Adred‘s new ep on CIA Deepkut drops today and once this amazing beats-and-vocals-drenched ep gets lodged within the psyche you may need a priest to get it out. You’ve been warned.
Hello Adred, such a great ep… first off where are you from?
Thanks! I’m from the suburbs of New York City.
When do you most like to produce, night, day, evening, 4am when all is dead in the world?
I love writing music at 9 or 10 am. Nice cup of coffee and some fresh ears. All though my best work is at around 9 pm at night after a hard day’s work. Totally contrasting I know but somehow it works.
What inspired the ‘300 Pages’? I love the tune and love the title. It’s just a killer, so natural, wicked.
Thanks again! It’s a collaboration with My great friend Robert Manos and me.
When we make music together something special happens, he is truly gifted with lyrics.
We tried to make a different kind of track when we sat down, to stay away from typical D&B and just write good music.
What things inspire you in the day to day then?
I listen to a lot of 70s dub Reggae and funk/soul while I’m working my 9-5. It really helps me think of new ideas and melodies.
And what music do you draw live? I just imagine this quite phenomenal live set you got.
I’ve done a few things with Robert Manos (below) live but I haven’t quite made a live set to play out just yet. I mostly use a 1975 Fender Rhodes with my production, needless to say it’s really heavy so a live set is a bit tricky.
What inspired ‘Drones’? That is a thought provoking title, summoning up all that is worst about our civilized world in mental imagery, in one of the best tunes all year.
I spoke to TRAC (below) about doing a spoken word tune about a year ago and that he had never done something like that.
So when we got to it he sent me some really interesting spoken words.
I wanted to write a track that fit the depth of the vocals but yet keep it somewhat dancefloor.
You mention TRAC and Manos so to sum up, who are the vocalists on here? They sit perfectly… how did you all collab?
Robert Manos on the title track. Lystone (below) on ‘Into the Storm’ and ‘Red Night’. TRAC on ‘Drones’.
Like I mentioned earlier Robert and I wrote 300 pages together. The other tracks I had the vocalists send me vocals or lay down some vocals to a basic track and I built the song around them.
Writing a song to an acapella is one of my favorite things to do.
I want to sort of pass the mic to you and ask if you will talk about any tune on the EP at will, in terms of stories, recollections etc.
Well my good friend Lystone who’s featured on a few tracks is a 90s hip hop dude from Queens. He’s never done vocals for a Drum and Bass track, let alone heard much about the genre.
I had him come with me when I had Paul from Total Science play my party, Natural Selection in NYC.
They really hit it off about 90s NYC hiphop. Paul had asked me to do an EP after hearing ‘Into the Storm’ and I thought it would be a cool concept to focus an EP around the music I grew up listening to.
The vocalists bring so much to this, like different chapters…
I know it’s not common for a Drum and Bass producers to do a four vocal track EP but they seemed to work together in my eyes.
What’s something remarkable about this year for you?
Well honestly getting music signed to labels I’ve respected for a really long time has given me a new perspective on my music career.
It’s an interesting thing to go from a fan to a professional.
You mentioned dub so what musical work is in your head right now? Any era, any format… album, tune, 12, online, soundtrack.
I could go on for days! I’ll give you some highlights…. been really into Flying Lotus and Actress lately it’s some outside the box stuff that really makes me think differently about production.
I’ve also been listening to Kraftwerk and a bunch of early electronic music for new sound ideas.
Man the 300 Pages is simply a great great EP hands down… so listenable, so timeless in every dept. Final words?
Thanks I’m really happy to speak with you and I’m glad you enjoyed my EP! All I can ask for in this world is for people to enjoy my music.
Keep an eye out for my EP on Soul:r and I also have a techno EP on 31 Records as Eastern District which is my collaboration with Robert Manos.