We loudly bugged the one and only Wickaman to take us into his new compilation: he was glad to show us around, not to mention take us into a mix: check the end of the spot.
So how’s life been recently, Wickaman?
Life at The Bughouse camp has been busy. We’ve been preparing the latest release Wickaman presents: Bugged Out which has taken up a lot of time: 24 in-house tracks is a lot to put out at once when you consider all the mixing down and mastering, I’ve never put out so many original tracks at once.
At the same time we have been putting together Salaryman’s album set to drop before the year is out.
So when did Bugged Out arise, as a project… and what was the unifying goal behind it? It’s pure high-velocity D&B.
The idea to put this album out came at the beginning of the year.
I wanted to do something which showcased all of the artists on the label.
I enjoy all of the sub-genres within drum and bass so I wanted the album to be as varied and versatile as possible, although it ended up being quite high-velocity as you say.
Take us into one or tunes here… there’s such diversity. ‘Poison’, the Dillinja-esque ‘Switch Me On’, ‘Paradise’, ‘Anti Gravity’, ‘Farcry’, the rowdy title tune…
The track that was most fun to make has to be ‘Bugged Out (The Professional)’.
Hoodlum, Narco and myself love to play with analogue gear. We turned my studio into what resembled a science lab of wires and machines.
We patched all kinds of analogue synths, patch bays, guitar pedals, and anything else we could get our hands on and experimented with it.
It was a lot of fun, there was no telling what sound was going to come out next, we had the midi for the bass line ready then run it through the equipment, we spent the whole day and night twisting up sounds.
You have a lot of collaborators here, and I note Dee Freer too who I’ve seen you associated with in past…
It’s been great working with Dee, we have done as lot over the past three years, in fact we have a whole catalogue ready to go so we will be consistently releasing a lot of material together in near future.
There are a lot of people on Bugged Out who I’ve worked with for a long time: Mavrik, Hoodlum, Sudden Def and RV, Golden and Mythz. It has been cool to add new people to the list of collaborators: Luke B, Salaryman, Klimax, Miss Tantrum and MirrormirroR.
I can’t help it, I love to work with other people as well as on my own.
Some people like Salaryman, Mythz and Ziz appear in their own right too, sounds good! How are they part of the album (which some may see as being a Wickaman album)?
Well the album was never meant to be a Wickaman album, it was always meant to be a variety of artists although I know it’s Wickaman heavy, I’ve been pushing for Mythz to do something solo for a while now, this was the first time he’s worked completely alone and I’m pleased with the result.
Salaryman has released with us a couple of times before and I hope to have him around as long as possible.
Ziz and I go way back, he is a childhood friend of mine and we have been taking about putting tracks out for years, finally it has happened, watch this space for more filth coming from him.
You’re part of D&B for a long time now, so you must have some good road stories??
That’s actually a hard question to answer, so much has happened. The most fun I think I can say I’ve had on a road trip was when I went to Germany with Peshay, Moose and IC3.
I can’t remember too much other than Moose forcing everyone to dance.
The mental image there is totally priceless. Where do you actually produce and what’s something in the studio that you would share… some equipment, or maybe a tip?
I produce at home, is more of a comfortable living room than a studio, I’ve never really liked working anywhere that actually looks or feels like a studio, I think it’s because I spend so much time working: when I used to have a studio away from home I found I couldn’t be as spontaneous, if I have an idea I want to put it down without delay, day or night.
A nice piece of equipment that I have recently been enjoying is the Moog Bass Minitaur: I’m having a lot of fun with that, although I do patch it through anything and everything.
Once you open up the lid on it and start experimenting you get some great results!
OK Wickaman: so what else would you say about the release to conclude?
Well, it’s out now and we’re doing a special in iTunes.
I’m pleased how the album has been received, we managed to get it into the iTunes top 40 album dance chart which was a nice start.