‘We will continue to release music that other people don’t and not do the obvious things’
We sat down with Silent Dust who chatted heartily about the recent outing on their none60 label, ‘The Deku Tree’ and ‘Lone’. Games, leaked demos, outsider artwork and of course music that sounds like nothing else abounds here…
I feel that the new tunes are resonating with people a lot. Can you take us through ‘Deku Tree’?
‘Deku Tree’ was something we had just as a loop for a while that went through a few phases, then I stumbled across the main riff and it reminded me of exploring Zelda dungeons as a kid so I got on youtube and started sampling some sounds from Ocarina of Time!
Tell us about working with HOF and of course ‘Lone’.
HOF is a real talent and everyone should get to know his music! He’s just released a six track EP https://soundcloud.com/theehof/sets/aestimare
‘Lone’ was another track we had been sitting on for a while and thankfully I discovered HOF’s music and I contacted him to see if he’d have any interest in collaborating.
Thankfully he said yes and he completely nailed what we wanted from a guest verse on the track.
It’s quite a personal track to me and I think it’s one of the best things we’ve made so If people are connecting to it then that really means a lot.
I am always knocked out by your graphic art, something so overlooked by people now in general… can you tell us about it? I know we’ve touched on it before. It evokes all sorts with me.
We have a few specific things we look for when it comes to the none60 art and style but really I think we’ve just been lucky to know talented people that are willing to work with us and get what we are trying to go for.
The art for ‘Lone/The Deku Tree’ is by a collage artist I found on deviantart by woefoep. It wasn’t specifically made for the release but I think it really suits ‘Lone’.
Your self-titled debut album really hit hard with people… the style, the atmosphere, and this was at a time when downtempo/offshhots of D&B and so forth wasn’t as prevalent as now I think. So will another album approach in near future from you?
It did come at a time when it wasn’t as easy to do something different, there is a lot of music from that period that never even came out so the fact we actually got it released physically is a bit of a miracle!
We’ve been talking about and attempting to work on a follow up since we released our debut but it’s about knowing what we actually want to do with it, for a while we wanted to make something that was really varied in style and quite a contrast to Silent Dust but I think we’ve since changed our mind.
For now I think we will continue to try for singles but I’d like to think eventually we will release a follow up.
What’s the big influences in your music right now, what’s sort of getting under your skin?
I still find myself listening to the Jai Paul “leaked” demo album thing or whatever it was quite a lot, I love the production on it and he’s one of those artists that can really put a song together rather than just expanding on an 8 bar loop for five minutes like some of us less talented individuals!
I wanted to mention your podcasts, always ace and full of interesting things, influences, banter and great music, can you tell us what is the approach to them?
Thanks! I’m glad you like them! It’s just about playing good,eclectic music and hopefully exposing our audience to music they may not have heard yet. It’s also great to get guests in, it was a real honour having Doc Scott put together a mix for the podcast and he completely got what we are going for with the podcast!
What’s some things you’ve seen recently which have resonated with you? Anything.
I recently played through Shovel Knight and I loved every minute of it! If you grew up playing platform games, its a real love letter to that era. It gets everything right!
I’ve recently discovered Nao: production from Jai Paul’s brother A.K Paul.
I really enjoyed Better Call Saul, I think it took all the subtlety of the earlier Breaking Bad seasons and combined it with the humour that only Bob Odenkirk can bring.
Film-wise I’ve not really seen much lately but I did buy Interstellar and thought that was incredible,
I’m a sap for high concept emotional Sci-Fi so it ticked all my boxes.
My final one would be another game: I’ve recently started playing The Witcher 3.
It’s an absolutely huge game so if by this time next year we haven’t seen any more Silent Dust releases on none60 you know what to blame! I thoroughly recomend it though and I’m not really one for magic and quests but Game of Thrones has made fantasy cool right? RIGHT?!
I’d also like to mention Sina.’s recent music as he has blown me away with the emotion he can get into a track.
This one really hit me when I first heard it: he released it himself before I heard it so I’m still a bit annoyed we couldnt get this one out on none60!
If you could time travel, where would you go back to? Why?
I’d love to go back to the 90s but to be my age now, knowing what I know. It would be amazing to see how our music would go down back then and how the times, equipment and clubs would effect our production.
I wasn’t really old enough to get out and experience the music I was listening to in my bedroom growing up so I’d love to go back and go to some of the seminal raves or see Oasis in their prime!
If you could perform your stuff live in the most simple, organic way possible, what would you do? I had this thought a while ago that gigs are sometimes too fraught with wires, gear soundchecks, flights of stairs, traffic jams… it’s offputting to some.
Well, one half of Silent Dust can play many instruments so it could work but I’ve only recently started to play guitar so I need to get a bit better before we can do something!
I think we would probably combine the music with a visual artist but I do completely agree with you that it is difficult to do a live show at this level so I don’t blame people for doing laptop sets or turning up with a cd wallet.
Sometimes it’s just about hearing the music love on a decent sound system surrounded by people that also love the music.
To finish, what’s the vision for none60, and what’s next?
We will continue to release music that other people don’t and not do the obvious things…. so If you have any music that other people tell you is too weird then send it our way!
We’ve spoken about maybe putting on a night somewhere and to get as many none60 artists involved as possible but I think that may be a way off yet.
We’d also like to release a compilation album at some point too but again it’s about getting the right tracks from everyone but it’s definitely something to think about!
Keep an eye out for a video for Banzulu’s ‘Nobody Move’: it’s by Laurie Gibbs who did the fantastic video for Om Unit’s remix of ‘The Giant’.