1300 need little introduction when it comes to their place in Sydney music. Since the release of their earliest singles ‘Brr’, ‘No Caller ID’ and ‘Smashmouth’ in 2021, and their Foreign Language mixtape in 2022, their latest mixtape GEORGE follows in natural progression and marks their first full release since signing to Eastern Margins. Three years has done a lot for the five-piece – Rakoh, Nerdie, Goyo, DALI HART, and pokari. sweat – but the mixtape offers everything you would expect from a perfect 1300 classic: unrelenting, furious energy and production that seeks to give a taste of every genre.

At just under half an hour, GEORGE is a tongue-in-cheek tape that offers a bit more edge than past releases and a release that keeps you catching your breath. Each track offers a new beat and genre, spinning variations of hip-hop, industrial and trap at each drop and featuring talents of sokodomo, EK, Easymind, and oddeen. The singles – ‘Ape Shit’, ‘GANTZ’ and ‘Lalaland’ – are now contextualised by their surrounding songs: ‘Follow Me’ is a slick, darker synth driven track, providing steady repetition – a welcome break from an exhilarating start. ‘Rock Lee’ leans into an earlier sound, grounding the mixtape firmly as a 1300 release. Spinning industrial, trap and K-pop is nothing new for the group however ‘Levitate’ stands as a remarkable highlight on GEORGE. Adding distorted, thrashing kickdrums to the mix, the track leans into gabber to take the tape through to an all-or-nothing, euphoric finish. 1300 are, at once, both a staple of hip-hop and a glimpse into its genre-bending future.