The radio show coincided with a pretty interesting time for underground music in the UK. From your perspective as a DJ have you noticed much of a change in audiences over the course of the last three or four years?
I think the change has been with branding more than music, to be honest. Music in the charts is still very much pop music. It’s where it should be. Disclosure and people making it big, that’s not underground. It is branded well. Words like ‘underground’ and ‘deep’ are the ones now, maybe as people come to realise the extent of how many people there are all doing the same thing. Social media strategy is a thing that everybody knows about now. Unique, exclusive content, all that. Trying to stand out on Facebook or Instagram. That’s underground to a lot of people.
That sounds very cynical, and it pays to keep a slightly cynical eye on things but in general I’m positive. Yeah, of course I’ve noticed a change in audiences – you don’t even need to go to clubs to notice how popular house is again. That brings with it a few problems like oversaturation, but in general it’s great as house getting big isn’t like drum and bass getting big. House isn’t a niche thing, you don’t need to follow certain rules, it opens pathways to techno and experimental stuff and all that history. It’s such a broad tempo range that most things you mix with house can be considered house, you know? And that old chestnut, house is a feeling… Cliched as hell but good house and techno raves have that feeling, that hedonistic thing. It’s a feeling that people – me included – think the very start of rave culture might have been like, and some people of course were there. So yeah, I’ve seen more people into techno, for instance. It’s a natural progression.
Trying to stand out on Facebook or Instagram. That's underground to a lot of people.
That’s a really good, honest assessment of your take on it. To some extent that saturation could end up being a good thing. I’m thinking along the lines of the fallout after dubstep became a dirty word, where suddenly loads of producers were reacting against it and moving in exciting new directions. Inevitably there’ll come a point where people react against the more mainstream house.
I think that’s already happening, you know. But there’s always been really exciting music on the edges of house and techno, it’s just a numbers game trying to filter through the mediocre stuff to find it.
There’s been a really noticeable shift in the sound of your releases from A Thousand Years’ Wait onwards. You’ve been pretty eclectic since day one, so does the more techy direction reflect a permanent shift in focus or just the exploration of another facet of your music?
Nothing’s permanent! Like I touched on earlier, I’m getting to grips with what I want from music, but it’s still a very broad range. I like stuff with an almost spiritual feel – for instance dub reggae, afro house, some latin bits, soul, jazz – but then I also love that mad and fresh cutting-edge mind-bending stuff. It’s always a question of balance, like so much shit in life, I’ve found.
Has your production setup changed at all to reflect the progression of the sound?
I’ve got back into hardware, yeah, but I’m still using a lot of samples I cut myself. Probably the biggest change you’ll be able to hear in my tracks is running a lot of stuff through a Roland RE-201. I came up on dub and my stuff has always had that dubby edge somewhere, but now with the Space Echo there’s no fucking around. I’m looking into different ways of DJing too.
I came up on dub and my stuff has always had that dubby edge somewhere, but now with the Space Echo there's no fucking around.
Give us some geeky details on the rest of the hardware setup, then. What kind of stuff are you working with?
I use Reason, and still cut loads of samples from all over. I’ve been cutting samples since I was about 13, using a guitar pedal at first, then I got a Yamaha RM1X but missed the sampling aspect so got a Korg ES1 and later the ESX. When people say they use a lot of samples, I think a lot of people think they just buy sample packs and chuck a few loops together, but there’s a lot more to sampling. I make or record a lot of my own samples as well, or cut something from a track then play with it and resample it for example. I’ve got a couple of synths – a DSI Mopho X4, the Korg MS-20 reissue, all the Volcas as well. I’m not so into drum machines though. I’ve got some Jomox modules for kicks and percussion, the MBase 11 and M.Brane 1_1, but generally when you have a drum machine you sound a lot like the next person with a drum machine. I got a Vermona Retroverb recently, which is nice, and an Electro-Harmonix Memory Man before I got the RE-201, but it does different things so I still use it. Quite a minimal setup really, but it suits me nicely. Next purchase will probably be a Sherman Filterbank.