‘No sooner had she sung it and I had the fifth robotic kind of sounding harmony underneath it I knew it was the vocal for the tune… ‘
Sound and vision organically construed from strange and unexpected sources – crime scene cinema and the odd giant sea mammal – put through the processes of imagination as inferred in the quote above, drawing from diverse inspirational sources such as Dilla and Lamb… and resulting in the spellbinding ep from Beta 2, enigmatically/fittingly titled The Beats Inbetween. About this and more we spoke.
This release is easily one of the best things about this year or any other for that matter, let’s not be short-sighted! I felt that you wanted to pick and choose from a vault of material, in order to create something that worked holistically as an ep… is that true? That you had a vision for it.
Wow! Thank you very much! Yes that’s kind of true… I just wanted to give them – Metalheadz – four or five totally different tracks. That was really my prerogative.
When – as in era – is the material from? Is it from different times?
Mostly all current but one or two were just small sketches from a few years ago. All the main work on all tracks was done in the last year.
‘Black Dahlia’ will of course remind us of that very dark time in America… the script was that everything was on the up, bright and happy, and there was a hideous underbelly. Was this the inspiration… or maybe it was inspired by the book by Ellroy?
None of them inspired it I am afraid! What did inspire me though was I was listening to a lot of kinda ‘crime scene’ Jazz from the 60’s/70’s at the time and I really wanted to write a ‘crime scene’ inspired D&B tune and it had to be 174bpm – the same speed for today’s dancefloor.
I also had it in my head that I wanted to write the track that if a band wanted to cover it, they could play it live easily.
Every note, expression and drum hit was written by me with no samples and there is no un-organic sounds in it as it’s just drums, Rhodes, Double Bass, Piano, Trumpet and Strings and the only sample is the whale song… which is essentially is organic too!
I also wanted it to be kinda ‘cinematic’.
Quick diversion: I wanted to ask, when it comes to beats and atmospheres in electronic music, who are some faves over time?
Well I look at music like a spectrum and anything can inspire me from Jazz to Classical and all in between and I take the bits that I like, but for electronic music some of my faves over time would be people like Pepe Bradock, Lamb, Marc Mac, Dego, Nightmares on Wax, Goldie, Transformer 2, Derrick May, a lot of Underground Resistance stuff, Masters at work, Aphex Twin, JDilla, Sasha & Digweed, Calibre…all I can think of at the moment but there is loads more.
Tell me about the story about ‘The One That Got Me’. Love this.
Well, this tune I started with the strings in the middle of the tune as I wanted to write a tune that was electronic at the start and end and I wanted the middle drop be organic – which it is as it’s just vocals and woodwinds – and I wanted to blend these together perfectly; a lush kind of Timeless/’Masters at Work’ kind of vibe… and I wanted the bassline to work perfectly with this too.
I spent quite a while writing this part as it had to sound amazing and then it had be in the right key to work with a bassline that also worked on a club system and that the bassline could also carry the tune too.
I also wanted it to be minimal and new with different-sounding beats.
The vocal happened when I asked my sister to sing something on it, as at the time I was waiting on a vocalist to come up to the studio and as my sister was there I just asked her to sing something on it while I waited. No sooner had she sung it and I had the fifth robotic kind of sounding harmony underneath it I knew it was the vocal for the tune.
What else would you say about The Beats Inbetween?
Some of this is stuff I really put a lot of time into. So I hope that it is received well as I have loads more of it to come.
What places do you like playing?
Well I haven’t played out in a long while so I can’t remember where was the best but when I did I think Eindhoven in Holland was great & Dublin when there is a good crowd can be great too.
What inspirational tune is in your head?
The next one I’m writing!
Any shouts?
Goldie, Zero T, all at Metalheadz, Spinback – of Total Science fame!… all my family and my girl Aoife.
The Beats Inbetween