‘It’s meant to imply a connection to the sun rather than radioactivity.’
Oliver Yorke‘s unique artistic vision and flair has interfaced with none other than none60 Records for something equal parts empowered, sun-fuelled and metaphysical… so we caught up and talked about Eurostar, naturally.
Hi Oliver how’s it been, what’s somethings you been up to since we last spoke, in life?
Good man! It’s been a busy year. Outside of music, I’ve been doing a lot of photography stuff – went to Italy and Myanmar last year to take photos.
Tell me how you and the phenomenal none60 came to be working together? You have a similar mindset?
I think they got in touch with me first, after Flight played something of mine on Rinse, a while ago now. I’ve always loved Silent Dust’s music since before they were even called that and have followed the progress of none60 since it’s beginning, so it was an honour – we definitely share a similar view on music inside and outside of 170, and have been throwing tunes back and forth since then. I sent them a few things recently and these just seemed to fit.
I always imagine they have this ace record collection or music collection in general really, however you want to phrase it, how about you, what’s your collection like?
Fairly diverse and a bit weird, but it definitely could be better! The weirdness in my collection has come more recently because of two things – firstly I put a turntable in my living room which has tripled the discogs addiction and charity shop experimenting – the other thing was a mate of mine was downsizing his collection a year or so ago and gave me about 3000 records to go through – there was so much random stuff from his years of collecting so I cherry picked anything I thought had potential – even now I’m still discovering stuff I had no idea about, from bits of purist latin jazz to 80s disco.
If you could get something in your collection what would it be? Any object really… even if unattainable.
There’s one thing I’d like to have, which I know I’ll never be able to. It’s a bit of a long story but I’ll get there! There’s that amazing electronic/live band called The Bays who never rehearse or record – they only perfom and they are incredible.
Every set is different, once I saw them do a kind of sampled ambient set and another time I’ve seen them fully step up into live techno. But you can’t buy their music. This used to give their whole thing a kind of mystery, through inaccessibility, which is lost a bit now in these days of youtube – now you can just look their performances up. Anyway I saw them play with absolute hero Herbie Hancock at the Barbican over 10 years ago. But Herbie only played after a kind of mini-revolt by the audience, after we were told Herbie was not performing, just ‘presenting’ the event.
People went mad, they were throwing the tables and chairs at the staff and trashing stuff in the Barbican foyer, it was nuts! Anyway as a result Herbie came on and played a full set with the Bays, like an hour and half at least, and non stop.
It was one of the most amazing live performances I’ve ever seen, and totally unplanned. That’s what I want in my collection. That performance.
Take us behind ‘Helion’, I love the atmosphere on this, it makes me think of… France! Hi speed train. That. Countryside.
That’s mad that you said that, this tune came out of the feeling I got watching the world go by when doing bits of travelling around Europe in the summer – which includes the time I got the eurostar down to the south of France to play piano at my mate’s wedding!
I did some time-lapses too when I was away on a different trip, and feel like the tune reflects the aesthetic of how a time-lapse looks – you have the slow evolving movement of the sun, clouds and weather, which could be like bass or chords, and then you have all the tiny busy bits of activity sped up, like people and cars, waves or trees, which could be drums or percussion.
The name ‘Helion’ is meant to imply a connection to the sun rather than radioactivity.
What’s something visual lately you like?
Cosmonauts exhibition at the Science Museum is amazing. I also absolutely loved the multi-coloured smoke room thing by Ann Veronica Janssens at the Wellcome Collection recently – basically all about shifting perceptions – awesome.
To ‘Kali’; is Kali a god, and quite a sort of intriguing one from my limited knowledge…
A purposefully ambiguous title. On the one hand Kali is a god associated with empowerment – this tune was a new style for me and much more of an outpouring unbound to any genre, so the empowerment thing felt apt.
On the other hand the main synth sound has a kind of vowel-filter shape to it and references that west coast hiphop sound, so the title is referring to that too.
I love the style of this tune, take us into it. I love the tempo.
I wanted to do something at 160, and I wanted it to have a kind of glitchyness to it as I’d been doing some sample twisting stuff – those were pretty much the only starting points. The main synth gave it the mood and the rest kind of fell into place.
What changes have you felt of late in terms of how you’re progressing and continue to?
You know me, I find it exciting exploring different avenues, and this has been a continuation of that. I’ve got some much more dancefloor oriented stuff in the pipeline too though. Things that inspire me at the moment: As always, collecting interesting foley; exhibitions and sensory experiential stuff; old documentaries and photography. And also Hidden Agenda.
What tune is in your head?
Sully ‘Flock’…
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