Depth Range are collectively: Jaysmith MC, HP.Ritch, Chris, Konstantin, SRP, Re:Draft and Kid Kun, seen above assembled for this interview about their self-titled ep. Time to go in some depth…
Hi could you give us the intro about you all?
We are the Depth Range crew, a creative collective of friends from Ulm and Stuttgart in the south of Germany. We came together as a crew in 2012, but knew each other for a long time before that from BMX riding.
We’ve always shared a big fascination for bass driven music and art in general, so we decided to combine our ideas and efforts as one with the Depth Range project.
We consist of Joey, our MC known as Jaysmit MC, Felix who produces wonky riddims as HP.Ritch; Chris & Konstantin, our creative minds for all things art and design, Fabian SRP who’s our eyes and ears to the scene and getting more and more into production too; Florentin aka ReDraft, crew brain and head producer behind Depth Range, and Marcel aka Kid Kun whose talent for sick beats of all tempos never ceases to amaze.
Tell us about the scene near you? I want to hear this in a live venue asap, has it been road tested?
The scene for uptempo bass music is still quite small in southern Germany, and even smaller if you compare it to scenes like the HipHop culture. It is especially small for niche genres like the Jungle and Footwork inspired halftime wonky beats stuff that we do.
But there’s also a good side to this, because it can be very exciting to step onto new territory. Since we started producing our own sound, we’ve met so many great and like minded people, nationally and internationally. So even the local scene is still pretty small, it feels like we’re growing part of a global family of open minded people who unite in sound.
After promoting our own events and playing out as DJs for the past six or so years, we have to say that we never encountered a scene before where people are so friendly and respectful to each other like in the Footwork-Jungle community. Besides loving the sound itself, this whole “family vibe“ means an immense motivation and inspiration for us.
When did the ep take shape as it were? Love the tracks.
We often just meet in the studio to make beats together, experiment with ideas and have fun. Often we start a project in our home studio and drop a first WIP version into our shared dropbox. This way we always have an idea of what is going on in our mates DAWs. And if someone likes the idea of a beat he simply continues writing it.
It’s all about having a good time together.
After the arrangement of the tunes we did some basic mixdowns and gave it the occasional spin at some events that we played. When our Depth Range EP later came back from mastering we were really surprised how crisp it sounded on a club system. From there on we became a bit more confident and started sending it to a few friends.
When we got a video of Halogenix dropping ‘Tell Them’ to a wild festival crowd we went absolutely nuts in the studio. That was a very happy moment for us, as it was our works first big testing out on the battlefield so to speak. Later followed another memorable moment in crew history, when the legendary Jay Scarlett dropped our tune ‘Champion Killa’ live at Boiler Room from Watergate Berlin.
What inspired ‘Moon’? Was it the object, a certain night, was it darkness, or danger? Tell us.
Moon was actually one of the very first tracks we made together. It was a pitch black night with an impressive moon. We were stuck in ReDraft’s lab, making beats until way past midnight. The only light in the room came from the screen and the moon, which was rising above the medieval tower of the Ulmer Münster, one of the oldest and largest church towers in the world.
His crib just happens to lie right in its shadow. It is indeed one of the darkest tunes we made so far and has been finished pretty much in this one night session.
I love the beautiful tone of ‘Your Love’, wow. It just kicks ass. That wonderful synth.
Thank you! ‘Your Love’ was also an early track – actually the first ever track we completely finished as a whole. And it was the synth which made the tune feel round for us too. We wanted to create something that would work in both a club and a radio environment. And we really liked the wonky yet driving Footwork feel to the beat.
‘Your Love’ pretty much sums up what you could call “our style”.
What are some tunes in your head, any style?
Om Unit’s Threads LP was and still is one of the most impressive and influential works for us. His sound does not need any genres or titles, it just stands for itself and transports a very spiritual feeling.
Listening to it inspires us to always remain an open mind.
Taso of the Teklife family just continued his Cold Heat EP series with Volume 5. He always surprises with very original sample ideas that work great in both radio and live sets.
What we heard of the forthcoming Fortuna EP from Ivy Lab really stunned us. Their sound is so unique and versatile, it created a whole new movement. We also really love their attitude towards promoting events. We attended one of their 20/20 nights in London back in the Silver Bullet, and it was like a big family gathering where everybody was very friendly, easy going and exchanging ideas.
This is what we wish the future to be like.
Any shouts?
Everbody from Ulm and the world who shares a smile and moves a leg to our sound! Special thanks to all the friendly people who helped us with their support and advice, Halogenix, Jon1st, Fanu, Jay Scarlett, the whole Terabyte crew, NME click, BSN posse, bigup all the worldwide LowRise fam and so many more. You all know who you are!