I love "Routes" to the bone, I have laughed to myself like a nutter on the tube to lines like "what do you know about Moorgate..? I don't know anything about Moorgate!," have listened to it in the car until the CDr started complaining of RSI and am not yet bored of its freshness, wit, coherence, sense of humour and intriguing narratives... or at least implied narratives.
Don't take any of my words for it, I look forward to you guys making your own minds up of course but me, I'm smitten. See you on the "Northern Line..."
01: Riko - Rise The Machine [Yardman Riddim] 02: Killa P - Wickedest Ting [Yardman Riddim] 03: Blackout [Instrumental] 04: Trim - Monkey Features 05: 24/7 [Instrumental] 06: Blacks, P Money, Trim & Roach - New Tune 07: Hurter [Instrumental] 08: Wiley - Headbanger 09: Starscream [Instrumental] 10: JME - The Future 11: Cosmos [Instrumental] 12: Fantan Mojah - Burn You Down 13: Chipmunk - Don't Be Greedy 14: Doctor - War 15: Doctor - Run [Power Cut Riddim] 16: Dolamite - African Oil [Balistiq Beats Remix] 17: Vybz Kartel - The System [Balistiq Beats Remix]
Balistiq Beats interview
Blackdown: Hey Balistiq Beats, so please can you introduce yourselves to people, where are you from etc…
Andrew Balistiq: Easy everyone! If you ain't familiar with the name, we're a production duo from the East End - most people know us for our grime productions over the years but have also worked in various other scenes.
Blackdown: How do you know each other and when did you start producing? When did you start producing together?
Andrew Balistiq: We've known each other from our early school days, going back to like 1999. I had been messing around with production on my PlayStation and my PC using that old program Music but that was just a hobby. I was more into the DJ-ing thing but slowly got into production over the years. To be honest I never really took it seriously, it was just something I enjoyed doing. Some people like collecting stamps and others like ironing - producing music was my thing. We ended up going to the same college and doing the same courses in 2001 and at the time I had given up the DJ-ing completely and wanted to make tunes fully. Ryan was always more musically orientated where I was more about "kick ya door down, slap your marge" type of beats so we thought it'd be good if we worked together and saw what we could come up with. I think it was towards the end of 2001 Ryan came up with the name Balistiq Beats and we took it from there really.
Ryan Balistiq: Actually it was just Balistiq you know, it was when we started working with Trim in 2004/5 that he coined the term Balistiq Beats - guess it just stuck! "Balistiq Beats, listeeeeeeeeeen"
Blackdown: You’re best known for your grime productions, what is it about the grime sound that does it for you?
Ryan Balistiq: We've watched the scene blossom from nothing so we were naturally a part of it, its our culture. We were never ever bound by the grime formula though, before I ventured into Grime and started producing with Andrew I was doing live production which was very melodic and the start of some very metal hip-hop. We've always had our own sound, took a while to catch on... a lot (most) of the stuff you hear released on peoples mixtapes and leaks and that from us are beats from our early years, 2001 times! Thats nearly 10 years ago you know.
Andrew Balistiq: D'you know what it is, Grime is just Grime init. I aint gonna start making up all these dead theories why we like it etc etc, it's just what we've seen develop from the start and wanted to be a part of it. We went college with the likes of Shizzle/Scorcher/Gloka and a lot of the MC's are in the same age group as us so it happened naturally as that's what was going on around us as we got into making music. Personally I was a DnB man when I just started DJ-ing but always thought of that as the older generations scene. Grime something that our generation came up with so we jumped straight into it.
Blackdown: Your tracks have been vocalled by MCs like JME, Trim, Riko, Badness, Wiley and Doctor and appeared on their mixtapes. What’s it like having these MCs vocal your work and who else have you worked with?
Ryan Balistiq: Yeah it's all good hearing those guys as they have worked on their craft for a long time, it's good that they always sound different on our stuff.
Andrew Balistiq: It's definitely good working with the cream of the crop 'cause we are fans of the scene more than anything and when we started out we didn't really know anyone. I used to know most of these guys bars off by heart and was always taping radio shows on my TDK's etc. To have them vocal our tunes just shows us that we've got the ability to make music that people not only wanna listen to but also be part of.
Blackdown: What vocalists have you not worked with that you’d like to?
Andrew Balistiq: Personally the main person I wanna do a tune with is President T from Bloodline. He's always been one of my top MC's. Also I'd like to work with Terminator, Ghetts, Newham Generals obviously them man are local lads.
Ryan Balistiq: Jay Z... and locally one person we're excited to be working with is Tempz.
Blackdown: What releases have you had out that people should know about?
Andrew Balistiq: All of our stuff has been vocal work that's come out on artist's mixtapes but we've had a couple other releases away from the scene. We had a track on a project called The Remixes Outernational - on Addis Records. Track was called Burn You Down featuring Reggae artist Fantan Mojah. We remixed a track by a famous Israeli singer called Aviv Geffen entitled It Was Meant To Be A Love Song - that came out on Mars Records along with Plastician and Fuzion UK remixes. We also done 2 remixes for a US group called The Score - track was called Girls Gone Wild. We're in the process of releasing a few of our own instrumental E.P's as well. It's been a long time coming and we feel it's time we showcased what we can do independently of MC's or vocalists.
Blackdown: Do you strictly listen to grime or are you into other styles of music?
Ryan Balistiq: To be honest I listen to 'Grime' about 1% of the time out of everything, anyway, grimes evolved out of the old 8/8 arrangement and standard bars so are we actually listening to 'Grime' more now days then ever? I dunno. I've grown up on lovers rock, reggae, dub, r&b, soul, soca, Motown, classic rock and have always implemented those styles into our music. None of which has been released.. yet! Some of my biggest influences are Prince, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, Queen and composers like Joe Hisaishi on the other end of the spectrum, Rage Against the Machine, Rick Rubin the list goes on. To answer the question, we're into music, period. If you feel it, you feel it! All music is made out of 12 notes.
Andrew Balistiq: Definitely listen to a WIDE range of music. Certain times people look at me funny when I tell them I listen to metal and other genres. I come from a musical family, my uncle Smiley was part of a duo signed to Studio One under the name of Michigan and Smiley and had a number of big tunes back in the day so growing up I always had a love for Reggae and it's spin offs. My older brother (Mc Rage - Chase and Status frontman) got me into electronic music from young as well, a lot of music influences me and you can hear it in our productions.
Blackdown: What do you think about the state of the grime scene in 2010? Where should it go in 2011?
Andrew Balistiq: 2010 was a good year for Grime. A lot of artists are seeing the fruit of their labour now although many might not agree with some of the paths they take but whether you like it or not, they're making money and in my opinion that's the aim of the game - no matter how much you say "you do it for the love" everyone wants to make money. Next year Grime can go wherever the people wanna take it I reckon. People just need to stop the blackballing and work together.
Ryan Balistiq: I think Grime is our hip hop and that its evolving great - Grime artists are branching out and doing their own thing and the sound of Grime is changing - finally starting to hear some more musical elements in it now. It should carry on into 2011 by building an industry, same way hip hop made a huge business out of the scene. Its happening, we got bloggers (Teamsupreme, LondonToMk, Once Upon a Grime etc), video coverage (shouts to Jamal!), radio... it's all the things around the music that make the scene and that's whats happening, slowly. People gotta realise its more than just a genre, it's our culture which isn't bound by a BPM! Grime is just a name but its the same for Dubstep, DnB all of that - its all ours.
Blackdown: Can you tell me about how “Yardman” came about?
Andrew Balistiq: Boy, as I said before the Reggae/Dub music influences us in a big way. We had previously done a version track called Power Cut Riddim which was a Grime take on the Bashment track that was tearing up dances. We had plans to release it but it all got technical and got put on the back burner so we decided to come with another one this time more Dub orientated rather than Dancehall based. I came up with the little intro bars, recorded it on my iPhone then me and Ryan started building the beat from there really. We showed it to our manager and he was like "Yep, that one is certified" so we contacted the MC's and without hesitation they came down and recorded their versions.
Blackdown: To me, “Yardman” is neither exactly grime, reggae or even dubstep, what kind of vibe were you aiming at when you made it?
Andrew Balistiq: We were aiming at exactly that - a VIBE. We have a tendency not to follow the "rules" if you will when it comes to making beats. Like, if we're gonna build a Dubstep beat for example, we won't just get the usual "Dubstep" sounding drums, basses or whatever - we'll take something obscure and work with it and make THAT sound like Dubstep rather than taking Dubstep elements to make the tune sound like Dubstep if you get what I mean? It's something we found ourselves doing from our early days of production and I think it's due to the fact that when we started we had a very limited set up and sound libraries. So we had to make do with the little and use that to craft our sound. Since then it's just become part of the way we build our tunes.
Ryan Balistiq: Precisely - all our tunes are just vibes man. No boundaries - I doubt anyone will be able to tell our style even in 10 years 'cause the range and versatility is all over the place. Might have to start tagging our tunes again hahaha
Andrew Balistiq: That's a point you know, we ain't tagged nothing for ages have we?
Blackdown: Is there live instrumentation on it?
Andrew Balistiq: Yeah there is, the main riff that runs through the tune is live. Everything else was programmed by your favourite production duo.
Blackdown: The grime MCs that flow “yard” are slightly different to other grime MCs: to those of who don’t know can you explain the difference?
Ryan Balistiq: I love the MC's from Grime that flow Yard - it's always fresh and classic...check out our tunes with Doctor, Stages and War.
Andrew Balistiq: It's the accent by and large. That's the main difference. A lot of people will have some sort of Yard twang in their lyrics but the ones who are known for it - the likes of Shizzle, Killa P, Riko etc they stick out like a sore thumb. They'll tell you themselves they are influenced by the Dancehall/Reggae artists who they've listened to over the years but bringing that on a Grime/Dubstep tune gives it a different vibe. Similar to when MC's would do the same over Jungle tunes. It's a different vibe that changes the sound of the track completely.
Blackdown: What is the epitome of “yard” for you? What does it mean to be “yard” or “from yard?”
Andrew Balistiq: Exactly what I said on the intro: Yard food, Yard tune, drinking Sorrel - Yard juice. Can't forget a pair of Clarks boot either haha. Nah but jokes aside, I don't own a pair of Clarks no more but I did when I was going school out there in the mid 90's. To be Yard ain't something you can just acquire. You're either from there or you ain't. I got NUFF bredrins who you would bet your house on that they're from Yard but they just love the culture I suppose. I aint got no problem with that. My only gripe is when you get the ones who try and convince the whole world and it's dog they are Jamaican when the closest they've been is looking at the poster down the travel agents.
Ryan Balistiq: You have to be from yard to be from Yard, but if you're Caribbean you get a bly as its all the same culture. It's how you are raised, what your nan cooks and the banter you have with each other that's all yard. It's amazing how one small set of islands can take of social culture like it has..it's like the language people speak to each other in. I'd say the epitome of Yard would be walking into a barber shop and not understanding one word from a geezer in dreads, who's got a gold tooth eating curry goat, rice and peas, coconut drops and a festival with a grape bigga saying something about some Dancehall rave and you only catching 1 - 2 pieces of info and replying with "...yeah yeah". I weren't born there ha. Oh and bulla cake.
Blackdown: You guys work out of Cable Street studios, home over the years to legends like Roll Deep, Scratcha DVA, Trim and more. What’s the vibe of the place like?
Andrew Balistiq: Cable is bless. It's away from where we live and that's always a good thing 'cause you can just escape so to speak and get on with things. Also when we go Cable we know work is gonna get done as opposed to going somewhere local and end up socialising. Setting our base up over there allowed us to work with a lot of people as well, being in the same building as Roll Deep, Scratcha, I think even Slew Dem had their radio station up there at one point.
Ryan Balistiq: If you wanna know what Grime looks like, go to Cable Street Studios
Blackdown: What’s the most #badmancommuter thing you’ve ever seen or done?
Ryan Balistiq: Walking from the back of Liverpool Street Station to the front with some fake screw face and watching the crowd part like say I was Moses #BADMANCOMMUTER
Andrew Balistiq: Hahah #badmancommuter. For me it was one time on the train I was standing in the middle and had about 3 bags on me and one round my shoulder. Train was rocking side to side, left and right like mad, everyone was holding on to something. Had to get my #badmancommuter stance on real quick to show them the stability levels without falling down. To be honest I don't think no one cared but I felt like a champion on that carriage. Big up Scratcha though 'cause he started the #badmancommuter movement on Twitter!!
Blackdown: What’s the single funniest par you’ve ever heard?
Andrew Balistiq: There's way too many to single out one but lemme think of one quickly now, erm...hahah I shouldn't even say this but it was joke. When we had just done a track with Wiley (Headbanger) he asked us not to send it to no one till the album dropped. I had DJ Mak 10 (Nasty Crew) on my case about it. He wanted it badly. I kept telling him wait till next week when the album drops I'll send it but he was adamant. So you know what I done? I ripped the audio from Logans show that week where he played it and saved the MP3 at 320kbps so the file size would seem like CD quality. So I sent it to him and said make sure he holds it down and he was like "Yeah respect for that". Obviously later when he opened it and heard Logan shouting all over the tune and dropping bombs he weren't impressed. But credit to Mak he saw the funny side of it and didn't take it the wrong way. That's just one of many pars, if I got started we'd be here for ages. Big up Mak 10 everytime, got mad amount of respect for that guy!! And yeah I did send it to him eventually.
Ryan Balistiq: I don't know if its funny, it weren't for me at the time but might be for you - but recently I was in Helsinki Finland working on some orchestrations for this track we're doing, I left the studio late and ordered a cab which never arrived - the cab station instructed me to wait at the nearest taxi line. It was 12am -18ยบ my hands were too cold to even text anyone..after an hour a cab come but all the Finnish natives jumped in, I tried to get in and hand the driver my phone to talk to my Finnish friend, he gave it to the passenger who then told me, sorry we're not going your way. I got out the cab but when I spoke to my friend he goes they thought I was trying to scam them - PAR! Only black guy in Helsinki at 1am, what the flip would I be doing trying to scam you? I'm tryna get to bed!..I eventually stopped a cab that was empty and got back safe hahaha.
Andrew Balistiq: Remember the time in my house when we were building that tune and Simon ate your burger meat and left you the bun?
Ryan Balistiq: HAHAHA that was a STRONG par. Me and Andrew were making this tune and I was round the computer at that moment. Our mate Simon asked me if he could have a bit of my burger that I had just bought from Mc D's so I said yeah. So what does Simon do? He ate the meat and left me the bun and the gherkin. Oh and the chopped onions. What's the point of that?
Blackdown: [Following a funny Tweet by Balistiq] Would you sleep with a random girl that broke into your yard? Why?
Andrew Balistiq: Mate, I don't care how criss she is, breaking into my yard is violation first and foremost. It's never a sleep with an intruder ting, ever.
Ryan Balistiq: HELL. NO. ya mad? It would be a straight BAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT to the knee on a Tempz vibe.
· Find Balistiq Beats on Twitter and Facebook. “Yardman Riddim” EP is released at the end of February on digital and 12" on Keysound Recordings
I just want to say a big thank you to everyone who nominated Dusk & I in the Best Radio show section of the Dubstep Forum Awards. We both put 110% into sourcing upfront new beats in 2010, from established dons or underrated new talent and its great to know people had as much fun listening as we did mixing it. Thank you.
I'm also flattered people nominated this blog too, it's been going a while and styles and trends change so it's great that people think of it. Again, thank you.
So the story starts like this. While we were on tour with The XX last year, I got asked if I would be interested in writing the sleeve notes for a Gil Scott-Heron v Jamie XX remix album and in November last year Jamie and I met up to talk about the project. I got a sense from him about his thoughts on the album, which is a really amazing body of work, lush, emotive and far more coherent than most remix albums.
I spent some time buried in the sleeve notes and in the end I’m really happy with them. They became one of my most detailed and in depth pieces that I’ve written in a while, musing on the cycles and patterns that engulf both participants. In the end though, I didn’t quote directly from the interview Jamie and I did, instead using it to understand more generally where he was coming from. So I’d like to share it in full here.
Jamie XX on “We’re New Here”
Blackdown: So how did the Gil Scott Heron remix album come about?
Jamie XX: It came about because of the Florence remix that I did, Richard Russell and people at XL were into it, and the Gil Scott Heron album was his project, the first thing he’d done in a long time. So I was really honoured to be asked to do it.
B: Was it daunting?
J: It was daunting but I felt like I could do it because I’d been listening to Gil for ages anyway and it’s something I really wanted to be involved in, because of the history and because it was one of the first things my parents played me when I was little.
B: Wow, that’s quite political for a small child…
J: They used to play their old records at dinner and stuff and it was one of the records that used to come on.
B: So do you remember the impression Gil left on you when you first heard those records?
J: I don’t know about an impression… it’s just that my love of music began listening to soul music and jazz music, so that was one of the things that made me want to get into music.
B: I’ve always felt that there’s a special psychological state for music that you’ve heard as a child. It affects you in different ways to similar kinds of music you hear later on. It’s similar to your teens, where the music you hear then is very intense because it’s the soundtrack to building who you are as a person.
J: I don’t know if I felt that then, but I definitely feel that now, thinking back, reminiscing.
B: Oh yeah, it’s definitely a retrospective thing. So were you aware at the time how socio-political he was?
J: Well I never really listen to lyrics, I don’t think I could even recite a full XX song. So it wasn’t the politics but the music.
B: It’s funny because “I’m New Here” seems to be less political than his earlier work. It’s much more overtly about him. I mean one of my favourite Gil Scott Heron moments is when he starts a track with “well the first thing I want to say is ‘mandate my ass’” before he starts talking about Regan. But this new album seems much more about his struggles.
J: I went to his gig in Brixton yesterday and he talks a lot in between each track, and one of the things he said was that he stopped worrying about all the problems in the world, because he wants to enjoy himself and the best thing in life you can do is enjoy yourself.
B: It’s quite a statement from someone who’s made a career out of satire and social and political commentary.
So you get past the shock of being asked to remix an album by someone who’s records you listened to as a child, then what? How do you approach it?
J: Initially I was thinking more about the transition between the tracks. It was when I’d just started to DJ, so it felt like a mixtape but with all my own productions. The end product isn’t like a mixtape because the tempo’s are all over the place, but I wanted to show how he influenced me by putting some of the older tracks on there, rather than just the brand new music [from “I’m New Here”]. So we used some unreleased stuff that was recorded in the 1970s. They sent me that half way through making it because I wanted to use some of his old stuff… you can tell the difference in his voice, it’s changed so much. The older stuff is much more vocal rather than speaking, singing and more melodic I guess. And it was slower in tempo. So I didn’t have a plan for the older and newer stuff, I just wanted the whole album to sound like one piece of music. We tried to do that with the XX album too.
B: It’s a really hard thing to do, I guess because you end up having to make top down decisions about sounds you do and don’t use…
J: I don’t know if I made a conscious decision about it but in my head I knew how everything was going to sound. If I was making something that wasn’t sounding right I knew how to get it to sound right.
B: Some of the styles of music, especially the lyrical side of hip hop, a lot of people credit him with having an influence on. But other styles you use, like dubstep, has other more prominent influences. How did you approach those tracks?
J: That was pretty much completely removed from Gil’s influence and so on those tracks I used Gil’s vocals the least, so it was just more to show my influences. I just wanted it to be a 50:50 split of him and me, so I could change what he was doing quite a lot and still get away with it.
B: One of the things that ties it together seems for me to be the use of epic synths and melodies, throughout. Is that something you use with The XX?
J: A little bit but we definitely have to be a bit more restrained with The XX. But XL made me feel I could do pretty much what I wanted with this, they’re always amazing to work with. It was actually a bit more of a struggle than I thought it would be: afterwards I had to write letter to Gil, because he wasn’t sure about some of the tracks on the album, because of when they were recorded – the old stuff. But it all worked out in the end.
B: Did you have to write a letter by hand?
J: Yeah he doesn’t do email. I had to write to him to explain my concept behind the album and why some of the older stuff was on there. It was pretty simple and after I wrote that letter to him he said “Jamie knows more about this than I do, so let him do what he wants…” which was nice.
B: There’s a track on the album about writing letters that he never finishes. Did he write back to you?
J: No he spoke to Richard Russell. Now that would have been something to keep!
B: So have you met him?
J: Yeah I met him last night after his gig and I met him in New York, he was supposed to play a secret song in the middle of our set at the Bowery Ballroom. He turned up before the sound check and everything was fine but then he left and came back too late to play his bit. It would have been cool but we got to meet him then. So I’ve been to a few of his gigs and hung out with him afterwards.
B: And so what’s that like, knowing you now have this slightly abstract connection through the music of your childhood?
J: Well he didn’t know that until I wrote that letter to him about it all and it’s quite hard to talk to him. He doesn’t talk to many people in an open way. He talks to Richard Russell. So I found it pretty hard to talk to him so I don’t think we ever got to the stage where we were taking about how he influenced me. He wasn’t rude or anything, he was a very nice guy.
B: So how did you deal with the shorter tracks on the album? Some people would have felt the need to turn them into 5 minute pieces…
J: Well, before I started making more UK dance music, I was making hip hop and using breaks. And he has interludes on the [original] album so I wanted to use those as the breaks in the record. One of my obsessions is collecting records and finding samples, even though I hardly use samples anymore. So that was a good excuse to use some of the things I’d found. So I just put a drum break under a few of them… it was a way to use my records.
B: And what is the spectrum of UK dance music that is influencing you right now and how you made this album?
J: I guess it’s more going out and being in clubs. I wanted the album to sound a bit like being in a night club, certain elements of it. Going to Plastic People: that was an influence. All the genres that get played in Plastic, that’s pretty much it.
B: The funny thing is to me it sounds more coherent than the actual original album, production wise. The original album is multiple people whereas obviously yours is one piece of work. What holds the first one together is Gil Scott Heron, not the production so strongly.
So how did your parents react?
J: They were amazed, as they have been with everything that’s happened in the last two years. They’re very happy a bit shocked I guess. They haven’t heard it yet though, I haven’t really seen them since I made it.
B: How do they receive your stuff generally, will this direction be a shock to them?
J: I’ve only just moved out from home and I was always playing my stuff really loud and they were getting annoyed so they know what it sounds like.
B: Something I was thinking about, which is quite crazy, is the idea of your life and Gil Scott Heron’s crossing now, in 2010. Yet Gil Scott Heron started on this path, this trajectory, so far back, before you or I were even born. All his life he’s been doing what he’s doing and for some reason your paths have now crossed, here.
J: Yeah, one of the things I admired him for was that he is appreciative of brand new music. He’s got a good understanding of what’s going on.
B: So how were you aware he was into this kind of stuff?
J: I wasn’t aware, I just kind of went for it and then after he approved it he named certain bits of the album that he particularly liked, and I was impressed. I hope when I’m his age I can still be that on it.
B: Yeah, because on average most people feel more strongly about music in their teens than in their 50s. Though I think for people like you and I, if we’ve got this far with music in our system it wont get out. There was a Polish composer, Gorecki, who died this week and there was a quote from one of his students that said they’d asked him what the secret to composing was and he replied ‘if you can go two or three days without music you don’t love it enough…’
J: Yeah I’ve never really thought about it but I can’t think of the last time I had a day off listening to music.
B: Sometimes I walk down the street without my headphones and I feel guilty! Like I’m being unfaithful to a love in my life. So I put my headphones back in…. So, do you get offered projects of this size quite often?
J: Not of this size. I’ve had a couple of massive pop things, but nothing I’d actually want to do.
B: A case of ‘thank you, but no’ …?
J: Yeah haha. So this [Gil] was an out of the ordinary thing.
B: Sometimes you just have to find a way to make them work, which was sort of how we felt when you guys asked us to come on tour with you. “Hmmm, we’re going to have to find a way to make this work…” … So did you think about using any other musicians or vocalists on the remix album?
J: Yeah when we were in Atlanta, the tour before the one you came on, a rapper called Kill, who lives in Atlanta…
B: Was he the guy who was trying to get you to go to strip clubs?
J: …that’s the one. He recorded in the back of our tour bus a verse on my laptop which was going to be on the track “Home” but it was just a little bit too gangsta for the album. I also recorded some stuff with JJ, the Swedish duo, they’ve got really beautiful vocals. And also Romy and Oliver are on the album, in certain bits.
B: There were vocal parts where I wondered if you’d taken Gil’s vocals or someone else’s and pitched them up…?
J: Ah no that’s just other samples. I tried messing with Gil’s vocals a bit but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
B: There’s some loops on “Running”, reminds me of Moodyman. So did they record especially for the project?
J: The thing that Oliver did was actually when we were in school, before The XX were anything and we were recording in my bedroom, him doing ‘oooh’s’ and harmonising them. And on the last track there’s a Romy riff that I recorded on my iPhone when we were jamming. It’s the same file… pretty bad quality but it sounds alright.
B: Sometimes bad quality can go either way, it can sound terrible or add a roughness to it.
J: Yeah I think it works.
B: So for people who bought The XX album but maybe have not heard Gil Scott Heron, how do you think they’ll react to this?
J: Um, I don’t know. I’m worried about it, because XL have been doing a lot for it… I just thought it was going to be a remix album under the radar, but they’re promoting it and doing limited releases and stuff. I hope people like it but it’s definitely not what I think XX fans would be into.
B: It would be quite amazing if you got a few XX fans to listen to Gil Scott Heron though!
J: Yeah that would be great…. Yeah I never really thought about the people that would be listening to it when I was making it but yeah that would be really nice. I’ve done a few interviews around this album and they’re about an hour long and I always end up having to try to be far more insightful than I was when I was making the record. So I find myself babbling on about things that probably didn’t really happen.
B: That’s the nature of music journalism. A journalist’s medium is the word. A producer’s medium is music. Music journalists often try and impose ‘top down’ theories onto albums whereas the reality was you were probably more thinking ‘is this sound in key?’ ‘should I re-edit this arrangement…?’
I think it’s interesting though, there aren’t many people in your position, who are big in the indie world but listen to Rinse and go to Plastic People etc. Yet you fit these together…
J: … Yeah I’m trying, but I think it’s kind of a hindrance though: when I’m DJing people expect me to play indie music. And when this album comes out people in the indie world are going to think ‘why is he trying to make underground music?’ and people in the underground are going to think [laughs] ‘why is he trying to make underground music?’
B: Yeah…. So I’m quite fussy and musically, from the underground side of things, I don’t think anyone will complain about this album plus everyone loves Gil Scott Heron. Indie people? That’s not my world so I don’t know how to deal with that problem haha… Going against the grain is good though and it’s not like you’re making free jazz.
J: One thing I want to mention is Richard Russell’s influence. He was one of the pioneers of rave music and this is club music. The stuff he was into and is still into, just adds another element to the chain… he’s in between me and Gil.
B: Yeah totally, rave being the meeting of on one side funk breaks and hip hop samples and on the other side, house and techno styles which came from disco. People like SL2 and Prodigy, which XL are famous for were really part of that convergence of influences that made up rave. And of course your Florence remix, which was what got their attention, had echoes of rave and house’s past in it, back to Candy Staton, Jamie Principles and Frankie Knuckles. Does Richard see all this symmetry?
J: Yeah he does and that’s a big thing for him actually, it’s one of the reasons why he asked me to do it as well. He likes things to be very clear and coherent.
Kool & the Gang "Summer Madness" [De-Lite] Reuben Wilson "Inner City Blues" [bootleg] Pharoah Saunders "You Gotta Have Freedom" [Timeless] Big John Hamilton "Big Fanny" [bootleg] The Temptations "Get Ready" [Motown] Googie Rene Combo "Smokey Joe's La La" [bootleg] Gil Scott-Heron "Waiting For the Axe to Fall" [Arista] Samatha King "Take a Chance" [Voodoo Death Breaks 01] T-Connection "Do What You Wanna Do" [Mastercuts] Cry Sisco! "Aphro Dizzi Act" [Escape]
Souls of Mischief "93'Til Infinity" [Jive] Black Moon "Who Got Da Props" [Nervous] De La Soul "I am i BE" [Tommy Boy/Big Life] Brand Nubian "Wake Up (Stimulated Dummies Mix)" [Elektra] The Roots "What They Do" [DGC] Master Ace "I Got Ta" [Cold Chillin'] Jeru the Damaja "Come Clean" [Payday] Jungle Brothers "In Dayz 2 Come" [Warner Bros]
Moodyman "I Can't Kick this Feelin' When It Hits" [Planet E] Marcus Intalex + S.T. Files "Taking Over Me" [Hospital] Farley Jackmaster Funk "Farley Knows House" [Trax] Jerald Daemyon "Summer Madness (MAW 12" Mix) [Giant Step] Romanthony "Falling from Grace" [Azuli] Derrick May "Icon (Montage mix)" [Transmat/R&S] Bushwacka! "Healer (House mix)" [Oblong Records] Robert Hood "All Day Long" [M-Plant]
Apollo Two "Atlantis (I Need You) (LTJ Bukem Remix)" [Good Looking Records] Matrix "Mute '98" [Prototype Recordings] Hyper On Experience "Disturbance (Tango remix)" [Moving Shadow] Special Forces "Something Else... The Bleeps Tune" [Photek Productions] Intense "Time Space Continuem" [Rugged Vinyl] Krust "True Stories" [Talkin' Loud] Chaos & Julia Set "Fear the Future" [Recoil] Omni Trio "Thru the Vibe (2 on 1 mix)" [Moving Shadow] Foul Play "Re-Open Your Mind 95" [Moving Shadow]
BLOG COMMENT FOR THE FREENESS PLEASE! Are you a "Big Fanny" kinda guy or do you ladies "Fear the Future?" Lemme know...
"Lisa Blanning has some on-the-money comments about the post-dubstep interzone noting that with operatives like Night Slugs et al there's been the emergence of "a real 'wot do you call it' sound... but part of the reason this sound doesn't have a name is because it doesn't have any defining characteristics. It's a mixture, instead of a synthesis, of so many existing club forms. While it doesn't lack energy, the pursuit of the next mutation is audibly uncertain, and it probably won't come from this quarter."
"This chimed with the feeling I got reading Martin Clark's Pitchfork survey of the year in dubstep/grime/funky/dubbage/road rap... the sense of a congested space, a frenetic criss-crossing of DJs and producers akin to a crowded concourse at a railway junction... a bustling profusion of genres blurring into each other... Yet house and garage and funky and 2step aren't that far apart really, the distances between them aren't large enough for the movements to-and-fro across that space to register as a soundclash or transgressive passage through border control... Blackdown's survey forms a book-end to 2010 with his behold-the-plenty column from the start of the year... which was one of the things that first got me musing towards the concept of hyperstasis."
I wanted to add a few comment to these quotes by Simon Reynolds and Lisa Blanning, because something really doesn’t sit well with me, between the analysis above and for me the musical strength of 2010.
Now I know everyone - critics, producers, DJs and fans alike - enjoys being swept off their feet by a romance with an entirely new musical scene. Part of the intoxicating effect is that you suddenly don’t know where you are for a second (but you like it) and I’ve loved that feeling as much as anyone.
The problem is, in the absence of a new, inebriating new movement that reveals itself in those familiar “disorientating” patterns, I’m not sure it’s fair as a consequence to write off the rest, the delocalised “interzone” as Simon calls it. Why? Because the interzone has made some startlingly amazing individual records this year and collectively they sum to a vintage year, well, for me at least. The problem is this new, delocalised structure doesn’t fit with previous patterns of tight, focused scenes. So if you went looking for that and that only, you probably didn’t find it.
You could ask why the hardcore continuum hasn’t delivered a new singularity this year, but to answer that you’ve got to look at the direction two of the key loci went in 2010. Lots of the grassroots road support shifted from grime to road rap, and from funky to house & dubbage – and what do these shifts both have in common? They’re the agents of the nuum re-connecting back into the “dark matter” in the nuum galaxy: the two vast established international scenes rap and house. And while I’m confident in time road rap and dubbage will evolve into startlingly original, free standing movements, for now there’s an inherent conservatism inbuilt in plugging yourself back into the formulas of house or rap that makes it hard to simultaneously deliver the wot-do-u-call-it? intoxication.
But away from why there was no seismic shift in 2010, and back to why the 130 space shouldn’t be written off. Lisa says its parts has no “defining characteristics.” Simon that it’s parts “aren't that far apart.”
Yes maybe this space has no defining characteristics but that’s its strength not its weakness. If people are looking for the next “wow” moment, a long line in singular “wow” moments, isn’t the biggest wow of them all that this one hasn’t come packaged as before? That in a hyperconnected, delocalised world of fast musical idea-exchange that the new singularity wouldn’t come packaged as before? That it’s not even a singularity at all, but a plurality?
It sort of stands to reason. If you look at how exciting scenes evolved before – before internet ubiquity that is - basically a small cluster of pioneers would break off from large established scenes and differentiate themselves. This would usually involve a degree of shunning from their parent scene, a loss of some or all of their accompanying audience and hence relative isolation. In the pre-internet era – which for the UK is some point between 2000-2003 depending on if you count dial up in this – older critics are always at pains to point out how hard it was to access subcultures you were not already in or geographically co-located with. This meant that small scenes could had longer to incubate and hence to develop new ideas.
Now in a mass market broadband and smart phone era, ideas propagate very quickly, differences even out. There’s very little incubation time, little isolation if you’re onto something. In fact the only way to hide it seems in 2010/11, is to bury yourself into the dark matter of bigger scenes, as the early UK funky DJs or road rap acts did. Yes you could have found proto-UK funky DJ in 2004 but given they were mostly playing US house, they’d have been indistinguishable against the darkness of the vast house galaxy. So if new ideas propagate quickly and differences are evened out, what you get is instead of one dense pocket of invention, the singular “wow” moment people have seen before, you get a broad, delocalised field of inter-exchange of ideas, meta-scenius if you like. And only when you view it as a whole do you see its total merits.
Now I’m not saying, even in a nuum context, that we won’t ever see a new seismic shift, the “wot do u call it?” wow moment again – in fact I certainly hope we will – but I do think it’s quite possible that as the cost and friction of propagating ideas tends to zero, that we’ll see new structures to the landscape of how new music evolves around us.
This isn’t a prediction by the way, it’s an analysis of the here and now. I look at records like Trim “Confidence Boost (Harmonimix)” (aka James Blake), Addison Groove "Footcrab", True Tiger & P Money “Slang Like This,” Spooky “Spartan,” SX v Ramadanman “Woo Glut,” Bass Boy & Marcus Nasty Ft Marcus Nasty “Shitta,”Jam City "Ecstasy refix", Darkstar "Two Chords", Actress “Splazsh,” Salem “King Night,” Mount Kimbie “Crooks + Lovers” and countless others and think how can you not see both the collective quality and the interconnectivity here?
Just consider this sequence of tracks in a loop:
• Darkstar "Two Chords" [synthy, almost devil mix-y, post dubstep pop] • Trim “Confidence Boost (Harmonimix)” (aka James Blake) [post-dubstepper remixes grime don] • Spooky “Spartan” [grime banger] • True Tiger & P Money “Slang Like This” [dubstep-influenced grime banger] • SX v Ramadanman “Woo Glut,” [synthy grime x dubstep mashup] • Darkstar "Two Chords" [return to start to find synthy, almost devil mix-y, post dubstep pop]
Lisa says “The next mutation ... probably won't come from this quarter.”
This time last year Elijah and Skilliam unleashed their "01012010 mix" and with it turned a few heads about the future of instrumental grime.
So after a great year - I'd hate to repeat myself, but it's all here - the dynamic duo have an exclusive update to that mix. Download Elijah & Skilliam '01012011 Mix' HERE.
TRC - Into Sync (Unsigned) S-X - Woooo Riddim (DJ Q Remix) (Butterz) Morgan Zarate - Hooo Kid (Hyperdub) Swindle - Mood Swings (Butterz) Becoming Real - Like Me (Not Even) D.O.K - West Coast VIP (Hyperdub) JME - Hench (SRC Remix) (Unsigned) Darq E Freaker - Cherryade (Oil Gang) Spooky - Over Capacity (Oil Gang) Mr Mitch - Centre Court (Fortified) J Sweet v Alias - Untitled (Earth 616) DVA - Still Born (DVA Music) Admiral Bailey - Jump Up (Terror Danjah Remix) (Greensleeves) J Sweet - Kerb (Starkey Remix) (Unsigned) Natalie Storm - Boys For Breakfast (Prodigal Ent) Wiley - Its Wiley (Royal T Remix) (Prodigal Ent) Nu Klear - Annealing (Earth 616) Swindle, Wizzy Wow, Rude Kid & Terror Danjah - Tag (Butterz Dub) Royal T - Orangeade VIP (Butterz) Emvee - Powerful Leg (Flush Media) D.O.K - Day (Unsigned) Teddy - Falling In Love (Unsigned) D.O.K - Chemical Planet (DarkToneSound Remix) (Butterz) Mr Mitch & Darkos - Station Square (Unsigned) ????? - ?????? TRC - Oo Aa Ee (D.O.K Remix) (Butterz) Illmana & Terror Danjah - Screama (Hardrive) TRC & Miss Fire - Drive Me (Unsigned) Mr Mitch - Skittles (Rampz Remix) (Butterz) DJ Q - Idea 4 (Unsigned) ????? - ????????
Elijah in his own words...
"We did the 01012010 mix this time last year when the instrumental Grime movement was just reviving, now we are back a year later with a familiar names, new guys, interesting sounds, two Jamaican artists on Grime, the return of 'r&g' and so many remixes. If you like this you can check our recent podcast for XLR8R as well -
"We released 5 records in 2010 which you can grab now on Boomkat - The first two releases for 2011 are a vinyl only edition of S-X's - Woooo Riddim accompanied by DJ Qs Remix, and Royal Ts Orangeade which you can grab here with our exclusive label t shirts. All these people you should be watching closely if you want to keep up, as well as the output from the Hardrive, Oil Gang, Earth 616, Rwina and No Hats No Hoods labels."
Rinse HQ: "Would you two like to play FWD>> on the 6th?" Blackdown "Fuckyes!"
Dusk + I will be playing at FWD>> again on Jan 6th, doing the early slot for 90 mins and we're really excited because, well, you never know if or when the call will come. The rough plan currently is to play only unreleased Keysound beats, because truth be told there's more individual tracks due on Keysound in 2011 than there was released in 2005-2010. That includes the stuff Dusk + I have been working on for the last two years that we haven't played on radio yet. So come down early if you're curious.
Top 11 + 13 of 2010
After my end of year column a few people asked for my personal top 10, but I could only settle on 11, which Boomkat kindly hosted.
LHF "EP2: The Line Path" [forthcoming Keysound] Girl Unit 'IRL/Wut' [Night Slugs] Mickey Pearce ft Ms Dynamite "What's Mickey Talking About?" [unreleased] Trim "Confidence Dub (Harmonimix)" [unreleased] Rishi Romero "African forest" (Made In NL) Jamie Woon "Night Air (Ramadanman remix)" [Candent Songs] Jam City "Ecstacy refix" [Night Slugs] Darkstar "Two Chords" [Hyperdub] Addison Groove "Footcrab" [Swamp 81] D.O.K. "West Coast" [forthcoming Hyperdub] MC Creed & Esko Beats "Generate" [unreleased]
It's been such a fruitful year for music that I can't not mention...
Balistiq Beats ft Riko "Yardman Riddim" [unreleased Keysound] Danny Weed and Cage "Creeper (Maxwell D and Beans funky remix)" (unreleased) Damu "Ridin'/Be Free" [unreleased Keysound] El-B and Noodles ft Natasha "I Feel" Ghetts "Intro" (Calm Before the Storm CD) Horsepower "Rain" [Tempa] LV "Boomslang" (Hyperdub) Maxwell D "Gone Away" (unreleased) Slackk "Eski Clicks" [unreleased] S-X "Woooo" [Stay Fresh] Vibezin "Hot 4 U" [unreleased Keysound] Becoming Real "Like me ft Trim" Bias & Gurley "Roll" [unreleased Keysound] Kyle Hall "Kaychunk / You Know What I Feel" [Hyperdub]
Solar Man "Affirmation" "Stories" (Interlude) Amen Ra "Connected" Low Density Matter "Love Affair" Low Density Matter "Better Days" "Higher Plains" (Interlude) Low Density Matter "Wash" Double Helix feat Amen Ra "Secret Portal" Amen Ra and Double Helix "Soul Power" "Narrow Is The Gate" (Interlude) Amen Ra "Saved My Soul" Double Helix "Inferno 2010 " (Helixs' 3rd Degree Mix) No Fixed Abode "Fallen Queen" Double Helix "Dance With The Devil" Double Helix "Manoeuvres" No Fixed Abode "For The Thrown" "The Power Of Vibrations" (Interlude) No Fixed Abode "Golden" Low Density Matter "After 8" Amen Ra- "Embalmer" "Watchin Over Me" (Interlude) Solar Man- "Twinkle In Your Eye"
LHF "EP2: The Line Path" 12" will finally be in shops the first or second week of January, though there may be early bird copies for members of this group.
Final show of the year and Dusk and I are planning a Christmas special this Thurs 11pm. Unlike the upfront selection of our regular shows, this is gonna go back... way back, in a vinyl-only classics session.
Will Dusk draw for Booker T and the MGs cricket theme or that funk tune by the Mircales about all the best bars in LA being gay bars? Am I gonna grab some Eric Dolphy or the Wombles? (what, you don't think I actually have the Wombles on vinyl?)
There's lots of categories Dusk and I could be nominated in, but being honest I don't think we would or should win them. For example we've worked hard with Keysound this year - and we've made the plans to do better in 2011 - but other labels set the bar high this year.
However we felt we held our own on our Rinse show. We walked up there every month with armfuls of new producers, avoided beats that everyone else was playing and mixed across four or five genres.
"Boomslang" got it's debut, we dropped dozens of LHF, Vibezin and Zomby beats you'll not hear elsewhere and new producers like Mr Mitch, Cedaa, Damu, Teeza, Slackk, Teeth, Balistiq Beats, Dubbel Dutch, Bloom, Coobe Beats, HGLDT, VVV, Walton, Hackman, Original Face and Becoming Real got exposure, to name just a few.
Though there are several strong shows on air, we'd love to be nominated for best show and we're not too proud to admit it.
Me, Dusk, Rinse FM and some new music. Last Thursday, DOWNLOAD the podcast now...
Plus, leave a comment please, I wanna know what you were feeling or not feeling!
***Dusk + Blackdown Rinse FM November 2010***
Jamie XX "Far Nearer" [forthcoming Numbers] T-Polar "Siren Street" [unreleased] iGrade "Check It" [unreleaded] slackk "Linger/Maybe" [unreleased] HGLDT "Knowing You" [unreleased] Baobinga and Hyetal "?" [forthcoming Build] Eastwood "R U Ready (Walton refix) [unreleased] The Phantom "Night Game Hackman remix" [forthcoming] Visionist "Come In" [forthcoming] Taylor "CMB (Raffertie Mix)" [forthcoming Super] Maxwell D "Funky with Bars (Lighter Riddim)" [unreleased] Jamie George "Flying Saucer" [forthcoming Roska Kicks & Snares] Damu "Waterfall of Light" [unreleased Keysound] Original Face "Hullabaloo" [unreleased] Miss Doctorr "4x4 (Unknown Soulja rmx)" [unreleased] Arp101 "Side Flush" [forthomcing Eglo] Damu "Ether" [unreleased Keysound] Amen Ra "Low Maintanance" [unreleased Keysound] Egyptrixx "Rooks Theme" [forthcoming Night Slugs] Baobinga & Hyetal "?" [forthcoming Build]
Starkey "Playing With Fire" [forthcoming Civil Music] Salva "Blue" (My Dry Wet Mess Remix) [forthcoming Friends of Friends Music] Starkey "Holodeck" [forthcoming Civil Music] Mr Mitch - "September" [unreleased] Taylor "CMB (Girl Unit Remix)" [unreleased] SBTRKT "Golddigger" [unreleased] Darq E Freaker "Cherryade" [forthcoming Oil Gang] sensi star ??? [Oil gang] Gremino "Finneskimo" [Free download] DOK "Chemical Planet (Dark Tone Sound remix)" [forthcoming Butterz] Gremino "Drumbeat" [Free download] Frisco "Keeping It G_'d Up remix feat Ghetts" [unreleased]
Double Helix "Base 2 Dark" from "EP2: The Line Path" [forthcoming Keysound Recordings] Point B "The Veld" [unreleased] Addison Groove "Work It" [forthcoming Swamp 81] I.D. "Feudal" [unreleased] Darqwan "Flow So Hot ft MC Shinobi" [unreased] Mizz Beats "My World (Om Unit remix)" [unreleased] Royal T "Side Effect (Asa & Kahn Remix)" [forthcoming]
Hey, I want you to meet someone called Damu, if you have a second. That said he has an EP coming on Keysound, so if that’s an issue you can close your browser window now, I won’t be offended honest. But lemme just say this, he’s one of the most exciting prospects I’ve come across in quite some time.
Damu came into our lives in July this year, Dusk clocked him on Soundcloud, and it became really apparent very quickly that he really had something. That feeling has only intensified as he’s continued to send wave after wave of new music, we’ve played it out on Rinse or mixed it on the US dates we did and had headz come and say time and again “Who’s this? What, not Damu... again!”
I could tell you what I like about Damu’s sound, the energy, colour, the dense intensity and effed arpeggios and synths, but this is all you really need to know: when I walk down the street with my Damu playlist on, it makes so euphorically happy. Now, no one wants to be that random grinning idiot, so I keep a straight face but inside Damu beats make me glow. I just wanted to share some of that lush warm feeling with a few of you too...
Damu interview
Blackdown: So can you tell us a bit about yourself, where do you live, how long have you been producing for?
Damu: I’m 21, I live in a small house in South Manchester, I lead a pretty fun and simple life, spending a lot of time making music; other than that just working and chilling out with mates really. I first got into music electronic music production about 2 years ago, but I only really got to the stage where I could do it seriously this year. It was a pretty steep learning curve for quite a while, but it’s been very intense, which suits my brain and I love doing it, so it’s definitely been an enjoyable process so far.....
B: What artists currently inspire you? I hear a lot of juke and crunk sounds in your music, but then I hear UKG too. Has kuduro infiltrated at all too?
D: People doing completely their own thing have to garner the most respect. Flylo, Burial, Zomby, Bok Bok, Hudson Mohawke and Dorian Concept spring to mind. I’m really enjoying the Darkstar album too.
Genres like juke have a lot of very characteristic elements, when it started infiltrating the UK scene a bit, the raw energy of it, as well as idea of it as being geared towards dancers, really appealed to me. Just like UKF coming from American house, it seemed like a very exciting sound for UK producers to run with; to freshen up some of the more downbeat trends in urban music. In particular, picking up the pace to around 150-160bpm and falling back to classic club sounds like the 808 is a big contrast to a lot of stuff that had been coming out previously, but it I think it still kind of falls in line with this post-dubstep Diaspora, which only seems to get deeper and deeper. When I started hearing Kuduro and Ghettotech it was a similar deal really. It just sounded fresh and exciting on the dancefloor, and as someone who thrives on going out dancing, that’s bound to influence the music I make.
I’ve always really liked chopped up garage vocals and swung drums, they really help convey meaning in the tracks and give people something to connect with. I definitely try to take influence from the full range of music I’m into; that’s just music at the moment though. I don’t think there are many producers who just listen to one style of music. As for Crunk, I just listen to it more than I should; Lil Jon is a shrewd man.
B: Can you tell me a bit about the music you make, what’s it like?
D: It’s usually frenetic with a lot of elements in a short space of time. I’m very into layering of synth and vocal melodies and harmonies with a leaning towards writing catchy hooks, with varying degrees of success. My music covers a range of tempos from about 105-165bpm, but I think my style is more held together by the sounds I use rather than the genres it inevitably falls into.
B: You have a very distinctive production style, which is rare that it’s so utterly coherent so early in your career but yet something to be treasured. One of your trademarks is this dense, busyness. Where do you think this comes from and how do you channel it?
D: Modern life can be pretty intense; lifestyles have always influenced music, especially when you look at hardcore continuum music. The people I like, and for that matter the people I don’t like have shaped me into a bit of an eccentric, music is definitely one place where that doesn’t need to be toned down. On the contrary, eclecticism gives room for a lot of character in music, which is something which I really value. My favourite artists, whether I’ve been into indie, jungle, hip-hop, classical or whatever, are the ones who have a very characteristic style; with a specific way of doing things, which is the product of the way their mind works rather than a sound that they’re aiming for. When you can get that kind of character across in music it gives something more meaningful to build upon track by track. When I’m making tunes my brain is usually pretty switched on; I enjoy the process of taming a crop of strange ideas into something tuneful, subtlety can tend to go out the window a bit, I’m not really a subtle character. I reckon a lot of music I like is probably made like that, I just don’t strip it back as much as some. I’d say my tunes hopefully reflect my character.
B: One of the other themes seems to be this happy warmth, which contrasts nicely with the busyness...
D: I’m a pretty happy optimistic person, I love downbeat and melancholy music or artwork but I guess I tend much more towards transcribing my positive energy into the music I make. I love the idea of someone singing along to major key cut-up vocals, or a synthline and losing themselves in a happy haze at a summertime beach rave or something. It’s so much more often, especially in dubstep, that the most affecting tunes are the mournful, eerie or even aggressive ones. There’s definitely room in clubs for more music that excites and affects people in a more light-hearted and smile-inducing manner. A lot of the melodic and synth-laden house that’s been coming out recently seems to be a reaction to a few years of darker half-step music being at the forefront after 4x4 garage simmered down a bit.
B: Some of the ways you have spoken in recent months to me about music reflects such a deep passion for it, of possibilities and potential, is this how you feel about music making at the moment?
D: I’m sure people say this every year but I really think it’s a bit of a golden era for electronic music at the moment. The artists doing the best are the ones who can throw away the rule books in a way that moves people. That is fantastic for musicality and really encouraging as an artist, like the more effort you put in and the more good ideas you come up with, the more people are likely to be receptive to it, then it’s just more enjoyable and challenging for everyone, DJ’s producers and dancers/listeners. Art and music simply can’t keep up with the technological advances pushing it forwards, which opens up a whole world of constant new possibilities for an ever accelerating number of new producers.
In addition to this, there seems to be a collective desire from the whole global scene to cover as much new sonic ground as possible, without sacrificing quality. As a result, music from all directions becomes more and more soulful in order to stand out. I really hope that is something which doesn’t ever get lost in new technology. It’s a very positive trait found in electronic music which often lacks in a lot of forms of technological progression. I feel like there is still a lot of ground to be covered that will one day be regarded as basic, the next ten years will see a very rapid and dramatic progression in music and the clubbing experience, so being 21 and having that to come is pretty exciting. Yeah, there’s so much to look forward to, I’m glad I’ve found something that really inspires me.
B: “Ridin’” is massive - though I’m biased obviously - can you tell me how it came about and did you ever give it to Big Boi?
D: I think my tunes that work best are the ones that happen really quickly. I was really into a few synth patches I was working with and the song came fully formed in a few hours. I think it’s about getting some sharp elements to start working with and being in the right frame of mind. From there it’s just fun really and trying to work them into a sound I’m happy with.
D: Funnily enough my chance pass is on to Big Boi came and went about 3 hours before I typed this, as Big Boi, covered by a personalised towel, was hoarded into the back of a blacked out van seconds after smashing up a tiny little club show, which I’m very glad I went to. It was a nice idea, but not even close really. I’m still very into the idea of getting some tunes vocaled though so watch this space. I thought for a bit I’d never be up for working with a big hip hop or grime artist, but it’d be so much fun if the chance ever presented itself.
B: What labels have you got releases coming on, apart from Keysound?
D: At the moment, I’m really looking forward to my first EP dropping in late December on Silverback. They’ve had some brilliant stuff out recently and it’s a great pleasure working with them. Then the Mermaid EP will be out on Local Action next spring, got a few exciting things in the pipeline for that, then a split 12” on Swing and Skip audio around the same time. The prospect of holding my own vinyl for the first time is an exciting one. I've been working on a full live AV set which should be ready for about the same time as this first EP drops, so look out for that.
Damu's EP for Keysound ("Ridin", "Crystal Gaea", "Karolina's Magic J" and "Be Free") will be out next year, with one on Local Action before that. Check two fresh tracks by him on our Rinse show this month.
My end of year column on UK funky, grime, road rap, dubstep and 130. The longest article I've written in several years but the Twitter reaction alone made it well worth it... so, erm, thanks! :)
“There are places you just don't go,” he explains. “Not unless you know someone there really well or you're travelling as part of a much bigger group. If you're on your own and you're a new face, people will rob you, take everything you have. The only way to stop it happening is not to go to those places.”
-- Reggie, Tulse Hill
Rare piece of seemingly a) researched and b) non-judgmental coverage on inner city London culture from a newspaper, this time from Tony Thompson in the Evening Standard.
