommendation to trace a personal lineage rather than offer criticism in depth: she recalls working at Flashback Records in Angel, London, under Hiroshi, the shop’s reggae buyer, who shaped her understanding of soundsystem music and record selection. Her pick is Hiroshi’s own project, Element’s 2025 release "Motion Exchange" on Elle Andrews and Jon K’s MAL label, which she describes as a heavyweight, cinematic dub record designed for large soundsystems.

Cleaned source text

title: The Large Has Better Taste Than I Do

author: First Floor

content_type: newsletter

publication: substack.com

published: 2026-01-28T11:02:11+00:00

source_url: gmail://19c0446babc2722a

word_count: 834

A guest recommendation from the NYC-based selector and savvy, behind-the-scenes industry operator.

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Hello there. I ’m Shawn Reynaldo, and welcome to First Floor, an electronic music digest that includes news, interviews, new release recommendations and examinations of the issues affecting the larger scene / industry that surrounds the music. This is a free edition of the newsletter; access to all First Floor content (including the complete archive) requires a paid subscription, which you can sign up for by clicking the button below. (Alternately, you can also support the newsletter by making a one-time donation here.)

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The Large Has Better Taste Than I Do

Shawn Reynaldo

Jan 28

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First Floor is in many ways a one-person operation, but every week, the newsletter cedes the spotlight to an artist, writer or other figure from the music world, inviting them to recommend a piece of music.

Photo by Guarionex Rodriguez, Jr.

Today ’s recommendation comes from The Large (a.k.a. Suze Webb), who got her start in London as a keen-eyed promoter, DJ and blogger, but has now spent more than a decade in New York, where she continues to work as a freelance music executive, helping artists and labels with marketing, strategy and more. She’s certainly got the experience to back it up, as she effectively spent the 2010s building the Mixpak label (alongside founder Dre Skull) into an internationally recognized outpost for soundsystem-focused music of all shapes and sizes. These days, her Sound + Vision newsletter is consistently stuffed with choice recommendations and sharp observations about what’s happening in music, design, fashion and culture around the globe, as she’s determined to look beyond the usual geographic hubs and isn’t hemmed in by what’s trendy or the typical underground / mainstream divide. In simpler terms, Suze knows what’s up, and her impeccable taste also shows up in her monthly NTS radio show.

Here, she shares a record that came out only a couple of months ago, but ironically connects back to an earlier era of her life while she was still living in the UK.

Element – Motion Exchange (MAL, 2025)

Many years ago, I worked at Flashback Records in Angel, London, under the wing of Hiroshi, the shop’s reggae buyer. He taught me a lot about how to recognize value and lineage, and we shared a deep common ground in our love of soundsystem music. We also both spent way too much of our wages buying records from the shop.

Late last year I learned that Hiroshi (a.k.a. Element) had put out this excellent record on Elle Andrews and Jon K’s MAL label. It’s super heavyweight: a cinematically hypnotic dub release built for a big system. Limber up your face to scrunch!

First Floor is published and overseen by Shawn Reynaldo, a freelance writer, editor, presenter and project manager. Find him onLinkedIn and Instagram—and make sure to follow First Floor on Instagram as well—or you can just drop Shawn an email to get in touch about projects, collaborations or potential work opportunities.

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