We close our eyes & channel DLR and his lucid, ensnaring panorama of Dreamland from which you perchance won’t wake up. Or would want to.
Hey how’s it going, what you doing?
Easy mate, yeah all good here, just going through my morning routine of looking online at stuff and getting depressed by pointless things which don’t really matter in the grand scheme of life, yet another thing I need to cut out of my life if I want to live a happy, successful fulfilling one! Also just finished a few days in the studio with Signal trying to get something sorted for a project he’s working on before he flies back home.
How’s D&B in 2016 in Bristol? So many strong names as ever.
Yeah good times, a little crazy, due to London’s clubbing scene being on its arse it feels like a lot of pressure has been placed on Bristol, especially with Motion having strong connections to Fabric you can see that they are relieving some of the pressure from many artists not being able to perform there [stop press etc] so I guess the next best thing is a big party in Bristol with amazing sound system and crowd.
Also between myself, Break, Kyo, Total Science, Hydro, Mako, Onset we run a monthly night every second Thursday of the the month, strictly 90mins sets, on a wicked sound system with amazing beers…
Apart from that, the scene is going crazy, so many producers, so many listeners, so many nights, so much fun to be had!
We got to be careful that it doesn’t overload the scene, but what I’m seeing is pretty healthy.
And connected, I’m feeling touches of the renegade Bristol vibe in this album: of the unexpected, the sort of ‘uncertain soul’ you get from the Bristol Sound, how doth that sit?
I guess you’re wondering how does the slightly breakaway sound of my new album sits with the keen ears of the younger generation in our scene these days?
OK…
I’m not too sure, I definitely feel like I’m walking uphill a lot, I guess I could just put down my tools and start following the crowd, but it’s not really in my nature and I always feel someone has to do something different to break down the conventional norm.
To be honest I find it strange saying that as I always feel like I am the conventional norm, it can be slightly concerning the way the general sound of our scene is going, but let’s face it: EDM is huge, and somewhere along the line it dragged some form of D&B into its grubby mitts, and as long as EDM rules we’ll find some odd things happening in the humble little scene we call D&B.
‘Wasting Time’: the vibe is all of the above re Bristol.
Ha ha I can’t figure out if you’re talking about ‘Time Wasting’ [exclusive vinyl track, below] or ‘Wasting Time’… I’m pretty sure you’re talking about the wonky one, which I’m sure is ‘Wasting Time’… if sooooo then it’s a tough question.
It’s funny because that track is probably older than the last album I released, Ant was always a big fan of it, I always thought it was a bit weird, but after a while I started to like it, and after a lot of wasted time attempting to finish and mix it, I finally gave up went back to the original, fixed it up a little and found it was actually good enough in the beginning after all.
Ha ha: a classic tale of going round and round in circles just to find yourself back at the start.
What’s the album title about? I feel it’s about imagination and travelling where you will, even if you are on the bus to work.
Its about both concepts of this idea of ‘Dreamland’… So as you said, escapism – drifting off into a day dream – or dreaming at night, taking drugs, going raving, immersive gaming, virtual reality and so on.
Or the reality of the World that we live in today where I feel a lot of people including myself live in some sort of Dreamland: in this bubble of comfort that is wrapped around us almost crippling us from wanting to do something to help the World that slowly crumbles around us.
The tune with Hydro, very fond of the step on this. What are we all wrong about as such?
All of the track names have some sort of meaning, I think this is important with a concept album like this, I want them to reflect the idea and mentality of the album, not only in their name but also in the way they sound and the journey they hopefully take the listener on.
‘We’re all wrong’ was not an intentional name; it’s something that came from the main vocal sample that Hydro supplied, the beautiful thing about things like this is that it made me think about this statement, or concept of us as Humans all being wrong, which we are, on a daily basis.. it’s all about understanding this, learning and then moving forward.
Take us into some other guests on the album? who is here? Break I note!
Yeah it’s a family feel, keeping things relatively simple and working with the people I love to work with like Hydro, Break, Mako. Most of the collaborators on the album are Bristol based apart from Script and also Signal who is from Rotterdam and much much younger than us, as mentioned I’ve just finished up a new thing with him.
I find it interesting in the studio with him as he is so young, in some ways he’s so mature about things, and also very knowledgeable about D&B amongst many other things.
In some ways he can be sort of inexperienced and much more fresh and enthusiastic than me, which I think is a great combo for making music which is true to the form but also thinks outside of the box.
What is a tune that floors you, a random one… for its soul, its one-offness, its renegade style… the stuff of dreams as it were.
Photek ‘Knitevision’: too sick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_Gd65vqF8o
Woody rhythms, staccato basslines, music vibe switches from start to finish, hard to beat… and definitely not a tune that can be played in any rave and appreciated.
But I do feel most people that give it a real listen can hear the depth it has on offer!