Survival and Silent Witness have joined fores for a new ep on Dispatch, back in full force for the first time since their In From The Wild album… and for the ep they’re flanked by some excellent remixes too. All in all it’s firing.
Hi, the new ep is punishing. I turned it up full and it almost blew my brains out. When did you guys start work on it?
S: Well the EP was started quite a while ago now, I think ‘Cutter’ was the first tune we did for it. ‘Trust No One’ came a few months after when we were trying to get the rest of the remixes sorted.
SW: Survival moved studio and it was the first bunch of tunes we did at the new place. Always good to move the studio about!
Back to ‘Trust No One’ it’s a monster tune and the title is blunt, what do you mean by it? Is this aimed at anyone?
S: Ha ha ha. Maybe it is… check the vocal sample in the tune.
And ‘Cutter’, when did this monster evolve? Many DJs must be after this tune? Live I’d imagine is killer.
SW: Woolwich, South London, is where one travels to write with Survival. Sometimes you can’t help being influenced by your surroundings. Careful!
S: I think it must be nearly a year ago now, and yeah: had people driving me mad for ages about that one and Ant TC 1’d been on the hold down.
So what’s the special ‘something’ that comes from you guys’ collaborating? It must be easy as you both have considerable history.
S: Yeah I think our individual styles complement each other very well. I’ve been working with Dan for nearly 10 years, so it all comes pretty easy now.
… so could you break down what you both do, creation-wise?
SW: I tend to focus on the synthesis, while Steve is more sample-based in his approach. It helps to add more to the music that way, by focusing on our different strengths.
Definitely more to come!
Tell us about the ‘Fletcher’ remixes on here. Three stonkers. I love the vibe on the Depth Mode, to select one.
S: Well, the response was overwhelming and took me, Silent Witness, and Ant and Alex at Dispatch quite a while to get through them all. We really liked that one because it was one of the more original remixes.
Unfortunately a lot of people just took the samples we gave them and used them in the same structure that was in the original, the same turnarounds on the bass and drums… for me that was instant delete!
We wanted originality. The tracks from Depth Mode, Minor Rain and Diecast really stood out because they did something different, not just plonked our samples in and wrote new beats.
SW: It was cool to see the response, and the work done by those guys is really good. It’s great to see!
What work is happening in your respective camps?
SW: I’ve been doing solo work, with recent releases on Noisia’s Invisible: ‘Being Human’
I have more solo releases planned for Triple Seed Recordings, the latest being the Black Raven ep, as well as sample packs for Sample Genie. Expect more Collabs with Survival, Prolix, and Break, amongst others.
S: I’ve got a couple of projects on the go at the mo, main one being SCAR with Script.
I’m also working on some new survival material for the end of this year so it’s going to be a busy one.
Any final shouts?
S&SW: Just to Tony and Alex up there at Dispatch HQ and all the guys that took the time to write and send in remixes, especially Minor Rain, Depth Mode and Diecast Big up guys thanks for the amazing music.
