There are albums from which we pick one or two cuts.
Not this one.
Girls, Money, Drink & Drugs, the new joint album by Specimen A and Ivory, is one of those cases where the editorial decision is unusually simple: all twelve tracks belong in Optimal Breaks.
Released on 2 September 2026 through Knuckle Duster Records, the album gathers 12 tracks and about 46 minutes of breakbeat, UK bass and soundsystem culture built around a collaboration that, over the last few months, has become a project in its own right. The twelve cuts can be heard above, via the Beatport previews. The record is also on Spotify.
This is not just another Specimen A album.
Nor is it a string of isolated features with Ivory.
It is a new chapter.
An album that started months before it landed
The public story of Girls, Money, Drink & Drugs began long before September.
FLAME THROWER arrived on 1 April.
Two weeks later came PITBULL.
Then: BOOGEYMAN, KING OF THE JUNGLE, UNDEFEATED, FULL FAT, OUT OF THE BOX, ONE MAN CRIME WAVE, LIQUOR STORE, LONDON SOUND, CHOP CHOP, until GIMME GIMME and the full album on 2 September.
For five months, Specimen A and Ivory released almost the entire record as a sequence of chapters. That strategy let each track live on its own — several had already passed through our weekly selections — before the complete picture was revealed.
Specimen A enters a new phase
Specimen A has a history that long predates this album.
The British project is linked to brothers Phil and Mo Jones and to DJ Smart, with roots in drum & bass before a clear move into breaks around 2006.
That first phase produced records such as Head Case (with Far Too Loud), Contamination and Soldiers At War, and placed the project inside a UK generation that hardened breakbeat by drawing in bass pressure, dubstep, electro and soundsystem culture.
But Girls, Money, Drink & Drugs is not an attempt to simply recover that era.
The current project is led by Phil Jones under the Specimen A name, working with Ivory Clark, and it represents a clearly distinct creative phase.
On 25 March 2026 both appeared together on the podcast This Is Cliques (EP39), talking about how the collaboration started, the process behind the new album and the decision to launch their own label, Knuckle Duster Records.
The central idea was simple: work with freedom and build something of their own without depending on outside structures.
Ivory: voice, attitude and personality
Inside this project, Ivory is not a simple featuring.
Credits on the Knuckle Duster releases identify Ivory Clark as composer and lyricist alongside Philip Jones, and that role explains a large part of the album's identity.
The combination works because each side occupies a very defined space.
Specimen A brings production built around huge drums, heavy basslines and decades of experience inside UK breaks and bass music.
Ivory brings the voice, the lines, the attitude and a vocal character that makes each track recognisable almost immediately.
The result is unusual in current breakbeat: it sounds contemporary without hiding where it comes from.
There is rave. There is hip-hop. There is jungle. There is UK bass. There is MC attitude.
Above all, there are breaks.
Knuckle Duster Records
The album also works as the definitive calling card for Knuckle Duster Records.
The label is born around this association between Specimen A and Ivory, and through 2026 it has built almost its entire opening catalogue around the songs that would become Girls, Money, Drink & Drugs.
FLAME THROWER opened the catalogue. PITBULL arrived as KDR002. From there the sequence continued until the album's twelve cuts were complete.
Rather than using an established label to publish the project, Specimen A and Ivory chose to build their own structure to do it. That makes Knuckle Duster inseparable from the record's story.
Twelve tracks, no need to choose
1. FLAME THROWER
The starting point. Released on 1 April, it was Knuckle Duster Records' first statement of intent and the beginning of the whole campaign.
Beatport lists it at 84 BPM. It is an odd cut even inside the album: heavy, slow in BPM reading, with a structure built around the voice and the impact of each hit. It is not looking for speed. It is looking for weight.
2. PITBULL
Here one of the record's fundamental patterns is already in place. 132 BPM, pure breakbeat and a very effective combination of vocal phrasing and bassline.
PITBULL was also one of the first tracks from this phase to land fully in our Optimal Breaks selections. It remains one of the cuts that best summarises the project's personality.
3. BOOGEYMAN
135 BPM. Darker. More aggressive. Closer to the album's rave and warehouse dimension.
Ivory's voice becomes almost a rhythmic element, and Specimen A's production works around tension, low end and very measured space.
4. KING OF THE JUNGLE
The title already says a lot. Specimen A's historical relationship with jungle, drum & bass and soundsystem culture is especially audible here.
But it does not try to become a jungle track. It is still breakbeat. It simply folds that inheritance into a 135 BPM production designed for a modern dancefloor.
5. UNDEFEATED
132 BPM, and one of the tracks that best balances force and groove.
It is probably one of the clearest examples of how the partnership works: Specimen A builds a huge instrumental without crowding it, and leaves just enough room for Ivory to turn the cut into a song rather than only a DJ tool.
6. FULL FAT
The name describes the concept perfectly. 135 BPM. Low end. Fat drums. No unnecessary subtlety.
And that is exactly why it works. FULL FAT is the part of the album that does not need to overthink breakbeat: it comes in, hits, and keeps moving.
7. OUT OF THE BOX
One of the oddest cuts. Beatport lists it at 67 BPM, away from the 132–135 BPM zone that dominates the rest of the record.
It is a break in the sequence's tempo, and it shows that the album is not twelve repetitions of the same template.
8. ONE MAN CRIME WAVE
Back to 132 BPM. One of the tracks where Ivory's narrative works best, and where the production leaves more air for the vocal elements.
The credits here clearly identify Philip Jones and Ivory Clark as the project's composers. It is also one of the pieces that best shows this working as a real creative duo.
9. LIQUOR STORE
Another favourite. 132 BPM, and probably one of the most immediate grooves on the album.
There is an almost hip-hop quality in how some of the lines are delivered, while the track stays fully anchored in breaks. It is one of those cuts that explains why the album works so well heard in full.
10. LONDON SOUND
Perhaps the most explicit title of all. LONDON SOUND connects the record directly to the British tradition it comes from.
Beatport lists it at 66 BPM — another half-time reading, like OUT OF THE BOX. Breakbeat, MC culture, jungle, bass and a clearly urban sensibility. And it does not sound like a retro tribute. It sounds like 2026. That is probably the important part.
11. CHOP CHOP
134 BPM. Direct, short and effective.
It has also received editorial support, landing on Beatport's official Best New Breaks / Breakbeat / UK Bass playlist — a useful signal of how this phase is being received. It is another track that works perfectly on its own, but gains meaning inside the full sequence.
12. GIMME GIMME
The closer. Released with the album on 2 September, it works as the last chapter of a campaign that began five months earlier with FLAME THROWER.
134 BPM, and once again all of the project's fundamental elements: breaks, bass, voice, attitude and production without too many unnecessary ornaments. After eleven singles building the story, GIMME GIMME closes the circle.
Why we like it so much
Because it does not sound like a record trying to guess where breakbeat is going. Nor does it sound like a nostalgic exercise trying to recover 2006.
It has something simpler, and probably harder to pull off: it sounds like people who have spent years inside this music making exactly the record they want to make now.
Specimen A brings a trajectory that runs through drum & bass, breakbeat, dubstep and UK bass music. Ivory brings a huge vocal identity. Together they have found a point where all of that history sounds surprisingly fresh.
There is no need to decorate it too much. Twelve breakbeat songs. And they work.
Tracklist
- FLAME THROWER
- PITBULL
- BOOGEYMAN
- KING OF THE JUNGLE
- UNDEFEATED
- FULL FAT
- OUT OF THE BOX
- ONE MAN CRIME WAVE
- LIQUOR STORE
- LONDON SOUND
- CHOP CHOP
- GIMME GIMME
Optimal Breaks verdict
Normally a new album means listening, selecting and deciding which tracks really deserve a place in our archive.
With Girls, Money, Drink & Drugs we decided to skip that part.
It goes in whole. All twelve.
Because sometimes picking the best tracks makes sense. And sometimes the whole record is the track.
You can follow the catalogue on the Specimen A and Ivory pages, the release on Beatport and the weekly charts selections.