Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner!
Big ups Boris. He entered the self-run forum production competition we blogged about here and came up against 14 other talented Drum&BassArena members. Each member battling out to see who could create the most authentic jungle track.
The competition was tight. Crazy tight. You can check it yourself right here – all 15 tracks are still available in all their sub-bass-bitten glory. There could, of course, only be one winner. Listen to his victory track….
“I’ve never won anything like this before, it’s pretty mental to be honest,” he laughs. “There are so many talented people on the forum. The competition I was up against was amazing so it was pretty humbling actually winning. A lot of hard work and heart and soul has gone into those tracks!”
In Boris’s case, the hard work has been in full effect for many years. A DJ since he was 15, he started producing in a bid to give something back to the scene he’s taken so much pleasure from. He signed up to a music technology course in order to learn the theory and get his hands on the studio gear and has diligently toiled away ever since…. Often slaving away over his laptop for as long as physically possible; eschewing sleep in a bid for the most fine-tuned sonics and a quest to dig deep enough for that sample. He tells us he’s inspired by everything: from friends to situations to living in an urban environment. Naturally, he’s seriously motivated most by the dance…
“I make tunes to play out!” he laughs. “I don’t make stuff for people to sit at home and listen to, or listen on their headphones. That’s not what my aim is. It’s soundsystem music! For the forum competition, when the word jungle comes up I think dark, dank raves, all smoky with big bass booming out of the speakers. Nothing massively technical, just raw power. It’s that feeling that I felt when I first went out raving.”
Having moved to the west country from Taiwan, Boris’s first taste of bass came directly from the region’s notorious rave scene. Inspired by happy hardcore, old school and jungle, it wasn’t long before he refined his tastes and invested in his decks. Now based in Bow, via Greenwich and Brixton, his true industry schooling started when he moved to the capital…
“It was here that I got involved with Dubpack (now Pack London), their office was above Brixton Jamm at the time,” he tells us. “Big up Boyson, Jack, Tom, Nanci and the rest of the family! I learned a lot about the London music scene by helping out with promotion and other bits and pieces. Doing this also gave me a lot of focus and inspiration to get my head down and come up with ideas. I did kind of hang up my headphones DJ-wise a while ago so I could concentrate on my own material. But this year I’ve been doing some Vagabondz nights and repping Pack London in some of their collaborations with the promotion Basslaced. With hopefully more to come! I suppose I feel like now I’m able to drop my own stuff in a rave, I’m ready to get out there and do what I love!”
Informed, inspired and incredibly talented. Keep your ears out for Boris and remember where you heard him first.