Dust Audio are behind the Omega Red ep featuring (deep breath) Ink, Ahmad & Gremlinz, Slider & Expose, Red Army & Clima.
Try to explain that sentence to someone not into D&B…
Would it be fair to say that Omega Red sums up Dust Audio for people lucky enough to be just discovering you guys?
I hope it demonstrates our versatility as a label when stood side by side with previous releases. If you’re just discovering us, keep checking back and we’re sure you will keep finding something you like! Interestingly, a lot of our back catalogue has been getting snapped up recently from our store and we’ve shipped to places like Canada, Australia, USA, as well as Europe.
It’s great that people are just getting to know us and looking back to see what they’ve missed.
This EP has probably been the most satisfying 12″ we’ve put out so far.
We are thrilled that so many great DJs and artists have supported it, from Grooverider through to Doc Scott, John B through to Spectrasoul.
Well, to be blunt, Omega Red as an ep is unbelievable. When did you hatch the plan? It’s like a who’s who of pure, underground D&B.
Thanks for your kind words! There was a loose plan with regards to who was going to appear, but at the outset we never intended to compile an EP with a ‘Jungle’ sort of flavour.
It began when Clima & Red Army sent us ‘Jungle Justice’ way back. We felt it would make it out on vinyl but had things already scheduled so we held it down.
Expose and I were already working on ‘Reference Point’ but again we let it sleep for about 2 months before going back in on it.
We spoke with Ahmad (Acid Lab) who we have had a very close working relationship with over the last few years, he usually hits us up with a batch of tunes at any time. We knew we wanted something from him for vinyl and ‘Omega Red’ just hit us right in the chest!
Automatically we knew ‘Jungle Justice’ would be sitting alongside it. We then went back in on ‘Reference Point’ and that was the EP!
Back to you guys (Slider & Expose) and ‘Reference Point’: it’s ‘classic’ but properly next level too.
Thanks, we have always been into that classic sound as it’s in our roots. We wanted to have that classic crunchy cut up breaky edit as the main groove and we tried to get it sounding dirty!
But sonically it had to stand up against modern productions.
There’s a fair few breaks, edits and percussion involved so it took quite a few mixdowns to get it where we wanted it.
We’re pretty pleased with the outcome. Also the ‘Reference Point’ vocal is actually Expose on the mic just pitched down! We are currently finishing up our solo EP for Dust Audio.
It’s extremely different from ‘Reference Point’ and we are really excited about the project.
With so many artists, do the guys work in general on shared projects online? Is this a good way of working or a headf*ck… I mean what if someone saves over some recent work?
Ahmad works alone, but with the wonders of the internet making the world smaller he is able to collab with a lot of really respected artists and Labels.
We was really happy to work with him on the Dynamo tune from his X EP last month.
In the last few years it has become a whole lot easier to produce tunes with an artist next door, across the road or the other side of the world!
Also if you do save over a previous project you can always hit up the artist you’re working with and go back to his version.
Always save a new project when updating a tune! We have folders full of tunes with V1 to V39 and so on after the tune.
On to the ‘Jungle Justice’ by Clima & Red Army: I totally am demolished by this.
Red Army: Cheers man! Jungle Justice was actually the first tune that Clima and myself collaborated on together. Clima was responsible for me being on Turbine/Dust to begin with as I had some unsigned tunes that they asked if they could send to Dan and Chris and I was all for it.
After the release of the Senium EP on Turbine, Clima approached me about doing a tune together. They sent me some stems for an unfinished tune they started and the next day we had Jungle Justice.
It’s hard to work with someone via the internet, but the Clima guys we’re the easiest to collab with. We’ve been consistently working on tunes together for the past 19 months or so and have some big releases lined up for the future.
I couldn’t have asked for a more humble duo to work with. It always seems like a natural fit between Clima, myself and Turbine/Dust.
Eternal question: will we see a Dust Audio night? Got to do it!
We’re working on it, but it’s a very competitive market out there! Keep ’em peeled; after all, the label was born from the Dust events we originally promoted so we are always itching. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.
Shouts to: Clima, Red Army, Ahmad, Ink, Gremlinz, and everybody who’s supported and purchased this release.
