Technimatic seemed to have caught something akin to a warm summer breeze: an uplift, taking off into the ether with Desire Paths, the album they’ve been poised to drop for some time now via Shogun. A nice resonance there too: Shogun is all about evolution, the warrior path, the Way of the Warrior… turns out there’s a certain path Technimatic are focused on as well. Or at least one of many that conspired to create a fine album, as you’ll read.
What did you want to put out there, as a statement, with Desire Paths? What’s it say about you as a unit? I feel it’s about travel and how you personally progress through progression.
It is, it’s very much about how we see ourselves and how we view the world around us. But above all we would say its very much based on a journey of trying to create this new path for ourselves as artists. It is no secret that we both work flat out on full time jobs, and this album was all about trying to forge a new direction for ourselves, one that we have both wanted for a very long time.
As we have written in the inside of the album, a ‘Desire Path’ is the path that people choose to take rather than the pre-laid paths laid out before them. We felt this was the perfect metaphor for how we see ourselves. While we exist in two separate lives at the moment: the latter life of music is the ‘Desire Path’ that we are trying to carve.
It’s about perseverance, about never giving up and above all following your heart, even when everyone around you may be on their own paths.
It’s a broad album in scope. When Friction expressed interest in you guys doing an album had some of the stuff been written already? Feels like it’s come together organically.
Originally we were asked by Friction and K-Tee to do an album project for SGN and that was already a really big honour for us. And right from the beginning we said ‘OK, let’s 100% do things this way’. It seemed like a perfect idea at the time, but you don’t fully appreciate just what a journey writing an album is going to take you on both as an artist and as a fan of a music genre that is so close to your heart. As the project developed we felt it needed to just move in whatever direction to go in, and we approached it very much the same way we do individual tracks.
We just kept writing music and putting tracks into an ‘album pot’. The second we stopped thinking about it, the music began to dictate the journey of the project. You are absolutely right in that it came together very organically indeed and in the end we are really proud of the end result. It feels like a complete project and it also feels that we were able to fully express ourselves as artists, and as people, without worrying too much. We sincerely hope that comes across when you hear it.
To the tunes on Desire Paths: where did ‘Imperfections’ come from and what’s it all about?
Throughout the creation process we went through lots of ups and downs, good news and bad news in our personal lives, as well as struggling to find ‘us’ as musicians. At this point in the carving of the album we were also struggling with some of the recent tracks we’d written. We had experimented a bit, and nothing was completely giving us the vibe we wanted. Even the guys at the label were encouraging us but saying the music at this point wasn’t the best we could do. Not in a harsh way, in fact in a very positive way.
So it was a combination of this news, the fact we weren’t quite where we wanted to be and with this we wanted to portray that message to stop over-thinking. The spoken word is about that beauty of music, how we feel it is the one thing in our lives that allows us to take ourselves away and really gain a form of release from these everyday paths. Plus we love a good spoken word sample!
More to the spoken word in a sec. What about ‘One Way’? I love the late night vibe on this.
Yeah: ‘One Way’ was actually created around the time of the Olympics in London and was one of the first pieces of music we wrote for the album. It was during a very busy time for us in our personal lives too and so we were doing things extremely remotely on that. It started out with that very simple opening you still hear on it now, coupled with the vocal.
From here we found a beat and break that we had made a while back we just always loved but had never managed to make it really hit the mark on a track. The second we tried it on those samples and vocal it just hit the button instantly. From there the bass was laid, and then towards the end we added those really deep piano notes that come in on the intro.
Late night was actually when those went in! And I guess relating back to the album again, she sings ‘I feel but one way’.
At the time we were feeling exactly one way, and that was no matter what to make this album the best we could, even if we were having to work, write beats over breakfast, long into the night, very little sleep. It just didn’t matter. We HAD to do it.
Definitely a labour of love!
I think my fave tune here is ‘Music is Music’… where did this wonderful tune come from?
‘Music is music’ was another one of those deep late night sessions. It came from that feeling of just being on your own sometimes, to being a bit of a cog in a machine but yet still having those magical moments where you can be doing something late into the night and feel like you are the only person on the earth experiencing it. The vocal is killer on that one, you can hear how much she’s pouring her heart and soul into every single word and note. Its just so deep and one that still gives us goosebumps when we listen back to it!
httpv://youtu.be/QV3Hf9DG9lY
Also a classic case of the music just dictating the direction. A lot of artists talk about the magic moments where you are a passenger and the music is almost writing itself. That is definitely one of those!
‘Desire Paths’, the interlude: a gem which reminds me of certain albums on Mo’Wax for eg where you’d get a ‘skit’ or otherworldly sample suddenly beamed in and transporting you, did you want to create an album with such moments?
Yes that was one thing we did go into the project with. We wanted the album to be something that you would put on in the car, at home, and be taken on a complete journey from start to finish. Of course that does sound very cliche, but the spoken word interludes are a nod back to our roots and what we loved about early jungle. It helps tie things together, and also really allowed ourselves to be expressive without worrying about drops, breakdowns or the usual templates.
It meant we could really ‘speak’ through our music. And hopefully people take their own messages from each of those interludes too. They certainly speak to us and how we felt making this album as people.
And what are the ‘Lost Times’? Speaking of roots?
I (Andy) had been driving up around my original home town and I’d been listening to the album sketches. It was a very deep moment because at the time we’d also lost some family members. I was driving around where I used to live, where I used to play, places we used to go as kids. I started to feel really nostalgic and the sketch on in the car was this one.
It just summed up the mood perfectly. Afterwards I got back and we both then started discussing this nostalgia and all those moments that are there in your life one minute and before you know it are gone again. It was quite a concept and one that really resonated. So ‘Lost Times’ is a reflection of all those moments that over time disappear but yet stay with you forever. The lost moments that we have in all our lives.
Speaking of time, where’s D&B headed?
Impossible question to answer! I guess the thing with D&B is that it’s always gone where it wants to go. And as long as the people making it put their stamp on it and it still remains a form of expression, who knows where it could go. But we are in a very good place with it musically, and we are all lucky enough to be fans of this music in this particular era.
What looms for you guys in the wake of Desire Paths? What new creativity from you next?
Well, for now we are just going to take a bit of time to have a re-group, see where the album goes and see how people receive it. After that, we are very excited to begin the next chapter! You will have to watch this space!
Any shouts and dates?
Catch us at Plan B this coming Friday, as well as an album launch party at Dojo in Bristol, plus a forthcoming Australia and NZ tour and loads in between. Full lists on our fb page. We’d also like to shout out our partners whose support is second to none, our close family and friends and of course Friction, K-Tee, Dave and Max and Shogun Audio. Finally but by no means least all the D&B heads and promoters who help this scene thrive and be the best dance music community in the world.
