UK duo Revaux – Joe and Ru to be precise – spoke about their work up inside Cabasa’s ‘Wood Pieces EP’ and we were fortunate enough premiere the tune itself, a ‘deep dark lurker’ in their own words… scroll down to get lost in it.
Your remix of ‘Pieces’ by Cabasa (image below) is excellent, so what was in your mind when you started work on it, what did you want to design? I love the very gentle understated ‘industrial’ tone on this.
R: Thanks! We knew that the vocal would sound great to a deep, dark lurker. We wanted to try something different with it, it’s probably the most experimental track we’ve put out. It’s easy to fall into the trap of always using the same ideas, structurally and compositionally, so I guess the remix was our attempt at going against our own grain.
J: Yeah we definitely wanted something a bit different. We had a first version floating around for a while until we came to a decision to pretty much start again! But we feel it was worth it.
What sort of studio/gear techniques do you personally gravitate towards?
J: Well we are still very much learning and discovering new techniques and different approaches to production, but the thing that has helped me the most is to not sit down with the mind set of ‘making a tune’. I now usually start by messing around with samples or synths – Xfer’s Serum is a new favourite! – and see if any inspiration comes from that.
R: I agree, the process of sound design and actually producing should be separated as much as possible, within reason. We hit roadblocks constantly trying to design a sound to fill a specifically shaped sonic ‘gap’ in a track, which limits the sound you end up with. By just fiddling about with synths and saving hundreds of your own presets, you end up with a bank of bespoke and original sounds you can build tracks with. But as Joe said, we are still learning. We have a long way to go!
My most hi-tech piece of hardware is my wireless mouse…
Tell us behind the label on this and where are they based?
R: The label’s called Slinkiemusic and they’re based in Nottingham/London. Awesome guys, they were the first label to ever put out any of our drum & bass stuff and gave us a platform that is still paying off. We’ll be making music for them until the day they get bored of us!
… and where is the original track from?
J: Original track is from Cabasa along with Bru-C on the vocals. Kind of a full-time 140 feel, it’s really fresh! Also ‘Nearly Ninety’, the second track on the EP is a great tune.
Where do you yourself check D&B both in terms of out in the clubs and in terms of listening to music?
R: Podcasts! Amoss’ Cranium Sessions are really good, they showcase stellar up and coming talent and unreleased dubs. They just seem to know exactly what I want to listen to! Why search out music when someone else can do it for you? They have their fingers on the pulse when it comes to fresh mixes, releases and D&B events.
J: I find endlessly scrolling through SoundCloud can help you find stuff you wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else.
OK thanks very much and what will we look out for next from you, Revaux?
R: We’re making loads of new music at the moment but nothing is set in stone yet, we’re hoping some fresh bits might gain traction and draw the attention of some more labels but for now, our focus is mainly on production.
J: … and hopefully some collaborations!
