13. The coming of age, of mystery, of personal change.
Or effectively it’s a time of life just a few years away from hitting as many D&B nights as humanly possible, with Intrigue being long-established at the top of the list. Ben Soundscape takes us into Intrigue 13 – The Anniversary Collection.
Ben what’s new sir, how’s life in the Intrigue camp?
Hey how’s it going Damian? Things are good, we just had the 13th birthday of the club night down at Thekla in Bristol. It was brilliant, DRS guested with 8 Gold Rings, alongside Tyler Daley and Fox. They killed it!! We also had Raw Q over from New York, Collette Warren singing over our set, and Marky all the way from Brazil. Vibes were sick all night long! It was a fantastic way to celebrate 13 years of the club night.
Tell us about that COVER first of all, it’s awesome. Getting shirts done with this?
So this is by my good friend Seth Grym, based in Denver, USA. I really love all of Seth’s work and got him on board with the label at the beginning of last year. He keeps coming with unique art for all the releases and ‘Intrigue 13’ is one of the best yet! We are working on a new Intrigue tee by Newcastle based artist Chibalove which should be out May/June time.
It’s a continuation of the series started way back in 2009 which the Intrigue heads will know about!
Take us into the comp, some great tunes, loving the ‘Winter Rain’!
I asked Break who is a good friend of mine for a tune for the album, and he was up for making something on a musical tip specifically for it. He delivered an absolute smasher in the form of ‘Winter Rain’. I love the way it’s so simple yet so devastatingly effective on the dancefloor. It’s getting loads of support from DJs across the scene including Friction, SPY, Spectrasoul, Nu:Tone and A-Sides.
… is Break an Intrigue regular btw?
Yes you could say that! Not only does he contribute killer tracks on a regular basis, he also does a stellar job with mastering the album releases. During the final stages I’ll go to his studio and listen through every track and we’ll make some adjustments together.
It’s fascinating to see the techniques used first hand to level out the album and make it sound like one unified release. Not an easy task when you have such diverse producers on board.
… and in general how did the selection of artists come about, how were they chosen?
It’s basically a mixture of Intrigue artists old and new. The album started with a few tunes that I’d had on dubplate for a while, and I built the tracklisting from that. I hit up everyone involved with the label and asked for track contributions, and floated ideas of remixes.
Then the tunes started coming in! I also received a few demos around the same time, most notably from Ian M out of New York, whose track ‘Something for Her’ instantly grabbed me and I had to sign it.
I also like to dig through the archives, and for this album chose ‘9th Avenue’ from myself and Joe, an old Insiders tune that never saw release. It’s perfect for an Intrigue album as it got played so many times at Intrigue back in the day by guys like Fabio and Addiction. Once I had the 13 tracks gathered together then came the hard task of picking the right running order.
And how do people get to play down with you, generally?
Best way is to hit up demobox@intrigue.org.uk with any tune demos or mixes. I get quite a lot of stuff these days but I listen to everything.
Some names not aware of here which is cool… who are some of the less known people and how did you link up? Love Superior Selectionz… rolls right out.
Superior Selectionz are a trio based out of Yeovil in Somerset, who I first hooked up with about 8 or 9 years ago. I got to know them through the Intrigue nights, and invited them down to play. Their impeccable tune selection and tight mixing quickly made them residents, and years later I started signing their tunes to the label.
Their biggest release has been the ‘Red Sky’ EP, which contains one of my favourite tracks on Intrigue Music, ‘Halcyon’. Since about 2011 we’ve been making tracks together and ‘Sometimes’ is one of the results. Look out for more to come from us this year.
Take us into the Insiders/System remix… lord above this is not to be messed with.
Mark is an old friend and has been involved with Intrigue since day dot, first starting out as one of our resident MCs back in 2003. Over the last decade he’s become a brilliant producer and it was only right to ask him for a contribution to the album. We discussed the remix idea, and he chose our track with Rider Shafique, ‘Pathways’.
I sent him the parts and he delivered an amazing rework, so different from the original and deadly on the dancefloor. One of the big ones on the album no doubt!
Love your work here, like ‘Let It Go’, you’ve been busy.
Thanks mate, yeah been busy finishing off tunes and starting new ones. A lot more to come from Ben Soundscape this year! I have a lot that are almost there, they are at the mixdown stage which is definitely the hardest bit. There are new things I’ve done with DRS, RoyGreen & Protone and Superior Selectionz.
I also have a new Insiders track with Collette Warren on vocals which we premiered at the Intrigue 13th birthday. My next release is ‘Dreaming’ co-produced with Random Movement, with ‘Waiting for You’ – a remix of an Isola Dusk track – coming out on Intrigue at the start of May.
Lurch drops a killer.
Yeah our boy Lurch killed it with ‘Tangents’, a step into different territories with skippy beat rhythms and a leftfield groove to it. He has a big single coming up on the label with Collette Warren and TRAC called ‘Count the Days’, with ‘Splitting the Atom’ feat. MC Bluejay on the flip so look out for that one too.
Other favourites from mine on the album are ‘Same Old Feelings’ by Mike Random Movement with Collette on vocals again, as well as the Raw Q joint ‘Whatcha Do’.
This one’s been killing it in the clubs for a while. There’s also ‘Cenzontle’ by Joakuim, a wicked producer based in Mexico, which is a lovely way to end the album. Very smooth and chilled outro material. But to be honest I love each and every tune on the album!
How’s D&B changing in your part of the world… or is it business as usual?
I think D&B remains pretty consistent, I wouldn’t say it has changed too much recently. Maybe the one thing is that people are more open to different styles and a lot of the new breed of producers than perhaps they were before.
When’s it drop? what formats?
Intrigue 13 is out 18th March on digital formats. If you want to bag it before then head over to Juno who will be running an exclusive on the release before that.