Red Army: strong coffee, Eno, ‘Crispin Glover’, Flying Lotus… some random keywords that immediately pique interest.
Let’s not stop with the keywords: let’s keep them coming.
Here’s some words that I wrote down when I listened to the High Grade ep: rogue, sentinel, broken, envelope, black box, translation, view, deactivate, window, orange heat, intersection, photographs, reflection, stay in…
‘Stay in’ is perfect, that pretty much sums up most of this EP as I’m not the most social of people. I have found a lot of my producer friends are the same way.
You can find us as the wallflowers at most D&B shows.
I feel like you are utterly unique in your approach to D&B. I almost don’t want to talk to you about it as that would mean exploding the sense of mystery around the beats! Where are you based?
Wow thank you. I am currently based out of Sacramento, California.
I love the resonating vibe of the High Grade ep.
Well, around these parts, if your D&B is not dancefloor enough, they’re going to let you know. So ‘High Grade’ was kind of my middle finger to all of the people who say such things.
If you try to write banger after banger, you’re going to be bored quick and you’re going to bore your audience even quicker. Constructive criticisms are the best as they make you work outside of your comfort zone.
What things do you do to get into the vibe of producing in the day (or night)… what gets you warmed up?
Coffee, lots of coffee. I have this ritual where I grab some coffee and scan the internet for about 20 minutes or so, kind of wakes my mind up and I’m usually ready to go from there.
‘Crispin Glover’ caught me, can you tell us what inspired it?
There are a lot of beautiful compositions being written in D&B measures: this was my attempt at writing something which reminds me of being a little kid and being somewhat futuristic at the same time, while having a pretty movie soundtrack type feel to it.
What’s a little habit in the studio of which you’re fond, something that cuts out the unwanted processes and straight to the good stuff?
I’m getting better at utilizing my resources. I used to be super stubborn and never ask for advice or critiques of my music. Now I welcome it, someone is always going to hear something you don’t or refuse to.
You seem to love synths. I love synths too! Is the music synth-orientated would you say?
It is synth-oriented. I come from a time where you were reliant on a hardware sampler. I still treat my set up the same, only with software samplers. I love to manipulate sounds ’till they sound like they could be a ‘real’ synth. Cubase’s Padshop Pro is my new favorite toy for that… granular synthesis is a wonderful thing.
What’s some music that inspires… any genre.
I really love the mid 90s Mo’Wax sound… still to this day, you cannot replicate it.
M83, Vangelis, Brian Eno, Flying Lotus, The Cure, My Bloody Valentine, Malory, Slowdive, dBridge, Homemade Weapons, Clima… there’s a lot of really great talent coming out of the woodworks of D&B right now.
How did the linkup with Turbine Music come about… and what next from you?
The Clima guys took a couple of my unsigned tunes and gave them to a few of their friends, ‘Metastasis’ happened to be one of them and Dan approached me about it. Then when it came time for the EP, I gave him about seven tunes to choose from and the ones he picked worked so well together, it was like he was in my mind.
What next, Red Army?
Up next I have a split 7” with Clima coming out for the Turbine Vinyl Series and another EP for NY based label Ground Mass.