Winner of Best Breakthrough Producer at the Drum&BassArena Awards 2012, king of collaborations, trumpet owner…
However you introduce Critical Music’s Mefjus, one topic we can all agree on is this… He’s a bit of a badman.
The Contemporary EP is a speaker-blistering case in point. Out this week, it’s led by a huge collaboration with Icicle and contains three other game-changing cuts. We called him up to find out what he’s up to right now.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=124ANbmnvAU
Contemporary with Icicle… Heaviness!
Thank you! We played a gig together in Vienna last year and started talking about writing some tunes together and we’ve ended up with two. One for his forthcoming album on Shogun and one for this EP on Critical. It worked out really well, Icy is great fun to work with, I’m happy with how things have worked out, both tracks developed very nicely.
Hold up… You just mentioned an Icicle album?!
Yes, there’s one coming. I don’t think I can talk too much about it but we wanted to make sure both of our labels were happy so Shogun has a track and Critical has a track. It’s only fair! We debuted the other track when we DJ’d together at a surprise back to back set a few weekends ago.
I heard about that, sounds like you had fun…
We were both on the same line-up playing at the same time and thought it was a bit of a shame, so we asked K-Tee from Shogun if we could go back to back. He made it happen, for real. It was officially one of my favourite ever gigs.
Amazing. So you’re all about the collabos – There was Struggle & The Pain late last year with M-Force. There’s Twisted with Phace & Misanthrop. And there’s Mythos and Blunt with InsideInfo on Virus which remain huge!
Thanks man. I do like to have company every now and again; it can get a bit boring in the studio on your own. Spending 12 hours in isolation can make you can go crazy. I love working with people I like, having fun and getting inspired. There are a lot of really cool guys making drum & bass and it’s great to spend time with them and learn from each other. I love it.
One of the comments on the YouTube vid for Mythos says they’d like it played at their funeral… What do you make of that?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR1CnmhbmoQ
Hahah! Wow. I have to take that as a compliment! This one has been very special for us, it developed really weirdly; we were on the 10th version and Paul had this idea about sampling a really pitched down bass. We got this weird crackling, predator effect and we rendered it down. That’s how we arrived at the final version.
Happy accidents…
Yes exactly. You never wake up in the morning thinking ‘oh today I’ll make a sound like the predator’, they just happen along the creative journey.
Who else would you like to work with in D&B?
I’ve worked with a lot of inspiring guys. I’d love to work with Phace & Misanthrop again and I’d love to work with Tom Rockwell at some point. He doesn’t release loads of tunes but every tune he releases is a total gamechanger. It’s like wow.
Who would you like to work with in the wider world of D&B?
I’d love to do some hip-hop collaborations but all my favourite hip-hop guys are dead! Like ODB or Guru. They’re the best MCs of all time and they’re dead. There are a lot of great MCs in Austria and I’m thinking about ghost writing an album for one of them. I started working on tracks for my album recently, I didn’t set myself any constraints and ended up with three hip-hop tracks.
Cool!
Yeah it has been. I’m just making new sounds and playing with new techniques. I don’t want any boundaries at all. So right now I’m busy on the hip-hop but who knows what the end result will be. I’m going to have a lot of fun finding out.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zGMZwReVaI
What else can you tell us about this current EP?
I wanted to create some completely different tracks but still have a sense of consistency. I wrote a lot of different things during the whole process and these were the four that I was most happy with. I’ve actually been working on some of these tracks for years. People seem to be enjoying them which has been good.
Have you found this new material has reached a wider range of DJs?
They’re all being supported really well. Andy C seems to be playing a lot of my tunes right now, which is really cool. I saw him play at Outlook and he played five or six tunes of mine. I thought ‘wow, okay!’ That was wicked. I’m always really pleased with Phace & Misanthrop’s continuous support, they’ve been crucial to my career and such an inspiration. To have your idols play your tunes is very special. I’ll never forget it.
Speaking of Phace & Misanthrop, let’s just big the hell up out of THIS remix…
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhGXxZG22iM
Haha! Thank you man. I was honoured they approached me with this, it’s one of my favourite tracks on the album. I wanted to make it special. It was tough because the track is in D and not C which most D&B tracks are in. It was a big challenge but I think it’s worked. Martijn from Noisia was very complimentary about it. I couldn’t ask for more.
Props. So I heard you recently bought a trumpet…
I did! I used to play it when I was a kid. I picked it up and suddenly realised I’d forgotten everything. So I’m starting from scratch again but loving the learning process. I got a condenser mic and recorded every note and saved them. I’d love to make some instrumentals and jam along with them but I need to practice a lot more to do that though!
Good luck! Final question… It’s the Drum&BassArena Awards 2013 in just over a month’s time. You had a great year last year, who do you think should win any awards this year?
Good question! I’d love to see Linguistics win as Best MC. Best album? Maybe Camo & Krooked? They nailed it this year. I love their new direction, they’re making proper music, I have nothing but respect for them. Best producer? Noisia, every time!
Contemporary is out now. Listen and download.
