‘I love the moon. For me it’s a symbol of unification and peace’
Well he’s not about to discuss rinsing out venues with triple drops and anthemic slammers now, is he? Producer and Utopia supremo Mako instead discussed cats and cheese.
You’ve just released two fantastic, unique tunes on Warm: ‘A Break From Ritual’ and ‘What A Little Moonlight Can Do’…
Well I don’t agree that they are fantastic or unique as they remind me a lot of old school flavours and have few original elements.
But thank you for the kind words. I’m certainly not ungrateful for the love but if you had heard them as many times as I have then you would be really picky too! If you analyse something long enough the mind will come to perceive faults and negativity. I think it helps in a shallow world to look under the surface though so I tend to look inward a lot. A paradoxical notion.
Heath sent me a tune called ‘Ritual’ and asked me if I was up for writing something like that. I sampled a real short bongo section from it and made some fresh drums, some pads and arranged it. It was an experiment in getting more low mid frequencies into a tune. I found some congas that I liked and made some drums from them as up until that point I was using this woody clicky snare in almost every tune, to where DLR – rightly – had a cheesy dig at me for it, so I owe him really. I love him dearly: he’s single handedly improved my production by 50 percent and is open with his opinions.
In the clicky snare tune, the mid tones suffered as I had to push the bass up loud to compensate for the lack of mids. Now with the extra mid of the congas, the mix was better as I had to push the bass less. Or so I thought at the time. Now I prefer the old snare, proving you can’t win.
With ‘What A Little Moonlight Can Do’ was I getting obsessed with this plug-in called the multimeter that DLR showed me. I wanted to get the average loudness levels up to -2/-3 db without too much bad distortion. Everyone will tell you that its too much and that between -9 and -6db is a great place. They are right however, and my tune is sonically-weakened from the obsession. But thats ok: I learnt a lot and I’ve moved on. After doing the original loop I extended it out, did a middle breakdown and found this old vocal sample that I fell in love with straight away.
I love the moon; for me it’s a symbol of unification and peace so to incorporate it into artwork and music is vibing!
You mention Heath: how did the linkup between you and Warm Comms come about?
(note! Warm mix at end of piece)
I’d been aware of the label for sometime when Heath hit me up (a couple of years ago now) for some tunes. He put his money where his mouth was and we sorted out the 12″ which was ‘Whatever Whatever/I Used To Be Like You’. It was well received so I’ve kept Heath in the loop with certain tunes and we’ve managed to sort another record out.
You run a label called Utopia with many, many great artists, when do you get time to produce?
Sacrifice is the only way I get time to produce. I try and treat it like a 10am-8pm operation, with a two hour break somewhere for lunch and a gym session. I get up and get on it almost straight away and don’t really do much else. It’s hard enough to manage the label to a satisfactory degree.
When I’m not writing music and I need a break I tend to listen to the sound of the world, like my neighbour playing his piano downstairs, the rustling of the trees outside which sound like the sea and the kitty kat meows of ‘give me your attention now please’.
Do you collaborate with some of the Utopia people in terms of exchange ideas etc?
All the time. I’ve truly become Utopia’s engineer now and with that people are willing to send me ideas and loops for me to listen too with a view to be coming in on the session. It’s great as it gives me the opportunity to pick and choose projects that I’m really really feeling. I’ve managed to get a couple of sick tunes done this way already and want it to continue.
You sound very happy with things and rightly so but it wasn’t always this way?
I used to have mad panic attacks throughout my 20s but they stopped after I had a self-realisation of where my fear was coming from: ultimately the fear of death/loss. After that things have been a great deal more vibing. It’s become more natural to feel the love, rather than think about it. Big up to all my family for being who they are, Truthseekers.
How do you see 2014 shaping up?
2014 brings a lot of music into the world. Utopia is growing stronger and we have another five releases ready for mastering. I don’t wanna give too much away but I’m actually so damn chuffed with the latest music. I think its a step up, we’re moving in a direction that I like and am content with.
I’ve also got a solo EP on Dispatch ready, a remix to do for those guys and a couple of Metalheadz 12″s coming. I’ve also got a couple of tunes coming on DLR’s Metaheadz EP too. Its pretty much a Headz/Utopia/Dispatch thing now. I will keep Heath in the loop too but I don’t really want to work with too many labels and spread myself thin. I’m hoping this Submotion Orchestra remix will finally surface!
And 2013? How was it?
2013 was a year of firsts. First solo singles, vinyls etc. first ever Metalheadz signing, first ever Fabric gig, first ever Utopia Music night in Brighton and the best breakfast I’ve ever eaten in my life.
Got more shouts? I feel that… you do.
So many shouts. All Utopia crew, Break (ultra cheeseman), DLR (almost equal cheeseman), Fields (loves cheese but is probably less cheesy than most), dBridge (a big barrel of lovely cheese), Villdog (squat cheese), Sine (flaky cheese), the deadly Detail (Ukrainian cow cheese), Sunchase (musical deep cheese), the wonderful Mikal (tongue-in-cheese), Survival (Ableton cheese), The Sect (long time lovers from other mother cheese), Andyskopes (still gutted about that tune cheesedog), Ant TC1 (northern cheese) and Goldie (head cheese) for supporting the music we love, we’ve got our press cheeseman James@example who I wanna thank too and everyone who supports the music in one way or another I wanna send huge big ups and hugs too.
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