Open the door to the world of producer/DJ FD and you get a glimpse of a person methodically lost in concentration, industriously interweaving breaks with fibre, with soul and with organic energy. We knocked, stepped in, pulled up a chair & managed to get some time with him to discuss the recent Still The Same ep.
Hey FD: this work has a lot of maturity and beauty to it – not to say your previous work didn’t!
Ha ha thanks! With this batch of tunes, I really felt like I wanted to write ‘songs’. I wanted to try and write tracks that would be memorable and have a hook that the listener could grab on to. I’m not sure if this makes them ‘mature’, but that was the general thought process behind when I was writing them..
Can you take us into ‘Heart of Gold’?
Sure. So the main sample comes from an old classical piece my Mum had on at home one day. I just heard it playing and thought I could definitely get something out of it. It’s actually quite a long piece and it took a long time to find the bits I could use, but I managed to piece together a loop out of them I quite liked and started really developing a track out of that.
Roisin: who is she?
Roisin is someone who I met at Soul In Motion in London a year or two back. She’s a friend of a friend, and so we were introduced and had a chat. She was telling me about the song and the writing she does and I was immediately impressed, sure she would be good at what she did and asked if she’d like to work on something. She seemed interested in what I was doing too, and asked me where she could hear my music.
She checked out some tracks and hit me up saying she’d love to work on something so I jumped at the chance. She was super easy to work with and came up with the idea quite quickly – obviously finishing it was another matter, but we got there and are both pretty happy with the result.
Where do you actually work on your material… what’s your studio like? It simply has to be a good place, to create good music. No-one ever made a tune on a plane surely, or a video shot on holiday…
I tend to work at home – I have a room that doubles as an office and place to make music. I like it, but I really need to sort out some acoustic treatment as it sounds a bit like a bathroom at the moment! I tend to do a lot of mix work on headphones as I don’t trust the room – having said that, I’ve also done a couple of mixes in there I’ve been happy with.
I’d probably prefer to work there, or in a proper studio so I can hear properly – but I do also often work on the train or plane if it’s a long journey and have had some good results – my first track for Soul:R, ‘ICE 690’ is named after the train I was on down to my girlfriend’s house!
I think if you can hear what you’re doing and get a good concentration span, anywhere can work if it inspires you, or you feel inspired and need to get something out.
I love ‘Snowdrops’, it’s evocative.
‘Snowdrops’ comes from a sample I heard – spot the pattern…? – at my friend Vali’s house. He’s an absolute vinyl junkie of the highest order and has a serious record-buying problem. I randomly pulled one off the shelf and was just listening through and again something grabbed me.
I seem to remember I recorded it there and then and then came back to it when I had some time and made the tune then.
When I’m working with a sample like this, it basically helps form the initial idea, but you then need to build the rest of the track around it to make it more your own. I also nearly always re-edit or process samples to some degree to make them more my own too – I don’t like people to be able to spot what they are too easily – but then at the same time, if the original is so great, I feel like I want to try and keep the vibe of it intact to some extent.
How is it to work with Spearhead… they are very cool in terms of ethos I feel.
Yeah man, great of course. I think Steve has really built up something special and it’s really impressive where he’s got the label. I’ve been really happy with how we got the end product looking and then Steve does a great job at getting it out there.
Who did that fab artwork? I can’t believe we had years of terrible artwork ‘back in the day’ and now in the throwaway digital age so much great artwork is never seen!
The artwork is actually by Josh of Hybrid Minds – he does a lot of the art, if not all for the label. He did the label for my ‘Change Please’ single too, and so we just discussed again, and I told him the vibe I wanted to go on. I wanted to stick on that kind of graphic-y vibe we had with that single, and sent him a few other bits I found that I thought showed the direction I wanted us to go with. He then sent me some various options, and eventually we got to the final we have now.
You might not guess it, but to do minimal stuff like that well actually takes an awful lot of effort. It’s got to be just right and every ingredient has to be perfect as there’s so little there. I’m super happy with how it came out though, and we’ve received loads of really positive feedback about it.
I still think artwork is so important, and really like to think of a release in its total form – the music, the art, how it’s promoted etc etc. Where there’s so much music now, I feel to stick out from the crowd, you’ve got to try and develop and produce a really well thought out and rounded product, and this includes all aspects of it.
I’m also very interested personally in how products look and the impression that this can make. I don’t feel confident enough, or feel I have the ability to get involved in the design of a product, but I always have an idea of the direction I want to go, and try and put this across to the designer. The more of a brief you can give them, the easier it is for them to realise it.
I felt like something was lurking behind the track ‘Still The Same’ in terms of inspiration… that true?
Hmm, that’s tricky to answer as I don’t fully remember! But, the track certainly has a certain feel to it to me, and sounds quite inspired by one of my favourite producers – I’m sure people can guess who – I was really happy with the sample I found for it, it worked really well and actually very subtly in the end, which was cool.
The break is one I’ve been after for ages, and when I wrote ‘Found A Reason Why’ with Total Science, they gave it to me then so I really wanted to also use it on my own! I’d say it’s my favourite track on the EP – and although I can still hear some things I would improve with the track, I actually really like it, which makes a nice change!
What tune is in your head right now?
Well, I’m just at my friend Vali’s again and he’s going through loads of different records for a gig on Friday, so nothing in particular, just listening to all this crazy shit he has! But I’ve been listening to a lot of Slum Village the last few weeks – didn’t have any of the albums in my itunes anymore as the music was on the old computer – then suddenly realised I needed to get them back in there asap and what the F had I been doing??!
So anything off Fantastic Volume 1 or 2 right now – and doesn’t seem to matter how much I listen to it, but still totally addicted to the Freddie Gibbs & Madlib LP.
What is next from you? I see you are part of something very cool with some other great producers?
I’ve just had a track called ‘Through’ out on the CIA 20 LP…
https://soundcloud.com/f-d/fd-through-cia-records
… and also a remix for Macca & Loz Contreras on Fokuz, both of which seem to be going down ok. I’m also just finishing up EPs for SUNANDBASS Recordings and CIA and hope to have those nailed down in the next month or so.
I’ve got a few other tracks in the works, but need to finish them all asap, as my computer is probably about to die, and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to finish them on a new one!
There’s one with LSB, one with Anile and also new things with Total Science and Hugh Hardie, so lots of stuff going on at the moment.