Ahhh D&B… the only genre where the worlds of animal carcasses and raving at Bagleys collide.
Intrigued? Well Peer Pressure – the home of Facing Jinx – dropped two powerful salvos in quick succession a few months back: Nervous Tension by Necrobia followed by Experiments 1-3 by Arcaudio.
Both brand new producers to the label. Both clearly very talented. And both behind an exclusive free collaborative track they’ve given to us to give to YOU!
Damian B gave them a shout to see where they’re both at and what makes them tick… Read on, then grab your free track!
Tell us about the free track!
Arcaudio: It’s the first collaboration that Necrobia and I have finished in a while. It’s a simple little track trying to combine a bit of both our styles.
It’s great. We should touch on your Experiments EP. It sounds like you went in deep on this and had a lot of fun making it!
Arcaudio: Yeah I had fun doing this EP! There’s no point if you’re not feeling it, right? Music should evoke, if it doesn’t, it’s useless.
How did Transmission come about?
Arcaudio: Transmission came about the same way most of my tracks do: start with a simple idea, and I make a shit ton of variations – maybe 20 or so – and then leave it for a few weeks.
Then I come back and listen to them all and pick the best bits. The more you listen to something the worse it actually sounds, so it’s good to come back to an idea and trust your gut reaction as if it was the first time you’ve heard it. I then build upon those parts and do the same again.
The term ‘sound design’ is a real interesting term that gets bandied about all the time… do you subscribe to it?
Arcaudio: No, sound is sound. I try not to pigeonhole my methods. Usually there’s more than one way to make a sound, does it matter how we get there? I don’t believe so.
Too many people want to dress up their techniques as nerdy or technical but the truth is if it doesn’t make someone feel something emotionally then it’s worthless. It’s good to give a shit about the detail, but it’s not the be all and end all.
Older D&B and jungle was actually more advanced for its day compared to anything else around. People don’t realise how easy they have it today “in the box”. Technology has just made it easier to make noise, so it’s relative.
So ok, give us a tip then. Something you’ve learned from your particular experience in music?
Arcaudio: Learn as much as you can, learn from others and build your own techniques. Invest in yourself and be patient. Don’t try to be prolific, try to build music that offers value, that makes people feel something.
Necrobia, over to you: can you talk us through the Nervous Tension EP?
Necrobia: Nervous Tension came from an idea I wrote back in 2008. The main parts of the track were there, but it didn’t feel right at the time to finish it. When Peer Pressure approached me about doing my own EP it felt right that it was the first track. The concept behind this tune was simple: I wanted to build a track that is seriously intense with hard sounds to give you that industrial feel, relentless on the tension building thought the track.
What about Raid?
Necrobia: Raid, for me, was the type of tune to express that pressure building up, the feeling of tapping on that valve till it hits boiling point. Then it’s all about the hard rolling bass that leads you on a rollercoaster of sounds.
What are some D&B albums you listen to where you get lost in the art of production?
Necrobia: Dillinja ‘My Sound’ and Grooverider ‘Mysteries of Funk’.
And what was the moment you thought ‘D&B: I must do it’?
Necrobia: The moment was back in the day when I was raving with Arcaudio and JustSomeGuy at Bagley’s in King’s Cross. I can’t explain it but hearing tunes like ‘Alien Girl’, ‘Cutslo’, ‘The Nine’… well, I knew then that I wanted to produce this type of music.
Can I be blunt for a second? Necrobia sounds like a black metal band! So what’s behind your name?
Necrobia: I was watching a documentary in which a race of beetles who are only found when feeding off carcasses and I was amazed about one type of Necrobia beetle – AKA a solider of death beetle – whose race could only survive by mating and laying their eggs in elephant carcasses.
They say that In Death There Is Life. A kind of beauty derived from dead smelly rotten flesh. I felt it summed me up.
Nice! Here’s another one: if your music was a city, what would we see when we walked in there?
Necrobia: It would have to be somewhere that is hard, industrial and been through a war. Slightly unnerving but yet has a vibe about it that is very familiar.
What’s a visual moment in culture you like?
Necrobia: Prodigy’s Breathe video.
Arcaudio: I love film. Recently I’ve enjoyed A Place Beyond the Pines and Stoker. I like the painter Rothko too.
Necrobia: I also like the Slipknot Duality video.
Finally, what are your intentions for the near future?
Arcaudio: I’m hoping to get a few more release under my belt this year. I’m not gonna rush things or try to make a fuckload of tracks, just finish them and release a few quality pieces.
Necrobia: There’ll be collabs with Arcaudio and Wreckless… plus more of my own tunes to come.