I've interviewed 100s of dance music producers over decades & I've spotted a pattern.
Unlike, say, songwriters there's usually more stories behind the music, titles and art work than is immediately obvious when simply listening to the track.
I think producers should do more to tell those stories, so walk the walk, here's some thoughts about some of the thoughts behind our new EP "Traditions".
As ever the idea behind the rollage series is simple: all tracks are the same tempo (130 bpm) so they can be easily mixed together but each is different in intensity, mood, structure. For us, that tempo is a balance point between drop/groove, swing/driving urgency & more that allows creative unity + diversity.
That sense of creative freedom (from) within constraints is perhaps the series’ own sonic tradition, drawing from styles and eras, while at the same time optimistically looking forward to embrace new traditions as they emerge.
But like many of the rollage EPs, all the tracks are made from the same bank of sounds. So we started with one, then spawned another project file and went in another direction. It means the tracks are like close family members: both similar and different.
The title track "Tradition" came first. I came across the vocals in a video and just had that producer "lightbulb" moment.
The funny thing is, while his patois sounds super serious, in the video it's a joke - he's going around a room laid out with food for friends and family, and massively overhyping ox tail stew or mac 'n' cheese. Being absurdly "serious" about eating way too much food with loved ones.
Sooooo... obviously from patois about mac 'n' cheese, my brain's like "ok, so I wonder if we can make a 2004-style youngsta halfstep dubstep tune but at 130bpm, to keep things interesting!"
The sample "tradition" initially spoke to us because it just sounded great - it had instant identity and intensity. But the funny thing is once you hone in one sample in a track ("tradition") for how it sounds, as you use it, it starts to take on these other resonances.
So I looked it up: traditions are long-established customs or beliefs that have been passed on from one generation to another, often orally. The roots of the word join fragments relating to “giving” and “across.”
And I thought: you know, there's a lot of what I love in music that are traditions, and about giving of particular emotions between producers, DJs and communities.
And then I added a small detail: the tracks are variants of "Tradition" but the EP is called "Traditions" - the more I looked at it, the plural felt more inclusive: traditions from now, from then, to come. Our traditions, yours, theirs.
Being a producer is a curious thing with regards to traditions: when you write music you have to make thousands of micro decisions. "Does this sound good or not if I add this or take it away?" "Is this better if I turn that to the left or not?" "Is it boring in those 8 bars?"
And I think in part you make those decisions based on your past traditions - music you've loved, hated, absorbed as part of who you are and what you listen to. Each new track becomes both a reflection of what came before and the new traditions you want to bring into the world.
Like, here's one micro example of a tradition that runs through these EPs. Dusk + I don't make jungle, but will always be junglists at heart, amongst other loves of course.
A while back we found this stand alone free bit of software that allows you to replicate the original, iconic Akai timestretch effect so beloved in jungle. There's still something so futuristic sounding, 30+ years after it was first used, of having a sound stay at the same pitch but being stretched out in time until it decomposes into grainy fragments.
We used this throughout the "Rollage Vol 6" tracks, especially on the weightless mix. It gives this amazing sense of future/past, now. Obviously could have downloaded some 160 bpm breaks, whacked it over the drop and been literally junglist, but that's not what we as a duo are trying to do here.
Another tradition we loved is pirate radio - now diminished as a driving cultural force since smartphones democratised self publishing and DAB came in. But that sound of FM crackle, sonic distortion still resonates. So when I was wanging some controls around on a plug in and it started to sound like a radio being tuned, Dusk and I could feel the resonance, the tradition.
I talked about it when I put out my weightless LP "Those Moments" in 2017: the weightless epiphany for me came when Mumdance started an amazing series of free nights at The Victoria in Dalston - a pub with a secret back room with a function 1 system.
A weightless producer was doing a set and he was like "oi, come here and listen to this!!!" Hearing music over heavy soundsystems was long since a beloved tradition of mine but suddenly all made sense.
Once Dusk and I had finished the weightless version, we could just feel the itching to have a percussive version over those pads. Layered over the warm sub, they sounded so jungly and it made me think of some of Marcus Intalex's 130 work like "Taking Over Me", or earlier jungle classics that had a lush pad in the long intro before falling into a dark contrasting drop. The pad roller remix was born.
When I listen back to the pad roller remix, it reminds me of listening to an early version of it the summer of July 2021, just as the UK was emerging from lockdowns.
We'd tried to go away with mates, but they'd called us while we were driving there to say there was covid near them and they couldn't risk it. We zigzagged between light and the darkness.
A tradition Dusk and I have maintained for nearly 20 years now, is writing music together on Monday nights. Why Mondays? Because no one wants Monday nights - they're dead time in the week. The first "tradition" track was started before the pandemic and the versions were worked on sporadically when restrictions would allow.
With the lead track, while it is structured like a 2004 halfstep track (albeit at the "wrong" tempo) I wanted to find a way to use that new school iconic sound, the drill snare. Each era has its own iconic sound - the timestretch, FM radio crackle, Wiley's eski click, the bed creak in Jersey club, Donk's erm donk.
I'd been listing to bits of drill for a while - Loski, Unknown T, LD, Headie One, iLL Blu "Dumpa" and as well as that amazing warping FL bassline, these dons had found some distinct drum sounds.
Then I saw Ikonika (a producer on FIRE right now!) half mention the "Young Chop snare" or something and thought, "oh, so that's what it's called?"
Putting sounds from one context in another is definitely a tradition of ours. And while using a popular snare is hardly some radical statement, it's these little touches & new contexts that inch things forward for me towards an optimistic future, rather than just fixating on looking backwards.
I've found gqom is amazing to work to - relentless drums and so upbeat - and my go to is the #GomFridays Mix on Afrimusico .
Obviously at amapiano is popping now (HousSupa label of the year?), with UK producers taking their twist on the South African sound, just as UK producers did on the NY garage sound in the 90s.
Gqom producers have this tradition of using vocals in a relentless way, so we took bits of "tradition" audio and messed around with then. I don't think we're qualified to be gqom producers per se, but happy accidents sometimes occur when you try something and don't get it quite "right".
This is why we named it the "gqom wrong" mix, because we tried some gqom influences (MOAR toms!!!) and it's all gone wrong. And hopefully that's OK.
Respect to afrimusico and all the gqom pioneers. We played two DJ Lag tracks on last night's Rinse show btw.
Anyway, that's a lot of musical producer waffle. Bass heavy music has a lot of other great traditions, from the meet up at the pub beforehand to people who DJ with their shoes off, like the don Joe nice.
What are yours?
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