They are the singular Kolectiv and they are here to discuss their shed in the garden from which the new ep on Dispatch has miraculously appeared, and to drop some insight into their world and other parallel realms, shapes and forms.
Hi Kolectiv, can I get it straight: how many of you are there? Do you all have a small house at the end of a street and never come out?
Hi there! So, quickfire. Yes there are three of us: Kalm, Keza & Carera. No we don’t all live in a small house but rather we spend our time in a small shed at the end of a magical mystical garden.
We come out at night. We are quite nocturnal, like bats, except we don’t do our hanging upside down.
Ok. We’ve gone off on a tangent.
2016: an amazing year… what have been some highlights?
It’s been a very busy year for us, we have been working with a number of labels over the past year which has given us a chance to show our diversity. The two that stand out would have to be the Alix Perez remix of ‘Closer to the Fire’ on Vandal Records which has had great support from Noisia and Friction, and our track Mistrust with Hydro coming out on vinyl through Horizons.
Obviously our current Dispatch release is also right up there.
Take us into ‘Prozen’ and what does the title mean?
‘Prozen’ like ‘Tize’ before it – on our previous Dispatch LTD release – takes its name from a Japanese anime series character, this time Admiral Prozen – “Proitzen” in the Japanese version – a character from the TV show loosely adapted from the manga original series ‘Kiiju Shinseiki Zoido’.
He’s one of the main protagonists in both series.
What artists inspire you and continue to?
This is a question which we could spend forever answering. As you would expect we’re all influenced by the DnB & Jungle from the mid 1990s onwards. The likes of Dillinja, Konflict, Stakka & Skynet, Krust, Die, Optical and Photek to name just a few but we all have our own musical influences and backgrounds.
These include hiphop, reggae, funk, soul and heavy metal. Artists likes Peter Tosh, Wu Tang to Bob james and Iron Maiden. We could list all of them but that’s another interview in itself.
Take us into ‘Infinite Realms’. I enjoyed typing that.
Infinite Realms was always supposed to be a dance floor tune, it went through a number of transformations and was worked on in a few different studios before we were all happy with it.
It was one of those hard-fought battles with a tune that never seemed to sit quite right with one or all of us at any time but eventually we won the battle and we’re really happy with it and that it’s coming out on Dispatch.
And ‘Timelines’? I love this.
Yeah it’s probably our favourite from the release and seems to be most peoples too. With it being much more vocal lead we left it quite stripped back with some nice musical samples but couldn’t resist throwing a few glitchy percussions in and a teeny bit of squelchy bass to rough it up a bit.
We felt it was a perfect tune to bring something a bit more soulful to the release whilst still fitting in with the overall theme.
If you had to play an intensely long set… like a day or two, or longer, would you like that? What would be a good venue?
Yeah that would suit us down to the ground. We all have so much we want to play during our sets and we never get to play it all. Between us our vinyl collection is enormous and that is dwarfed by our digital collection. Because there are three of us it would be a real journey with the added bonus of each of us being able to take a smoke/drink or toilet break.
To the Kolectiv three of you: what artist living or dead would you like to jam with… or which band. Soul, jazz, electronic, you name it?
That’s a tough one!! Can we confer?
OK.
Ok we all have different answers and Carera is being greedy, so one by one:
Carera: I’d jam with a super group comprised of Jill Scott on keys and vocals, Bernard “Pretty” Purdie on drums, Miles Davis on the trumpet, Chris Hargreaves on bass and Merry Clayton on backing vocals.
Kalm: Miles Davis.
Keza: Prince.
Although I would also love to jam with Orbital and Portishead.
Where do you like playing… venues, cities etc? Where’s on fire?
Being from London we love playing in our home town and it’s not something we get to do a lot. We have been fortunate to have all played in a variety of places but I think the ones that stand out are Leeds, Bristol, Miami, LA, Tallinn/Estonia, Eger/Hungary. We have a lot of places we want to play at and hopefully we get a chance to do so in the not so distant future.
What inspirational tune is in your head?
Again, one of those questions we have to answer individually…
Carera: June Marieezy & FKJ at the Red Bull Studios in Amsterdam has been killing me.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rw-hw7rVOrA
Kalm: ‘Human’ by Rag’n’Boneman OR ‘Time Moves Slow’ by Bad Bad Not Good & Sam Herring are neck and for me right now.”
Keza: Yann Tiersens ‘Comptine d`un autre ete – l`apres-midi’