Annix have been working hard on the wall to wall gritfest of Forever. Get caught in its spell and you’ll want to stay with it. Forever.
And ever.
And ever… [trails off]
Hi Annix, how’s it going?
All good. Hope you’re all well.
First off, your album title is about things that never stop, and on topic, I have to say about your STYLE of D&B, the actual genre… it’s always on fire. If I hear it out or on radio or wherever it’s huge and fresh. Always. It gets overlooked in part due to the ‘deeper’ parts of D&B maybe, why is this?
Thanks. Not sure why it is overlooked, maybe they just don’t like it or it’s not for them. However, one mans garbage is another man’s gold.
Tell us when the album started to come together as a whole, as it’s got a lot of elements to it.
We started writing it in 2014. The bulk of it was written last year.
I guess it started to come together halfway through 2015 although a lot has been changed/replaced.
The aim was to have a lot of different elements and styles to maybe show these ‘deeper’ parts of D&B guys that we don’t just make jump up.
I had to ask you: one of the first titles I saw was ‘Work For Nothing’, what’s that mean? Killer tune.
It’s just the name of the song.
Take us behind the title tune, and how it came about?
We wanted to attempt to make a more chilled rolling “liquid” track that would maybe have a longer shelf life then most of our normal stuff. It started off as a sample – the saxophone – from an old jazz/funk track. We then built the rest of the track around it.
It came together fairly quickly compared to other tracks on the album
And ‘What You Know’?
What you know is a more typical, no-nosense dancefloor track as we needed some stuff like that on the album
Back to the concept of ‘Forever’ what’s five tunes that you like so much that you wouldn’t mind hearing them on a loop literally forever. Any style, any era. FOREVER [echoes].
What a way to ruin a tune ha ha.
I don’t think any piece of music would be enjoyable played on repeat forever, isn’t that a method of torture?
If I had to pick a five, they would probably be:
Pink Floyd ‘Have a Cigar’
Led Zep ‘Stairway To Heaven’
Metallica ‘One’
Metallica ‘Nothing Else Matters’
QOTSA ‘First it Giveth’
Tell us about the collabs here and how they came to be a part of it all?
They were vocalists we wanted to work with, they’re fairly unknown in the scheme of things which is definitely something we look for when working with a vocalist to achieve a fresher sound.
We reached out to all of them as we like the style and sound of their voices and think it brings a nice touch to the album
What is a tune or two from the album that you know works particularly well live?
‘Low’ often causes chaos which is always enjoyable for a DJ. I’ve been playing it in our sets for a year or two now.
‘Work for Nothing’ also works pretty well in a club. I guess it depends where you’re playing, I’m sure they wouldn’t work live at a local bingo.
On the live front what is next for you… must be a lot of material from which to draw now I would’ve thought.
A very busy next few months with shows all over Europe, Australia and of course UK including our album launch – February 26 – at Fabric which for us is the perfect place to have it.
We also have a busy festival season for the first time ever which is fantastic and will be at many of the UK and Europe’s festivals including Nu Forms, Pukklepop, Innovation in the Sun and much more.
What tune is in your head as we speak. Good or bad. So we can have it in loop in our heads Forever.
Mark Morrison ‘Return of the Mack’.
Images Chelone Wolf