“Even people who think we’re too commercial, which I don’t think we are at all, I say to them: what would you rather hear on the radio, "White Noise" or David Guetta? They can’t say anything back to that.” – Guy Lawrence, Disclosure
You wanna bet?
First some context: Disclosure are this week’s G2’s cover stars; this year’s cover stars. With chart hits and sales over 300,000 for one single alone their commercial success is undisputable. But there’s something really depressing about the idea, as put forward by them in the G2 piece, that it’s either them or Guetta.
In their paradigm there’s two choices for pop:
terrible music
them
The thing is, why can’t it be that people’s choices for successful music are:
terrible music
moderate music
incredible music
I don’t have a specific beef with Disclosure I really don’t – I played the El-B remix of their tune at Fabric last year - but “it’s us or a shit thing” is what mediocrity looks like. It’s what capitulation looks like, I’m sorry but it is.
Fuck that.
This kind of slick, clean, sanitized music, when you look past the admittedly catchy saccharine hooks, is really empty. Disclosure themselves don’t even seem to want you to look past it: “All we care about is people listening to the music… they can take what they want from it.”
It’s time for something new.
We need to reject this kind of neutered brainwashed thinking and build something vital for this era. Something totally built by, owned by - and unique to - 2013. Who are you, 2013?
Because this is sorta my issue with all the big “post”/“bass” guys, now playing housey tech mixed into techy house with additional retro anthem bashing, the guys who build up the DJ hierarchy which ends in Disclosure headlining your festival.
I keep thinking this…
In twenty years time, these DJs will be in their 40s and their kids will be old enough to ask them: “Dad, what did the music sound like when you were the biggest DJ?”
And they will safely be able to say:
“I could drop our song with Eliza Doolittle, "Neighbourhood" by Zed Bias and "Saved My Life" by Todd Edwards and no one could name what decade they’re from.”
If the fact that your sound is indistinguishable from music made over decade before doesn’t scare you shitless as an artist, I’m not sure we’re on the same page here.
Music should be vital.
It should be essential and it should be unique: of its time, for its time, belonging to its time. You where there. “Were you there?” “Yes I was there.” “Where were you in ’92?” “I was there too.”
Great music is the cultural journal of record of its time, the soundtrack to generations. ’66, ’77, ’88, ’93, ’99, ’03, ’06 – if you read this blog you should pretty much instantly be able to tell just from those numbers what movements blew up then. Depending when you were born you’ll go misty eye’d to “Strings of Life” or “Valley of the Shadows (31 Seconds)” or “Spirit of the Sun (Steve Gurley mix)” or “Midnight Request Line.” They define a time and a place.
“[Disclosure] recoil from questions that go beyond the music,” notes Sam Wolfson in the G2 piece.
OK guys, I think we’re done here.
To paraphrase Vex’d, you were wrong, there is a third choice: lets make it something incredible please.
Soin the last few weeks I've written two pieces. One is why mixing is getting easy and EZ is the best for Sonic Router and the other was an interview with the mighty Todd Burns, former editor of RA, now at RBMA (He only works for companies with acronyms beginning with R, hold tight his next job at the RHS ahaha...).
Now we were up against a deadline with the RBMA piece and some of the latter questions didn't make the main article, but having answered them I thought I'd include them here:
RBMA INTERVIEW: THE DIRECTORS' CUT
Todd Burns: One of the keys to the emergence of a genre in your mind, I think, is getting something "wrong"… That may be a gross oversimplification. But I guess it's just impossible to really get tech house "wrong" isn't it?
Blackdown: “Wrong” sounds, erm, wrong if you know what I mean, it seems to have pejorative connotations. All I’m saying is there’s a natural dialog of appreciation -> imitation -> mutation that goes on between the UK and the US & Jamaica, amongst other places. So whether you call it “copying” or “taking inspiration from” or “getting it wrong” or “mutating,” it’s all part of the same creative continuum. The results are there to be judged for themselves.
So the follow up question is ‘why is some copying ‘terrible cloning’ and others ‘really healthy mutation?’ For example all the tepid Burial clones we’ve seen since “Untrue,” none of them have a patch on what they’ve drawn inspiration from. Whereas the UK funky guys getting excited about Dennis Ferrer records and making more exciting tracks inspired by them, well that’s the opposite result. I suppose the simple conclusion is it’s about how much originality gets added into the mix during the process.
T: I was so interested Radfords Rinse CD because it did KIND of feel like he had found the bass-heavy tech house records that might/possibly be UK-approved…but then it also was just straight boring stuff that, if any German DJ had done it, would have sounded tired and silly to my ears. I'm…baffled by all of this.
B: This shuffling/minimal tech/house sound is clearly blowing up on the London underground right now, the energy is unmistakeable, it’s just really baffling when you hear it if you’ve heard house in the last 20 years because the comparison between the sound and the way the audience talk about the sound doesn’t add up. Which is to say: they talk like it’s a brand new thing but it sounds like generic techy house.
For context, it’s worth looking at these two quotes from a London underground house documentary. Firstly a quote from (the more experienced) DJ Pioneer:
“The sound now, that people are after, is house again. Whereas it went through the UK funky phase and some of it sounded a bit… grimey. It had it's distinctive sounds, don't get me wrong, and it had it's other sound, which was a bit gimmicky - some of the MC tunes that people didn't like - but those people that left that UK funky side started to search for a deeper sound and started realising 'oh there's house." So for them it's kinda new, but for someone who's been in it for years… it's just a cycle. It's kinda gone back to where it was in the '90s. We're back here again, the house/garage sound.”
Contrast this, from the same doc, with a quote from one of the hyped DJs, Lance Morgan:
“The scene right now is really healthy, there's a lot of new faces and lot of old faces coming back… It's a different genre of sound & music we've got coming through, and that's what people need to realize and push forward. It's not all-round deep house, it's not tech, it's not underground, it's just our own genre: the London underground, so lets just keep pushing it forward, y'get me?”
So what Pioneer describes is how the UK funky crowd migrated to house/minimal/tech/shuffling having never really paid any attention to house before. And this is the energy you see in Lance Morgan’s quote, people hyped about a new scene based on music that’s new to them. Their “own genre” – ownership and hence identity and reputation of course being a massive driver for change & creativity within London genres in the last 20 years. Now I was reporting and speculating three years ago that this scene could grow & mutate and within any normal degrees of resolution it didn’t. House purists will argue the micro-differences between vocal/dubby, minimal, techy, housey etc but structurally its not mutating like the DNA changes required to get from, say, early Tuff Jam to MJ Cole “Sincere” and into Dizzee Rascal “I Luv U.” But then to judge them by that standard or even that aesthetic is to miss the point, I don’t think they want to mutate or change – this is about raving to house. Mark Radford, on the electric “Maxwell D v the house scene” debate show hosted by Heartless Crew, was very clear that he had a mandate from his people and they didn’t want MCs & their vibe as the focus. This scene have an in built sense of house purism and given that, to their audience, so much of this is all new, they can afford to.
And what’s interesting about all this, especially when certain commentators like throwing mud at other scenes for being to “knowing” of the past is that this is shuffling/house scene seems very cognisant of what happened to UK funky via the gimmicky (“R U Gonna Bang Doe?”) MC tunes and in before that the negative effect of focusing on MCs had on grime (i.e. it destroyed its grass roots club infrastructure, due to the issues with getting club licences in London for black MC-based events). This is what I took from Mark Radford’s sense of mandate.
So the big question here relates to what Lance Morgan is saying: is this really a new genre? Can it really be a new genre given its allegiances to house, a point Geeneus made 6 (!) years ago when UK funky was first breaking. Culturally this stuff is a new wave; musically it’s so beholden to house right now it’s hard to say it’s “new.” Maybe the latter will come with time, but that’s what I made a call on three years ago and it didn’t so maybe this wont and indeed doesn’t want to, it just wants to rave and party all night long: fair play. But the irony being is that if they do go down the route of sonic change towards signifiers that fit more closely what we recognise as “London underground” by putting kicks and snares in interesting places, as Lee B3 Edwards and Lance Morgan suggest in that documentary, they might find themselves back at UK funky again, already! T: I know you're not thinking about it that hard, but do you think something could blow from what you're up to [with Keysound]? Is there a Burial-esque figure on the horizon that might be able to accidentally tap into something a bit deeper?
Burial was a once in a generational or multi generational singularity, it’s really not a formula that can be cloned or a sensible benchmark to measure against. And also, I long since stopped worrying about “blowing up” as being some kind of objective, given the creative sacrifices or changes that are sadly often required. We’re trying build and sustain something creative and underground that we feel. That’s the holy grail.
T: Crews. It seems like you might have one growing around the label at the moment, but I wouldn't say it's quite as tight knit as something like Hessle or Numbers somehow. Is this something you aspire to? Or do you like have the artists on the label doing their own thing alongside what they do with Keysound?
Yes, we overtly, openly aspire to it; in fact we call it the Keysound family. How I see it is we’re trying to bring together people who share a certain musical outlook. Now it would be constrictive if everyone on Keysound sounded the same or liked the same influences, but there’s overlap, connections and from that dense interactions. That’s what the different coloured circles represented on the cover of our album “Dasaflex” – it was as much about our inspirations as the Keysound family members themselves, who of course, inspire us. And so that’s why we returned to an image like that for the cover of “This is how we roll.” For the artists we work most closely with, all I ask is that they release what we mutually agree is their strongest work through us. It’s great if other people have other opportunities but in general it doesn’t help to spread yourself too thin. Focus is good. So is strength in numbers: roll deep.
T: You mentioned the Skream interview on Twitter recently. And I remember you saying nice things about an interview with RA that Loefah did a bit ago. Both artists were very up-front about how hard it is, in some ways, for them to evolve as artists when they have a large audience that loves what they've done in the past. Was that your takeaway from those pieces as well? Or was there something else that struck you?
B: Well I think this is a well-known phenomenon, that once you have huge success for a given style it adds an unexpected pressure to reproduce that style without stagnating. Dubstep has no monopoly on this. I just enjoyed those two interviews because Loefah and Skream spoke, as they do, so honestly. I’d say Loefah’s the one that has made such wholesale changes in his style – it’s a very long way from “Mud” to his new label School – whereas it sounds like Skream is now making brave decisions about his musical future. And they’re brave because people are making millions of dollars now from the mainstream dubstep formula, so if you have a kid to feed and thousands of people go crazy every night when you drop a banger, there is a very strong impulse to just keep on doing it, no matter what your heart says. But then call me some kind of purist, but this is why I think people should separate making a living from making music: only very few people are creatively untainted by this kind of association.
Slackk is someone who's been involved in a lot of great things. I'm not sure when I first noticed quite how many of them but from GrimeTapes.com to "Eski Clicks," releases on Numbers, Local Action and an unreleased Badness vocal of "Theme from Slackk," seeing road rap before others to his hilarious yet fully sick boogie/juke project Patrice & Friends, he's a constant source of fresh ideas. He mixed an exclusive Slackk productions showcase, to accompany an interview, below.
Blackdown: Hey Slackk, so firstly I guess I'd like to hear where your head is at musically right now?
Slackk: I think at the moment I'm quite happy with what I sound like to be honest. I know my earlier stuff- and even still now the majority of my releases - were more on a house thing, I guess from the fallout of what was funky, but I've barely made anything like that for over a year now. There's always been a very clear interest in the grime palette for me - as you well know - but I guess for the last eighteen months my Slackk stuff has been focused on the ideas behind what I like in that sound and trying to apply to my own music. Not all at 140 - some of it edging up to juke tempo or hovering around 150bpm - but yeah, I'm really enjoying myself man. Been making some vague r'nb as well, which I think is kind of feeding off the Patrice & Friends stuff in a way. Hard to work with all those samples and that sound and not have it rub off on you a bit.
B: "The ideas behind what I like in that sound and trying to apply to my own music" is an interesting question, a big step in finding your own sound and space...
S: Yeah if I'm honest I'm not sure it was there at the start. When you start producing or at least try to start trying properly I think there's a tendency to throw a lot of sounds and ideas at Ableton or whatever you produce in and your sound ends up a bit disparate as a result. I think that happened to me, anyway. Whereas now I think I'm a lot more comfortable with my ideas and clear in what I want to sound like.
B: I think that's natural, most producers work through their inspirations - I certainly had to with El-B etc
S: Yeah undoubtedly and I think a lot of it comes through the confidence in getting to know your set up and feeling more comfortable in what you're doing.
S: I think I can safely say that when I first started making tunes there were hundreds of things I didn't have a clue about - you can certainly hear that in mixdowns of certain tunes; I can hear a clumsiness in certain riffs and runs & there's a looseness in some things I wouldn't even remotely allow now. But that kind of control or whatever, that comes and I think you can hear that in my stuff now. I'd like to think you can anyway.
B: But equally, with grime part of its sonic flaws is its appeal, right? That is its aesthetic.
S: See I don't always agree with that. I do think that there's a rawness and at times almost a genius in accidental simplicity in some early grime, yeah, but it's a sound that's really been around a long time now.
B: Well that's fine I'm just saying some people like that raw sound.
S: Oh yeah I love that raw sound, the stripped back nature of it, just the coldness of it is unparalelled really. But in turn some of my favourite grime stuff is really melodic and as much as a lot of it retains a certain melancholy underlying to it I think there's a lot to be said for that end of the scale.
B: In terms of the music being made at the moment though that inspires your own, where are the areas of inspiration to you?
S: At the moment I think there's a lot of people who are pushing each other on, indirectly.
S: If you look at some of the stuff coming out of your camp - or what I would class as your camp- people like Visionist, Logos, Wen, I think there's something tangible between them, however loose. People like Samename, MssngNo, Kid D, Walter Ego, Filter Dread. There are so many people doing things with you'd think of a grime ideal behind it or whatever, I think there's a real diverse sound but yeah the little interlinks behind that.
B: Yeah and I'd add Gremino to that.
S: Oh yeah, Gremino's great, I really like his 160bpm stuff actually - heard a lot of people try and do that jungle footwork sound and not quite do it justice but he does. I do listen to a lot of juke and I think the american rap thing is fully flourishing at the moment too. I know you could say that the "trap" idea takes from that and in my opinion detracts from it a little, but there are some mad production coming from there.
B: Yeah for me and Dusk, we used to have a "grime" section (140bpm) and a UK funky/percussive section (130bpm) but now we don't need this separation, it all flows at 130ish but can be grimey, perhaps in a more danceable way.
S: I'd say because I do tend to draw more heavily on the 140 stuff - my own sets tend to hover more around that end of it but yeah with certain bits pitched up - I just think that it's around this sound that the most interesting stuff is coming through these days.
B: The funny thing is your eski clicks was totally ahead of its time.
S: Yeah, I could see why you could say that. At the time I was listening an awful lot to tunes like "Video Clash" and that era to be honest - there was a clear idea when I sat down with that to try and retune those noises into a very straight 4/4 track. The "eski house" idea, which is a name I don't like so much anymore.
B: Haha
S: But yeah I think that idea exists all over the place now, the idea of the grime palette at 130. If you look at the background of "London music" it makes perfect sense I think. Not that I'm from London. However much my music is inspired by the idea of it.
B: Well i was going to mention the US/UK factor: so with the American rap & juke thing influencing you, do you think it shifts things at all for you, creatively?Different aesthetics?
S: I can hear it, yeah. Not necessarily in the drum patterns but I've been obsessed with certain Zaytoven ideas for a while, the space and reverb to his keys in some places- stuff like the lead riffs on this. Not trying to emulate the drum patterns and that as such, but there's ideas in stuff like this and things Lil Ugly Mane beats that I like a lot. The juke thing is another, the sparseness of juke at it's best reminds me of the rawness in grime we were talking about earlier and I think that's something my head will always identify with for whatever reason.
S: Stuff like DJ Clent "3rd World" especially although that is slightly old now I guess… Obsessed is a probably too strong a word for the Zaytoven bit
B: Haha
B: It's funny because even if you're into this London pirate thing, there's always this US/JA/UK dialog going on but at certain times the balances shift. I feel like London is very outward looking at the moment, with euro minimal tech (shuffling) and US rap/trap.
S: Yeah I know what you mean. The shift of MCs from what was grime towards what's now just London rap has produced some good stuff I think - I listen to a few MCs, there are probably loads of better ones out there but there are too many terrible videos on YouTube to find out. It's not really what you'd class as a more unique sound as you would with grime but it's got it's great spots. I don't really like that house sound, few alright tunes but it's never really interested me. I think really if you look at the rap thing and the way the house has gone side by side it's like the strands of what's come before it - grime, funky, garage - have become more clearly split. The MCs to rap, and the grimier, odder edges out of funky by the transition to the more traditional house sound. That's simplifying it a bit but I think it's true.
B: I completely agree with your analysis. I'm desperate to find the next Trim/D Double/Wiley/Goodz - someone with real personality and identity - within the large volumes of the road rap guys, but haven't yet
S: Not to say that there are no worthwhile MCs left in grime, but that's really a much more instrumental scene now in terms of a beat with that kind of structure getting vocalled. In terms of MCing, I think most of it has gone to the rap side of things.
B: It's a bit like jungle - the best guys still rep but no unique guys come through (though that depends on your view of new school d&b I guess...)
S: I liked the Squeeze Section tape (free download here) quite recently, in terms of rap, thought parts of that were really strong- especially the ones going up towards 160.
B: Yesss! i liked that tape too
S: But nah I wish I knew jungle but I don't, at all. I prefer it when it was still mostly sampled drums as opposed to what came after it but otherwise no idea.
S: Oh shit did you listen to the Squeeze Section tape?
B: Re jungle, well I all I mean is you see names like Hype, Shy FX, Goldie, Grooverider on the flyers - just as grime is dominated by people who came from Roll Deep, Nasty, OGs etc
S: I thought that Squeeze Section tape was great man. A bit overlong but it was great. Don't really have much in mind that I could compare those faster tunes too, as much as they're rooted in the rap thing.
B: I think I found out about Squeeze Section from you, but I don't remember.
S: Yeah I see what you mean about grime MCs and that, it definitely makes sense. Really, 90% of MCs coming through now are on the rap beats as opposed to anything resembling grime, which is why the raves are dominated by those names.
B: Yeah a friend of mine does legal aid for lots of the London gang members and says they all listen to road rap.
S: So do I, I can't blame them. Just a lot of shit to sift through, to be honest.
B: Do you have a sense of where road rap is going or how healthy it is? Because - and props for this - you were the first person I noticed to pick up on it, and while there's so much of it do you feel it's evolving?
S: I think it's all a bit scattered, the road rap thing. You can that a lot of it is YouTube focused, a lot of it terrible as well to be honest. I'd say there's an overabundance of cameramen and low rate MCs that make it harder to wade through but some interesting stuff out there. We talked about Squeeze Section there but I think people like Nines & Blade Brown have put out decent stuff lately, Fekky has had two massive tapes in a row.
S: Depends if you're willing to dig around to be honest, but I like London MCs- I got used to the tone through grime.
B: Yeah, tone acclimatisation is quite important - I find it odd to listen to US MCs now, despite having grown up on US hip hop!
S: Exactly. And I know a lot of people kind of dismiss the london rap thing for it's similarities to US rap and all that but I still think there's a definite UK edge to it. Just different because there's no real crossover into the clubs for most of the tunes - I think that's why it's probably had a different reaction than grime or whatever, not many tunes you can actually hear in a club and have them work. I think Fekky makes some good rave tunes though.
B: Don't you think it's mad, the total distance from clubs and radio that road rap has? I accept that it's about exposure/reputation and the quickest path to it, and that path is YouTube, but still…
S: Yes and no.
S: I think if you look at in some supposed succession to grime and that - as you could - then the lack of raves is a shame, but there's always been a rap undercurrent in South I think. It's only really the last few years that it's became the main outlet for an MC I think but just look back to like old PDC tapes etc - the lineage is there really.
B: Yeah, I hear ya. It's just when things get big in the london underground, there's money to be made from raves - so someone will do it.
S: I dunno man, I just download tapes ha.
S: Do you really think they'd let a rap rave exist though? Like to me that seems like the thing that'd get shut down pretty quickly.
B: Well maybe that's our answer.
B: So, I'd like to talk a bit more about your productions. Tracks like "Blue Sleet" seemed like a step change for you, what do you have planned next?
S: Yeah I think you can definitely say that. I spent ages on "Raw Missions;" I know it's only a small EP but I took my time making it, which isn't something you can say I really did that often with some earlier releases. I don't know, if I could go back I'd probably stop myself putting a few things out. I think I was talking about that EP for about six months before I actually had something tangible as a draft. So there's a lot of sketches and loads of half written 8bar tracks on my hard drive, trying to work up to it. If I was going to make a grime EP I had to do it right, you know.
S: As for the next thing, it's another EP for Local Action, probably about a year since the last one. Some grime bits, something at 150 & a slow jam, kind of. That's taken me a while. Some Patrice & Friends things as well; a Greeen Linez remix EP & a 8 track EP of the usual, at some point.
B: Greeen Linez remix ?
S: Yeah- Patrice & Friends Vs Greeen Linez. You into them?
B: Sounds retro! God I can hear so much Patrice in this.
S: That was like my favourite album last year. Homage to all that 80s boogie sound, I got the stems from them and reconstructured them as juke tunes.
Follow Patrice and his friends on Twitter, livin' that excess. "Hibiscus Pacific" is toooo much.
B: So can I ask about Patrice, how did that come about?
S: I think there are a couple of factors with that really. Like I love that old 80s sound, have collected boogie records for a while. Anyway I just went through a period of really playing them a lot; and I had writer's block at that point - everything was coming out a bit weak, disenfranchised with it a bit actually. Anyway, I heard a chicago record, it's by Manny, and it was this boogie sample chopped up at 160, incredible. The tune's called "Mystery."
S: So I just started playing around with that sound at 160, chopping up bits, leaving massive breaks in at times. Really that first Patrice album was just a massive release - all that music is just a laugh you know, nice to dance to, proper upbeat stuff - so it was just me sitting around fucking with these tunes and then I had an album. Got some vocals done, few acapellas. Then because it was self-released, I think it was about a month after making it that it was released. It's just really fun to make to be honest, which is why there are a couple of albums out there.
B: Yeah it is really fun. Feels like it was done quickly, designed to loose yourself to on the dancefloor
S: Well the originals are some of my favourite stuff to play out in a club you know. I don't always get the chance to do that. So when I'm taking a record that was 110 or 100 and chopping it to juke tempo, the swing to it at times is a madness man. It was just such a laugh to make that pretty soon I'd just made loads of them like.
B: Do you pitch shift them or chop to make fit?
S: Pitch shift and then I'll take it and reassemble it to form a different melody sometimes, depends really. Some tracks are too good to mess with so it's just a matter of a few 16 bar loops and writing some sub and drums to compliment. With the Greeen Linez stuff they gave the stems so that is reassembling tunes, writing little melodies on top of them. as you said you can hear a bit of Patrice in them already, it makes perfect sense to do something together.
B: For people who aren't familiar, can you describe the life Patrice lives?
S: Ha you mean the midget?
B: The midget.
S: Well, I say midget; he's a dwarf. It's funny really, when I was making the first album - which wasn't even an album at that point, more just a few songs that I thought were just going to stay on the hard drive - this woman called Diane Arbus died. Sorry, no, there was a feature on her in something - she was already dead. Anyway, her photographs are all these gritty looking new york street life things, and I was looking through them on google images when suddenly the fucking dwarf popped up. Like without that picture I'm not sure the concept would have had as much mileage in my eyes...
B: Ha, nice… a source of inspiration!
S: ...but that was it from there, he was Patrice. I had a twitter feed for him when the stuff first came out (resurrected now) where the idea was that he was some sex obsessed drunk who lived on a yacht with a load of strippers and me & a couple of my mates just made up the most outlandish shit. Oh yeah, totally a source of inspiration. Dwarf in a hotel room wearing only a towel with some Henny in the back, come on man.
B: While it was never exactly a secret who Patrice was, was it liberating to be able to just dream up the maddest fantasies for him?
S: I don't know if it was liberating as such, I just found it really funny. Plus when you've got videos for the music with wrestling squids who turn into men after sex or blokes on jetpacks flying to save their missus, it's hardly the type of thing you're taking seriously is it.
B: Crazy! I just think maybe lots of pirate/bassy music is quite serious, whereas patrice is pretty fun.
S: Obviously I spend a lot of time on the Patrice stuff, don't get me wrong, but it's all a bit of a laugh like. But I think a lot of early grime had humour to it, but I can agree with that.
S: I dunno, I'm not really that serious a person - I know there's all these producers who like to act as if they're batman or whatever, making music in the caves but fuck that. I love boogie and disco and that, no pretence about it.
B: Awesome. I think what works so well is the Patrice & Friends music is funny AND its really good.
S: Ah thanks man. It's funny like, because when I first made a few of these I thought people were just going to look at me like I was mad. Instead everyone loved it and I played it all over the place like. You can't really predict how things work out I guess.
B: You can't underestimate how much people can tell you're having fun!
S: Yeah I think that probably comes across as well. Certainly a lot of records out there that sound like they were a proper laugh to make and yeah, you can hear that come across can't you.
B: Fully.
S: I think there's something to be said for the pop from that era that isn't really about in many places these days as well. I was talking to Kev Kharas from Vice about this a while back, in reference to Patrice, and he had a theory that there was a certain innocence or naivety to the music that isn't necessarily here now. Like these are mostly made from samples from an era where it was a lot more difficult to get to know a girl and that then, without the internet and that, that you had to try harder. I don't know if I agree completely but yeah. Certainly a lot more romance in that era of music I think.
B: Its hard to say definitive things when looking back though. People say the opposite about now - that's people don't meet IRL thanks to the 'net! Hence it must have been easier to meet girls IRL back then! I dunno...
S: Oh yeah undoubtedly. I just liked the idea of that playing into the music, regardless of how much truth is in it.
B: So finally Grime Tapes. Can you explain how that all began?
S: Couple of things really. Obviously there's a deep attachment on my part to that sound, always has been - that stuff just resonates with me I guess. And really I think radio sets were the essence of what it was so I collected them almost obsessively. But then I had an untold GB worth of them on my hard drive and it felt like a crime to just keep them to myself.
B: I think of it like curation, you curated an archive for the benefit of everyone.
S: In addition I viewed it as an opportunity to get even more because I knew there were ones out there that must be great that I didn't have. (I was right). Maybe it was curation. I didn't necessarily view it like that to begin with though, it was just stuff that needed to have a place and a time that did and does need recognition. Would never call myself a curator, like. I've met people since who've thanked me so excessively for what the site was that I realise it was quite important to some people though and I'm quite glad of that. There are still some mythical sets I want though.
B: Hahah like what?
S: There's a Roll Deep Christmas set with Tinchy I've never heard that was meant to be one of the best ever - never met anyone who still has a tape. Any Dancehall Mafia set would be great, same for 187 Click. (Predecessors to Slew Dem and Nasty respectively). My Ontop FM collection is lacking a bit. September 2007 clash weekend, the sets from the Sunday. I'm not exactly losing sleep over them but they'd be great to have. Oh and any old OO Squad too.
S: To me it's just the history of things you know. This entire microindustry and heritage of music in London. I like having all that on hand.
^^^ listen to a playlist of most of my end-of-year finalists while you read!
It’s that season when people do end of year round ups... err, well it was when I started writing this, but hey ho, better late than never. I’ve read some and been asked to contribute to a few: a couple of things struck me. Firstly I noticed how hard it is to summarize 2012 musically in 10 records, especially since I’ve released eight. Secondly I’ve noticed how many of the magazines’ lists didn’t reflect much of the music that excited me.
Now this is a theme that Dusk and I have remarked on many times last year, how that as DJs and label owners we’ve come to feel increasingly isolated from peers and contemporaries, while at the same time finding a closer bond & common cause with a bunch of under exposed people we collaborate with. But rather than worry about it, we’ve come to enjoy it.
That’s because last year was, for us at least, one of the most exciting years musically, one that returned a sense of focus where recently there’d been a dispersed archipelago of ideas. Every month it felt like we’d stumble across some exciting sounding new producer who was overlooked and underexposed in relation to their potential and more often than not we’d have found that producer by a recommendation from the producer we found last month. In other words, they were connected. But all that was fine; we’d just have a word and play their beats on Rinse.
So anyway, that’s a circuitous way of saying this is my end of year roundup as a DJ, as a label owner, a producer and as a blogger – pretty much in that order. I don’t think it will reflect much on where other scenes or sounds went to, but it’ll be where we’re at.
Implicit in all this is that I can’t really talk about 2012 without mentioning artists I’m actively working with or have released music by. Honestly, I only sign – i.e. waste time, money and love on – music I strongly feel. There will be records I am strongly connected to in this list and I’m flagging that loud and clear now but if that causes conflict of interest concerns, click away now.
If you are interested in hearing some of them, I added as many of the tracks as I could find into one playlist (above) to make it easy to. Enjoy.
Albums
LHF “Keepers of the Light” [Keysound Recordings] Cooly G “Playin’ Me” [Hyperdub] Mala “Mala in Cuba” [Brownswood] LV “Sebenza” [Hyperdub] Dusk + Blackdown “Dasaflex” [Keysound]
These are my albums of 2012. "Keepers of the Light" an "Dasaflex" I don't know if I need say anything more about. For my thoughts on "Mala in Cuba" read the official boxset sleevenotes. My review of "Playin' Me" was published by Fact and "Sebenza," well it was my album of the summer, no question. Simply next level.
House & UK funky
House was everywhere in 2012 like it was a new idea. Like it had just been invented. Like it had something new to say! Sadly, as someone who first discovered house several decades ago (rather than just when dubstep fell off) none of these felt true and its stiff, stifling formula sleepwalked waves of former bass-heavy advocates into a sea of mediocrity. Rather than drown in it, I broadly chose to swim elsewhere.
That said often the best DJ sets are about dynamic tensions and so it’s been fun to keep a touch of the straighter 4x4 in our spectrum to play off of, especially when the rhythms were suitably corrupted or there was something offkey about the textures. When that was the case then tracks in this vein injected a great deal of energy into sets. Zig zagging between groove and drop, between horizon rollout and negative sub bass implosion suddenly became possible again in the same tempo continuum for the first time since Mala v Loefah sets at DMZ.
So the three tunes that were closest to classic house & garage that made my end of year list were:
Now Moony’s “Borrowed Time” might as well be called “Borrowed Todd,” such is the debt it owes to Todd Edwards’ (and hence MK’s) trademark vocal sample manipulations. But Moony does it well and it’s fun to play out – I mixed it out of “High Road” in Heidelberg late in December as the first two tunes of our set and it really worked.
“Allwhere” was a really pleasant surprise. I’d not played some of the earlier Tenement Yard tracks by Altered Natives, perhaps because they were too tracky for me but this one massively hit the spot, with its offkey sour Kode9esque synths and Richard Pryor sample. We played it on Rinse and one of our longtime listeners started freaking out in a hail of Tweets: it’s always nice to see actual debris of people’s heads imploding in real time haha - job done! Oh speaking of Tweets and make sure you follow Danny Altered Natives on Twitter. Recommended.
Finally there’s Presk’s “Kook,” the kind of house track that makes tens of thousands of house producers look like they’re stiff morons who aren’t remotely trying. The track’s genius is twofold.
Firstly there’s the sample, explaining the dammed-if-you-do-dammed-if-you-don’t paradox of teenage girls becoming sexually active. Actually the genius isn’t the sample choice, though it is pretty seductive, it’s flipping two tiny fragments of it after the drop as if the confused teen has made her call, and got, ahem, stuck right in.
The other touch of genius is the shaker. Now I’m no mnml fan but I’ve been at places like Sonar where after 8 mins of kickdrums the hi hat comes in again and everyone goes meeeeental but that doesn’t tend to do it for me. But 90 seconds into “Kook” the funkiest set of shakers skip in, riding off the stiffer groove, and its electric; fun like the biggest bass drop you’ve ever heard. So damn funky… speaking of which…
Because it’s still the most interesting set of rhythmic ideas I’ve heard in many years, I’m sorta trying to pretend UK funky didn’t tail off and for people like Funkystepz from an artist point of view, they never did. This year’s seen them release a slew of bangers, my favourite of which were "Bizzaro," "Royal Rumble" and “Shocker ReFix”. The latter two are simply highly compressed synthy bangers but they do that so well – we added “Royal Rumble” on our RA mix.
We also played quite a few Jook10 tracks this year, like “Ghost Hunter” but also "Funky Junky," "Jump Up," "Riddim Teacha", "Tribal Lord." His flex is route one dark and abrasive UK funky, a bit like Bogey Man’s (aka Twisted Individual http://www.discogs.com/artist/Bogey+Man) early dubstep. Actually we found this stuff worked best for us on Rinse but in clubs felt too hard, too direct, if that’s possible. Funny how that plays out.
86 Baby’s “Word of Mouth” was probably too odd for the mainstream house & funky crowd, who by now had migrated to the linear tech house of the Circle/Mark Radford variety, but it’s strange dubbed out, almost 808-y skeleton with these playful samples of Murdz86’s guttural mutterings bounced all over it.
Champion had a great year but it’s “1994” – the refix of the jungle classic - that we were still playing a year on. Roska seemed to take some flak for his second album (*cough* XLR8R *cough*) but I really liked a whole bunch of tracks off it, “You Dun Know” being one of them. Also inspired choice reaching out to UK dancehall and garage legend Sweetie Irie. And finally Brackles’s “Walkin’ Out,” and Mickey Pearce "Socks Off" both had the more most bonkers percussion in a really good way. Was it me or did the best bits of the Brackles album get broadly slept on?
DJ Pantha Ft Shantie "Love To The Max Hate To The Minimal" (Jackin) [weRBass] Rudimental ft Shantie “Deep in the Valley (Woz remix)”
The jackin’ scene emerged this year out of the north of England, spurred on by Marcus Nasty’s support. I remain a bit on the fence about it: I can recognize the creative energy and irreverence to samples coming out of it and there are some decent bassy tracks on that thread but equally lots of stuff I’ve encountered is near indistinguishable from stiff, generic electro house – and it’s hard to get excited about a scene who’s key point of differentiation is it’s not afraid to remix Faithless or Gorillaz. But I’m keeping my eye on it: very early (US-reverent) UK funky wasn’t for me – and look where that ended up.
But this Pantha and Shantie tune is incredible; totally direct in its delivery but really fun to play out: “These shots make the ladies shake bum…” Apart from the rump shaking, I think it’s the old school analog bleepy bassline which does it most for me.
Finally there’s Walton’s “Cool It VIP” which we released as a part of a Keysound Allstars 12”. I Include it here because its beat is pure UK funky, though given the Wiley sample is pure eski, it could well fit in another section – and that’s exactly why I rated it so much. Tracks like this were the tip of an entire new iceberg for us this year…
This section was for me the real heart of 2012 and in truth it’s a flex I’d been long since feeling around for – check my remix of Bias & Gurley “Roll” which I did in 2010. This is because for someone who’d loved UK garage but loved it more when it became a bit darker (i.e. dubstep) it was a bit of a no-brainer that while UK funky was fun in that vibey way, people might want a darker take on it as an alternative – an alternative to both UK funky and to the dubstep that now was unlistenable – in the way that early dubstep was an alternate take on UK garage’s sonic balances. Now that neither dubstep, (ahem) post-dubstep or UK funky are providing huge returns, the darker alternative seems even more pertinent.
(Now I know all the critical arguments around this issue, indeed against this parallel path, but… I don’t care. In fact I do care, and enjoy that it’s divisive: you’re in it or you’re not. I really, really don’t buy the line that you should over-ride what your heart tells you just because someone else’s critical head tries to tell you. So I make absolutely no apologies for liking underground music with a sense of darkness and edge: it feels so unequivocally right to me in the way that tepid tech house or bait electro house remixes of Faithless sound so wrong, that everything else is pretty unimportant to me right now. This is where Dusk & I are going; this is our flex. If people want to tell me this is UK funky but worse they're missing the point of what I'm saying.)
This sound - this collection of sounds/producers/ideas - centered around 130bpm is THE most exciting space for me right now and has been all year. It’s getting ignored by large sections of the club going public – looking at the techno dominated end-of-year-charts – and yet it feels more cutting edge and has whiff of mutating danger and possibility (rather than predictability) about it. Anyway its tiny and it’s early days but Dusk and I are up to our necks in it right now, dealing with VIP versions and funneling dub after dub by a hungry new wave of producers through our Rinse FM show, many of who seem in part to hark back to the early Forward>> and Sidewinder times we lived through.
But wait, hang on: looking backward, that’s hardly progressive is it, no better than those re-making tech house? Well, I think the nuance is these new producers are aspiring to the values of those earlier eras, an era that is now tantalizingly just out of reach. They’re aspiring to an era of experimentation but also of constrained dynamic balance in the tracks: dubstep tracks that sounded dark and heavy but contained their range within certain tensions rather than coming across like a toddler having an uncontrollable flailing hissy fit. Grime tracks whose deadly unstable synths exploded in a direct blast radius, rather that trying to be brostep or the next top 10 hit.
This past/present, old school/new school set of paradoxes is most apparent in the producers involved. On one hand you’ve got the new wave of Beneath, Visionist, Wen, Facta, Etch, Macker, Brunks, Batu, Hagan, Epoch, Caski (not to mention the more colourful/synthy/grimey producers like Logos, Fresh Paul, E.m.m.a. and Moleskin). Then you’ve got more experienced guys like Double Helix (LHF), Threnody, El-B being remixed, ourselves and Trevino (i.e. veteran d&b player Marcus Intalex… I’m not sure how much of his techno fits here but "Under Surveillance" is pure Metalheadz ‘95). Sure the bulk of the output is coming from the new wave but there’s an interesting sub-interplay between those who hark to the past by imaging the values or learning about them through archive material and those who are making beats and were actually there. But the fact that a significant part of the new generation are seeing past the releases in their immediate surroundings/timeframe, past the formula DJs getting hundreds of bookings playing generic euro tech house to euro tech house clubs (+/- some token trap) to seek the future half of the roots & future dialectic, well that’s really inspiring.
So, who’s with us?
(One aside is Mista Silva ft Skob, Flava & Kwamz "Boomboomtah (Hagan remix)". Hagan is someone recommended to us via Beneath, but this is a remix of an afrobeats track. I’m not immersed in afrobeats but I’m pretty curious and would welcome any additional interplay between the UK funky & percussive 130 stuff we play and afrobeats, it sounds fun and fits nicely with LV’s output).
Eski Grimey ish
Terror Danjah "Dark Crawler feat Riko Dan" [Hyperdub] P Money "Dubsteppin (Club mix)" [Rinse] Davinche "Eyes on U (Moleskin edit)" (unreleased) Bloom "Quartz" [Gobstopper] Slackk “90 Years” (from Raw Missions EP)” [Local Action] Samename "Okishima Island" Rabit “Satellite”
In previous years in our Rinse shows and club sets, we tended to have a UK funky/130 plateau and a grime section and they were distinct. This year there have been some great grime records, not least “Dark Crawler ft Riko” and and P Money’s “Dubsteppin’” but what’s become most exciting for us this year as the line between “130/uk funky” and “grimey” has totally blurred, in an interesting way. As grime began to solidify into a genre, it began becoming more and more suited a concert or a show, rather than club music. And as MCs focused on mixtapes, back when that was the thing, the halfstep beats became more prominent. It’s around this point that some of their early audience, brought through from UK garage, began to migrate to house (which would go on to become UK funky and then the minimal tech club circuit we see now). At this point it was clear that “danceable grime” might be a useful thing. In essence this is part of what Elijah and Skilliam have been doing, making grime work in club contexts again (with or without MCs) but this year we’ve found a bunch of records that fit into the 130/UK funky groove but are overtly grimey. Now I’m not saying this is some grass roots uprising comparable to grime itself, but its undeniably grimey 130. These include…
D Double E and Donaeo "Not Having That" Logos "Kowloon" Gremino "Rupi VIP" [Keysound]
To me this is another piece of the puzzle we’re enjoying putting together right now, another style and flavour we can blend into fluid coherent sets. Because the wider the diversity of the sounds – as long as they are wanted sounds (bun out trance, yeah?) – the more interesting, diverse, evolving and ultimately hard to define they are.
What’s also fun is that the 130 grimey stuff blurs nicely into the synthy stuff…
Synthy ish
Walton "All Night" [Hyperdub] Mr Mitch vs. Clipse "It's the First Time" (free DL) Swindle, Toddla T & Sam Frank "Need to Know" [Forthcoming swindle productions] Fresh Paul "Sunblazed" Scratcha “Polyphonic Dreams" [Hyperdub] E.m.m.a. “Dream Phone” [Wavey Tones] Moleskin "That Time we…” Benin City "Baby (LV remix)" Girl Unit "Ensemble (Club Mix)" [Night Slugs] Evian Christ "Fuck It None Of Ya'll Don't Rap" [Triangle free download] Damu "Echelon (original & vocal)" Jam City ft Main Attraktionz “The Nite Life”
Now hopefully with this cluster you can see how on one end of its spectrum it connects with grime (Fresh Paul, Swindle, Mr Mitch, Walton) yet the synth space is wider and more expansive such that you can soon find yourself sweeping through epic vistas into tracks like LV’s “Baby remix” or Evian Christ’s "Fuck It None Of Ya'll Don't Rap." Damu’s “Echelon” is pretty much house – Dusk thinks of it as a Balearic record. But it’s all synth ‘ish – and that’s the fun of this space.
There’s some belters in it: Scratcha took it there, beyond there and way out there with “Polyphonic Dreams" [Let’s review that sentence eh Scratch? 7/10 shall we say? Nice.] Walton’s “All Night” is a masterclass of tough Wiley snares and cascading euphoric arpeggios. Swindle’s “Need to Know” is a sexual Rodger Troutman jam; the perfect balance between sleaze and comic genius. E.m.m.a and Moleskin are on some next kind of plane.
Finally a word about the Jam City track. I know a lot of people loved the album this year, from within the Keysound camp Logos especially felt it. But I suffered from expectation alignment issues. The two early Jam City mixes – for Fact but especially for Bok Bok’s old Dot Alt blog – were perfection to me. The later remains one of my top 20 podcasts: like kwaito, Rapid, UK funky and screwed and chopped rap tunes in a blender. Oh and that Ecstasy refix! There was something so euphoric about his work of this ear, beyond their obvious freshness and abundance of ideas, that I fell for so hard.
Now artists move on, I know this, but I couldn’t get out of my head what I wanted the Jam City album to feel like. Yes he’d upped his production game, I could hear that but he’d also lost some of the euphoria and melodic joy. Instead it was cold – well made & cold – but cold nonetheless, and that didn’t hit me as hard.
For some reason it got stuck as one of the three albums on my iPhone, so I’ve come back to it this year and the one track “The Nite Life ft Main Attraktionz” really hits the spot. Like the devil mixes of Roll Deep vocal tunes, there’s something amazing about how the voice interacts with the synth when they’re left space to breathe. For me this bonus track was the album’s standout. Well worth a listen.
Dark & percussive 140ish
Djrum 'Turiya' (Tessela Remix) [2nd Drop] Tessela "D Jane" [Punch Drunk] Kanvas "Forget The Future" Mickey Freeze "Carbon" Oris Jay "Heavy ft Rodney P" Buzzin10 "StringTing" [Frijsfo] Sepia "Observer" (see also the Mala in Cuba album, above)
This year we found ourselves pitching 140bpm dubstep down, a strange state of affairs compared to some of these faster-harder-more-compressed wobble bros, but the dark 135bpm cluster of beats had some quality (if not quantity) stuff in it. Most of the dark dungeon halfstep didn’t do much for me this year – it’s not better than Loefah’s “Mud” in ’06, sorry – but people who did some interesting percussive stuff included Tessela, Mickey Freeze, Sepia, Kanvas and of course Mala.
I said my piece on “Mala in Cuba” on the official CD/vinyl sleevenotes, so you should check them. I still think my favourite Mala work is his 12” tracks like “Learn,” “Forgive,” “Neverland” and “Chaimba” but “…In Cuba” works so well as a longplayer.
I’m not sure where these records fit… and that’s why I like ‘em.
PS Carrion Sound is someone you may know already… ooooops did I say that out loud?!
160 ish
Dizzee Rascal “Brand New Day (Murlo Remix)” Om Unit “Traum” [Om Unit Edits Vol.2] Sully "Simple Things" Patrice & Friends "Patron on Deck" [Free download] Joss Ryan "Melancholy Dreams (Slick Shoota remix)" [DVA Music] Octa Push "Glimpse" Deft “Eskilusive” Danny Scrilla "Hunch (feat Om Unit)" [Cosmic Bridge] dÉbruit "Ata (LV Remix)" [Civil Music]
After the 130bpm pocket, I’m most excited about 160bpm. In the era of Serrato, or in our case CDJs, you can do some pretty large tempo changes in sets without it sounding terrible (pitch bend). Gone are the days of being constrained to vinyl’s +/-8. So it’s fairly easy to edge up the energy levels.
But that’s exactly why this area is so fun, because like ‘06 dubstep you can do intensity switches while keeping the groove. Then it was 70/140bpm whereas now it’s 80/160bpm. Now I haven’t given it that much thought but anecdotally it feels like 80/160 is more extreme a shift. I’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between 70 and 80 bpm – it’s essentially mellow hip hop speed, but 140 -> 160bpm is the difference between uptempo and explosive hypeting!
Anyway moving past the DJ tempo nerdery, on a dancefloor this 160 stuff has amazing energy and people are building on the framework laid down by juke producers to do some parallel creative things. Really enjoyable are the 160 eski flavours like Deft’s “Eskilusive,” Danny Scrilla "Hunch (feat Om Unit)"and Murlo’s refix of Dizzee’s “Brand New Day” (we played the original on dub on Groovetech fresh from Belly of The Beast Studios… yes I’m hyping and wot?!!!).
Then there’s the juke/jungle dialog that rides the tempo/intensity flip perfectly. LV’s “Ata” remix is insanely powerful, I think that got slept on and has hype snares for days. Sully’s “Simple Things” is a dub we’re playing and is pure ’93 choppage; Dusk does this great key-mixed blend with Octa Push’s "Glimpse" that works time and again.
And finally Patrice & Friends aka Slackk’s sleazy alter ego. I think my favourite is "Patron on Deck," both for its name and vibe. What I like about this stuff, apart from it’s comic value, sense of sexual drama and total irreverence, is that it re-connects – via sampling – with black music’s history in a context that’s more interesting than Dilla clones or yet another disco house, yawn, “re-edit.” These days so much music is built using synths and has this really inorganic, inhuman quality – which I really like in a myriad of cases; eski to name but one. But Patrice raids black music’s slinky ‘70s and ‘80s wardrobe and it sounds almost alien it’s that differentiated from today’s compressed, synthy soundtrack.
Offkey songs
Zebra Katz “W8WTF” Brenmar “Comatose” Tinashe "Boss (Ryan Hemsworth Remix)" [RCA] Funkineven & Fatima "West 2 East" [Eglo Records] Jeremih "Fuck U All the Time (Shlohmo remix) (free DL) Destiny's Child "Say My Name (Palace remix)" Luna Beduin (LHF family) "The Island"
This lightly random final section is where you’ll find my favourite “songs.” I say “songs” because in many cases I need a twist or dash of weirdness to counterbalance full vocals but when you get those delicious contradictions and oppositions, like a ruff bass with a smooth vocal, or a mandem stab with a seductive temptress pad it’s near perfection. “Boss (Ryan Hemsworth Remix)" was one of the most asked about records of our recent Rinse shows, “West 2 East” sounds like 80s New York but feels so London. "Say My Name (Palace remix)" is twisted in a frankly unhealthy way (it sounds like a man) and as for Zebra Katz well that has a very healthy dose of “what the f…” factor about it. The sense of waking up cuffed and full of utter dread because he smelt a wiff of “c*nt” on him is… utterly striking.
LV & Okmalomkoolkat - Sebenza (DJ Clock AM:PM Mix)
Big Space - Coco Savage
Mogrigo - Heavyweight
LV & Okmalumkoolkat - Animal Prints
DVA & Big Space - Long Street
Brandy - Baby (Walton refix)
LV & Ruffest - Siyavaya
KW Griff "Bring in the Katz (L-Vis 1990 dub)"
Logos "Untitled"
Mickey Pearce "Socks Off"
DJ Funeral "Last Breakfast"
Youngstar "Pulse X (Logos Steel Pulse remake)"
Mumdance & Logos "In Reverse"
Jam City "The Courts"
Logos "High Station demo mix"
Blackdown: OK so to start off, I'd like to go back to the origins of how you found your sound, this dark rolling flex. Can you tell me how you got to that?
Beneath: It was getting into Funky I think. I was making tracks before around 134ish and that, trying to make dubstep really. But then when I got into funky properly I sort of saw it as a template for what I wanted to do. Which is something dark and UK.
Blackdown: Why do you like dark as a musical flavour?
Beneath: It just suits me, the kind of person I am I guess. It's a good soundtrack for thinking about things. I used to walk round my estate at night smoking spliffs listening to Youngsta sets from '04-05 and I'd just think about loads of shit. The kind of stuff that you start to think about as you become an adult. Worries, paranoia, questions.
Blackdown: Let me flip the question: fundamentally, why don't you make gloriously colourful, happy, euphoric music?
Beneath: Cus I'm not a happy person? I dunno I guess some people make that kind of music to express themselves and make themselves happy but I just bury myself in this dark kinda vibe, its the only thing I know really. The way I see the world is pretty dark, I mean look at the world today, its fucked. I think of happy europhic music as being quite escapist as well but with darker stuff I feel like its more about facing your fears, sort of, you know what I mean?
Blackdown: Totally. My take on the appeal of darkness in music is that there's a reality to it. Years ago, a friend of mine described what it was like becoming depressed. She said she'd fall through this state from being optimistic to where suddenly she'd see things as they really are. The problem with full depression of course was that she'd then fall too far and be unable to see anything but the worst in everything nor be able to come back.
To me I think I relate to darkness in music as it has an honesty to it, that things aren't relentlessly upbeat or positive and people who act like that seem delusional. So it's not that the music is depressed or negative, but it's honest and real and as a life choice I'd rather know the truth than be deluded but "happy".
Beneath: Yeah exactly man. Like when I was listening to those Youngsta sets I was maturing as a person, seeing the world through a new perspective and the music fit so well with what I was thinking about. It made me happy listening to it because I understood what they were saying, the producers that is.
Blackdown: Happy is a funny word in that context though right? funny/strange not funny/haha.
Beneath: Yeah I guess so.
Blackdown: So you said "dark and UK", what is it about being UK that's important to you too?
Beneath: Well before I was into the UK stuff, jungle, d&b, dubstep etc, I was into like house and techno but it was pretty bait stuff to be honest but when I got into the UK stuff it just related to me so much more cus it was coming from where I was from, it resonated with me more. And whats the point trying to sound like your from Detroit or Berlin or somewhere else if your from the UK, thats just bait. We have a great history of music in this country, I wanted to add to it.
Blackdown: What I think's interesting is the issue of music from your local tradition being something you more strongly relate to, as if it taps into something more fundamental in you than something, say, from further away... does that make sense?
Beneath: Yeah definitely. All the music that I was listening to before wasn't really making me feel or think anything that strongly but the UK stuff just tapped into something in me
Blackdown: Did you feel you were part of something broader or going your own way, when your mentality changed to knowing where you were going..?
Beneath: Well I was listening to people's music and watching there movement/scene whatever you wanna call it but I wasn't really part of it personally but on a broader scale I probably felt I was part of something because I understood their music and what they were saying and how they felt.
Blackdown: It's a funny balance though, right? Because on one hand you talk about being part of a broader tradition (UK), on the other you found your own way, your own path, during periods of essentially solitude (walking round the estate.
Beneath: Yeah I've never really noticed it though. I just thought maybe if I can do something in a similar vein maybe I can become part of something or make my own thing.
Blackdown: For the record I don't think this is a binary, either collective or solo, scenius or genius, I think it's both - and stronger for it - though people differ on where they fit on the scale. Some artists argue that they work alone and their ideas come from their own personal source of talent, in isolation: they are a genius. Whereas people (Eno and more recently Simon Reynolds) argue for "scenius" within dance music scenes that there's a collective exchange of ideas, that they come from a pool & community of people who bounce off each other.
Beneath: I think your right it's both. Although I don't really feel like a belong to a scene I've taken a lot of inspiration from what other people have done or doing but I haven't tried to replicate them exactly, I've tried to do something different.
Blackdown: Let me ask about another binary: the past/present. One of the things I love about your music is the sense of rhythm & the focus on interesting percussion and I see such a strong contrast between it and so many flavours right now. With the exception of maybe juke, many current popular or emerging styles (brostep, dungeon halfstep, tech house, minimal, trap, grime, road rap, jackin' etc) don't prioritise interesting percussion. OK yeah so you could find the odd exception in each of those scenes but generally the drum patterns are not the focus, rhythmic simplicity is more important as they foreground other elements. But your sound is different and seems to draw from older ideas, maybe from ones that are obscured to people if they only consume current music..
Beneath: I dunno, I just like drums. I love jungle, I love funky. Both have great drums. Yeah, drums are an important thing to me. That's what I loved about funky so much coming directly from a long period of listening to dubstep, the halfstep stuff anyway. When I got into funky I got more into the earlier dubstep/dark garage stuff as well
Blackdown: The roots of dubstep stuff?
Beneath: Yeah. All the early stuff that had more percussion in, I'd heard it before but I started to appreciate it more after funky.
Blackdown: Do you think good drums are a dying art?
Beneath: Nah not really but there might not be as much as emphasis on "different" drums at the moment
Blackdown: Right. So, who are your all time drum programming heroes and why?
Beneath: Erm, Source Direct. Sometimes in their tracks that rhythms are hard to get into but when you do they are fuckin' amazing and they jus roll oooouuuuuttt.
Blackdown: Hahah I always was a Photek man m'self...
Beneath: Similar vein tho. All the DMZ crew, maybe less Coki but Mala and Loefah, "Jungle Infiltrator," "Indian Dub," "Conference," "B", "Chaniba," "New Life" etc. Even the halfstep stuff; Loefah "Midnight", everything is so rigid but it still has a sick groove. The hats are amazing in "Midnight." The drums in "Conference" are uplifting to me, bare hyperactive and meditative at the same time.
Blackdown: That's quite a pair of differing emotions to achieve!
Beneath: Also with Mala tracks it can take you ages to actually hear all of what the drums are doing, he brings stuff in and out all the time, it's so free. Cooly G: she's my favourite drum programmer from the funky end of things, really raw, tough, hard but lots of groove.
Beneath: Ricardo Villalobos: not always but when he gets all funky and weird he's next level. Even the simple stuff is good to be honest.
Beneath: Amazing really. Danny Native. I think I prefer him over Cooly really, both different sounds tho, but he has amazing drums.
Blackdown: Danny's drums are great but his arrangements need to develop more for me. We've been battering "Allwhere" recently though. Amazing, sour and rolling with an awesome set of vocal samples.
Beneath: Yeah they could do with more development, they are great for mixing with though. I could go on for ages.
Blackdown: Five more?
Beneath: Well there's Shackleton, I haven't listened to alot of his stuff to be honest apart from a few Skull Disco bits and the new thing he did but yeah his drums are next level, I don't listen to alot of his stuff 'cus Im scared of it, it's too good to listen to you know what I mean; makes you realise how far you away you are from reaching his kinda level. Gotta say El-B 'cus before I got the roots of El-B, garage and swing was lost on me and that was a revelation listening to him. Proper club drums, but not bait club drums.
Blackdown: Yusssss.
Beneath: El-P: but that might be just his tracks in general, he has really weird off drums tho but somehow retain a groove.
Blackdown: That's interesting, since I'm not sure i've heard you talk about hip hop much before...
Beneath: I love hip hop, I'm just picky about what I listen too, like most things and its only recently that I've got back into it through being obsessed with Company Flow/Cannibal Ox. I know the drums aren't off in this one but I do love El-P's drums, sounds like Loefah to me.
Beneath: I think it might be just hip hop drums in general, when done well anyway and he's my favourite producer from that scene.
Blackdown: So you know around the time of "Horror Show" i.e. Loefah coming up with halfstep, he was sharing studio space with Spacek/Morgan Zarate. I always felt there might have been some kind of imbibing of that hip hop vibe from that proximity.
Beneath: Yeah there probably was… Theo Parrish. The release he did last year or early this year called "Shut the Fuck Up." Drums are sick.
Beneath: And the fact that you know he's mixing it all down live, just jamming at his desk, bringing the drums in out, changing up the processing, make me appreciate them ever more.
Blackdown: So, do you think of yourself as a perfectionist? I sense a level of standards from you, or concern around sonic standards, that's rare in people relatively early in their production career.
Beneath: Yeah definitely. I want to be the best at what I do and I always try and do things to the highest standard that I possibly can. I'm not ultra critical of other peoples stuff though like I am my own.
Blackdown: You reserve the biggest criticism for yourself and your productions?
Beneath: Yeah but I do that for everything I do. All the work that I did at uni I was like "thats shit" cus I was comparing it to other works of a really high standard made by professionals. So when I'm trying to mix stuff down I'm comparing it to producers who have really good mixdowns but I'm obviously a long way of those kinda standards I think
Blackdown: The concern I have is, while I'm all up for agonising about mixdowns - and me and Dusk do it a lot too - there is a stage you can go beyond that where you edge into paralysis and all you hear is the mixdowns not the emotion the music is trying to evoke. I'm just hoping you never get there!
Beneath: I'm like that now with some tracks to be honest. I just get sick of them though and scrap them.
Blackdown: Be careful!
Beneath: Yeah I know the dangers but I cant help myself
Blackdown: Futility! OK, lets take a different line: how do film and music interact for you?
Beneath: Good one. I never really thought about it before how they interact for me personally. I remember the music bits were my favourite parts or at least the ones that I would remember the most when I was younger but even when I studied film at college and uni, music didn't really interest me that much, I was more interested in sound in general; music can be a bit bait in films I think. For my final work in my degree I designed the sound for two films but I didn't use any music in either of them cus I thought it was a bit obvious.
The films could have had music in them but worked a lot better without any music. I hate music when it's not needed in films, like it's just been put there to help the viewer feel what they are supposed to feel. I guess the film I worked on were pretty empty though in their feeling, they weren't exactly happy films, so the exclusion of music helped to emphasis that sense of loss and confusion that they were trying to convey.
They have a lot of similarities though in their form and function. Like how they are structured, what they leave out and what they pull apart. Writing a film and writing a song are similar I guess. You have different sections and you can manipulate each section to take the listener/viewer where you want to take them.
Blackdown: What films have especially good soundtracks for you and what is it about the soundtrack that is so effective?
Beneath: Well I think David Lynch's films always have great soundtracks but not for the musical moments where a track is played, I cant really remember any moments like that to be honest, its more for the overall vibe he creates through sound. He uses a lot of low frequencies in his soundtracks, just rumbles and stuff; a lot of eerie sounds. Yeah his films are eerie themselves but I love how it sort of sounds like there is nothing to it when there is, you really need to watch them in a cinema where you can feel it rather than hear it. It's like the big sound system, dark room club thing. Darkness and low frequencies, the womb and all that.
Taxi Driver for the parts where the taxi is gliding through the street of New York at night and you have got those big cascading sort of drums and that soothing saxophone of whatever it is. I cant remember any other musical moments in that film apart from that, those images and sounds are so strong they have written over everything else in my head about that film.
Clockwork Orange is pretty fucking amazing as well for its sounds. I think Delia Derbyshire or Daphne Oram did some sound design for that or something but yeah. It mixes up alien sounds with like classical music, they blew my head when I watched it the first time. Film and music really interest me when there is a strong juxtaposition between the image and the sound, when it makes you think.
To be honest I cant really call of the top of my head that many cus I think music and film isn't that important to me. Yes when its done right it can take moments and images in films to new levels but a lot of the time music doesn't work for me in films. Its information that I don't need. You'd think I'd know where I'd stand on it after years of studying it but I don't.
Blackdown: You say "I think music and film isn't that important to me" but your sound is cinematic in a way: stripped back, spacious...
Beneath: I think those sort of influences come from the part of UK music though rather than films.
Blackdown: Ah OK, despite your degree?
Beneath: Yeah, I mean a lot of stuff that I learnt on my degree was more theoretical I guess, like when I make sound design for a film, I'm influenced by certain music, not from films but like Source Direct. Obviously it depends on the film
Blackdown: Can you tell me about you slowing the bpms down, from 126 to the 110bpms, as your newer unreleased material has, and why you feel the urge to head down there and I guess by implication, where do you see your sound going now?
Beneath: I ain't gone as low as 110 yet, well I've done a few things but Im mainly finding that tempo interesting cus theres more room for experiments cus generally there ain't alot of music being made at them slower tempos on a darker kind of vibe.
Blackdown: Is it important to you to have your music somewhat isolated from others?
Beneath: Yeah was just about to say I kind of feel the need to move away from the 130bpm thing cus its a thing already. I'm not looking to create a thing or anything tho but I just felt a bit more comfortable making stuff at that slower tempo at the beginning of this year.
Blackdown: Your music has a huge emphasis on drums. At what point, when you drop the bpm, does the sense of momentum or energy implode?
Beneath: It doesn't, I think. It can but its just like any other tempo, you can make stuff sound fast or slow. Remember "Internal," I think thats like 116bpm but to me there's more energy in that than the 5 snare funky thing I've been making at 130bpm.
Blackdown: So it's about drum density rather than tempo?
Beneath: Yeah exactly. I think another thing about moving down tempo is that less people are likely to play it cus there ain't as much variety of music at that tempo. I suppose that can be seen as backing yourself into a corner though but at the same time it gives you room to breathe I think. I'm all about pushing new stuff anyway so if I've got people making new music at that tempo I'm sound.
Blackdown: You say "less people are likely to play it" - does that appeal to you? Many producers, who crave attention or recognition, would find that an alien position to take.
Beneath: Maybe yeah. I keep saying to myself when Im writing stuff, this definitely ain't career music.
Blackdown: Maybe or definitely?
Beneath: Well yeah it does appeal to me that less people are likely to play it 'cus then I can just play it myself. Or maybe a few others who are on the same tip.
Blackdown: The glorious thing I've noticed over time is that the more people want to make music to be accepted the less it often means or stands out, whereas those who go their own way regardless of what people think - people see that for what it is and believe in it. That's how I've felt about artists I believed in anyway
Beneath: Which artists?
Blackdown: Oh just the ones I've banged on as my musical heroes for ages: El-B, Kode9, Mala, Burial etc
Beneath: Yeah all legends.
Blackdown: Sure, but I guess they share the trait that they went their own way. And that can mean a lifetime of obscurity, or sometimes, paradoxically, the opposite happens.
Beneath: Just noticed that the people you just mentioned are all apart of one thing though really
Blackdown: Well how about Wiley too or even the experimental jazz guys from the Impulse Records era like Coltrane in the early '60s.
Beneath: Did they do it consciously though or just naturally?
Blackdown: It's a good question, probably hard to generalise but I do suspect built into those who wish to innovate is the urge to find clear water between themselves and others, no?
Beneath: Yeah I think so. Dont you think that kind of thing with Keysound?
Blackdown: Yes, increasingly I think keysound is isolated but I don't seek it out overtly - whereas I think some label owners like say Kode9 do - but now it's happened I've come to see it as an opportunity.
Beneath: How did it happen with Keysound then?
Blackdown: Well… I'm a stubborn fucker, I know what I believe in and feel strongly and if fashions change and people go another way and I try that and really don't connect with it, then… I don't care - I will go our way anyway, rather than seek validation from others or follow fashion.
Beneath: Is that why you're not releasing house/techno stuff lol?
Blackdown: YES. Unless it's got some dark rawness and the beat is corrupted and funky i.e. you or Kowton, but Joe's even stuff wasn't straight techno to be honest, it had that dread. He too was massively into early Youngsta - that's how I first got to know him, he was sending me his dark halfstep dubstep as Narcissist, back in like 2005.
Beneath: It was interesting what you and Pinch were talking about on that Fact interview. I can't decide who I agree with.
Blackdown: Which bit?
Beneath: "tempo or mood"
Blackdown: yeah I want various moods within the same tempo/genres, diversity within a coherent community but not chaos.
Beneath: What would be chaos?
Blackdown: "Eclectic" DJing? Randomised selections? 1. UKG track -> 2. random d&b; 3. r&b -> 4. funk etc. It'd be jarring.
