“It’s just me”

 
Since the early days of rave in the late 1980s, dance music has taken many fascinating evolutionary turns. From acid house to hardcore, from jungle to grime and dubstep, the last quarter of a decade has seen innumerable sonic evolutions take their brief turn in the limelight. And while many styles, sounds and their respective scenes seem to melt away as quickly as they erupt, certain genres persistently endure, regardless of passing trends or what magazines like this one have to say.

After nearly two decades in existence, drum & bass can now quite rightly be considered alongside house or techno as one of the immovable bulwarks of dance-music culture; taking its time in the sun when fashion dictates, but then happily retreating to the shadows to do its own thing while passing trends carry the media and masses’ attentions elsewhere.

And so, in this current house-music-obsessed moment, where it seems every producer is setting their rhythms to a slower pace and every raver pretending they’ve been dancing to 4/4 grooves since the days they were, in truth, chewing their day-glo faces off at Hospitality or pinching their dad’s credit card to buy the latest Lethal Bizzle track on iTunes, despite what the internet is telling you, D&B is still doing its thing the way it always has – pushing the sonic envelope, with its hood up and head down, and with two fingers proudly up against the rest of the dance-music world.

With the public’s attentions focused elsewhere, and the genre’s representation on mainstream radio giving many the impression that D&B has transmogrified into some horrendous strain of vocal-led, fast Euro-trance, the true exponents of the sound have been left to do their thing, free from the hype-beasting and trend enslavement that afflicts any cultural form when it reaches an apex of popularity.

One such exponent is London-based, Belgian-born, Alix Perez, an effortlessly cool 27-year-old DJ and producer signed to DJ Friction’s Shogun Audio record label who, as Trap discovered on a blisteringly cold day in early March ahead of the release of his second album, exhibits the artistic stubbornness and self-conviction that any true creative must possess by default. Rather than jumping ship into the swirling ocean of bass-music hype, Perez has opted to stay on board, and help steer the vessel in a direction that he wants it to go. As his new album, titled ‘Chroma Chords’, rudely demonstrates, that direction is a bold and interesting one, which will leave many questioning their ideas of what drum & bass actual is, and can be…

“I can’t keep making the same thing over and over.”

While others may have strayed from D&B to return to the techno roots that ignited their love for electronica in the days before jungle or D&B even existed, Perez’s relatively younger years and his upbringing in the South of France and the rural South-West of England mean that his heritage lies very much elsewhere… His was an adolescence soundtracked by French and US Golden Era hip-hop; a love that’s never strayed far from his heart and that’s shown itself through both his drum & bass productions as Alix Perez and, more recently and more directly, his painfully soulful instrumental hip-hop tracks under the ARP101 moniker for Alexander Nut’s revered Eglo imprint.

‘Chroma Chords’ is, therefore, quite unlike any D&B album you’ve heard before. Focusing mostly on half-time, 85bpm rhythms that could just as easily be termed hip-hop as drum & bass, and featuring a slew of incredible new vocalists and legendary UK rappers, Perez’s sophomore long-player casts both the producer and his genre of choice in a new light. And as Trap discovered when we sat down with him in the kitchen of his Dalston flat, that was exactly his intention all along…

“I’ve lived in London for a good few  years now, but I’m originally from Belgium; I grew up there until I was five”

He begins, exhaling a thick plume of smoke across the table as he explains how he first arrived in Britain.

“I don’t remember much of it. I moved to Montpellier in the South of France from there and then, when I was 14, I moved to the UK, to a tiny village just outside Exeter. It was a bit overwhelming. I couldn’t speak hardly any English; it was tough. I was in a brand-new environment, didn’t have any friends and got a lot of stick for being ‘French’. So, I battled through it at first, but then, I’d always been a skateboarder and there were two skaters in the school; they pretty much saved me, I guess.

“They were listening to tapes of D&B and stuff, and my mum, she used to DJ and go to the early Metalheadz nights at Blue Note and stuff like that, so I’d already discovered the music through her. When I hooked up with those guys at school, they were on the same page.”

Back then, in the late 1990s, before the internet was in every home and an mp3 was unheard of, D&B was pretty much still exclusively a UK thing, only heard either at raves, on tape packs or pirate radio. With that in mind, what was the teenage Alix Perez listening to on his skateboard back in France?

“Hip-hop. A lot of it,” he declares instantly. “Obviously, I was only 12 or 13, so a lot of guilty cheese music like anyone that age, but then I was skating a lot and everyone just listened to French hip-hop like I Am and NTM. And I’d just discovered the New York stuff; Rakim, Big L – those guys are still my top MCs. But then I moved here… If I’d stayed in France, it would have just been all about hip-hop for me.”

It’s an admission that wouldn’t surprise anyone aware of Perez’s work over the last eight years. The track that really announced his presence on the then bristling D&B scene was his 2007 link-up with Sabre, ‘Solitary Native’, a true classic of the genre that brazenly and beautifully makes use of the same Billy Cobham sample as legendary US hip-hop outfit Souls Of Mischief’s seminal ’93 Til Infinity’. The hip-hop influence has always run deep in Perez’s work, and he has no hesitation confirming that it will always be his true love…

“It most definitely is,” he states, looking us straight in the eye. “I listen to all sorts, from punk to jazz to hip-hop; I need to. I play drum & bass and I’m aware of what’s going on, but I spend most my time listening to other music, and that’s where I try to take influence from.”

This statement is backed in force by one listen to ‘Chroma Chords’. Packed with half-time grooves and featuring bars from MCs including Foreign Beggars, Jehst and the indomitable Riko, alongside new London talent They Call Me Raptor, it’s a real step forward for the producer. And it’s a progression that could be heard coming a couple of years back, when the Londoner dropped a couple of ultra-fresh hip-hop instrumentals for the achingly on-point Eglo imprint under his ARP101 guise…

“I purely started the alias thing because I was contractually tied in with Shogun,” he explains, leaning back in his chair. “It was a bit of an accident; I made a few bits and sent them to Alex Nut and he picked up on them. I really rated Eglo, so that was a nice surprise.

“In the last 18 months, I’ve being doing the album, and I found when I was making it, there was a lot of crossover and influence coming from the ARP101 stuff. I wanted to be free with this record and write what I wanted, really try and bring in my influences… The template is 85bpm, so half the traditional 170bpm. So that was the idea, to still work at that tempo but bring something new to it; to the point, where people are not quite sure if it’s 85bpm or 70bpm or whatever… You know, blurring the lines a little bit.

“And then just bringing a world of influence. There are a lot of nods to Brainfeeder, Eglo, Amon Tobin, Actress, Two Inch Punch, Om Unit, to Kendrik Lemar and the musical rap music that’s such a breath of fresh air right now. I wanted to create something at the D&B tempo, but that brought those vibes and flavours… Of course, there are nods to my first album, I didn’t want to shock people too much; I wanted to warm them to the direction I’m heading now. Obviously, I still love writing D&B, but I think there are a lot more things we can do with it. That was my point.

“A lot of the tracks, although they’re not straight D&B,” he continues breathlessly, “I play them in my sets and they work. It brings diversity to that hour I’m playing in a club. And it works; it catches people’s attention, provides those ups and downs, which is how it should be; not just one linear set where everything is so similar it blends into one track…”

“I still love writing D&B”

 
All this explains neatly Perez’s musical vision and why his productions – and more specifically the new album – sound the way they do. However, you only need to look at the man and his obvious love for the finer things in style and fashion to know that this is someone who cares how the outside world perceives him. With that in mind, we have to question whether his motivations to work under an alias and his determination to bring something new and relevant to the D&B template, were driven by a desire to prove wrong those who might dismiss the genre, and therefore the producer himself, as irrelevant and creatively bereft…

“Well, that’s exactly my point with the album; to break that barrier, put myself out there where I can be regarded as a producer, not just pigeonholed into one style and overlooked. In bass music now, your average person was into jungle or D&B at one point, but I guess people want to feel like they’ve moved on and will just dismiss the entire genre. I don’t blame them, I get it, but I think it’s quite sad, as there’s some amazing music that can still be made at that tempo.

“So I’ve built a template with this album where I can cross over to other things and shift in tempo; I need that to keep myself interested. I can’t keep making the same thing over and over, I need to challenge myself and try to be innovative and bring something new. I hope people get it, but at the same time, I wrote what was in and on my mind; it was a natural process.

“It’s just me. It’s a snapshot of where I’m at and where I’m about to go. I’ve been quite since the last album, it’s taken me a long time to deliver this, but I didn’t want to rush it and I had a lot of ideas behind it, so it took a while. But I’d rather that than put out straight-up D&B tunes every week that are all the same; I’d rather come with an actual project that shows me and my diversity as a producer.”

While Perez’s influences and approach are uniquely his, the new perspective on drum & bass that he’s so keen to push is currently shared by a handful of his peers, with the likes of Om Unit, Dub Phyzikz and of course Exit Records boss dBridge and label mates SpectraSoul all wowing the critics with recent releases that have proven the D&B template is far from exhausted, exploring alternate rhythmic structures and bringing new influences to the sound. With that in mind, does the producer believe the genre really has a long-term future, or is all this just a clever way to plot an escape plan?

“No, not at all, I love this music,” he says without hesitation. “I don’t want to alienate myself from drum & bass at all, because I love it and love playing D&B nights, and I want that to carry on. But I just hope we can let be what it can be, and not be so militant about ‘how it should be’ – there’s no way it should be.

“For me, in terms of receiving music from other people, I hate receiving clones of clones of clones, it’s quite depressing sometimes and that can occasionally push me away a bit and make me reconsider where I am and what I’m doing. But, like I said, that’s the point of the album; drum & bass can be so much more. I want to diversify and be able to play at different nights and stuff. I just think, the way genres can and are crossing over, there’s just so much potential. And I’m hoping people are gonna carry on bringing more to the table; there are others, it’s not just me.

“Om Unit is a great example; his music is at a D&B tempo, but it’s so different. It’s great; it ties things into the juke sound, and when you look it at 85bpm, it’s really close to so many things that are happening at the moment, like the whole Hud Mo thing. At half-time, it’s just a few beats per minute separating D&B from so many other sounds. It all blends in, and that’s what I’m now able to do with my sets.”

Listening to him talk, you’re left in little doubt that this is an individual who feels he has a point to prove to the wider world. For a man with cultural interests and passions as broad as his, the respect his name receives within the world of D&B clearly, and understandably, isn’t enough. However, although he professes hip-hop as his first love, and much of the music he now makes is eons away from the traditional form of drum & bass, Alix Perez is still there, unswayed by the temptation to join the house-music hype train and  keeping true to what he loves  and believes in…

“Drum & bass is still hugely important to me,” he says pensively, stubbing out his third cigarette of the hour and watching its blue smoke trails slowly rise between us. “I just wish people gave it a bit more time. I’m less frustrated now than perhaps I once was; because I’m doing my thing and it’s working for me. But I understand that if you don’t know where you’re looking and only seeing the surface, then you might not find that music interesting or challenging and think the genre’s lost its way. But underneath, there’s just so much…

‘Chroma Chords’ is out now on Shogun Audio.

@alixperez

@arp101

 
 
Words: Jon Cook

Pictures: Ollie Grove

RISE UP #011 – CHUNKY

 
Number eleven in our Rise Up series comes from one of the underground’s most intriguing and multi-faceted talents – Swamp 81 producer and mic-man Chunky.

If you’ve caught one of Loefah’s sets in the last year or two, you’ll have heard the Zimbabwe-born, Manchester-based Chunky hosting proceedings in his own totally unique style. And if you’ve checked his records for Swamp, you’ll know there’s more than just bags of enthusiasm and a few jokes words behind Chunky’s musical contributions…

Press play to hear one of the most interesting and wide-reaching mixes we’ve yet had the pleasure to present – reaching deep and wide across everything from classic house and electro to R&B, hip-hop and even bashment instrumentals.

@mcrchunky

RISE UP #010 – MY NU LENG

Trap’s tenth Rise Up mix comes in hard from My Nu Leng, delivering one of the finest mixes that our hot-talent-focused series has yet produced.

 
While 2012 saw the Bristol-based duo announce themselves with their outrageously on-point ‘The Grid’ for 877 Records, 2013 is already looking seriously strong for My Nu Leng, with their ‘Elite’ EP for the unstoppable Black Butter imprint setting off a year that will only bring big things for the twosome.

 
My Nu Leng are clearly loving what they do, a fact proven by this mix, which delves deep across genres, from house and grime, to dubstep, techno, garage and beyond, over one and quarter hours of delicious bass-weight and unshakable grooves.

 
Download or stream Rise Up #010 using the player below, and check the latest issue for a Q&A with the guys.

TRACKLIST:

1. Clint Mansell – ‘Are You Receiving?’

35. Breakage – ‘The Shroud’

 
soundcloud.com/mynuleng

ARMY OF ONE

 
They say everything in life goes in circles. To anyone with a passing interest in the evolution of electronic music, the last couple of decades have proven this maxim right time and time again. Who would have thought, back in the glory days of dubstep or D&B, that in the early years of this Millennium’s second decade the underground would again be dominated by a sound many had long dismissed as the shallow and commercially driven soundtrack of chain clubs and wine bars?

We are, of course, talking about house music; a genre whose renaissance over recent years has injected a fresh, more refined dynamism into a dance music world increasingly tired with the sonic intensity fostered by the genres that dominated the UK dance underground for much of the last decade. This is not, however, house music as you probably knew it before…

The sound dominating UK dancefloors and internet radio isn’t the thin, simplistic tones and handbag vocals pushed by tacky radio DJs and even worse super clubs, which provided the reference point for house music to many over the last 15 years. This is house music in the original spirit of the sound and made by a generation who grew up listening to garage, dubstep, hip-hop and D&B, and as such this new take on dance music’s oldest genre has groove, vibes and, most importantly, bass in spades.

At the forefront of this quiet revolution is Maya Jane Coles, a tiny 25-year-old Londoner with a massive talent, whose DJ sets and unshakable productions have switched a whole generation on to the slower-paced charms of house and, in the process, made her into one dance music’s biggest stars. Since the release of her game-changing ‘What They Say’ EP in 2010, the diminutive DJ has won more awards and graced more magazine front covers than many of her peers can dream of in their entire careers.

With the release of her debut album, Trap knew the time had come to feature Maya on our front cover, to help kick off a year in which things are set to go from big to huge for the young Londoner. In the midst of her manic schedule, Miss Coles found time to sit with us and we set about getting to the bottom of her incredible, rapid rise to the top and discovering that there’s a hell of a lot more to her than just house music…

Hi Maya, lovely to meet you. We guess the best place for us to start is with your album…

“Everything’s finished now for the album, but I still don’t have the title; I’m quite last minute with things and the worst thing is always naming tracks! But it’s done, and should be out end of March, so not long now. It’s all full-vocal, song-based, electronic stuff – quite different to the club-based tracks people will have heard from me in the past. I’ve got five or six different featured vocalists on there, but the rest of it is all my own vocals.

“It’s been an on-going project for a long time; a couple of the tracks on there are actually around four years old! I’m just really excited though, because, like I said, it’s more than what people might expect of me; I didn’t get into music through club music, I made so many different types of music before I got into house and techno, so it’s all my influences and inspirations translated into sound, I guess.”

So, it’s an artist album, a Maya Jane Coles album; not just a collection of house club bangers?

“Yes. This is just what I’ve always done, and I feel like I’m at a stage now where I’m happy to let the rest of the world hear it.”

Can you tell us more about the features on there? Any production collaborations, or is it all just you?

“I’ve done all the production; I don’t tend to collaborate with many producers because I usually have quite a clear vision of what I want a track to sound like. But I love working with guest vocalists, so there’s a few on there. There’s Kim Ann Foxman from Hercules and Love Affair, Miss Kittin, Karin Park – who has done the vocals for the lead single from the album ‘Everything’ – and Tricky, which I’m particularly excited about. People who I was inspired by growing up and looked up to, or people that are new on the scene but have excited me; it’s nice to have a mixture.”

You just mentioned Tricky – we couldn’t help but notice a real Mezzanine-era Massive Attack sound to the track ‘Back To Square One’ on the recent taster EP for the album…

“Oh definitely, that whole Bristol sound, trip-hop – it was a big part of how I got into production. That was one of my first music passions. I guess when I started making music, that sound was my biggest inspiration. I did a remix a while back for Tricky and it was his favourite remix of the package, so I asked him to guest and he was totally up for it.”

You’re obviously keen to stress that the album is much more than just house music, and is the sum of your many influences… Other than dub and trip-hop, what other inspirations lie behind the project?

“When I got into production, I pretty much dabbled in everything and anything. If I discovered a new genre or tune I liked, I’d have a go at my own take on it. It helped growing up in London, because there are so many parties and different things going on. You’re spoilt for choice and exposed to everything from such a young age. From garage and drum & bass, to dubstep, house and techno…

“The whole dubstep sound when it first started, when it was very different to now, that led me on to different sounds. I discovered house music not long after, and it was the first thing I really started going out to. But hip-hop, that was the music that first really got me, when I was 14 or 15, Missy Elliot, Timberland, Pharcyde, Digable Planets, Tribe Called Quest – 1990s hip-hop is a massive passion for me.”

So when was your house music epiphany?

“When I was younger, I was lucky enough to meet people that took me to the right nights; parties like Mulletover and Secretsundaze that were happening in London and very fresh at the time. I remember going and thinking ‘This isn’t what I thought house music was.’ Because what I’d heard until then was very commercial stuff on the radio. From there I just got deeper into it, going to more nights, seeking out what I really liked.”

You were ahead of the curve, treading a path from more bass-driven UK sounds to house and techno that many didn’t come to until years later…

“House is very fashionable now. The change I’ve seen is that house has become a lot more accepted with a wider audience. When I was in Sixth Form, I was listening to house, but most of my friends my age weren’t listening to house music or going to house nights. That’s really evolved now, because if you speak to people that are 16 or 17 in London, a lot of young people are listening to that music. And the genre has expanded; it’s such a broad term, anyway.”

Would you agree that it’s not just the audience for house that’s changed, but the music too? The music you and many others are making has a real focus on the bass…

“There’s definitely an influence from what’s been before; you can hear the garage, bass-driven roots coming back into the currency. And when dubstep went crazy and mainstream; the producers that were producing the more leftfield stuff, a lot of them floated over to house and crossed over, so that was sort of a stepping stone.

“On my album, you’ll definitely hear the club influences; it’s very bassy, so I guess there’s a lot of dub influence in there. My tracks generally revolve around the bassline – I play bass as well -but still, I wouldn’t say it was any one genre. It’s just electronic. I don’t like talking about genres too much. Ultimately, you make music. I don’t like labelling and creating sub genres on top of sub genres; good music is good music.”

And that attitude applies to your album too?

“Yeah exactly; I wouldn’t be able to specify what genre the album is. I’m influenced by so many different things and this final record is a collage of all of that. I want it to be universal music; hopefully the dance music world will embrace it, but I want it to be accepted in the more poppy market too. I like writing catchy hooks; no one ever said pop music needs to be shit, pop is just popular music, if it’s good and catchy, it can be pop – it doesn’t need to be in your face typical radio chart stuff.”

You previously released dubstep under the Nocturnal Sunshine name, while the Maya Jane Coles moniker has been very much all about house. But this album seems to combine the two…

“Nocturnal Sunshine was a name created for a specific sound – that deeper dubstep sound. Maya Jane Coles was and is everything I do, I don’t want boundaries for that name; whatever I produce comes out under that name.”

So it’s just you. As the name of your record label, I Am Me, through which this LP is being released, suggests.

“I never thought, ‘I want to start record label.’ I purely set it up as a platform to release my own stuff, because I didn’t want to sign it to anyone else and be part of someone else’s brand. I just thought, ‘I’ve built something for myself and I’ve got here myself, so I want to keep it that way and not give up my rights.’ It’s a hell of a lot more work, but it’s totally worth it.”

The album is on your own label, you produced every track, you sang vocals; we heard you did the artwork too… You’re an army of one!

“Yeah, I wanted that total creative control. My dad designed artworks for musicians; he did the album covers for the punk band Killing Joke. I was always around creative people and musicians growing up. I’ve always loved painting, illustration, photography – but nothing has ever come before music, that’s always been the passion. It’s hard, because you have to really focus on one thing to get good at it; music is the main thing for now. In the future, though, when I’ve got more time I’d love to pick up on the other things. I love doing big canvases, painting weird creatures and illustrations.”

The last 18 months have seen massive amounts of attention bestowed on you, and you’re now one of the biggest names in a scene that’s nearly as old as you are. How have the house and techno veterans been towards this young girl from London rolling in?

“A lot of the people I play alongside are ten or even 20 years older on than me. But everyone I’ve come across has been amazing. It’s funny when you meet people you’ve known about for a long time and looked up to; it was quite surreal the first year of playing big gigs and being billed amongst DJs I know have been around for 20 years.

“But when you’re new to the scene, you do need to know your roots, so I’ve spent time catching up. But if I’m honest, I spend more time creating what I do than taking in the outside scene; I don’t watch trends and when I’m making music I like to keep my mind blocked from all that, because I don’t want to be influenced by what’s hot. I make music, it comes out naturally. I don’t want to think about what’s selling.”

We’ve left the elephant in the room until last; but we had to draw attention to the fact you’re a woman sooner or later… Female producers are rarer than honest politicians; why do you think there are so few?

“I really don’t know. I guess production is a technical thing and that puts some girls off. There are a lot of girls that DJ and treat it as hobby, but who, I guess, haven’t pushed it. I’d love to see more girls get into it; it’s definitely a geeky thing, music production, I just happened to fall into it when I was young. I loved music and discovering that I could make it myself; that was all I ever wanted to do.

“It’s amazing being in the position I am now, where I get messages on facebook every day from young female producers saying I’ve inspired them to get into it more, there are a lot out there…”

And finally, after the year you had in 2012, winning countless awards and headlining the most respected clubs in the world, and with your album about to drop, is the ambition really still burning like it was when you were just a girl making beats in your room?

“Definitely. I’ve only just reached a tiny, tiny part of what I’m aiming for; I’ve got a lot of bigger ambitions; I’ve got a lot further to go from here. Even within music, I want to do so much more. This is the beginning.”

Maya Jane Coles’ debut album is out in March on I Am Me. Catch her touring this summer and at Eastern Electrics Festival in August.

mayajanecoles.com

SHADOW CHILD

 
It’s no secret really, but Simon Neale, the man behind Shadow Child, has done it all. Working under his chart-storming Dave Spoon moniker, Neale clocked up releases on major dance labels, playing countless big-room dates and even collaborating with So Solid’s Lisa Maffia.

In total contrast, the last year has seen Neale’s productions as Shadow Child generating massive buzz on the dance-music underground. His bass-driven take on the house and garage template has earned releases for the likes of dirtybird and Moda Black, as well as helping establish Food, the label he runs with fellow dirtybird artists Kry Wolf, as one of the labels to watch. Trap caught up with him at the start of what promises to be a massive year… 

Let’s start from the beginning. With two top-forty hits under your belt and countless arena shows in the bag, what made you want to tear it all down and start again?

“Yeah, it seems a bit mad I suppose! I’ll always be proud of what I did with Spoon and it was a project that ultimately exceeded my expectations. However, the whole ‘EDM’ scene had adopted this relentless sound that lacked the dynamics that it used to have. Eventually I just fell out of love with it musically.”

So when was the moment you thought ‘it’s time to change’?

“It sounds ridiculous but that moment came in 2011 on Steve Angello’s Size stage at Creamfields. Playing that stage was supposed to be a huge honor. I honestly have a lot of respect for all the guys that featured on that line-up, but I ended up feeling selfish because I just didn’t want to be there. I have to be 100% into what I’m doing and I think there’s only so much acting you can do when you’re not enjoying it.

“I really wanted to believe in what I was doing again and to bring some fresh inspiration into the studio. During that particular time I put together the beginnings of ‘String Thing’…”

That was the track that pushed Shadow Child into the limelight…

“Yes, ‘String Thing’ has been the catalyst when it comes to Shadow Child. While I was producing as Spoon, I came up with the parts, but it just didn’t fit into what I was doing at the time.

“I’d been sitting on it for a while before I heard Eats Everything’s ‘Entrance Song.’ Granted, both ‘String Thing’ and ‘Entrance Song’ are two completely different tracks, but I really felt they connected in terms of vibe. So I got the ball rolling and sent it over to Eats. Thankfully, he really got behind the record, dropping it throughout his tour and on his Essential Mix.”

At that time, the identity behind Shadow Child was shrouded in secrecy. Was this because you were you worried that the Dave Spoon connection would mar people’s opinion of your new output?

“Well, I really wanted Shadow Child to be completely separate from my other project. There was also a little bit of reservation about a new ‘cooler’ crowd thinking that I’d maybe jumped on something more credible. But I honestly just wanted to let the music do the talking and not feel any creative boundaries like I did before.

“When Barclay [Claude Von Stroke] eventually signed it to dirtybird, I had the confidence to actually hit the reset button. I changed my whole set-up completely, from management down…”

One of the new additions to your set-up is Food, a label you run alongside the guys from Kry Wolf. Why did you decide to join forces?

“We both had our own labels, Sumo Sound and Televizion. We were walking similar paths at the time and ended up trying to sign the same artists. We’re friends and eventually decided it would be best if we joined forces.

“I think Food sits alongside labels like Pets, Hypercolour and NakedNaked, but I hope we can add to the pack with our own thing. I certainly think we can all work together without taking away from each other’s musical assets. I really hope that’s the case anyway!”

What do you think it is about this group of labels and their output that attracts such a wide audience?

“In terms of my Shadow Child output, I think it seems to ride the line between underground and ‘over-accessible’ music, for want of a better word. As time goes on, that line gets thinner so we’ll see how long it lasts, but I think we’re all in a good place with it at the moment.

“I’m always stoked to see lots of people playing my stuff, but I think the appeal is maybe in the simplicity. I get sent so much stunningly produced underground music that’s intelligent and always pushes limits, but at the end of the day people just want to dance. I guess my music does that more than it offers something too clever that might go over people’s heads.”

It’s interesting you say that, because we’ve always thought there are similarities between your music and Armand Van Helden’s early output…

“Yeah it totally has. I mean Armand’s sound back then was also a fusion of D&B and house, so there are definitely similarities. I just hope everyone stays cool with the direction…”

 
Words: Matt Riches

The latest outlandish talents to emerge from the scene-shaping Black Butter Records camp, Clean Bandit are definitely not your usual dance music collective.

 
A quartet of classical instrumentalists with a taste for deep bass and unshakable grooves, the hype around Clean Bandit is building for 2013. Download their exclusive Rise Up mix for Trap now…

 
RISE UP #009 – CLEAN BANDIT

1. The Jones Girls – ‘Nights Over Egypt’
2. Omar S ft L’renee – ‘SEX’ (CGP RMX)
3. Fantastic Mr Fox – ‘Yesterday’s Fall’
4. Chunky – ‘Thang’
5. Rocketnumbernine – ‘Matthew & Toby’ (Fourtet RMX)
6. Kevin McPhee – ‘Version 5′
7. Clean Bandit – A&E (Alexis Raphael RMX)
8. Disclosure ft Alunageorge – ‘White Noise’
9. Polkadot – ‘Wasn’t Like That’
10. Millie & Andrea – ‘Ever Since You Came Down’
11. Murlo – ‘Patang’
12. Joe – ‘R.E.J. Bit’
13. Clean Bandit – ‘Nightingale’ (Aaron Lipsett RMX)
14. Maths Time Joy – ‘Always’

 
@cleanbandit

With Benji B gracing the cover of our recent issue, we thought it only right to get Deviation resident Moxie to drop the latest Rise Up mix exclusively for us. Listen through the player below, or download now by clicking here.

RISE UP #008 – MOXIE (DEVIATION)
TRACKLIST:

Cavern – Liquid Liquid
Noir & Haze – Around (Solomun vox mix)
Kraftwek – It’s More Fun To Compute
Storm Queen – Let’s Make Mistakes (Dub)
Robert Hood – Dancer
Buckley Woodall – Kitch N Sync (Jamie Jones Remix)
The Sound Man – The Factory ft Mercy
Paul Woolford * Psycatron – Stolen (Dub One)
Mr G – Dark Thoughts
Omar S – Gunup Runup
Blawan – Why Do They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage
Mr Scruff – Nervous Energy
Ossie – Ignore feat Tilz
Bugz In The Attic – Bring Some
Fantasia – Not The Way I Do (Jovonn Remix)
Daniel Wang – Not Feeling It
Glimpse & Martin Dawson – Fat Controller (Roman Flugel Remix)
Motor City Drum Ensemble – L.O.V.E

 
@alice_moxie

Manchester-based producer Paleman made the dance music underground sit up and take notice in 2012. Signing to Loefah’s Swamp81, and responsible for the massive ‘Furrball’ with Zed Bias, the young beatsmith had quite a year.

2013 is set to be Paleman’s moment, though… With a bunch of huge releases about to be announced and his DJ sets increasingly in demand, Trap just had to lock him down for the seventh installment in our Rise Up mix series.

Think percussive, driving 4/4 grooves tied to relentless, hypnotic basslines and your halfway there. If you’ve not yet discovered Paleman, now is the time….

RISE UP #007 – PALEMAN (SWAMP 81)
TRACKLIST:

Zed Bias and Paleman – Boiler
GoldFFinch – The Beast
Artifact – Enforcer
Bobby Champs – Bureau
Glimpse – Hubris
Paleman – Anxious
Compa – Transmit
Paleman – Etch
Paleman – Halfout VIP
Zed Bias – Copper
Kev – Forfour
Pris – Grin
Zed Bias and Paleman – Furrball
Thefft – ???
Zed Bias – Show Me Love Remix
GoldFFinch – Almost
South London Ordnance – HLDNTHRWS
Paleman – Chapel
Pris – Dust
Artifact – Desert Coat
Glimpse – Caught on Train

@palemanuk

“I owe everything about my musicality to my city.”

 
The man behind BBC Radio One’s most specialist of shows and Deviation, London’s most erudite of club-nights, Benji B strides the vanguard of underground club music with everything he does. Trap sent Oli Marlow off to Benji’s East London studio to dig deep inside the mind of one of the UK’s true musical visionaries…

It’s weird how things in life can come full circle. One of the most arresting and personal experiences I ever had at Benji B’s midweek basement club night, Deviation, was back in 2009 watching the Dutch producer Martyn perform there around the time of his ‘Great Lengths’ album. It was one of those fortuitous, ‘I’ve lost everybody I came here with but it doesn’t matter’ type of moments, where you’ve become just another person caught up in a totally captive audience.

Tonight, at Martyn’s return to the midweek session three years later; although the venue is a little bit closer to Shoreditch’s Overground station – and it’s drapes that are cocooning the sounds rather than exposed brick work of Gramaphone, the club’s former home on Commercial Street – there’s a synergy between crowd and DJ that’s exactly the same.

Admittedly, it’s always been that way, a fact no doubt due to the close proximity of the two venues, but Deviation is the one club night this writer has frequented that’s always managed to attract the committed and most devoted of followers, those who’ve learned to trust the powers in charge to educate them and keep their midweek adventures in music a little bit secret.

Sitting in Benji’s East-London studio (one that’s actually got an N in its postcode) on a bitter winter’s evening, we’re a far cry from the humid, noisy environments in which our paths usually cross. It’s really quiet in here, clean and almost serene; an ordered haven that he busies himself tidying at a couple of points during our time together.

Flanking a wall loaded with the kind of big screen Apple products, turntables and other electronics you’d expect to see in the hideout of one of BBC Radio 1’s most specialist of DJs, he sits with poise. Visibly engaged he’s happy to look back over the past five years he’s spent trying to replicate the warmth and magic of his own early experiences in some of London’s most renowned dances.

“Club culture in its purest form is truly about being inspired by a generation and taking the baton and carrying that on,” Benji states animatedly, warming up to my rather haphazard line of questioning.

“Every generation of people have to have those educational kind of experiences when they go out and, for me, going out at that early age was not about getting high or getting off with girls – they were interesting side notes – and really cool ones – but they weren’t the things that drove me go to somewhere far off like The Fridge in Brixton on my own.

“I owe everything about my musicality and my taste in music and my experience as a DJ to my city and the clubs that I visited throughout my life,” he agrees.

“There’s no question that with my own club now, every single element of every single detail is something I learnt in and owe to that time. It’s something that I’m not borrowing, but that I’m trying to keep alive. That’s important.”

The reasons that this writer, like many others, holds the idea of Deviation in such regard aren’t really physical or malleable things. Sure, the custom-prepped soundsystem installed for each session is a massive part of why the actual sets are so enjoyable, but it’s the idea of that likeminded tribal mentality that Benji touches on so readily in conversation, the idea of a regular crowd that turns out week in week out, that really is a massive part of it.

Developing that club family, people you co-exist with in those types of heightened situations, is an essential part of the euphoria of clubbing in general. Talking to Benji, even though he admits his experiences were a while ago now, he still understands the underbelly of clubbing as a lifestyle.

“The thing about Deviation is that it’s nothing to do with trends,” he agrees, riffing on my own recalled experiences at Deviation, discussing landmark sets, the calibre of the surprise guests and especially Martyn’s performance back in 2009.

“It’s about recognising a thread that runs through everyone that’s committed to any form of art that has substance.

“Like, why did you have a different experience, listening to Martyn in a basement with 200 people on a Wednesday night rather than anywhere else?” He offers with rhetoric.

“The answer is simple: it’s because he’s playing in an environment that, at a very grass roots level, is the purest place where he can truly feel comfortable; a place he can really be himself without any constraints. An environment where the DJ feels powerful enough to have the confidence to go wherever they want.”

Similarly to his specialist show on BBC Radio, Deviation is, first and foremost, an advocate of new and interesting music, but it’s never been its crux. Despite welcoming names such as Flying Lotus, James Blake, Hudson Mohawke, Kode9, Joy Orbison, Dam Funk, Floating Points and their ilk, the ambience of the evening is as much set by Benji’s warm-up sets as it is by the guests. Free from pretention or the constraints of DJs playing 60-minute octane sets, Deviation’s always offered party goers a little bit of an upper hand, an access to a higher learning from DJs whose sets range in focus, pace and hue.

Even though it’s always felt like a little bit of an intimate secret that managed to avoid the more transient of clubbers, Deviation has never been that exclusive or cliquey in the way that you might imagine a regular, connected Londoner’s club to be. At its height, Deviation was booking unmissable acts most months, setting them up perfectly for a core audience hungry to learn and often it really did feel like Cheers – the place where everyone knew your name.

“It’s not financially motivated,” Benji states in no uncertain terms.

“When I started Deviation, the manifesto was very simple. It had to be somewhere completely off the beaten track, somewhere slightly out of people’s comfort zone. It’s hard to think of it now, as people are comfortable in the Shoreditch triangle, but where Gramaphone was, was out of the way.

“I wanted to do it on a Wednesday on purpose, because Wednesday is the hardest night of the week. I wanted to do it in a venue that had never been used for anything like that before and put somewhere new on the map. I wanted to bring my own soundsystem in every month and also represent the kind of music I play on my show because if I can appreciate all these different styles and find a thread that runs throughout them, then there’s surely more than one person who can appreciate that too.”

Considering the success and reach of Deviation in the last year (well attended bigger club nights in Paris, Berlin and New York and the bigger warehouse events they’ve been throwing around London to mark their fifth birthday) you get the distinct impression that his original manifesto worked. In talking to Benji at length, he’s very methodical about his justification and appropriation of it all.

Theorizing the affect and influence of his early formative experiences into the world of late nights, lie-ins and rum hangovers is all well and good, but there’s an immediacy and vitality to Deviation’s particular strain of incense-scented musical unity that’s pretty hard to ignore. You’re repeatedly welcomed by the same smiling faces and you’re free to go in and dance as hard as you want. You can stand at the bar talking, handing out CDs and talking up projects to the slew of recognisable faces inside, or you can just be there, drinking gin all the way to a slump at closing time if you want. There’s no pressure.

“In much the same way as if I went to any of my favourite clubs in the history of London, it’s essentially about trust,” he ponders, bringing his initial point on London’s club heritage to an unintentional conclusion. “I don’t go there because this DJ or that DJ is playing; I go there because it’s the night.” 

Deviation has definitely cultivated a ‘vibe’ that precedes it, no matter where it goes. Bookings aside, it’s probably the most important thing it has got going for it, something Benji is incredibly aware of, letting it slip on more than one occasion that it’s the one thing he owes to his MC, Judah, to Alice and Zainab (and the team around him) and all those who’ve helped create such a welcoming, knowledgeable and ultimately addictive atmosphere.

“We recently did Deviation at Horst in Berlin and there was an environment that really reminded me why I do what I do,” he offers, stifling a knowing smile.

“Every DJ has that experience once in a blue moon, when you suddenly remember why it is that you love doing what you do; why you have the best job in the world and why you are the luckiest bastard in the world. But funnily enough, when DJing becomes a profession, those moments don’t come around that often.

“Hopefully, with Deviation, it is one of those moments [for the artists playing], which is why you can have Martyn just smashing it out of the park, or why you have Kode9 or Floating Points or Joy Orbison come through and play something completely deep. Because when you come in and look out at the crowd and you think ‘OK, this is a reminder of why I do what I do’, it’s the best feeling in the world!”

Standing at the bar in Concrete, Deviation’s current home in the basement of the Tea Building, a few weeks before this article goes to print; it’s obvious to note that the people inside the new space are a little different from the people I was screaming along with to the intro of Martyn’s ‘Vancouver’ back when.

The energy and intensity of the soundsystem is the same – truth be told the layout of the room probably suits it better – but rather than walking down the stairs and in on a thrum of bodies jockeying for position on the dancefloor as much as by the bar, where the conversing obstacles all stand firm, the whole venue feels calmer and a bit more clinical. It’s like, now the secret is well and truly out, there’s a new slew of people looking to Benji’s club night to try and find what I found so readily back in the halcyon days of Gramaphone.

Discussing the changes in approache to London promoters’ programming that have yielded this newer, possibly more internet savvy, wide-eyed enthusiastic crowd there’s a little bit of vitriol in Benji’s voice; not towards the people attending the night, but towards the booking-by-numbers, name DJ, headliner culture in which he’s now having to operate. Deviation’s strength was always in the no-frills, proper DJ manner that the guests were set up. There was a magic in the way the warm-up sets worked with the room and took you through multiple styles, sounds and genres to the heavy hitters, and the way the guests were put completely at ease and encouraged to go on and play however they wanted.

“I felt in the last six to eight months of the club’s lifespan, with the honourable exception of the club’s amazing fifth birthday event, that [the vibe] has changed,” Benji agrees, honestly, accepting my points.

“I feel like club culture at the moment is very much guest and name based, so that if you put Hudson Mohawke on, you’re gonna get a Hud Mo type of crowd; it’s just different. It’s funny because I’m a bit out of step with how big people are and how popular they’ve become because I still see them as people who are on that DJ wavelength.

“I’m a great believer that clubs go in five year cycles,” he continues, citing examples from his own personal experiences where his cherished nights transcended more into a catch-all term for a venue.

“For me, it’s very important that the next step with the club is to take it to the next level and evolve it, but to take that original ethos with it. To take it up a notch and really expand, but keep that feeling of trust, so you’ve got that regular thing back of ‘It’s Deviation! I can’t miss this!’ I want to get that back…”

In person, Benji’s acutely aware of the motivation behind my questioning, often reversing the roles and quizzing me on how I feel the club has changed, what I think about London’s landscape and certain DJs or artists. You get the sense that however fumbling or short your answer is, he’s taking it on board, processing the information and storing it for some later use. Aside from digressing into a discussion on people’s predilection for experiencing a club night online – his puzzlement in digitizing something that is a very physical thing that’s subject to whimsy and personal experience is an outlook I share – he’s noticeably keen to focus on the positive aspects of what he’s built and look to the future.

“What I want to do next is celebrate the fact that we’ve had some extremely memorable moments and touched people in different ways, and that our taste in booking is quite unique and has gone on to influence what’s possible on a larger scale.

“Next year the plan for Deviation is…,” he pauses, sighing a little at the task ahead as he searches for the right phrase.

“Deviation 6.0. Five years is the cut off. I feel that our club night has contributed something meaningful to London club culture in that time and, even though it’s a small contribution and the club itself is small, in my experience, all the very best things have started from that scale.”

Referring more to the power and reputation that trademark Deviation vibe brings, he continues:

“We’ve created something that you cannot buy, something you cannot invent or create overnight. It comes with time, investment and the love for a project. It comes with experience and with dedication in giving back to a city that made you. As cornball and cheesy as that might sound, when you take a lot from anything, I believe it’s your karmic responsibility to contribute something back.”

Catch Benji B on BBC Radio One every Wednesday night, 2-4am, or anytime via BBC iPlayer.

Words: Oli Marlow

Photos: Ollie Grove

With thanks to Danna Takako

NEW BOOK CHRONICLES JAMAICAN  OBSESSION WITH A BRITISH TRADITION

 
 
Out now through One Love Books, Clarks In Jamaica explains how shoes made by a Quaker firm from Somerset became the baddest footwear in Jamaica. Referenced in reggae and dancehall since the brand’s adaption by rastas and rudeboys in the 1960s, the book focuses on the artists who’ve worn and sung about Clarks over the years, through current and historic photography, interviews and unseen archive material.

The work of Al Fingers, the London-based writer and graphic designer who is one of the forces behind the excellent ShimmyShimmy blog, and photographer Mark Read, Clarks In Jamaica is available now.

www.onelovebooks.com

www.shimmyshimmy.co.uk

DOWNLOAD ADDISON GROOVE’S EXCLUSIVE MIX FOR TRAP

 
 
For the third in our exclusive mixtape series, we are exceptionally proud to have one of the most electrifying producers of the last couple of years, Addison Groove, at the controls.

One of dubstep’s original trailblazers under the Headhunter name, the Bristol born-and-bred producer single-handedly shook the underground with his debut as Addison Groove in 2010, ‘Foot Crab’ on Swamp81. Heralding a new direction for the producer. that track would ultimately lead to him signing for Modeselektor’s 50 Weapons label and releasing his stunning debut LP ‘Transistor Rhythm’ early this year.

Now working on his own label, Lost In Translation, there’s clearly lots more yet to come from Addison Groove and the imprint he is building.

Featuring tracks from artists who have released, or have forthcoming, tracks on Lost In Translation, and a very special ten-minute live 808 jam at the mix’s end, this is genuinely that little bit special… listen or download now:

 

TRAP MIXTAPE #003 – ADDISON GROOVE

TRACKLIST:

1. Intro
2. Shutter Speed – Dark Sky – 50 Weapons
3. Tonda – Hodge
4. 80878 – KSP – LIT
5. ON2U – Sly-one – LIT
6. Catalunya – Bebop & Rocksteady – LIT
7. Crazy So Crazy – Addison Groove
8. 3me – Trevino
9. Jesse How You Feel – Addison Groove
10.Anvil – KSP – Deca Rhythm
11.Ampulate – Organ Grinder – LIT
12.Jesus Creates Sound (Astronomar Remix) – Marlon D
13.Untitled – Addison Groove
14.Sir Nenis & Marked Man – Purple Mountain Majesty (Astronomar remix)
15.Touch Me – Addison Groove
16.Addison Groove – Live 808 F**k About
17. Mr Sandman (live version) – Addison Groove

www.trapmagazine.co.uk
@addisongroove

“You have to go with what you feel inside and hope it works”

 
Ben Westbeech is a name that means different things to different people. To some, he’s the Strictly Rhythm-signed house producer and vocalist behind the 2010 album ‘There’s More To Life Than This’, while to others he’s the man behind the Breach moniker and one of the most innovative and consistent producers in the bass-driven underground. With club music currently awash with mediocre, 130bpm ‘UK bass’ music, it’s refreshing to find a true musician with a real ear for a groove, and a studio bursting with hardware ready to make it happen.

‘Fatherless’ was, without question, the track that launched Westbeech’s Breach project. Distinctly London sounding, its incessant, chopped-flute loop and nippy vocal jolts became one of the anthems of late 2010. Since then, he’s dropped ‘You Won’t Find Love Again’, the synth-heavy introduction to his fledgling Naked Naked imprint, plus his recent stripped-back collaborative EP with Midland.

With more much-hyped collaborations and new artist releases looming, Breach and his Naked Naked baby are assembling a showcase of authentically creative UK dance music. While taking a snoop around his memorabilia-laden studio, Trap caught up with the London-based producer to talk drum & bass, staying original and pushing the scene forward.

Where did music making start for you? We understand you produced drum & bass back in the day alongside Clipz, aka Redlight?

I started producing when I was 18 and yes, I started with drum & bass. Having heard early bootleg rave tapes and LTJ Bukem’s remix of ‘Return to Atlantis’, I was instantly hooked and mesmerised by the sound of the music and the atmosphere. The whistles and horns and crowd noise sounded amazing and I couldn’t wait to go to a rave myself when I turned 16.

A couple of years later, I moved to Bristol and having met Clipz (Redlight as he’s now known), I started making music with him and DJ Die. I met Roni Size and Krust and all the producers I’d looked up to for years! I was also producing for Bristol MCs such as Sirplus and Buggsy, as well as singing on my own stuff, which was secondary to becoming a DJ.

How did your break as Ben Westbeech happen?

I got signed to Brownswood (Gilles Peterson’s label) by chance after he heard ‘So Good Today’ through a Saab 900 sound system in a field at Creamfields. Then, having made a Ben Westbeech album, I started making house records after hearing Osunlade’s remix of ‘So Good Today’. I went on to make an album with Strictly Rhythm, working with the likes of Motor City Drum Ensemble, Henric Schwarz and Midland. All the while, I had started working on the Breach alias.

So that trademark Breach bass/house blend was intrinsic to your productions from very early on…

Yeah, I’d made ‘Fatherless’ about a year before anyone actually heard it. I was trying to bridge a gap between dubstep and house, as I was going to FWD at the time and was getting inspired. This was about four years ago. So that’s when Breach started. As Breach, I’ve released on house imprints such as dirtybird, Pets Recordings and of course my own label, Naked Naked, all of which share affiliation with bass. Even with the new Ben Westbeech album, I’m featuring artists such as Bondax and Disclosure, so it all crosses over really.

How do you approach preparing for studio time and how do you set about creating something truly unique?

Studio time is about having fun but being focused at the same time. With Breach, I just let go and concentrate on making dance records that have energy and emotion. Melody is important to me, but also the core of the track – the drums and the bass. I use a lot of analogue hardware, both synths and outboard to create the sound of Breach. It started off as a bit of fun and it still is; which is what I’ve always wanted to do as a producer. I think you just have to go with what you feel inside and hope that it works. I guess we are all striving to do that in music: be original and push the scenes forward.

What’s it like working to find (and create) great music to represent Naked Naked? Are you overly pedantic?

Well, the first few releases have come from me or my collaborations with others, so I’m in control of the sound. I worked on the first single, ‘You Won’t Find Love Again’ for a very long time and was very meticulous with it. However, what I have forthcoming is from other artists; the likes of Dusky, Lorca and Lyon Vynehall. I’ve gone and seen them and A&R’d them to slightly tailor the tunes so they fit within my ideal sound. I know the sound I want, so I just give ideas on how to make the tunes fit a bit more. I’m really excited about releasing other artists’ music and creating a home for them.

We’ve heard the third Naked Naked release is coming from the Dark Sky boys. Can you disclose anything about the release and how it came about?

Yes, that’s true; it’s a collaboration between me and Dark Sky called ‘The Click’ and it’s gaining a bit of buzz already. I have known those boys for a while and we talked about writing some stuff for the new Ben Westbeech record, but I wanted to make a banger with them so we decided to do a Breach vs Dark Sky release. ‘The Click’ came out of that and then we wrote something for the B-Side last week. I’m really looking forward to it!

Are you casting your sights strictly on the UK, or do you search further afield to find the next release for the label?

If I get any records from abroad that I really like, then I would consider it for sure, but right now the sound is coming from the UK. That’s what Naked Naked is about right now. Making a home for these artists and creating a sound out of a movement.

Has it been difficult to build up a label in the current industry climate? 

I think the industry is getting better and better! It’s made people really think about what they’re releasing, especially on vinyl. Sales seem to be picking up and the digital market is booming. Yes, we do have a lot against us, but it’s an amazingly rewarding job to do as you have to think hard about what you are doing and creating. I think it’s a great time for the industry, especially for dance music.

So what’s the future for Naked Naked?

Well, I hope to release great records on vinyl and digital. I am also planning Naked Naked parties, the first one happening next March, which is going to be in an amazing space in London, with a line-up including all the people who are involved with or close associates of the label. I also plan to do art, prints and some clothing in the next two years and collaborate with artists, photographers and video artists to create forward-thinking art to go with the music. I see it as an open-ended, creative label that will expand organically and support its artists fully.

Breach & Midland’s ‘101’/’Visionary’ EP is out now. Watch out for the new Ben Westbeech album later this year.

@benwestbeech

PERKS AND MINI

Australian brand Perks And Mini has just released its newest collection, The High Life. Consisting of tees, sweats, trousers and socks the entire drop is extremely well executed and features a diverse selection of graphic prints combined with relaxed silhouettes. The range is available through the P.A.M. website and at the Goodhood store.

www.perksandmini.com

ONE OF D&B’S HOTTEST TALENTS DROPS EXCLUSIVE MIX

 
One of D&B’s hottest talents, Foreign Concept rolls up with the latest Rise Up mix for Trap. Working through hip-hop, house and bass music before reaching the inevitable 174s, this is much more than you probably expected from the Critical Music man. We’re proud to have him on board for our sixth Rise Up mix – listen or download below now!

I AM…

Foreign Concept, AKA Matt Price, AKA young Kasra.

YOU MAY ALREADY KNOW ME FOR…

Building a career off the back of the ‘hung from the gallows’ sample and releasing tracks on Critical and Shogun Audio.

I’D DESCRIBE THE MUSIC I MAKE AS…

Moody, stripped-back D&B with character.

WHEN I’M NOT WORKING, YOU’LL FIND ME…

In my bedroom studio, trying not to watch YouTube videos.

WHEN I WAS YOUNGER, I DREAMED OF BEING…

A chess Grandmaster.

IF I WASN’T DOING MUSIC, I’D…

Still be working in investment banking.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD TO ME IS…

Friends, family and my ever-understanding girlfriend. And steak tartare.

MY MUSICAL GUILTY PLEASURE IS…

Not sure if it’s really a guilty pleasure as such, but Luther Van Dross, ‘Never Too Much’. It’s just a straight baby-making riddim.

YOU MAY BE SURPRISED TO KNOW THAT…

I lived in Amsterdam for a year and the only Dutch phrases I can say are “pretty girl” and “Smoking is dangerous.” How crap is that?

THE BEST ADVICE I’VE EVER HAD IS…

You must lose a fly to catch a trout.

DESCRIBE YOUR MIX IN THREE WORDS…

Structured. Safe. Fun.

IN 12 MONTH’S TIME…

I’ll be starting to work on my album and hopefully will have had a few releases out under my non-D&B alias.

@foreignconcept1

Los Angeles-based Quiet Life make some of the best 5-panel hats available, solidly constructed and always bang-on when it comes to prints and fabrics.

The release of the Aloha pack on 26 October brings three fresh Hawaiian-inspired designs, but maintains the brand’s ethos of keeping things clean by utilising just one section of each hat for the print.

Available in three different combinations of prints and colours, each one is slightly different, and available in limited quantities – just 300 packs have been made, and are available across eight countries. Check the Quiet Life website for your nearest store.

www.thequietlife.com

PHOTOS FROM OUR LINK-UP WITH THE BIGGEST RAVE IN BRISTOL

On Friday 19 October, Trap was invited down to Motion in Bristol to host the second warehouse for the guys from The Blast at their enormous STB rave. The night was a total sell-out, and heaving from start to finish, with every style of bass-driven music on the menu across the huge venue’s many rooms.

In the Trap Warehouse, we were blessed with sets from a bunch of our favourite DJs and MCs around –  Toddla T, Lil Silva, The Heatwave, Woz, Trim, DRS and Interface all destroyed things in their own unique ways, leaving us grinning from ear to ear.

Here we present some photos from the night, taken by the brilliant Theo Cottle, who has previously photographed this wicked fashion shoot for us, and whose pictures perfectly catch the vibe of an amazing night.

Endless thanks to the guys from The Blast for having us down, and for asking us back to host another room in December with DJ Q, New York Transit Authority, LV and Roska to name a few. Tickets for that bash are available now here.

www.theblast.co.uk

www.facebook.com/theocottlephotography

JUMPING THE BORDERS

London, Detroit, Berlin, Manchester, Chicago, Bristol… ask any acolyte of dance music culture to name the city where it all started for them, and you’ll most likely be given one of these answers. These are the places eternally entwined with the history of electronica; the propagators of innovation and evolution and whose names instantly conjure images of legendary night clubs, record shops and points in time.

One answer you probably wouldn’t expect to hear would be Glasgow. For many years, to anyone without an inclination for simply house and techno, Scotland’s second city never really registered on the global map of dance music culture. And then, a few years ago, something happened. Seemingly all at once, an explosion of creativity poured from the city, leaving all corners of the dance music world scratching their heads at the Scottish assault, and catapulting the likes of Rustie, Hudson Mohawke and the Numbers record label to international acclaim.

As bass-driven music shuffled away from broken or two-step beats in favour of 4/4 rhythms, Numbers, established by a bunch of house and techno heads with an ‘anything goes’ attitude from Glasgow, suddenly found itself among the most important and forward thinking record labels in dance music, feeding the post-dubstep world with bass-injected game changers from the likes of Deadboy, Ill Blu, Jamie XX and Mosca.

As history teaches, every movement needs a figurehead, and the undoubted totem for the Glasgow and Numbers movement is 26-year-old Jack Revill, otherwise known as Jackmaster and a man whose ballsy, genre-defying DJ sets have taken him from stocktaking in a Glasgow record shop to the biggest night clubs in the world and the front cover of this magazine. As likely to draw for Kate Bush or Kashif as he is Underground Resistance or Juan Atkins, Revill’s talents as a selector have enabled him to capitalise on the hype surrounding Numbers and in the process, he’s become one of the most talked about DJs in the game.

It’s to this background that Trap tracked the Glaswegian down for our latest front cover, and on an early autumn day, we travel up to North London to meet with Revill before he jumps on a train back to Scotland.

Sat opposite us in a Hackney bar, groomed immaculately with his trademark quiff standing tall and rocking a sharp white Palace teeshirt, Revill swigs from a bottle of beer as he happily chats away in his rich, unmistakably Glaswegian accent and we set about getting to the bottom of the story behind one of dance music’s most colourful characters…

The best place to start is with your story – you famously worked in Glasgow’s Rubadub record shop from the age of 14…

“Aye, I was in school and it was time to pick your work experience and there was this big list with Woolworths or Somerfield and whatever. I thought, ‘I don’t really wanna do that.’ I was just into music and smoking weed and girls. All the kids were into the same things or football, but were picking jobs in factories that made light bulbs and stuff. I couldn’t understand that. If I hadn’t thought differently back then, I’d probably be doing something very different now.

“Anyway, I used to be into Ibiza house; Defected and Subliminal and stuff like that. So, whereas I would go to buy records in HMV, Rubadub was always this cool record shop that was kind of scary. I don’t think I made a clear decision like ‘Right I’m gonna try and get into something different, I think I just maybe panicked a bit and went for it. The first day, I was two or three hours late, so as a punishment they got me to stock check the whole house section. I didn’t know any of the records at all, because I was into some very dodgy stuff, the dodgiest house you can imagine – things like Stardust or Groove Jet that I’d heard on holiday as a kid.

“Rubadub is one of those places where you get it kind of drilled out of you if you like shit music. It’s my way or the high way in there, it’s banter, but they do tell you ‘No, you should listen to this.’ And I see it now when I’m in there; the kids that get jobs in there come out liking a totally different thing.”

You still work there now?

“Yeah, I work in the distribution company in there, but I do miss working in the actual shop. I’d like to think I’ll start doing a couple of days a week in there again; because if I don’t have a day job, I just end up going out every night, especially in the summer when my mates are off uni. This summer was a bit crazy – you need time to relax or your head just crumbles, you need balance in your life.

“As well as doing A&R for Numbers, I do it for Rubadub, too. I don’t take a wage for it - but if I hear something that I feel could work for Rubadub rather than Numbers, I try to set people up with their own release or limited white label. That happened with like the Objekt stuff, Cottam and loads of others.”

So after first turning up there two hours late as a 14 year old, to where you are now – they must be pretty proud of you?

“I hope they are. Whenever I get a bit too big for my boots, they bring me down a peg or two and just slag me off.”

You appreciate that?

“Sometimes I do. I think I need that to be honest. That’s why I’ve found it so hard to leave there; everyone’s so tight. In the 20 years it’s been going, only a couple of members of staff have ever left. It’s a family and a very strong one and it’s the only record shop left in Glasgow now.”

“GLASGOW WAS ALWAYS A HOUSE CITY”

Before Numbers made its mark, Glasgow was never really somewhere that was widely thought of as a musical epicentre. What’s it really like?

“Glasgow still has a very big house and techno following. Soma records was founded there, they were the first label to put out Daft Punk. Rubadub started around the same time as Soma. And you’ve got institutions like Optimo and Subclub and I see other crews coming up who I know will be here for a long time; All Caps, Vitamins – guys like them. In Glasgow, you have the town centre and then Rubadub, the Subclub and Soma offices and The Arches and all that within a few hundred yards of each other. That’s the nucleus in the town centre.”

For a city with its dance culture rooted so firmly in house and techno, how and why do you think Glasgow caused such a stir in the world of bass-driven music?

“It’s weird – there wasn’t a massive bass culture in Glasgow when I was growing up. Glasgow was always a house city. There was always a big electro scene there, and I mean proper electro like Juan Atkins. And somehow out of that came Rustie.

“I met this boy called Neil who was sharing a chalet with us at Deadbeat Weekender, and he put on his mate’s demo CD. It turned out to be Rustie’s first tracks; electro influenced by old Detroit stuff, Kraftwerk, Drexciya and stuff like that. I thought it was amazing, so we ended up starting a label pretty much just for him and his mates material; they went under the name Voltaic.

“Then Rustie started getting into dubstep and grime and took that influence and fused it with what he was doing. Then he put a record out on Stuffrecords, which was eventually one of the labels that we merged with Wireblock and Dress 2 Sweat to become Numbers.

“And I guess at the same time Hudson Mohawke was about and starting to get a lot of attention on MySpace – he never had a proper solo record out, but was getting a big name just online. It was pretty much them two guys that kicked it off, and at the same time, our club started getting pretty big. We would book those guys and then also house and techno people like MMM from Berlin, or Feadz from Ed Banger, or even hip-hop like Ghostface from Wu Tang.”

Rustie and HudMo were that important?

“Yes definitely. They were the catalyst in the Glasgow thing taking off. I think people possibly too much into this whole Glasgow thing, cause for me, it’s pretty much just them two! There’s not masses else happening producer wise.”

But surely Numbers has been a primary driver of the hype surrounding Glasgow recently?

“I think it was right place right time for a lot of it, everything came together. I mean, we were running Numbers the club for a good few years before the label started and we were always arguing over artists and remixers for our own labels. We just realised one day, why don’t we all just work together. It made sense because the club was getting some attention at the time.”

So you think Glasgow looks bigger from afar than it actually is?

“I think so. I don’t get that impression of London – or even Bristol, I always feel like there’s such a strong scene in those places. But Glasgow, I don’t feel like there are enough young people coming through. The club scene is huge, though. I think it was very much a hype thing. We were very lucky to have two amazing producers grow up in our city, Rustie and HudMo. But then they both fucked off to London! And, to be honest, I’m thinking of moving to London…

“I’ve said it a few times and keep changing my mind. But I’m here much more than Glasgow, and the travelling is killing me. A lot of the time I say I’m gonna move and end up shitting myself and not doing it. I can come for a year and move back – it’s not really a big deal, it’s not like China or anything. I know so many cool people in London now; guys like Braiden, Joy Orbison, Oneman; I really get on with those people well. I kind of think my life would be richer if I did move here.

“Everything’s at your fingertips in London. Every time I come I like it more and more; it’s an amazing place, but it was a bit scary coming out of Brixton tube as a young Scottish boy! There’s never been a massive Jamaican or black community in Glasgow, which is probably part of why jungle or garage never really happened there, if you were in the know, you did know it was going on. But to me, growing up in Glasgow, garage was Artful Dodger or Daniel Beddingfield.  But I’m really happy that I grew up with that kind of house and techno sound. It’s definitely benefitting me now.”

“I TRY NOT TO HAVE GUILTY PLEASURES”

Beyond just house and techno, and of course the music put out through Numbers, you’re renowned as a DJ for playing exactly what you like, reaching for lost 80s classics and tracks that most people only remember from Top Of The Pops…

“I try not to have guilty pleasures or anything like that – I like music at the end of the day and I don’t think you should be ashamed, for instance, if you like Carly Rae Jepsen. I’ve been through that stage as a kid, when I’d turn my nose up at stuff because of what it was associated with. I try not to be like that now, because music is music and there’s no point taking it too seriously, because we’re going out to party at the end of the day and I don’t think we should be too serious about it.

“But don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate the more serious aspect of music as well and if the occasion demands it, I will play a set of straight house and techno and let tracks play for four or five minutes at a time instead of 30 seconds! But it’s about timing and you need to know the occasion. I guess ultimately I’d like to be known as that DJ. The one that promoters can trust to suit the vibe of their night, whether it’s a three-hour deep house set at Panorama bar or a 40-minute set at a Rinse rave.

“That’s why DJs like Oneman are so good, because they’re so versatile. As a DJ, you’re there to make sure people have a good time. By all means stick to what you believe in, I would never play a track I don’t like just because of the occasion; any track that’s in my Serato crate is there because I love it.”

Are there limits to what you’ll play?

“There are limits, to an extent. There’s definitely music that I would like to listen to on my iPod that I wouldn’t play in a club, though.”

Such as? 

“Carly Rae…”

Is that on your iPod?

“Aye, it fucking is! I love that tune, I’m always playing it at house parties off YouTube or whatever.  If I could fit a Steve Reich tune into my set at the right time, then I’d play it. I’m proud of what I do and I wouldn’t change it for the world, but there are certain negative connotations with calling somebody a party DJ – I think a lot of people see it as quite cheap. I would like to get more straight house and techno bookings and part of me wants the acceptance of that scene; I’d love to go Ibiza and play four-hour sets in DC10, but it’s a time and place.”

So what should we be looking forward to from Numbers in the coming year?

“It’s been a bit of a go-slow as we’re A&Ring a couple of projects that are sapping up a lot of time – there’ll be a Redinho album next year, and we’re working with a guy from Paris called Samy aka Kool Clap. And the next single is a re-release of a track that was huge at Club 69, which was Rubadub’s club, outside Glasgow in Paisley, ‘Multi Ordinal Tracking Unit’ by Unspecified Enemies – it’s one of these records that’s not a classic anywhere apart from Glasgow. It’s a special record to us so we thought it would be interesting to pick it up and re-release it.”

And finally, your passion for music and what you do is what stands your sets apart from the rest. You’re still only 26; do you ever worry that it all might start to feel like work one day and the vibe will disappear?

“When you start something as a passion and then it turns into a money thing, you’re always gonna lose the magic a bit. And that’s something I need to be careful of – getting success as a label or a DJ,  there are times I start thinking of all this as a job, and I never wanted it to feel like that. You can get jaded with music when you’re around it so much, I was working every day in Rubadub and then going DJing weekends and I’d get home and not want to hear any music at all. That’s so dangerous as a DJ. Buts it’s very common, even if people don’t admit it.

“But you fall in and out of love with music. It’s always been a constant love for me but, but when you start to make a living out of it, it does become something different. I don’t go to the club and dance anymore – I’m stood on the stage with my mate or at the bar, so I really do miss that. The grass is always greener; you spend your whole time wanting to be a DJ and making a living out of music, but then you get there and sometimes find yourself thinking it would be nice to go back. This might all only last a few years though. And then when I’m 40, you’ll see me in the corner in a club, I’ll be that old raver talking nonsense about the good old days…”

Words: Jon Cook

Photos: Ollie Grove – www.olliegrove.com

facebook.com/djjackmaster

Catch Jackmaster doing an eight-hour b2b set with Ben UFO at the Electric Minds Loft Party in Shoreditch on 10 November and at Numbers & Crazylegs @ The Exchange, Bristol, 1st December.

SOUTH-AMERICAN STREET ARTIST MAKES LONDON DEBUT

From 27 October to 11 November, East London’s High Roller Society will be exhibiting the first-ever show in the capital from Columbian artist Stinkfish.

Entitled ‘Espina’, which is Spanish for ‘thorns’, the exhibition will present the abstract street-level portraiture through which the Columbian has made his name. A full-time street artist, Stinkfish travels the world decorating streets and grey spaces with enormous, eye-popping characterisations of anonymous faces he plucks from his every-day encounters in life.

Stinkfish’s work can be found on the walls of cities across South America and Europe, and Bristol residents will recognise his work from the massive mural he recently painted in the city’s Stokes Croft area. This exhibition will see a new body of work from the artist on display, plus the release of a new print.
Stinkfish: ‘Epina’ @ High Roller Society, 10 Palmers Road, London E2 0SY

27 October – 11 November 2012, Open Thursday – Sunday, noon – 6pm.

www.stink.tk
www.highrollersociety.com

DOWNLOAD LIL SILVA’S EXCLUSIVE MIX FOR TRAP

Trap is extremely proud to present the second in our mixtape series – an exclusive 60-minute mix from Lil SIlva.

Still just 22, Lil Silva’s heart-stopping productions and bass-driven, genre-twisting DJ sets have pushed his name to the forefront of the UK underground. His landmark track, 2009’s ‘Seasons’ for the Night Slugs imprint, announced the arrival of an irresistible talent and, through the DJ bookings that followed, he quickly established himself as a selector to be reckoned with.

Follow-up productions such as his ‘Patience’ EP of last year, the ‘Yonkers’ bootleg and, of course, his remix of SBTRKT and Sampha’s ‘Living Like We Do’ have confirmed Lil Silva as one of the UK’s most on-point talents.

Stirring together everything from grime and US house, to the bulkier strain of UK funky through which he’s made his name, this mix shows exactly why we we’re so hyped to get Lil Silva involved.

TRAP MIXTAPE #002 – LIL SILVA

TRACKLIST:

Kodiak – Spreo Superbus (Girl Unit Remix)
DVA – Fly Juice
Addison Groove – Melody
Home Early – Pedro 123 (Remix)
Trevino – Tweakonomics
Disclosure – Tenderly
Pearson Sound – Clutch
Addison Groove – Ass Jazz
Azealia Banks – Liquorice
Hannah Wants – Call It Fate
Lil Silva – Gobble That
Kanye West, Big Sean, Pusha T & 2 Chainz – Mercy
Julio Bashmore – Au Seve
KW Griff ft Pork Chop – Bring In The Katz
We Work Night – The Quiff
TEED – Household Goods (Lil Silva Remix)
Leon Vynehall – Don’t Know Why
Synkro – Look At Yourself
Leon Vynehall – Gold Language
Mosca – Dom Perignon
Werkha – Le Roitelet

ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE

You couldn’t get a more uniquely British creation than Soom T. An eclectic vocalist of over 15 years experience, working with everyone from punk bands to folk groups, Soom T is a petite Glaswegian girl of Indian-Punjabi origin who stands up at reggae dances and destroys every other MC in the venue with her irresistibly eccentric on stage persona and a voice you can’t quite believe is coming from her mouth.

Most of Trap’s readers will know of Soom T through her work with European reggae acts such as Jahtari  and fellow Glaswegians Mungo’s Hi-Fi, for whose last album she provided a pair of voicings  and with whom she has performed at the last three Outlook festivals and made everybody stand to attention.

Much more than just a reggae vocalist, as Trap found out when we caught up with her by phone from her native Glasgow, Soom T describes herself as everything from a singer to a philosopher, with her talents extending from the studio to the theatre, and with the profound perspective on life that’s only possible by being such a unique bundle of contradictions….

For those who might not know you, who are you and what do you do?

I’m Soom T – a singer, songwriter, philosopher, producer and writer from Glasgow in Scotland. I do a lot of different things really… I like cooking!

We were expecting you to say reggae singer…

Well more or less, but reggae is just one of the things I do, it’s more of a recent development. Before that I did a lot of dub, hip-hop and a lot of punk. I think it’s interesting that I’ve ended up doing what I do in the reggae world, but I don’t even call it reggae, that’s the funny thing. I considerate it to be quite folk, jazz and soul orientated. I think it’s difficult for me to pigeonhole what I’m doing, I know other people are keen for me t, but I just can’t.

You’re obviously a whole brew of different influences and cultures, was music always around you growing up?

Absolutely, music was always there. When I was younger, I was very into MCing for hip-hop, I loved the lyrical aspect of it, so I sung with a punk band and did rapping with hip-hop. And then, in 2003, I started working with this dub act from Germany, and that was the first opportunity to do stuff on a reggae vibe.

It’s interesting, because watching you perform on stage and listening to your reggae tracks, it sounds like you’ve been listening to it all your life…

Everybody keeps telling me I’ve got this reggae voice. But I developed that without listening to reggae, I didn’t know anything about it, so I was coming at it completely innocent and uneducated about reggae style.

I’m glad about that, because when I hear a lot of reggae artists singing, when I play festivals , I notice they way they work is very specific – the metre that they rap in, the words they use like ‘Jah Rastafari’ and ‘Lord A Mercy’ and all this stuff. I always felt like, one guy did it, many years ago, and then every other reggae act feels like they need to copy that.

I think what you do if you listen to something too much is, you learn all the tricks and ways of that style and as a result of that you end up restricting yourself; you’re not free to be completely experimental because you already have an idea imprinted in your head of how it should be. So I find a lot of people ride reggae in a specific, toasting way, which I love to bits, I admit, but it’s definitely not where I came from. I did not come from that at all.

So where did you come from?

As I said, punk, jazz, hip-hop. And of course, I’ve got an Indian background so I grew up with Punjabi bhangra music around me, and my dad was Indian so I listened to a lot of Hindi music too, old traditional songs.  And now, I find that reggae is very similar to Punjabi singing, and there’s definitely a punk element to it. I’m certainly drawing from more of that kind of background, and the rhythm comes more from hip-hop. So I think I’ve managed to amalgamate it all into what I do, something that works with reggae without ever really knowing about it.

Do you feel that’s to your advantage?

Definitely. I’m glad I had no reggae background, just the same as I’m glad I’ve never had any proper music training. When you’re taught something,  you learn that there are certain things you can do, and certain things you can’t. And I don’t think anything is impossible.

Growing up, your told by TV and the media that there are some things that you’re never going to be able to do. When I was young and looked at the hip-hop scene, it was only big guys with a certain image, that’s what I was told it was supposed to be. But I thought, I’m not black, I’m little and Indian; everything that goes against what I actually want to do.

So I think it started off, deep down, as a struggle to prove to myself that it could be done. I made a decision where I thought, I don’t care what everyone else says, I’m gonna do it because I want to prove it’s purely related to your art and your art alone and the way you express that.

So music really is an expression of feeling and the self to you?

Absolutely. All I ever wanted to do was express myself. I’ve been in bands since I was 15 and working professionally in music for about ten years, and all of that made me realise how tough the business side of music can be, and how much it can hinder your expression. When you get involved with labels and all that, expectations are put on you, and expectations start restricting you.

So it’s been a long road and a long struggle. It’s only now in the last couple of years that I’ve been truly happy. Now I’ve got my own label, Renegade Masters, where I can release my own stuff, and control it and never be told what to do, I can just do my own thing. And that makes me happy.

Catch Soom T performing at Tokyo Dub at In:Motion in Bristol on 26 October.

STUSSY & NIKE JOIN FORCES

Two of the finest streetwear brands in existence have come together to produce a huge collection of collaborative pieces, leaving the Trap office drooling over our computers and desperately searching out our favourite pieces to buy online.

Nike and Stussy have collaborated many times before, producing special edition trainers and clothing in limited runs since the now notorious Stussy x Nike Air Huarache LE started it all back in 2000. Since then, we’ve seen Court Forces, Dunks, Sky Forces and All Courts receive the Stussy make-over, complete with accompanying capsule collections of jackets and tees. But we’ve never seen anything like this…

Launched on 12 October, The Nike X Stussy SS Collection is massive, featuring innumerable tees, hoodies, beanies, caps and, of course, the ‘Off Mountain’ shoes, all twisting the two brands’ trademark logos and livery into new forms.

There really is too much to choose from, but our favourites are the simple bobble beanies bearing each company’s moniker on opposing sides, all three colour-ways of the Dunk Hi OMS, and the Solid Snapbacks featuring ‘Nike’ branding in the classic Stussy scrawl.

Check the entire range below, and check the Stussy website to cop yours. London heads – get down to Slam City Skates or Supreme, before the inevitable rapid sell-out.

www.stussy.com

WATCH THE NEW VIDEO NOW

Following a stream of high-profile collaborations with some of dance music’s most respected producers over the last couple of years, songstress Roses Gabor drops her debut solo single, ‘Stars’, on 12 November for Toddla T’s Girls Music label.

Best known for her incendiary, sass-soaked performances on tracks such as Shy FX’s ‘Raver’ and Redlight’s ‘Stupid’, ‘Stars’ sees the singer link once more with Redlight, who provides the blissfully dreamy backing to Roses cut-glass vocals.

The video has just been released, directed by Natalia Stuyk, which you can watch below. Watch out for a full interview with Roses in the December issue of Trap.

D&B’s PREMIER IMPRINT TO HOLD BIGGEST PARTY YET

This Saturday 20 October sees Friction’s Shogun Audio host a massive ‘warehouse’ party at Ewer Street Car Park in South London, with the whole Shogun family in attendance, pus some very special guests…

Headlining with a  rare DJ performance will be Chase & Status, taking time out from producing Number One records to return their roots as D&B heads, while two of the genre’s original dons, Ed Rush & Optical, will be dropping a classic Virus Records set. A live show from Icicle and sets from Friction, Alix Perez b2b Rockwell, Spectrasoul and The Prototypes complete the main room’s roster, while Hatcha, Marcus Nasty and more bring something different to the second arena.

Large-scale, quality D&B events outside of the usual big clubs are rare these days, so this comes highly recommended. Tickets are still available here priced at £20.

www.shogunaudio.co.uk

Once in a while a track lands in your inbox that leaves you feeling enveloped in warmth and excitement, momentarily safe in the knowledge that there really is some good new music out there.

Thanks to the latest release from the London based Good Years label, who have previously released EPs from Lil Silva and Jim-E Stack, Trap has been left enjoying those feelings of duvet comfort, not to mention some unavoidable shoulder shuffling.

The man responsible for all this is Utrecht, a little known Brighton based artist with a penchant for early deep house and New Jack Swing pop melodies, and the track in question is titled ‘APC’. A sumptuous slice of evening-sun soaked house, ‘APC’ draws you in with its glossy and soulful throwback vocal while muted, moody minor seventh piano chords add satisfying warmth to a track we can’t stop playing.

Crack open a bottle of vitamin water, shut your eyes and pretend you’re doing high-end grooves at a late afternoon Miami pool party while you check out the link below…

Words: Sophie Thomas
Photo: Katie Palmer
 

LIVING THE DREAM

 
Sometimes, life can throw up situations that are so amazing, that afterwards you’re not really sure whether it was all a dream, or if it actually happened… As he flew back to his home of New York, having just spent 17 long days and nights in Bob Marley’s legendary Tuff Gong Studios in Kingston Jamaica recording an album with Diplo and Snoop Dogg, it’s fair to imagine that Brooklyn-based DJ and producer Dre Skull was pinching himself, trying to work out if he was still alive, or had just stumbled into record producer heaven…

But it was no dream. After several whirlwind years that had seen the bearded New Yorker produce Vybz Kartel’s critically acclaimed ‘Kingston Story’ album and release numerous collaborations with a bunch of Jamaican dancehall’s biggest stars, the 32-year-old Mixpak Records boss really had just spent a couple of weeks recording with two of the most famous musicians on the planet, readying a project that the whole world has been talking about ever since Snoop announced he was no longer a Dogg, but a Lion.

After several missed Skype calls and numerous emails, it’s in his New York home that Trap finally reaches Dre Skull, fresh from his trip to the UK where he’d just played alongside Diplo, Sean Paul and others on the Major Lazer stage at Notting Hill Carnival. Technology is a beautiful thing, but it’s cursing us tonight, and despite the dropped calls and occasional ear-splitting feedback, after the year he’s had, Dre Skull has plenty to talk about…

You’ve just been over in the UK for Carnival – as a producer who has recorded with a lot of different Jamaican vocalists, are there any other UK artists you’d like to work with?

“Sure, there’s a whole bunch; I would love to work with Ms Dynamite. I managed to get in the studio and do a track with Stylo G while I was in London, and then I linked with Sneak Bo, too. Carnival was amazing, such a good party. I’d never been to Carnival before so it was great to just be there.”

You’ve released a lot of music on your label Mixpak from UK artists like Melé, who features alongside Mr Mitch and others on the new ‘Mixpak Pressure Vol 1’ compilation. Has the UK been the influence on you that it appears?

“Well, I’m really interested in different Jamaican born music, and I’ve always been interested in the ways that the UK has taken that music and interacted with it, and given it a UK slant. That’s something that definitely interests me. As someone who is working as an outsider, bringing my own take to different Jamaican musical forms, it’s really interesting to see how that’s been done in the UK over the years by the people from Jamaican backgrounds, but who’ve grown up there.”

So where did you grow up, and what was the music around you?

“My family moved around a lot when I was growing up. I’ve been in NY for about eight years, and before that I was down in Philadelphia. There wasn’t one genre that was primarily dominant. Obviously, rap music was super influential growing up. And I guess through my love of rap, I started to discover the different music that rap producers were sampling. That took me through every different genre in a way. All the music I’ve come across has been influential, and that’s been a very wide swathe of different genres…”

Which could explain the diversity of genres, sounds and styles that you’ve put out through Mixpak?

“Yeah, it probably does. You know, producing music gives me perspective that any music can now be interesting, to a certain degree, which means my ear is always keen to hear a lot of different things. And so with Mixpak, I think it’s kind of an extension of my own listening in a way – in the sense that anything I find exciting is something I’d put out on Mixpak and get behind.

“Also, I always thought it would be interesting to do singles and EPs with major artists, and established, as well as up-and-coming, producers. So that’s the thinking behind doing something with Vybz Kartel, then following that up with a Melé release. In the world I’m living in, there’s nothing that strange about that. That falls along the lines of what I might be listening to on any given day.”

You mentioned Vybz Kartel… You started doing tracks with him a good while ago, and produced his album ‘Kingston Story’ last year – what was he like?

“He was really great to work with in the studio. One thing I heard second hand is that if you go back ten years, he would write his songs in notebooks. By the time we started working together he’d trained himself to not work in that way. I would play him a new riddim, he’d be hearing it for the first time in the studio and he’d just start writing right away, from the first beat – not writing with a pen and paper but in his mind. He would write straight into the microphone and record.

“I think he deliberately trained himself to work that way because he realised it would give a different vibe to the song. It’s a different approach to the craft of song writing and I think that’s what has enabled him to write so prolifically. I’m sure we did songs that he heard the track for the first time and then was done recording it, all the arrangement, in under an hour. I work with a lot of different song writers and it’s incredibly rare to meet someone who works that quickly and has such intuition for what to do with the track.”

Despite the bad press that surrounds Kartel, and the fact he’s awaiting trial for murder, a lot of people have suggested that he’ll be remembered as one of Jamaican music’s greatest and most influential talents…

“One thing I got to see up close is not only is he unbelievably talented; he’s very smart and very driven. So he will do three, four or five songs in a night and easily do 15 songs in a week. It’s not just that he can do it; it’s that he does do it. Kartel himself has literally written three or four thousand songs. It’s insane.

“But beyond music, I think Kartel was very innovative and provocative culturally, and learnt how to keep things very frenetically paced in his career; always in the news every week, with interesting stories and talking points surrounding him. I think that’s his legacy in a way, it’s almost hard to see outside of Jamaica just how profoundly impactful that was and is in Kingston and in Jamaica.”

Jamaica is obviously under your skin?

“Yes, it is. For a long time, I’ve been drawn to Jamaican music and been fascinated by it. On one level it’s amazing the amount of important music that has come out of such a small island. There’s an amazing tradition of making music there. You know, I have a love for dancehall, but then I love the older productions – what Lee Scratch Perry and those guys did in the 1970s. Jamaican music has shaped my thinking about music in general. So, for me, it’s such a great feeling to be working in the studios down there and with great Jamaican artists. There’s such a long tradition of recording; it’s special.”

Beyond your work with Kartel, you’ve recently put out riddims featuring Popcaan, Beenie Man and bunch of other dancehall superstars. We’ve discussed your diversity as a producer, but does your focus lie with dancehall at the moment…

“Well, this summer I’ve done two ‘riddim’ releases, and been very much focused on some dancehall stuff. But I’m also working in a lot of different directions as a producer. So, in that realm, it’s a bit more diverse. I’m keen to keep working in dancehall but there’s a lot of rap production and stuff; I’m working on a project with Pusha T and I’m also in the process of signing a new vocalist from New York.”

Which leads us onto your work on the Snoop Dogg album over in Jamaica with Diplo earlier this year… Had you worked with Snoop before?

“No, not at all. Obviously, Snoop is someone I listened to growing up and I’m a big fan, so it was just an amazing situation to be able to work on his record.  The album is Major Lazer and me – Diplo brought me in to partner with him and the other producer who works with him on Major Lazer. So the three of us went down to Jamaica with Snoop and some writers and produced the album.”

That must have been quite a moment… are you past getting star-struck these days? Or did you think ‘What the fuck, I’m sat in Jamaica with Snoop Dogg’?

“The first day I met Snoop was in Tuff Gong studios in Kingston. He was there with his crew, his wife was there, and we were playing some of my tracks and to watch him getting excited, that was definitely a cool feeling. But pretty quickly, it becomes about communicating with him and trying to understand his vision and bring that to life. You can’t sit around for too long getting excited that you’re working with him; you’ve gotta get to work! So we worked seven days a week, up to 18 hours a day trying to turn out this album. We were there 17 days, and we did the whole album in that time. It was pretty cool.”

Words: Jon Cook

Images: Francesca Tamse

@dreskull

 
‘Mixpak Pressure Volume 1’ is out now on Mixpak Records.

BRISTOL’S BIGGEST RAVE BACK WITH A BANG

 
This Friday 19 October, The Blast STB is back at Motion in Bristol for another enormous party, packed with bass, vibes and a couple of thousand eager ravers ready to lose their shit to another ridiculous line-up of bass-music superstars.

Motion’s enormous main room will play host to Jack Beats, Foreign Beggars (performing their only UK tour date this year) and a whole rabble of other rowdy rave razers.

If that’s not your thing, don’t be put off – Toddla T, The Heatwave, Lil Silva, Trim, DRS and Woz will be  doing their thing in the massive second warehouse that we will be calling home for the night, while the ever-excellent Tunnel room will see Zed Bias, Mele, Monki, Gemmy and Superisk balancing the line-up out nicely.

Tickets are still available from the In:Motion site here, and more info is over on The Blast’s new website.

In case you missed it last week, here’s the exclusive mix Lil Silva has just done for Trap – download or listen online and get yourself in the mood for Friday!

FJALLRAVEN – KANKEN BACKPACKS

With the rise of all things ‘heritage’ over the last couple of years, Scandanavian brands such as Norse Projects and Wood Wood have been bossing the streetwear world with their solidly designed ranges of stylish yet practical items.

Now it’s the turn of classic Swedish outdoor outfitters Fjallraven to earn the affections of the hipster crowd. After spotting the Kanken bags shown here clutching the shoulders of the best-dressed sections of the Berlin contingent out at Dimensions, we were stoked to find them on sale in our favourite streetwear emporium, Donuts.

Available in a range of on-point hues and in three different sizes (including a 17-inch that’s perfect for laptops), these bags are much more affordable than the steep prices you’ll find attached to any other heritage-inspired backpack.

Available now from the Donuts webstore and various online outlets, we cannot recommend these little gems enough for the winter ahead.

donutsthestore.co.uk

fjallraven.com

DOWNLOAD THEIR RISE UP MIX NOW

TOYC and Zulu make bass-heavy 4/4 bangers. Their recent EP for Zoo Music showed just how much potential these two young producers hold. Download TOYC & Zulu’s exclusive Rise Up #004 mix now for one hour of bass-heavy house, grime and everything in between…

 

WE ARE…
TOYC & ZULU
YOU MAY ALREADY KNOW US FOR…

Our own individual productions, the occasional remix and our latest joint EP, ‘Needs To Be Said, released on Zoo Music.

WE’D DESCRIBE THE MUSIC WE MAKE AS…

Music to make as many people as possible dance!

WHEN WE’RE NOT WORKING, YOU’LL FIND US…

Laughing at something on YouTube, or on the way to the pub.

WHEN WE WERE YOUNGER, WE DREAMED OF BEING…

We both wanted to be skaters and spent so many endless hours watching skateboard videos.

IF WE WEREN’T DOING MUSIC, WE’D…

Most likely be doing a lot better at university!

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD TO US IS…

 To know when to have a laugh and not take everything too seriously.

OUR MUSICAL GUILTY PLEASURE IS…

 Obviously ‘£1 Fish’ man! But, who isn’t guilty of that?

YOU MAY BE SURPRISED TO KNOW THAT…

 We’ve only actually known each other in person for less than a year!

THE BEST ADVICE WE’VE EVER HAD IS… 

 Just do your own thing and don’t look at what everyone else is doing around you.

THREE WORDS THAT DESCRIBE OUR MIX ARE…

 TOYC, ZULU, SMASHER.

IN 12 MONTH’S TIME… 

We’ll hopefully not still be stuck in the cupboard of a studio we use!

@iamtoyc

@zuluproducer

WIN TWO TICKETS TO TODDLA T’S FABRIC SHOW

Toddla T brings his Toddla T Sound show to London’s Fabric this Friday, and Trap has two pairs of tickets, plus copies of his bad-man FabricLive mix from a couple of years back to giveaway!

Friday’s gig will see Toddla take to the stage with Shola Ama, DRS and Serocee for an explosive set packed with fancy lights and visuals. Support comes from Koan Sound, Scratch Perverts, DJ Q and Kito, while room 2 brings D&B from Loadstar, Ed Rush, AI and Dillinja, plus DJ Cameo takes care of room 3 with Orange Hill, D Double E and plenty more.

To enter, simply email competitions@trapmagazine.co.uk with your name, DoB and post code before midday on Friday. A winner will be selected at random.

The full line-up can be found over on the Fabric website. Massive luck, we’ll see you down there!

www.fabriclondon.com

Bristol series keeps things moving

Back for a third successive year, the In:Motion series kicks off on Friday 28 September at Bristol’s enormous Motion venue, promising another exceptional three months of music from many of electronic music’s biggest names and brands.

Now firmly established as one of the finest series of its kind anywhere in the world, we can’t wait for another season of incredible parties in our own back yard.

Running every weekend through to New Year’s Eve (with a few weeks off in December), this year’s season will see everyone from Just Jack to Hospitality, Hessle Audio to Cocoon, and Trouble Vision to Tokyo Dub calling the vast warehouses and intimate spaces of Motion home for the night.

With live shows from Grimes and even Public Enemy (yes, Public Enemy), In:Motion has clearly stepped up its game for 2012.

We’re hugely excited to be hosting our own Warehouse at the October and December Shit The Bed events – for more info on this and all the events, head on over to the freshly launched website and grab your tickets nice and early.

www.bristolinmotion.com

london brand launches new collection

 
London collective toomuchposse comes good with the launch of its latest collection.

Staying true to the brand’s tradition of giving a central role to the classic ‘TooMuch’ logo, the range pays homage to the capital on a selection of monochrome printed tees with red accents and simple hats with leather shield styling. Too much indeed.

Words: Kasha Malyckyj

www.toomuchposse.com

NEW VIDEO FOR ‘GET FREE’

Ahead of the release of Diplo’s dancehall concept Major Lazer’s second album, titled ‘Free The Universe’, this stunning new video for lead single ‘Get Free’, has just been unveiled.

Supremely edited and filmed on location in Jamaica, it’s a tantalising taster of what to expect come November when the full album is released.

 
majorlazer.com

badman attire

If Grind London is a new name to you, then get to know. Self-proclaimed ‘Badman Attire’, the brand made its name with a range of capsule printed tees, and recently stepped things up with the ‘Hot Like Toast’ Summer collection.

Adding a small selection of well-designed shirts and shorts, which mix quality fabrics with on-trend prints, Grind has definitely set the bar high for future collections. We can’t wait to see what the brand has up its sleeve for Autumn.

www.grindlondon.com

LIFE IS FOR LIVING

 
There are few more important figures in the history of British bass-driven music than Mala. One half of Digital Mystikz and co-founder of the DMZ nights, Mala is one of the Croydon originals who built a sound that would go on to conquer the world. Mala’s sub-bass saturated, deeply tribal grooves helped lay the template for what would come to be known as dubstep, and despite the fame and success that has come his way in the intervening decade, the south-London born producer has never faltered from a path of distilled integrity.

With his long dreadlocks and commitment to cutting dubplates for every set, Mala evokes and embodies the spirit and passion of soundsystem culture for a whole new generation. Since his first release with Coki as Digital Mystikz for the Big Apple label back in 2004 and the subsequent establishment of the DMZ label and later his own Deep Medi Muzik imprint, Mala’s sound has always been something to feel as much as to hear, striking deep into your chest and stirring your soul with its hypnotic, meditative roll.

With such passion and unwavering focus on his craft, Mala has built a near fanatical fan base, happy to spend hundreds of pounds on his early vinyl releases and chattering constantly on message boards about his unreleased dubs and future projects. As such, when news broke earlier this year that Mala had been in Cuba recording with musicians for his first album project proper, that chatter went into overdrive at the prospect.

Renowned  as much for the intricate percussion that decorates and drives every one of his productions as for the depth of his basslines, the prospect of Mala working with the famously gifted musicians for which Cuba is famed had everyone salivating -  and quite rightly so.

With that album, entitled ‘Mala In Cuba’, set for release in September on Giles Peterson’s Brownswood label, we at Trap knew the time had come to track Mala down for a front-cover feature we’ve wanted since our very first issue. Now living in Belgium with his expectant long-term partner and two-year-old son, Trap ventured over to St Pancras to meet Mala from the Eurostar as he arrived back in the capital to play at that evening’s ill-fated Bloc at the London Pleasure Gardens.

Just a few hours before his set with Coki later that night, we leap into the waiting car of Trap’s favourite photographer and personal friend of Mala, Ashes57, and venture out into the Friday afternoon rush hour towards East London.

After numerous stops for photographs and with the traffic intensifying, Mala jumps in the back of the car; we stick our Dictaphone on and begin one of the deepest, most eloquent interviews we’ve yet had the pleasure to print.

“I got contacted by Giles Peterson at the end of 2010,” Mala begins when asked to explain how a dubstep producer from South London ended up in Cuba working on an album for one of world music’s chief exponents. “He’d been working on a project called ‘Havana Cultura’, where he’d been going to Cuba to work with Cuban musicians. He’d made a couple of compilations in previous years, but this time he wanted to go back and do something different. For some reason he decided he’d take me out there with him to make an album…”

You say ‘for some reason’, but did you not already have a working relationship with Giles, or know him personally?

“No; I’d met Giles a couple of years before, just through music, but nothing too in depth. I did ask him, ‘Out of everybody you could take to Cuba, why me?’ He said he’d always admired the percussion in my tunes, the sense of groove, and with my Jamaican roots – my dad is from Jamaica – he thought it would be an interesting combination.

“I didn’t jump at the chance, I’m quite cautious with things. I’ve been offered all sorts of opportunities over the years, business wise and musically, but I’m not always interested, it doesn’t always feel right. But this seemed like a genuine offer and something I was curious about. So, cautiously, I said ‘Yeah’. There was no real concept other than to go to Cuba and see what happened. The plan was to go first in January 2011, for an educational, a field day for me; where I’d go to Cuba and learn about Cuban culture and music. I was very honest with Giles and told him ‘I don’t know anything about Cuba or Cuban music.’

“That first trip ended up being the creation of the concept. That was to work with Roberto Fonseca and his band, and to record a number of traditional Cuban rhythms; from Cha Cha Cha to Merengue to Conga to Mambo. Roberto was on the piano with his drummer, a conga player and someone on the double bass – that was the main band. I came home with 60GB of music from that first trip; the band playing Cuban rhythms for me at 140bpm. I asked them to write some crazy time signatures too, just out of curiosity really. These guys are phenomenal; they spend two minutes practicing the rhythm on the tempo and that’s it, they’re ready to record a five-minute jam.”

As someone that had never been to Cuba before and knew little of its culture, what were your impressions of the place?

“The spirit of the people, the history of the nation and the country had such an effect on me. It’s such a different place to anywhere else in the world I’ve been. The first thing I noticed is, they’re not plagued with consumerism – you don’t go into a shop and see Hello or OK magazine and some idiot talking about what diet they’re doing. None of that nonsense, no celebrity culture, no consumerism. It just doesn’t exist there. It’s very refreshing and it creates a different mentality in the people.”

And do you feel that mentality rubbed off on you and the album? It’s different to anything you’ve done before…

“In many ways it is, working with live musicians and being asked to create music and an album for somebody. Writing an album has always been something I didn’t really want to get involved in, because it’s quite stressful on one’s mind.”

It becomes like a job?

“No. It doesn’t become like a job, getting up, putting on a shirt and tie to go sit in an office and do something you hate every day. It’s definitely not a job like that. But it does become and take a different discipline, which I had to work at. It wasn’t an easy task, creating music never is for me, though.

“Writing music was easier for me ten years ago than now, maybe that’s due to acquiring knowledge over time and experience; we feel we gain knowledge of things, so should be a better level than where we were in the past, you know? When I make music, I want make something that’s both interesting and challenging for myself, I don’t want to make the same record twice. So yeah, it was hard work and it was definitely the biggest challenge I’ve faced so far musically.”

“i tore myself to bits”

You stretched yourself?

“Of course, man. I tore myself to bits. You get to a point where you can’t stand yourself, you hate yourself, lose all self confidence. It took me a year to write and there were definitely times when I couldn’t listen to it and left it for a couple of months. And the thing is with writing music; it’s like a maze. You’ve got all these different shapes and layers and colours and ideas and emotions and you try to make sense of it in some abstract way. You try to piece it together, and then there’s this maze created of how you’ve got to the place you’re at with your piece of music. So if you then go away from it, you have to get back into your maze.

“Doing that with just one track for me is very challenging, but to do that with an album’s worth of music, and for the album to be coherent and not just a collection of tracks; like ‘Return To Space’, that was just me releasing six records that I’d made over a period of years. It wasn’t really an album as such. But this was something that’s meant to be a listening from start to finish. I don’t think it’s a concept album, but the concept is that this is my interpretation and expression of what I experienced while in Cuba, not just the music but the country and the people too.”

And the genre that you’ve employed through which to express that – would you call it dubstep?

“I’ve never really called my music dubstep. Obviously, what I’ve done has been called that, people say that is what I do. The reason why I’ve always refrained from calling my music anything is because I find it mentally limiting. If I tell myself I’m this or that type of producer, then, when I sit down in the studio, sometimes thoughts manifest and that’s what you end up becoming. I write music according to how I feel, to what’s going on in my environment, and my environment isn’t dubstep.

“So while as much as it’s great, everything that’s been said about DMZ and Deep Medi, I’m very grateful and feel very privileged and honoured that people regard us in the way that they do, when it comes to this genre of music, but I don’t like to limit myself to any one genre. Even though the music I make fits a certain sound or tempo.

“It’s interesting, because I listen to someone like Jah Shaka for example. Now I’m sure someone like him is open-minded when it comes to music, like a lot of musicians are. For me, I like to listen to music that feels conscious, especially when there’s words involved. But when it comes to instrumental music, there are no boundaries, because we interpret sound and frequency as an abstract; you take it how it is for you, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything in particular. But when you go and hear Jah Shaka play, he’s not gonna be playing a drum & bass set or a house set; he plays his sound. And this is how I sort of see my sound.”

“When you explore, you discover”

You’ve just mentioned Jah Shaka, and your dad is Jamaican – has soundsystem culture been the big influence on you that it appears to have been?

“No, not really. I didn’t grow up listening to that stuff. If anything, I tell my dad about soundsystems. My mum and dad listened to a lot of different music, I didn’t grow up around that, my dad’s not Rasta or anything like that, he’s not a sound man. So I heard as much Michael Jackson, Dire Straits or Whitney Houston as anything. It wasn’t until I started listening to jungle in the early 90s and finding my own direction musically that I stumbled across these things. Obviously, every home plays Bob Marley at some point, but finding Lee Perry, Augustus Pablo and King Tubby – they were things that I discovered on my own. And from those things you find out about the UK soundsystems; Jah Shaka, Channel One, Aba Shanti-I. This was all my own doing.

“I’m the oldest of my brothers, I have an older sister but she wasn’t into the music like me, so I didn’t get any music from her. I was like the discoverer, you know, and that’s how I felt about writing music; it’s not a set thing. It’s not even about finishing music for me; it’s a continuous journey that happens whether you’re creating or listening to music. It’s about exploring frequencies and new vibrations. When you explore, you discover and for me that’s where the joy is in writing music; that discovery of something you’ve never come across before. And that’s why I don’t want to limit myself by saying I’m this or that guy, making this or that genre. I don’t limit myself.”

Music is much more than just a sound to you, then? It’s a feeling?

“I’m not a musician; you ask me to hum the note of C to you, I’ll be humming a B-flat. I don’t understand music in that way, I just feel it. And to me, you don’t need to understand it; if you feel it, you feel it and that’s all that’s important. Don’t get me wrong; if you have a musical understanding in terms of theory, it will enhance your creation. Just because you understand something, that doesn’t take away the feeling. For me, I was never educated that way in music; I was always playing football when I was a youngster, that’s all I was interested in. I was at Millwall for seven years, that’s what I was gonna do. And then I got into listening to jungle and the next minute I know me Pokes and Coki are MCing at jungle raves when we’re like 14 years old! From there, we met Loefah when I was about 15 and we all just linked up on this music vibe. There were so many parties we used to go to together, the four of us. So when the whole DMZ thing came about, it just became an extension of what we were doing in our bedrooms.”

But you weren’t playing jungle by the time you started DMZ… it was a new sound completely. What was the music of the day missing to you that made you feel you wanted to create something new?

“It wasn’t that I felt like there was anything necessarily missing. I’d been listening to jungle for a long time. The Metalheadz thing came around, that was sick – the parties in Camden, the Grand Jams at Hanover Grand. They were ridiculous man. It was just underground, good soundsystems, hardcore music. I used to listen to a lot of house music as well, from about 1995, I used to buy a lot of house records. And I used to really like all the late-90s garage stuff too, but then that all got a bit off-key, too much business got involved, people stopped making certain types of tunes and everything got a bit more mainstream. I just think there wasn’t really anything that had gripped me like jungle music had gripped me.

“So when I looked at the music I was making then, it kind of made sense, cause there was the jungle influence, the roots and reggae, the dub influence, there was house going on, the early garage stuff. When I started writing music, all I knew was the bassline had to be big, because of the music I’d grown up with. But I wasn’t feeling drum & bass at that stage, I’d stopped following the scene a long time before.

“I really don’t know how it came about if I’m honest with you – just right time, right place, right frequency. It just naturally felt right to really strip it down; everything felt at that time like it was getting faster and building up and up. At that point, I wasn’t looking to rave it up in my bedroom after a day at work, so the music really was a meditation. I’d come in, exercise on the tunes, release my shit, the stress from the day. That was just the sound that came out.”

“one man’s pot of gold is another man’s trash can”

At those early DMZ dances, the music really was that mash-up and hybrid of influences that you’ve discussed. But that’s something dubstep has lost now as it’s become more and more commercial…

“Well, I think everything happens that way. Whether you’re in a relationship, or you’re talking about music, art photography. If people don’t take it on themselves to maintain integrity and discipline in their work and they start allowing themselves to be influenced from within the scene that they are in, things always will change.

“I don’t want to say that it’s bad the way things are now you know, because one man’s pot of gold is another man’s trash can, but I feel I’m still able to do what I’ve always done. That’s not to say it’s easy because most people want to live comfortably and music is a world that will offer you every type of temptation – from money to drugs to women. Seriously, the higher up the ladder you go, the more popular you get and all those things are there for you. For free. So it takes one’s character or nature to resist. Everyone makes their choices in life. And you have to live with your choices. So sometimes you have to be careful what you choose, because sometimes the grass isn’t always greener.”

And the younger generation of dubstep producers? Deep Medi isn’t afraid to sign up new artists that are pushing the sound you still believe in, but it’s so easy to dismiss the newer dubstep sound that’s pushed elsewhere as a barrage of soulless noise. Do you ever feel disheartened by what the genre has come to mean to so many?

“If I don’t really like something, I’m not gonna give my energy to it. So it doesn’t really dishearten me; people say, ‘It’s so noisy, bro this, bro that.’ I’m sure you could just be putting your energy somewhere else if you’re not really feeling it. But yeah, Deep Medi, we’ve got a lot of stuff coming out- we had the Goth Trad album earlier this year, VIVEK still going strong, Commodo, Swindle’s got another release coming, he’s making some great music; he really is a musician. Still now, I feel very grateful and privileged to have these musicians around me; they’ve given me a lot of energy over the years to keep doing what I’m doing. A lot of the guys are younger than me; it’s nice to have that as you get older; it’s not that you lose the fire, but the fire burns differently.

“I was 23 when I released my first record and we started DMZ. The fire we had, that’s the reason we did it; we didn’t wanna sign no records to no labels, weren’t interested in nobody doing nothing for us. We used to distribute the records ourselves, going round London with a box of records and dropping them off to the shops in person. That was the fire I had then, so it’s nice to be around it again now. It all goes round, it’s all energy and it’s about giving and taking.”

But you still have fire for the future though? What does it hold for Mala?

“After this Cuba project… You know when you do something or see something that you never saw before, and you just can’t ever not see it that way again? it’s been that kind of thing for me. As I said, it tore me open, and I had to rebuild myself so to speak. I can never go back to how I was before; I’ve definitely got new ideas for what I want to do for a future project, which I never had before. I definitely want to write another album after this one; just for the sheer headache, and for the adventure, man. It’s been a crazy year, obviously I have family as well, so juggling family life and being on the road and running a label, making your own tunes, it’s mental, but life is for living.”

Words: Jon Cook

Photos: ASHES57

‘Mala In Cuba’ is out now on Brownswood.

As printed in trap#010 – read online here or buy the printed issue here.

www.malaincuba.com

EXHIBITION SHOWCASES THE BEST IN DANCEHALL ART

As you will already be well aware, this summer marks the fiftieth anniversary of Jamaica’s independence from the UK.

We’ve already seen all sorts of celebrations popping off across the country, drawing attention to the immense contribution that the Caribbean island has made to the cultural fabric of the UK.

As part of the festivities, Art In The Dancehall aims to celebrate the relationship between soundsystem culture and art by showcasing some of the most iconic illustration and design from the last 30-plus years of dancehall history.

Curated by the excellent ShimmyShimmy blog and Al Fingers, and in association with PUMA YARD and Jamaica50, the exhibition ran in August at Brick Lane’s PUMA YARD, following a two-week showing up in Birmingham, and featured some of the genre’s most memorable cover and poster art, plus new artworks from fresh young international talent.

Top: Beenieman by Ellen G

Above: Stalag Riddim Cover by Limonious, Josey Wales & Yellow Man by Tony McDermott.

Below: Yardcore Cover by Tony McDermott,  No Ice Cream Sound Cover by Peter Edwards, Ward21 Poster by Gabe, Shabba Ranks by Ellen G.

The South-London nightlife boom continues apace with the recent launch of The Upfront Project at Vauxhall’s freshly rejuvenated Lightbox.

Promising the finest in forward-thinking electronic music, from house and techno to garage, funky and the more expressive end of dubstep and hip-hop, the series is curated by the team behind the excellent Audio Doughnuts record label and events.

Launched at the tail-end of July, August’s line-ups include Trap favourites Two Inch Punch, Cooly G, Appleblim, Jam City, 2562, Deadboy and many more, as the series looks to quickly establish itself as one of the capital’s most essential Friday nights.

As anyone who’s attend a party at Lightbox will know, the venue’s walls and ceiling are smothered in wall-to-wall LED lighting, setting the venue firmly apart from the crowd. Combined with the weekly line-ups promised by The Upfront Project, and early-bird tickets costing just a fiver, this new series looks set to boldly make its mark on the capital.

www.theupfrontproject.com

TRINIDAD MEETS BRISTOL IN A CARNIVAL STYLE

Perfectly timed for carnival season, Bristol-versus-Trinidad duo Jus Now have a sound unlike anything else you’ve heard. With a forthcoming 12 for DJ Die’s genre-busting Gutterfunk imprint, Jus Now are set for huge things. Download their Rise Up #003 mix now!

WE ARE… 

Interface and Laza Beam. But when our powers are combined, we become Jus Now.

YOU MAY ALREADY KNOW US FOR… 

Maybe Skream & Benga and Heatwave playing our track ‘Cut Meh Loose’. Individually, as Interface I’ve released D&B on labels such as Clearskyz and Shogun. Laza Beam is a well-known producer in Trinidad and has remixed L-Vis 1990 and Major Lazer.

WE’D DESCRIBE THE MUSIC WE MAKE AS… 

A carnival in your headphones! Our sound fuses traditional Trinidadian rhythms and sounds with UK bass-weight and forward thinking production.

WHEN WE’RE NOT WORKING, YOU’LL FIND US… 

Standing on one leg, just for the fun of it.

WHEN WE WERE YOUNGER, WE DREAMED OF BEING… 

Older, wiser, fitter, happier and more productive.

IF WE WEREN’T DOING MUSIC, WE’D… 

Probably be pretty emotionally unstable.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD TO US IS… 

The riddim section.

OUR MUSICAL GUILTY PLEASURE IS… 

I could write all day about this; we have too many… Right now, I’m feeling Carly Rae Jepson, ‘Call Me Maybe’!

YOU MAY BE SURPRISED TO KNOW THAT… 

You can’t hum whilst holding your nose.

THE BEST ADVICE WE’VE EVER HAD IS…  

Don’t be a sheep, be a shepherd.

IN 12 MONTH’S TIME… 

All going well, we’ll have released our debut album and be touring the summer festivals with an incredible high energy stage show…

@saminterface

@lazabeam14

HOUSE AND TECHNO 4 LIFE

How does it come to be that a DJ duo whose first album got taken on for release by progressive trance and house record label Anjunadeep appears featured in a magazine like Trap? In what world does it make sense that Jamie Jones is championing the very same tracks in his global DJ sets that Loefah is slipping in to his weekly Rinse FM shows?

Why would an electronic music duo “hoping to becoming regulars in years to come” within the Ibiza clubbing network give a damn about chatting to a magazine with Mala on its front cover? For fear of spiraling into rhetoric question chaos, please meet Dusky, and please read on to find out why all of this strangely makes so much sense.

Alfie Granger-Howell and Nick Harriman of Dusky are self proclaimed enthusiasts of music eclecticism. The disconnect between the London-based duo releasing ‘Stick By This’ on international trance powerhouse Above & Beyond’s Anjunadeep imprint, and the fact those tracks are now getting remixed by the likes of Midland, Tevo Howard and Synkro, is almost unfathomable.

However, when you consider that the duo is influenced so strongly by R&S’s back catalogue, whose output famously connects UK bass and straight-up experimental electronica, it’s clear to see that cross-pollination between genres comes easily to Dusky. A brief mention of the duo’s current listening libraries and it’s clear to see just how deep their interest in music goes.

“I’ve been listening to some pretty weird experimental music lately,” explains Alfie. “Some sound art and some contemporary classical stuff. Although the end product is totally different, taking this approach to construction is quite useful as an inspirational tool when it comes to our productions.”

“I’ve been listening to lots of jazz recently,” contrasts Nick. “Specifically, Pat Metheney. That’s been coming through, as we’ve been using more varied harmony in the tracks we’ve been making.”

It’s clear that the confines of musical genre go undetected with Dusky, which is arguably why their output can hold the concentration of electronic music fans of all ages and various tastes. The duo’s artistic backgrounds and unique approach to music consumption mean they take inspiration from the fundamentals, rather than the ever-changing facades of industry-celebrated electronic music.

“We’ve worked with each other for a long time on various projects, so it’s a very fluid, organic process,” explains Alfie. “Nick comes from more of a music production background, as opposed to the composition one that I have, so he tends to spend a bit more time on the overall mix and on the sonic details of the track, while I tend to spend a bit more time on the melodic aspects.”

One level of a track that proves irresistible to any bass music fan is the vocal, and the intense skill behind the way Dusky approach this very human aspect of electronic music is what has their output straddling the worlds of UK bass, house and techno so naturally. While the skipping percussion and affirmative fist-pump-friendly bassline of the recently released ‘Flo Jam’ on Dogmatik may appeal to old 4/4 house sensibilities, it’s the sexy, syncopated and beautifully warped Aaliyah sample that roots the track in the sounds of early garage and dubstep.

“Yeah,” agrees Alfie, “vocals are so instantly recognizable and can carry so much emotion or convey something so primeval that we always try to use them. We spend a huge amount of time digging, sampling, warping and chopping up to get the vocals we use.”

This hark-back approach to sourcing, reworking and allowing vocals to lead the electronic score is no doubt due to Dusky’s long-term love affair with 2step and UK garage. Growing up in London at the turn of the Millennium, Dusky are entrenched in the most UK-centric era of dance music. However deep, minimal or techy their tracks become, you can’t help but latch on to that turbulent, rugged inner-city groove within them that makes all music coming out of the capital so instinctively bass driven. But how did UK underground electronic music manage to create such an impression on the duo as teenagers?

“Radio had a huge effect,” reminisces Nick. “You had a choice of a hundred different pirate stations to listen to at that time, and it was a big part of our lives; hearing adverts for the raves, getting hyped for the weekend, phoning shout outs to your mates who you knew would be locked in…”

Fast forward over a decade and it’s partly down to national mainstream radio that Dusky find themselves in the situation they’re in now – making a living in the underground dance music industry. From earning Pete Tong’s Essential New Tune accolade for aforementioned Anjunadeep released ‘Someone Like You’, to interview introductions on Toddla T’s BBC Radio 1 show and continued support from the likes of Rob Da Bank and Zane Lowe, support has been unprecedented considering how little was known of the duo this time last year. Would Dusky say that radio is as important to them now as artists and music fans, as it was ten years ago?

“We love radio,” proclaims Alfie. “There are some really great stations out there that have introduced us to music we would otherwise never have heard. The shows on Rinse and some of the Radio 1 shows, for example, are a great way of hearing exclusive stuff before it’s played anywhere else. So yeah, it’s really important to us. It’s been a lot of fun guesting on people’s shows recently, too.”

With UK radio stations lapping up whatever Dusky throw at them, Ibiza boat parties and DC10 dates this summer, an upcoming release on new label School, as well as the star-studded remix EP of 2011’s ‘Stick By This’, the second half of 2012 is looking promising for the duo.

“We’d love to be able to summarise 2012 by saying it was the year Dusky emerged from its cocoon and became a beautiful garden butterfly with the words ‘HOUSE & TECHNO 4 LIFE’ tattooed on its wings.” Alfie concludes.

House and techno it may be, but that subtle bass touch is what makes Dusky’s output so fresh and keeps us coming back for more.

Words: Sophie Thomas

As printed in trap#010, August/September 2012 – read online here, or buy the full issue here.

@duskymusic

NICE-UP GARMS

Dancehall blog Shimmy Shimmy has added some brand-new designs to its roster of much-loved, bashment-based teeshirts.

We love the combination of on-point graphics with iconic dancehall imagery – you’ll find us rocking the ‘Chat To Mi Back’ tee at Carnival this year, and no doubt the months to come…

www.shimmyshimmy.co.uk

“The grime scene was looking very grey for a while”

To talk about progressive grime it is to talk about Royal-T. In recent years, a fresh crop of producers has taken instrumental grime to wider credibility and new levels of popularity. Young Southampton resident Mark ‘Royal-T’ Taylor is at the epicentre of this wave, consistently turning out fresh takes on the genre, with no two tracks sounding quite the same.

Often imbibing his productions with an overwhelming UK garage influence, while referencing a diverse selection of genres from the 1990s – from rave and jungle to dubstep, breakbeat and even computer game soundtracks – the beauty of Royal-T’s production rests in his ability to retain the frenetic energy that defines grime.

And while most other grime producers were making ‘riddims’ they hoped a big MC would vocal for their mixtape, Royal-T was making music that would work in clubs. It’s this that’s enabled his tunes to finder traction across the wider ‘bass music’ movement.

With a forthcoming album and new show on Rinse, striving to be different has obviously paid off in a big way. Trap thought it was time we caught up with Southampton’s biggest grime export…

EZ! The big news is that you have an album coming out on Rinse, how does that feel and what can we expect?

It’s starting to sink in now. I’m so excited about it. The whole album thing was something I’d wanted for years, ever since I started producing. I always wanted a full grime album of mine in HMV or whatever, and now that’s happening. It’s full of the Royal-T sound; some bits listeners might have heard floating around on radio and some completely new stuff waiting to be heard.

How are you finding your show on the station?

I love doing the show; it’s opened up a lot for me. It’s nice to directly interact with listeners and to get sent and listen to new music all the time. It’s made me write a lot more music too, to fill in the gaps.

You’ve said before that you want grime to be seen as electronic / dance music again, rather than just an MC-based genre. Why do you feel this would help the scene?

I’ve always felt that way really; I think the producers’ focus got lost a few years ago and bringing that back will also bring back the sound. The direction of the scene was looking very grey for a while and with dubstep going global, I think it was only right for grime to come back to the clubs. It’s the producers’ job to make this happen.

You’re part of the new wave of producers innovating in the scene; do you feel the attention has switched back to the guys making the beats recently?

Yeah, I think the most important people know what’s going on in grime right now and they understand who we are all. It’s good to see MCs doing their thing too, though, don’t get me wrong.

Garage is obviously a big influence on you, but what other genres have influenced your sound?

I suppose bassline would be one of them and, of course, elements of dubstep and breakbeat, but Garage was really the main influence on my production. There is a lot of music I listen to outside of the ‘bass’ genres and I do take a lot of influence from that, I’m a huge fan of anything by the Neptunes and N*E*R*D, for example.

There are several big collaborations on the album, which is your favourite and why?

I would probably have to say the P Money collaboration, just because of where things are now with it. The first time most people would have heard of Royal-T is ‘1UP’, which P Money vocalled, so it’s nice a couple years down the line for him to be on the first track on my debut LP.

How do you feel about the resurgence of events such as Eskimo Dance? Would you like to play there?

I think it’s good for the genre for things like Eski dance to be back, just so newer fans can experience a bit of history that they might not have been around for originally. I was probably only in my early teens when the originals happened, so I didn’t even get to go myself. It would be cool to play there one time, because it would be nice to be able to showcase what I do on that platform.

How has DJing effected your production? Every grime producer seems to DJ now…

I just think it’s the right thing to do for artist development. A singer will perform their songs on stage as well as having music available for personal listening, so I guess it’s only right for us producers to have something like that too.

What’s the dream for the coming year and rest of your career?

For everyone to enjoy the album, and for me to just to keep rising. Everything’s going cool but there’s always something I’m working to improve.

Last shouts?

Big up all my supporters, the Butterz gang and the Rinse team.

Words: Sam Bates

As printed in trap#010 – read online here or buy the printed issue here.

@RoyalTMusic

British artist David Walker paints portraits. With a difference. Exclusively employing spray paint and never using brushes, Walker’s deeply layered style is as arresting as it is beautiful.

Offsetting the delicate lines of his female subjects with frantic scrawls and colour-clashing abstractions, Walker’s artworks energetically leap out from the walls or canvases they adorn.

Regularly exhibiting around the world, while still finding time to take his art to the walls and shop shutters of the streets, check Walker’s website for more of his beautiful creations.

As printed in trap#010 – read online here or buy the printed issue here.

www.artofdavidwalker.com

REFLECTIVE SOUNDS

Trap is proud to present the first in our new mixtape series, delivering an hour of exclusive bass-heavy pressure from D&B duo Need For Mirrors.

Deep, textured, vibe-ridden grooves are what the pairing of Mosus and HLZ combine to unleash. One a Kiwi, one an Italian, both now live in London and have spent the last 18 months conquering their scene.

With tracks snapped up by every credible D&B imprint out there, and their own label Zoltar firing hard, Need For Mirrors aren’t just hot, they’re burning.

Download now for a lesson in just how good one of dance music’s most enduring genres can still be…

TRAP MIXTAPE #001 – NEED FOR MIRRORS

TRACKLIST:

1: NEED FOR MIRRORS – FABRIC – ZOLTAR
2: NEED FOR MIRRORS – TRAMP – DIGITAL SOUNDBOY
3: DRS Ft ENEI – COUNT TO TEN – SOULR
4: NEED FOR MIRRORS – INTERZONE – ZOLTAR
5: MARCUS INTALEX – CABAL – INGREDIENTS
6: VICIOUS CIRCLE – EMMAS DILEMA – SIREN
7: SUPANOVA & RUFFSTUFF – NEW HORIZONS – V RECORDS
8: NEED FOR MIRRORS – DOMO – SYMMETRY
9: BREAK – LOVE SO TRUE – SYMMETRY
10: OCTANE, DLR & BREAK – MURMUR – DISPATCH
11: FOREIGN CONCEPT – JAIPUR (VILLEM RMX) – INGREDIENTS
12: SEVEN Ft ALYS BE – CAME TO PLAY (NEED FOR MIRRORS RMX) – BLACK BOX
13: NEED FOR MIRRORS – VIMANA – PLAYAZ
14: GEORGE KURTZ – MONITOR YOUR THOUGHTS (NEED FOR MIRRORS RMX) – REBEL INSTINCT
15: NEED FOR MIRRORS FEAT. EDWARD OBERON – LIMITS OF CONTROL – CLEARSKYZ
16: MUTE & MAKO – ESSENTIAL FORMS (KLUTE RMX) – MARS
17: PHILTH – ONE PERFECT MOMENT – PEER PRESSURE
18: NEED FOR MIRRORS – SILENT RUNNER – DUB
19: NEED FOR MIRRORS & VICIOUS CIRCLE – SEA SLUG – DUB
20: NEED FOR MIRRORS – WAR ON DRUGS – FTM001
21: SKEPTICAL & DUB PHIZIX Ft T MAN – RUN IT LIKE THE PRESIDENT – SAMURAI

“It’s great getting that nervous energy again”

When it comes to electronic music, stars don’t come much brighter than Andy C. Widely regarded as among the greatest DJs of all time, the Ram Records boss has been at the pinnacle of his craft since the early-1990s, when, as a 16 year old, his DJ sets and game-changing productions stamped his name on the nascent jungle scene forever.

In his 20-plus years in the game, the Essex local has taken the music he loves from the Paradise Club in Hackney to the terraces of Space in Ibiza, and in the process infected thousands with his seemingly infinite enthusiasm for drum & bass.

Never one to rest on his laurels, the last year has seen Andy touring the festival and big rave circuit with ALIVE; his own take on the increasingly popular and demanded ‘live’ format. A huge audio-visual show that needs to be seen to be believed, ALIVE sees Andy step things up a level, controlling not just an incredibly complex bespoke DJ set-up (with, naturally, three Technics 1210s at its core) completely live every gig, but also the full visual VJ aspect.

With just a couple more shows of the festival season to go before Andy locks himself away in a studio for the autumn to continue the recent re-ignition of his name as a producer, we grabbed the phone and a few rare spare moments of Andy’s time to find out more…

Hello Andy, everything good with you?

Yeah really good man, what’s the day today? Tuesday, yeah, I’m enjoying a couple of days rest, and the weather is actually ok down here in Essex for once!

It’s not been the best summer…

It’s been terrible in the UK, awful. The frustrating thing is, I’ve been going down to Europe every weekend and it’s absolutely sweltering. But I only go in for 12 hours at a time and then fly home. Fingers crossed the rest of the festivals this summer will be dry ones; I’ve not had a dry UK festival yet!

“i’m definitely blessed”

So, where you off to this weekend?

I’m doing BCM in Majorca for MistaJam’s Speakerbox night on Friday, and then off to Russia for Global Gathering in St Petersburg. I finish on the decks in Majorca at 4am and then my flight is at 7.30am. I might be able to get a bit of kip…

How do you do it? London to Bristol and back in one day kills us!

Everyone says I’m nuts, but you just get used to it. Once I get on the decks, I forget about it all and it’s just part of the job. I’m very lucky to have the job that I’ve got, so a little bit of travelling here and there; it’s no price to pay. I’m definitely blessed, I’m not gonna moan about a little bit of travelling.

This summer, you’ve been lugging your ALIVE show around with you too. The bookings are still flying in for you as a DJ, so why did you feel the need to do the show?

There were a lot of performance based live shows coming about, but I wanted to celebrate the DJ, because that’s what I am first and foremost. I wanted to represent D&B with a big show that was focused on the DJ. Also, you need to set yourself personal goals in life. So, from starting off learning how to mix all those years ago, to learning how to make tunes,  to learning how to double drop and then going on to three turntables; where do you take it after that?!

Indeed, you’re more than just a DJ at these shows – you’re controlling the VJ aspect too?

Yeah that’s right. We teamed up with the company that do the visual side of things for the Oscars and Cirque De Soleil. We were rehearsing in a warehouse in East London, and they were just like ‘What? Why do you want to do this? It’s too hard!’ And my response was ‘That’s why I want to do it!’ Like DJing, I wanted it to be freestyle. They ended up programming me bespoke software that means I control everything, not just the music but the visuals as well. It became really interesting at that point, and that’s when it all gelled together.

The whole process took over a year, but it’s been really rewarding. The shows have been amazing, and it’s great getting that nervous energy again before a gig; not knowing if it’s gonna work. It’s enabled me to get excited about something entirely new, and learn, and it’s enabled us to go on these huge stages and perform a DJ drum & bass set and really try to expose the music to even more people.

“it will be an ever-evolving entity”

Beyond the challenge it presents, was it something you felt you had to do? Some might say the ‘Superstar DJ’ days are well behind us now, and a big stage demands something more than just a bobbing head behind a couple of decks…

I don’t think they are over. Have you been to any big festival recently, and seen DJs up on their own in front of 60,000 people? I wouldn’t say that’s over.

But then, maybe with a show like this, even though it is a D&B DJ set at its heart, the promoters think ‘You know what, I’m gonna put that on the biggest stage.’

And I’ve now got a show that I can adapt; it’s very modular. I’m back in the studio now and will be all autumn, working on my own tunes, so with the nature of the show I can easily adapt it to accommodate my own tracks and have it all linked in, so it will be an ever-evolving entity. So, after the first year travelling abroad with it to LA, Vegas and Europe, now going into 2013 we can adapt it and take it on and incorporate a performance aspect to it.”

It’s future proofing you?

The show itself is future proof. I’m not future proof! Because, as a DJ and as a producer, you’ve always got to keep on top of the game. But, yeah, the show itself is future proof.

For anyone who’s not yet seen ALIVE, what shows have you got left this summer?

We’re doing Pukkelpop in Belgium in August, and then a festival in France called Corsept, and then we’re rounding it all off at SW4 in London. We’ve got a whole Ram stage there, we’ll be closing that with ALIVE, and that will be it for the festivals for the year.

We’re gonna go out with a bang; we’re adding some bits and bobs. That show’s gonna be special. It’s always wicked there; the promoters are fantastic and the vibes are always amazing – I’ve played it the last few years, so am really looking forward to playing there when it’s nice and dark and intense!

And finally, it’s an obvious question that we’ve got to ask; what is it that makes Andy C feel alive?

That moment when you’re DJing and everything is perfect, the connection you have with the crowd. It’s an incredible range of emotions I go through when I’m playing – first of all there’s the excitement at the start the set, then how I start dictates how quickly I get in my comfort zone and start expressing myself.

“Then, what I always do is focus on little pockets of people in the crowd. Whether that’s two people hanging over the barrier, or a group over in the corner; I think ‘As long as I keep those people dancing, their energy will inspire me and it will inspire the people around them.’ Then sometimes you might look up and they’ve gone to the bar and you’re like ‘Fuck. What have I done wrong?’

I love that connection with the crowd. When you get the connection, the DJing becomes instinctive; it’s automatic, it’s beautiful. That’s the money-shot right there, that’s what I do it for. Those moments, it doesn’t last the whole set, but for half an hour, it’s just pure euphoria in your mind, you’re on autopilot and everything you do works.

“I’m enjoying myself, the crowd are enjoying themselves and I just look out across the crowd and think this is amazing. That’s when I get the camera out and start taking photos. That’s the vibe, that’s when I feel alive!

As printed in trap#010 – read online here or buy the printed issue here.

@AndyC_Ram

A ROOM OFF THE DANCEFLOOR

From sparse, dancefloor focused dub techno, to rough, primitive campfire bass, London-based Midland’s music quickly found its calling, garnering releases on prolific labels Phonica and Aus Music. Much like his housemate – Hessle Audio label boss, Pearson Sound – Harry Agius’s electronic journey began with an avid passion for sweaty drum & bass and jungle raves, and these distant student memories still live strong in his productions.

Midland’s most recent EP, ‘Placement’, maintains that UK grit, despite its flawless execution, and although the Leeds original has come a long way in just over a year, we’re expecting a whole lot more as the summer unfolds. Discussing choral scholar careers, dream labels and moving his music away from the club stage, Trap gets at the guy with his feet firmly rooted in new house, yet with a cautionary elbow gently leaning on classic bass.

You’re well known as a producer now, and your sets are highly regarded too – how does making music affect your craft as a DJ?

I don’t think it affects it that much, obviously it gives you a certain understanding of structure and maybe a slight insight into different components of tracks, but they are very different things for me. I wouldn’t go as far as to say they are mutually exclusive, but there are many great DJs who make no music and many great producers who can’t DJ.

How do you approach the ‘b2b’ sets? We caught the one you did with Pariah and Blawan ages ago, which was a lot of fun. Is there a sense of competition in these sets, or do you sit down and briefly plan where it’s going?

Well, I have only done a couple and they are quite different to solo sets. I don’t think there’s an element of competition, it’s more that you have to raise your game when playing with artists you know and respect. With that one, we had a mix together and got a vague idea of where we wanted to go with it, but essentially it was all off the cuff.

We’ve heard that you come from a musical family and did a five-year stint in your school’s chamber choir. Do you have any classical training? If so, does it influence you as an electronic music producer?

We aren’t necessarily musical in the sense that all my siblings play instruments and my dad’s a composer of anything, we just love it and there was always music on when I was growing up, from Fleetwood Mac to Electric Light Orchestra to Simon and Garfunkel. I was a choral scholar at school so sang a lot (like five times a week) but never stuck to an instrument. I wanted to learn the piano and was meant to get free tuition as part of my scholarship, but the musical director wasn’t on that so I missed out, sadly. Still time to learn though!

I think what singing taught me was how harmonies and melodies interact and the importance of dynamic contrast in music. We once sung a piece by John Tavener called ‘The Lamb’, which starts off very dissonant and then gives way to the most beautiful harmonic section. It was a real eye opener on how you can use things that sound harsh or wrong to contrast with rich melodies.

Is there a distinction between composition and production in your opinion?

Definitely. A good mixdown is important, but it’s obsolete in comparison to how you arrange and build your music. Arrangement for me is the single most important part of the process – how the track builds and where it takes you – and trying to keep people interested while not alienating them.

You produce entirely on your computer, right? How do you achieve that analogue ‘liveness’ in your tracks?

I do indeed. It’s quite odd, recently a lot of people have been asking me how I get that analogue sound when I pretty much produce 100 % ‘in the box’. It’s basically down to the fact that I like gritty warm sounds, so when I produce I find myself gravitating to sounds and synth patches that are a little less clean or predictable. Sampling drums off vinyl is a good place to start. For my new EP, I recorded a lot of guitar sounds with my brother and then mangled them up in Logic. I have a few techniques for ruffing and warming up sounds but they will have to stay secret for now.

If you could be released on any label, past or present, which would it be?

That question has the dangerous potential to make me sound like a desperate fan boy, ha ha… That said, it would be amazing to one day release an album on a label like Domino. An electronic album, not a ‘dance’ album; that’s where I see myself going. Not away from the dancefloor but just to a room off the side of it…

And finally, should we expect an album from you in 2012? Does the idea of writing one appeal to you as an artist?

It’s definitely not something I’m considering this year. Although, saying that, I do have lots of ideas on my computer that have never come to fruition, but that I keep for later use, so who knows what capacity they will be used in. I really want to be in control of my production, or at least have a real idea of where I want to take it, before embarking on a project like that. No rush.

Words: Sophie Thomas

As printed in trap#009, June/July 2012 – read online here, or buy the print issue here.

@midlandsound

our favourite bags to carry you through this season…

Above: Little America by Herschel Supply Co. £80

Above: Tramp Backpack by Carhartt. £80.99.

Above: Pop Quiz Backpack by Herschel Supply Co. £65.

Above: Parcel Backpack by Carhartt. £110.

Above: Neon Backpack by Baggu. £40.

Above: Caramel Canvas Backpack by Barbour. £159.99.

five-panel flexing 

 
As this year’s hottest headwear trend, right now the world’s not exactly short on independently produced 5-panel hats boasting patterns that make Crazy Mosch look like polite Gingham.

Among the eye-popping crowd, though, new brand Moupia and their beautifully crafted items stand out a mile.

The brainchild of Damien from esteemed Madrid streetwear boutique Moustache, the brand’s second collection has just been unleashed.

Available now at Donuts in the UK and online, as well as through the Moustache website.

www.donutsthestore

www.moustachemadrid.com

SWAMP 81: EVERYTHING FOR A REASON

It’s winter 2009 and a cold, miserable night in the rain-hammered city of Bristol. Seminal dubstep night Subloaded is celebrating its tenth edition at the infamous Black Swan and an expectant crowd pack the main room awaiting a set from one of the sound’s most important figures.

That figure is Loefah, founding member of dubstep-defining record label and dance DMZ, and a man who at this point, has been suspiciously quiet for the last year or so. Stepping out from the backstage shadows, Loefah places the first acetate on the decks and begins his set. Reaching for the classic sub-driven half-step with which he and his contemporaries had wowed the world only a few years before, it’s clear from the look on his face and the music he’s playing that this is a man uninspired by and detached from what he is doing…

Fast forward just a couple of years and it’s now March 2012. Loefah is back in Bristol, headlining ultra-hip house/ garage weekly 51.27 and he’s an hour late to come on stage. Eventually, grinning from ear to ear, the Londoner appears, plugs in his laptop and unleashes two hours of pure vibes on a rapturous, bouncing crowd.

Playing everything from classic 80s house and techno, to garage and even pitched-down dubstep, around a solid core of indefinable, bass-driven and often exclusive dance music, this is a man clearly loving what he’s doing, and pouring passion into his performance. In stark contrast to that Subloaded set a few years before, this is the sound of Loefah in 2012, and this is Swamp 81…

Every issue, we give Bristol skateboarding institution fifty fifty their own spot in Trap. After running the scene in one of Europe’s most vibrant skate cities for 15 long years now, it’s fair to say that the guys at fifty fifty know their shit, so there’s no one better than them to fill us in on the sickest brands currently bossing the skate scene.

Check the printed mag for more from fifty fifty, and check their dope-ass new webstore here.

SKULLS

Skater-owned independent Skulls was established in Barcelona and has now relocated to Brooklyn, NYC .The brand focuses on the 5-panel camp cap, which seems to be growing in popularity at a quick pace, although it’s always been our favourite style of cap!

Skulls produces a wide array of designs, but is renowned for all-over prints as seen on the ‘Mia’ , ‘Un Peru’ and ‘Postage’ this season. The caps are all handmade in the USA and are produced in small runs, so they never stay on the shelves for long.

CONVERSE SKATEBOARDING

 
Still a relative newcomer, Converse Skateboarding is now on its second instalment. The brand already has pro models from heavy hitters Anthony Pappalardlo , Kenny Anderson and Nick Trappasso, as well as bunch of reworked classics for the team shoes.

The ‘Elm’, is a new introduction to the range, and is a simple but very effective price-point shoe. Featured here is the smoke grey version. With the line expanding every season, we expect big things from Converse.

Words: Fifty Fifty Fam

www.fiftyfiftystore.com

“WE JUST MAKE MUSIC FOR US AND OUR MATES”

Successfully sculpting an innovative sound that rapidly becomes the staple of the electronic underground, whilst also evoking the trendy ear of student-land and tastefully venturing into popular territory is no easy feat. South-London siblings Guy and Howard Lawrence, aka Disclosure, have created a full bodied style that’s done exactly that.

Brandishing a fresh amalgamation of sizzling, vocal-tinged 2step garage and deeply sexy bass-licked house has seen these two youngsters from Redhill meteorically emerge as some of the hottest property around, with a rich line of tastemakers including Pete Tong and Annie Mac all enraptured by their productions.

Evolving swiftly from a couple of young brothers putting out their music for free on Facebook last year, to a pioneering production duo supporting SBTRKT on tour, being called up to remix everybody from Jessie Ware to Emile Sande and releasing new material on Greco-Roman, the pair are clearly set on turning more than a few heads in 2012.

Guy, being the elder of the pair, takes the lead here as they chat to Trap Magazine about their influences, inspirations and what’s in store this year…

Sorry to begin with this, as we’re sure you’re constantly asked, but how old are you guys?

GUY: I’m 20

HOWARD: And I’m 18, as of like two days ago.

Do you think your youth has anything to do with the sudden hype and fascination?

G: Definitely, yeah. I think most people are really quite impressed that we’re so young and everyone seems to say that we have a really mature sound for our age. Generally, though, I think most producers are getting younger.

H:  It’s so easy to produce these days, just on your laptop, so it’s shouldn’t be so much of a big deal really.

Things have changed rapidly for you two – where were you and what were you up to this time last year?

G: This time last year, we’d just put out our EP on Facebook, where you had to like our fan-page to download it for free. That unexpectedly went crazy. We’d also just started live shows abroad and performing in Europe. I guess we’re still kind of doing that really, but just bigger.

So what’s your musical background? And when did you officially create Disclosure?

G: We’ve always kind of made beats together, but when I was in college I played in a band just with my mates, you know… We’d just play house parties and that for a laugh. I play drums and guitar and stuff and it was good fun, but it had to end when all this [Disclosure] kicked off last year really.

Who is one artist that really compelled you to start producing electronic music?

G: I caught a guest mix from James Blake, Joy Orbison and Pearson Sound on a Mary Ann Hobbs show a few years back that really got me excited and hooked on that sound. And then we started hearing artists like Burial and Floating Points, who I guess were the first guys that really started inspiring us.

The EP you made available for free on Facebook, how has that helped you and your career?

G: It was a huge blessing in disguise. Although we wanted to sell it, we didn’t have any money to clear the samples and didn’t want to risk officially releasing it, so we put it out for free and we gained something like ten thousand fans, so it was well, well worth it.

Did you expect it to blow up so big?

G: Nahhh, not at all, no way, it’s been mad.

H: We don’t really expect anything from our music.

G: We just make music for us and our mates really. It turns out a lot more people than just us and our mates like it.

Your Jessie Ware Remix has been massively hyped and praised. How did the collaboration come about?

G: Jessie came to one of our shows in Brixton where we met her. We then got sent the promo for ‘Running’, which we instantly knew we could remix and that the vocal would sit well on one of our tracks. We get asked to remix a lot and we turn down quite a lot, but once we hear the right vocal we know we can make it work. With that track, we automatically knew what we wanted to do before we’d even started.

H: She’s coming out to Ibiza with us to perform live, which should be really amazing.

Supporting SBTRKT on his recent tour must have been a highlight for you?

G: Yeah, it was great… it was a perfect match. I think we have elements of his sound in what we make, not intentionally, but we kind of get put in the same bracket. It was pretty cool to step out and perform to a SBTRKT crowd each night because we knew most of them would be into what we do. It was like no fear really, which was sick.

H: SBTRKT and Sampha, they’re both really nice guys and we learned so much from being on tour with them.
What direction are you looking to take your own live show?G: Set-up wise, we’re trying to get it more like SBTRKT. I play drums so I want to bring in that and we’re working with vocalists, so we want to make sure that’s in there too.

Where do you draw your influences from, past and present?

G: Over the past year, we’ve kind of gone back in time a bit more… So, guys who were making music when we were like 9 or 10 or something are big influences now, guys making 90s garage and deep Detroit house. It’s weird how our influences are going backwards really.

Your latest EP recently came out on Greco-Roman. How has your sound progressed since the free EP last year?

G: The speed is definitely slowing down; everything is slowing down to lower than 140bpm. I guess if you want to call it house, you could; we’re definitely working the house beats now.

And you’re playing at one of the biggest dance festivals going, Global Gathering. How does that feel?

G: Yeah, really excited. We’ve never been there before so we’re definitely looking forward to that one. Our whole summer is looking great.

What other festivals are you performing at this year and which are you looking forward to the most?

G: Festival wise, to be honest, we don’t really want to do too many this year because we kind of want to peak next year when we will be putting our album out, so when that happens that’s when we want to hit all the festivals. But we’re doing Outlook in Croatia this year and Secret Garden Party is my favourite festival ever and we’re playing there, so that should be great. Then, in August, we’re doing Space in Ibiza – that should be really amazing too.

Lastly, what’s your one top tune/artist tip at the moment?

G: George FitzGerald’s track ‘Child’.

H: Paleman and Squarehead are both making some sick stuff, too.

G: Yeah watch out for them!

Words: Mike Roberts

Photos: Edwige Hamben & Michaela Letang

Disclosure’s ‘The Face’ EP is out on Greco-Roman Records now.

As featured in trap#009 – buy the print issue here, or view online here.

@disclosure_uk

NATURAL LIGHT

Oregon based Schwood has added further styles to its extensive collection of wooden eyewear.

Known for their unique craftsmanship, Schwood frames are constructed in the USA entirely from precious wood and Carl Zeiss lenses.

Our favourite style is the Canby (below), offering a classy twist on the standard wayfarer.

www.shwoodshop.com

MJ Cole is a garage legend. Here, he reveals the ten tracks he’ll love forever…

1. LTJ Bukem – ‘Music’

This record says everything about the latter half of my raving days. Reminds me of sitting out in the sun on the Greek islands, or driving back from raves at 8 in the morning. This is liquid, fresh-air style. Warm pads, classic drums and a minimalist style chime that cements it all together.

2. Angie Stone – ‘Wish I Didn’t Miss You’

Summer is here and this track brings back memories of 2002. I was soaked with garage at the time and this was the perfect antidote. Masterfully smooth and a very solid use of a great sample – something I didn’t realise until later.

3. Hyper on Experience – ‘Lords Of The Null Lines’ (Foul Play Rmx)

This takes me back to my bedroom DJ days. I was busy playing classical music at the time and never thought the turntables would become part of my life. This was a cheeky 10″ back in the early 90s; everyone loves a dubplate-sized piece of vinyl. Impresses your mates, too.

4. Tower Of Power – ‘What Is Hip’ (1973)

The ultimate funk workout. The videos of live versions of this online are unreal. Pure musicianship, pure funk. The tightest horn section in existence. I played keys in a funk band at one time and this was always the jam. Written before I was born; I’m not that old after all.

5. Radiohead – ‘Jigsaw Falling Into Place’

Have always been a massive fan of Radiohead. ‘In Rainbows’ is one of their top albums; it stands up to repeated listens, on so many levels. Reminds me of slogging it out at the gym, and has been a permanent fixture on my iPod for years now.

6. Masters At Work ft India – ‘To Be In Love’

I had the honour of remixing this record at one time. It’s always been a favourite of mine. The Kenny and Louis skippy drums with live bass and soulful vocals really inspired some of my earlier music. Another summer favourite. Classic.

7. The Tommy Chase Quartet – ‘The Message’

Stumbled across this in an ex girlfriend’s record collection when I was about 16. It’s always rung true to me. She liked Super Noodles – I liked jazz noodlings. We both liked the other.

8. D’Angelo – ‘Brown Sugar’

The master. Highly influential on my productions in the late 90s. I challenge you to let this pass you by without a head nod. Amazing groove, vocally astounding, musically next level.

9. Madeon – ‘Icarus’

A much more recent record. There’s loads of this kind of gear around, but this is the one that does it for me, and I’ve been known to slip this into my sets of late. Really fuses well with some of the more skippy four-to-the-floor stuff. I especially love the majestic flourish of chords at the start. So bright, so colourful, so good.

10. Erykah Badu – ‘Other Side Of The Game’

Another groove from heaven. Pure American class. Tight as anything. I love the lyrical content of this – she’s so in love with the wrong kind of guy. Quality Fender Rhodes playing too.

You don’t need to have watched that recent cringe-inducing episode of The Apprentice to know that street art is big news these days – and nowhere more so than in the dishevelled, graff-daubed streets of Trap’s home city of Bristol.

Among the first places outside of New York to take the discipline of graffiti to its heart in the 1980s, Bristol is now considered to be one of the art-form’s true spiritual homes, as any visitor to the city will quickly discover when wondering its streets.

But no matter how big or popular it becomes, every artistic movement needs an epicentre, a place for its practitioners to meet, talk and demonstrate their talents. Since opening in late 2010, that’s exactly what Bristol’s King Of Paint has become.

Stocking everything the budding or professional street artist could need, and hosting regular exhibitions on their extensive gallery walls, King Of Paint has built a rep not just a hub for the vibrant local scene, but as one of the best places in the UK to discover and, of course, purchase artworks from the next big street-art thing, just before they blow up.

Trap caught up with Paul Villalba and Matthew Hibbert, the two men behind King Of Paint, to find out more…

Hi guys. You’ve been running for about 18 months now, what was the idea behind opening?

Matt: Well, both of us are Bristolians. We knew a lot of writers and artists in Bristol who’d said to us that there was no one-stop shop in the city to get everything you need.

Paul: All the writers and artists were literally going to three different places to get all their colours. I’d always wanted to open a gallery, but I wasn’t willing to sit in one all day and never have any visitors, only at shows. I thought, ‘How can I have a gallery space, but also get a community vibe going on.’ So the paint was a no-brainer.

Matt: We now have more colours than anyone else in this part of England. That’s one of our USPs – if you stand in front of the counter, when it’s full up with paint, it’s amazing to look at. You see people come in with their list of paint and then get distracted by the choice.

And by stocking the paint, it means writers are always coming in, we get to chat to them and they can then show us their work. If we like it, we’ll ask them if they want to do a show. We’re booked up 18 months in advance now, which is great; that’s where we want to be at.

Paul: That was the motivation, having a gallery but also wanting to help the community… The paint, it’s a service really, it’s not an earner. It helps us get that community vibe going on.

Beyond the art on the gallery walls, what exactly do you sell?

Matt: We’ve got Belton, 94 and Montana Gold paint, plus pens, caps, masks, gloves – all the paraphernalia that goes with graffiti. We’re trying to get to the point where we are that one-stop shop. We’d like to eventually do our own emulsion, rollers, everything. 

So do you guys have a background in street art and graffiti?

Matt: I’ve always loved graff, always been around it and had lots of friends involved in it. But I’d never found an option to be involved. It makes me happy now to be in it, and I swore to myself I’d never go back to what I was doing before – working in pubs, call centres and even a bank – it made me so miserable and unhappy.

Paul: Living and growing up in Bristol, it’s always around you. I got involved a few years ago, collecting pieces. I did a show out in Bali with David Walker and Jo Peel that went really well. After that I did a couple of shows at a friend’s pub, The Library in Islington, and it went off! I thought, ‘I can make a career out of this, I love it.’

What have been the shows you’ve been most proud to have put on?

Paul: China Mike, Paris, Stik were all great shows, and we’ve got Xenz, David Walker and Dicey all coming up. Now, we constantly have quality artists approaching us for shows. When we started we were trying to get the shows, now people have the trust in us.

We’re trying to do it correctly, rather than doing a pop-up and throwing a load of shit in the window. We’ve spent a lot of money on lighting, the flooring is tarmaced – you walk in and it’s an experience. There are galleries that just move into old shops and stick a load of art on the walls and that’s it; they’re not hung properly, the lighting is bad.

You’re trying to sell beauty to people; you can’t just chuck it on the wall. You’re selling an experience; you have to put the effort in and do it correctly. I’m always travelling round the planet checking out how other galleries do things, trying to take the best things and apply them here.

Bristol is quite the artistic community. We all know about the legendary musicians that have come from there, and, of course, no street art feature would be complete without mentioning the city’s most famous graffiti son, Banksy. What is it about Bristol?

Matt:  I think Bristol is an amazing place. It’s quite small, which can be a negative in that it can make people narrow minded – Bristol Village, I call it. But in terms of creativity, you have this focus in a small area of lots of different talents.

Paul: It’s so multi-cultural. It’s not like other cities in the UK, they are mulit-cultural in the traditional sense, but they’re not really, because no one interacts so it’s segregated. Everyone gets on with everyone in Bristol; everyone just mixes and gets on. Everyone works together here, music, art, people just get on.

And for the future…

Matt: During See No Evil in August we’re gonna do a group show, an All Stars sort of thing. We’ve been talking to several artists.

Paul: We’ve got some really interesting shows coming up over the next year. I’m getting artists from around the world. I want to show people what’s out there. Next up, SEPR is curating a show, with DILK from Nottingham and BASE23 from Berlin.

We just want to try and bring different aspects to the city – there are other galleries that just constantly recycle the same artists and shows. We want to be unique in what we do; we want people to say ‘Wow, how have you got this here!’ That’s what we want. Push boundaries; that’s the mission.

www.kopaint.com

“For the first time, I just decided to do something that was me.”

Next time you’re out in a crowded town centre, look around at the people either side of you. Some of them have known what they wanted from day one. Remember that kid who was 15 and had already found his girlfriend for life? He’s still happy now; dude is married, chuffed and comfortably living two streets down from his old dears. Then there’s you… chances are you probably haven’t found every last thing that you’re looking for, no matter how old you are. It can take people a whole lifetime to really tie themselves to something; to perfectly find a routine, method or purpose that they can truly call their own.

Good musicians are the same; they’re never happy, always pushing and plucking at things, testing out new chord phrases, structures or mediums. So, when one of them finds a particular soundset that they’re pleased enough to call their own, it’s kind of a big deal; a new world that’s ready to explore and populate with nuggets of sound. That’s how I picture it anyway. Some people are happy to rework the same beat over and over and maybe, I dunno, just reverse the vocal samples so they sound different but stay in the same key.

Ben Ash is one guy from the former camp, a producer who gets excited at the notion of his own ‘sound’, and rightly so. As Two Inch Punch, Ash released one of the most delightfully mournful records of 2011 with the ‘Love You Up’ EP. Dropping on PMR, it was tied by association to the work of labelmates Julio Bashmore and L-Vis 1990, but it was uniquely different; a tortured exploration of conventional, three and a half minute pop songwriting set atop embellished hip-hop instrumentals that blurted emotion out of every synth lick or choked vocal phrase.

“When I first did those tracks I wrote them on nothing really,” Ash tells Trap over a skype line on one of the hottest days of the year yet. “It was a new project I did for fun and it just started to grow and develop. I was actually writing for other people for ages but it was never really quite right, like it didn’t fit because I was always trying to do what I thought they wanted or what their sound was. But then, for the first time, I just decided to do something that was me.”

“the biggest thing i did was a beat for lil wayne”

A producer in the traditional sense – a central figure directing the songwriting and driving the recording processes – Ash took stock of some of his favourite artists and their audible calling cards, citing DJ Premier and Neptunes as two obvious examples.

“I was writing for all kinds of stuff,” he continues when pushed on those past collaborations. “It was all on whim. The biggest thing I did was a beat for Lil Wayne, which he rapped on but it never came out. I only heard it played back to me down the phone, they wouldn’t give me a copy. I didn’t have a sound yet, so there was no reason that people would come to me. I was just doing stuff and hoping it would work. It didn’t have an identity; it didn’t really feel like anything, so that’s why I decided to do Two Inch Punch and just set up my own thing and try and get a sound that people would want.”

“I don’t really listen to tons and tons of electronic music,” he continues. “I’ve sort of been put in that bracket somehow but really, everything I do and have listened to has all been song based; whether it’s The Beatles, some Motown or even various aspects of hip-hop, which is more sort of verse/chorus format.”

With Ash not really locked into the cyclical transience of electronic dance music circles, over time he was able to establish something that he was totally happy with, which resulted in that first EP; a collection of songs that shared a tonal familiarity with each other as well as a similar sentiment. One of the most overwhelming things about Two Inch Punch’s songs is just how downbeat they feel, even when they’re paced up a bit. And given the loose shroud of mystery (he didn’t have an exhaustative biog or cliched press shot) around him when that first EP emerged, you’d be forgiven for half expecting him to be hard work. But, in person he’s positively chipper, talking incredibly fast through the formal part of the interview like it’s not something he’s entirely used to just yet.

“I remember back in the day, in the 90s and stuff, there was a couple of bands I was really into and you couldn’t just go online and find images of them. All there was was the one photo on their album and that’s all you had, you didn’t know anything else about them. It made reading interviews and seeing them live much more exciting, whereas now you think ‘that’s a nice track’, go online and find out everything about them. It kinda kills the mystery a little bit. It can kinda ruin it y’know?”

With his second EP, ‘Saturn: The Slow Jams’, due out on PMR later this summer Ash will soon be entering into another promotional phase that’ll no doubt take him away from the seclusion and security of his studio and expose him to the world. You get the impression after talking to him for half an hour that he’s crafted a certain level of comfort for himself, able to really explore the depths of his own sound-set, so it’s interesting to learn how much he relies and feeds off the collaborative process:

“What I’ve always really wanted to do is just write and produce and that’s been my main thing, but I don’t sing. Like, I’ll do some backing vocals, but I always try and get inspiration from another vocalist, so I always need someone to work with. It’s always gonna be me producing for them, that’s the natural thing and I’m comfortable doing that now because I’ve got a sound, that thing that I wanted, so when I go in to a session people know what to expect from me.”

Having already committed to an album, and with his new EP being preceed by the ‘Paint It Red’ single, a duo of collaborations on Javeon McCarthy’s forthcoming PMR EP and a remix for Wacka Flocka Flame, it would seem that the world’s yet to be that privileged in its expectation. Like I said before, most people don’t even know what they want…

Words: Oli Marlow

‘Saturn: The Slow Jams’ EP is out now on PMR.

As printed in trap#009, June/July 2012 – read online here, or buy the print issue here.

@TwoInchPunch

Brighton-based Dismantle makes boundary blurring bass-heavy music that’s impossible to define.

Thrown into the limelight by his massive ‘Computation’ track last year, Dismantle has since signed exclusively to Shy FX’s Digital Sound Boy. His ‘Warp’ EP  is out now, check the title track below and read on for a quick insight into the mind behind the music…

MY NAME IS…

Dismantle, but call me Will.

YOU MAY ALREADY KNOW ME FOR…

Making weird bleepy sounds – that and probably ‘Computation’.

I’D DESCRIBE THE MUSIC I MAKE AS…

Kick drums with weird bleepy sounds!

WHEN I’M NOT WORKING, YOU’LL FIND ME…

At the pub, or on twitter. Or both!

WHEN I WAS YOUNGER, I DREAMED OF BEING…

A footballer and then a skater. I think most people my age can agree with me here.

IF I WASN’T DOING MUSIC, I’D…

Be down the Job Centre right now.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD TO ME IS…

This sounds very clichéd, but probably my family and friends.

MY MUSICAL GUILTY PLEASURE IS…

 I sing ‘Barbie Girl’ with a hairbrush.

YOU MAY BE SURPRISED TO KNOW THAT…

 I’ve skydived from 15,000 ft, and I’m not a keen flyer.

 THE BEST ADVICE I’VE EVER HAD IS…

‘Buy a pair of turntables’, I guess.

IN 12 MONTH’S TIME…

I’ll probably still not have left the pub.

@dismantle_ggd

www.digitalsoundboy.com

ONE HOUR OF PURE VIBES FROM MANCHESTER’S COMPA

Keeping true to the original spirit of the dubstep movement, DJ and producer Compa brings a sound and style that belies his young years.

Here, he delivers an exclusive hour of bassweight for Trap, packed with dubplates cut specially for this mix and riddled with pure vibes and chest-quaking depth. One listen and you’ll know why we’re backing Compa so hard.

TRACKLIST:
1. Compa – Sentence – (Boka)
2. Jack Sparrow – Afraid Of Me – (Unreleased)
3. Compa & Ipman – Let Them – (Unreleased)
4. Reamz – Fear (Compa Remix) – (Unreleased)
5. Skream – The Shinein – (Deep Medi)
6. Truth – All Alone – (Unreleased)
7. Compa – Security – (Area Recordings)
8. Compa – Sojourn – (Unreleased)
9. Demon Ft. Beezy – Ramification – (Unreleased)
10. Compa – Narabeh – (Forthcoming)
11. Unknown – Untitled – (Unreleased)
12. Compa – Antact – (Forthcoming)
13. Vivek – Kismet – (Unreleased)
14. Compa – Alpha – (Unreleased)
15. Lurka – Skeptic – (Unreleased)
16. Compa – Kormaak – (Unreleased)
17. Compa – Aggress – (Unreleased)
18. Vaun – Listen – (Unreleased)
19. SkinE – Reveal (Compa Remix) – (Unreleased)
20. Skream – Blipstream – (Tempa)
21. Compa – Spektor – (Forthcoming Boka)
22. Biome – Untitled – (Unreleased)
23. Compa – Dem A Talk – (WXWL)
24. Commodo – Axis – (Unreleased)
25. Razor Rekta – Taurus – (Unreleased)

SEE NO EVIL RETURNS TO BRISTOL

After the massive success of last year’s event, which saw some of the world’s best street artists transform a horrendously grey part of Bristol city-centre into a technicolour street art wonderland, See No Evil returns in August.

Another cultural event that’s benefitted from the pots of Olympic cash flying around, this year’s See No Evil will run across both days of the weekend of the 18 and 19 August, and once again see artists from around the world turning Bristol’s Nelson Street into the largest permanent street art gallery in the world.

With events and activities running throughout the weekend, including seminars and workshops, plus after-hours events with some stellar names from Bristol’s legendary music scene and beyond, book yourself a train ticket and make sure you’re there.

www.seenoevilbristol.co.uk

“It’s the international language of absolute madness!”

In the ever shifting world of dance music, trends and fads come and go like the British weather. This year’s biggest sound will be passé by the next, and what was big ten years ago will suddenly be embraced by a whole new generation discovering it for the first time. These are the cyclical inevitabilities of the UK dance music underground in the internet age.

And while new musical schools such as funky or dubstep can explode into popularity seemingly overnight, and then fade from the centre just as quickly, some sounds take a little longer to burrow their way into the consciences of the trend-driven masses, even if they’ve spent years quietly operating on the periphery doing their own thing, waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.

With this in mind, it’s fair to say that 2012 has been the year that the UK underground finally caught up with dancehall, or bashment as it’s often called. Of course, this club-centric progeny of reggae has enjoyed massive popularity in its home of Jamaica since its birth in the 80s, and much of Europe, Africa and North America have maintained healthy fan and artist communities consistently ever since. But in the UK, with so many of our own home-grown bass-driven genres available to occupy the attentions and talents of our musically inclined youth, since the early 90s dancehall has had to settle with being one of those aforementioned sounds; quietly doing its own thing, waiting for everybody else to come back round to its charms and realise its integral importance in the evolution of all the bass-driven, MC-led UK sounds we declare so proudly as our own.

And with the likes of Jamaican dancehall artists such as Popcaan, and even UK ones such as Gappy Ranks and Stylo G, now regular fixtures on the Radio 1Xtra playlist, dancehall is enjoying a level of popularity not seen since the early 1990s, when Shabba Ranks topped the charts and reggae music’s influence was everywhere. In all this, the role of the bashment triumvirate known as The Heatwave shouldn’t be underestimated.

Over the last few years, the trio of DJ Gabriel Heatwave and hosts Benjamin D and Rubi Dan, have taken a carnival with them wherever they’ve gone – from the fashionable micro clubs of Shoreditch, to student-packed Croatian beaches and provincial nightclubs – delivering energy packed dancehall parties to an ever growing crowd of eager fans, while their weekly Sunday night bashment shows on RinseFM have become one of the station’s most essential broadcasts.

With The Heatwave’s Hot Wuk parties now happening in cities across the UK, a packed summer schedule of festival shows and the imminent launch of their own record label with Wiley’s ‘Ninja Riddim’, the three Londoners are busier than ever, but still found time to talk to Trap about their story so far…

“The Heatwave started in London in 2003,” begins Gabriel, the mastermind and selector of the operation. “It was myself, a couple of mates and Henry Heatwave. We’d all been living in Bristol, but moved back to London after university; Henry stayed behind and set up Dub Studio. A couple of years later we were doing a night at Rhythm Factory in East London, called Heatwave vs Mas Fuego, it was bashment and reggaeton, and it was there that I met Rubi. He came down, did some hosting one time, loved it and kept coming back.”

“I knew a DJ that Gabriel was working with at the time he was doing nights at Rhythm Factory,” adds Rubi, The Heatwave’s flamboyant front of house who, along with Ben, runs the mic at Heatwave shows. “I went down there and it was a great vibe, playing 90s bashment, which I’d not heard out for a while. I just started picking up the mic and hosting; it wasn’t planned, it just came together.”

“I met Ben around the same time,” Gabriel continues, “He used to come down with his brother, hang out and smoke weed – he was that guy passing us spliffs while we were playing!”

“Gabriel and my brother are friends from back in the day,” confirms Ben, in a voice familiar to anyone that’s been to a Heatwave dance. “I’m a bit younger, so I had to slyly sneak in; I was that guy making spliffs, cheekily rolling up the weed. And as I grew up, I’d be going off to a dubstep rave or whatever, but I’d always pass through the Heatwave parties on the way. The vibe would set me up wickedly for a big rave after.

“From there it just developed naturally. In about 2007, The Heatwave stuff started really happening for me; I started doing some hosting. Rubi brought me in and showed me the ropes – I’d done MCing before, but not in that style. Rubi, the way he interacts with the crowd, it’s a specialist thing.”

With the collective as we know it today formed and beginning to make waves in a London scene that was about to become overrun with the carnival-inspired vibes and rhythms of UK funky, and with The Heatwave’s ‘An England Story’ out on Soul Jazz, the collective’s sound and ethos was starting to make sense to the wider bass-music world. In 2009, hugely influential London radio station RinseFM gave The Heatwave their very own show, and with it free licence to play their beloved bashment to an increasingly interested audience.

“I think Rinse could see we were pushing something that wasn’t really happening on the station, but that was closely linked to everything on there,” reflects Gabriel. “It made sense for us to be on Rinse, because what we do and push has been an influence in the foundations of all the music on there, but no one was really playing it. Garage, grime, jungle, funky, dubstep – they all kind of come from dancehall and have that link there. I don’t think people always recognised that before that time. When we did Heatwave vs Mas Fuego just a few years before, I know people didn’t really get why we’d have Klashnekoff or Riko at a dancehall night. They may be hip-hop or grime rappers, but they come from dancehall.”

This school of thought is at the very heart of what The Heatwave do. Joining the dots between dancehall of all eras and the past 20-odd years of UK MC-driven music is something they clearly delight in and that enables them to reach out to whole new audiences by highlighting the connections. This ethos became more than an idea last summer, when The Heatwave put on ‘Showtime!’, a glorious demonstration of the evolution of UK MC culture from its dancehall reggae roots. Inviting legendary British MCs from jungle, garage, ragga and grime to chat over dancehall for an evening at London’s Cargo, the night was blessed with bars from the likes of Wiley, Skibbadee and General Levy and will be long remembered as a truly legendary event.

“Showtime was everything we hoped it would be, and more. We knew it was going to be something special, but even we hadn’t been prepared for how crazy it would be and the buzz,” Gabriel explains. “For us to get people like Skibbadee and Wiley to come and spit on dancehall, it felt like taking things full circle and bringing those artists back to their roots, the music they grew up with.”

An event like Showtime is obviously about much more than just a good party, and with another lined up for 5 July in Birmingham, it’s clear The Heatwave are continuing on their mission to not just give their crowds a good time, but educate them too, and as such their role in the rise in popularity of dancehall in the wider bass music scene over recent years is of real significance.

“Yeah, I think we have helped,” agrees Gabriel when this is put to him. “We’ve made an effort to show people that it’s something they can connect with, understand and relate to. When we started doing the nights in London, as much as Jamaican music has always been at the root of UK music, people just took it as an influence and something to sample; they weren’t interested in what the Jamaican artists were doing currently.

“For a few years when we were pushing the sound, people weren’t getting it so much. But now, people are watching what’s happening in Jamaica, they know the tunes, the dances, and they understand the lyrics more. I think that’s one of the barriers with it, people can’t get the lyrics at first, but it’s just a case of getting used to it.”

“Dancehall is at the root of so many things,” continues Ben, “and people have now started acknowledging it for what it is in its own right. I think it’s things like The Heatwave hammering it out there, playing dancehall in places where people wouldn’t normally hear it, so then they start connecting it up; it begins to make sense.”

“A lot of the Hot Wuks have a lot of students, it’s a really mixed crowd at them,” Rubi adds. “It feels like we’ve educated a lot of people about bashment, dancehall; what it is. They get the gist of the forwards, the banging on the walls, and they get involved now.”

Hot Wuk is the final piece of The Heatwave puzzle. Along with Showtime and their weekly Madd Raff parties every Wednesday at The Social in London, Hot Wuk is The Heatwave’s weekend party that’s recently evolved from an occasional London dance to a nationwide dancehall brand, with events popping off all over the UK. Brighton, Manchester, Leeds, Bristol and of course London all now have regular Hot Wuks to call their own, with more cities coming soon.

“Hot Wuk; it’s carnival vibes, people having a good time,” explains Rubi. “You know sometimes you have a really bad day, and you wanna go somewhere and forget about it all? Hot Wuk is a place where you can come have a good time, there are loads of girls, we give out whistles and horns, people just get into a frenzy, get mad and express themselves in the way they dance. There are no bad vibes – if you wanna be a bad man, be a bad-man dancer!”

“Until you come to a Hot Wuk, I don’t think people understand the vibes,” Ben agrees. “We’ve built it up and got a family connected with it, so you know when you go there, you’re gonna hear upfront dancehall, hardcore dancehall, and the people will appreciate it. It means we can now go to Leeds or Brighton and it has that same energy and vibe.

“And the Hot Wuk girls are magnificent in themselves, they’re a magical thing. I love Hot Wuk and it’s exciting spreading it. I can’t wait to take it to cities overseas; I think they’d love it. What’s not to love! It’s the international language of absolute madness. All cultures have an element of carnival spirit in them; most people will be able to connect with that. Getting mad excited; it translates well.”

“Yeah, we’ll get it established here then try and take it to Berlin, Amsterdam, those places…” says Gabriel. “But we wanna keep the parties small – not do arena parties or anything like that; it would lose what’s special. We want that community vibe and Hot Wuk is where people that know each other and love dancehall can go and meet and dance. We’d like to build a live show with dancers, MCs, bring the carnival thing. We’re playing a lot of festivals, so would be good to get a big summer stage show going.”

“The sound is called Heatwave,” adds Rubi, “and every time we play it gets so hot! It’s the levels of energy and hype! All we really need now is a big yacht and to sail ourselves to the Caribbean or the Mediterranean, be there for a hot minute. That vibe!”

The first Hot Wax release, Wiley’s ‘Ninja Riddim’, is out soon.

www.theheatwave.co.uk

THE GENTLEMAN SELECTOR

For all their myriad influences and disparate strains of origin, the styles of electronic music collectively known today as ‘bass music’ are forever indebted to one genre – reggae. Whether hidden deep in their genealogy or blindingly obvious, it’s no exaggeration to say that without reggae, and its dub and dancehall offspring, there would be no drum & bass, no dubstep, no garage… our lives would all have been poorer without the Jamaican musicians who got there first, who realised the importance of bass and placed it at the centre of their musical world.

And within that mind-blowingly rich and resilient genre, one man is respected as having no superior when it comes to knowledge, passion, and most importantly, selection. That man is David Rodigan, a legendary sage and DJ to reggae fans, and to onlookers a fascinating figure who over a forty-year career has ridden a wave of genuine passion and sheer enthusiasm that’s enabled a middle-class, university educated Englishman firstly to infiltrate and become hugely respected in the world of Jamaican music and then, more recently, experience new-found fame in a realm usually occupied by DJs more than half his age, the world of dubstep and modern raves.

Beginning his career as a DJ way back in the 1970s, when the profession attracted little of the glamour and attention it does today, Rodigan has never neglected the music he first discovered in late-1960s Britain as a teenager. With over four decades of collecting records to draw from and some of the most envied dubplates on earth, Rodigan holds a reputation as not only a peerless selector, but as an inspirational figure to all those who dedicate their lives to music.

Over the many years of his career, Rodigan has developed from a mere selector into a unique one-man show, who stands out front on the stage and schools his crowd on the importance and relevance of each track he plays. It is the recordings of these speeches that have led to a whole new generation of bass obsessives discovering Rodigan, as a DJ, a performer and a figure of huge respect, and you’re now just as likely to hear the man deliver his impassioned, almost sermonic, monologues at Fabric as you are at a clash in Montego Bay.

It’s clear, then, that beyond his perennial career as a reggae icon, there is a new Rodigan in town, increasingly lionised by a whole new audience eagerly lapping up his words, his presence and, most importantly, his music.

“Yes. There is a new Rodigan in town,” he begins in a clear-cut and very English accent, miles from the thickened patois-inflected tones with which he addresses his audiences at shows, “and I’m very grateful to the dubstep fraternity for welcoming me in the way that they have. It takes me back to 1972 when dub music hit these shores from Jamaica. It was so exciting, it was a revelation musically.

“And I can see and hear that same excitement in this music, dubstep. When dubstep first kicked in, my two sons were seriously into it and made me aware of it. Obviously, I was fascinated by it. Then I found out I was being sampled; speeches I’d made years ago. Don’t ask me where those speeches were made because I can’t remember… Breakage’s ‘Together’, was a very important track, it became immensely popular and then there was the Newham Generals version.

“I was absolutely blown away to be getting all this attention and it was a big surprise when Caspa said, ‘Look I want you to be on my album and do the intro,’ and then to be invited to Fabric to play at Dub Police with his selectors. For me it was fantastic because it enabled me to once again play these King Tubby, Lee Perry, Joe Gibbs, Errol Thompson mixes – those great engineers in Jamaica who made this dub music that I wasn’t really able to play anymore.

“For me to be invited into that world; it’s enabled me to join the dots up musically; there is a direct musical heritage and lineage that can be traced back to those origins in western Kingston. And some of those King Tubby dubs that I’m able to play in a dubstep session connect completely and utterly with that audience. I can see it on their faces as the bass drops in or out, I see them getting it exactly as I got it. So yes, some have referred to it as a ‘career renaissance’ – my career was certainly absolutely fine, because it was in a world where I’ve been working for over 30 years; reggae. But this new world into which I’ve been welcomed is fantastic.”

“As DJs, all we want to do is share our love of music”

As he talks, the passion that informs Rodigan’s every word is infectious, and it really is remarkable to hear a man who is, on paper at least, almost triple the age of many of you reading this talk with such verve for what is very much a young person’s sound and invention, dubstep. And although Rodigan is a man who’s played to some of the biggest and, in the early days, most suspicious crowds possible, the gravity of being asked to play at Fabric and then provide a mix for the London club’s world-renowned FABRICLIVE series, is not lost on him.

“The first of my gigs to incorporate dubstep was at Fabric. I walked onto the stage and I could hear what The Others were playing from the DJ booth across the other side of the dancefloor. The smoke machine started going, it was quite cold, the place was packed and I thought to myself ‘What have I done?’ And I actually got nervous; I haven’t been that nervous in a long time. I looked into this very young audience and thought ‘What am I gonna play?’

“And there was a moment of doubt. And then I thought ‘I’m gonna play what I decided to play days ago when I first thought about this gig. I’m gonna play these dubs that I think are relevant and I’m gonna tell one or two stories that relate to them and show a couple of album sleeves that connect this thing up.’ I just did it… And the response was amazing. The love I got back from that audience; the anticipation, the shining eyes, the smiling faces when the dubs dropped…

“I’d bought out one of my first ever King Tubby dubplates that I hardly ever take out the house, I played that and I’d chosen one or two dubstep tracks that I liked, things that I’d heard that I’d enjoyed. So now what I do, when I’m playing in those sessions, is I sprinkle a little of the kind of dubstep that I’m enjoying in. Not too much though, because I don’t want to look like I’m hitching my horse to a bandwagon, because I’m not. I’ve been invited into a world where I’ve been very well received and I come in, humbled by the attention, because it is a very special time in my career that this should be happening for me.

“I’ve been given the opportunity to play the music I love. We must never forget that as DJs, all we ever want to do is share our love of music with like-minded souls. And you know you’ve got the DJ sickness when your 14 years of age, and you’re playing in your bedroom and you look out the window to see if anyone in the street is taking any notice. If you’ve ever caught yourself doing that, and peeping out from behind the nets curtains to see if anyone’s stopping in the street, in the hope that what you’ve just played has excited someone, you have the DJ fever.

“And there isn’t really an antidote to it; once you have that fever of wanting to share, and wanting to endorse and pass on, it never leaves you. So that’s what’s happened again here; I’ve been invited into a world where I can share what I think is important. And when you get the response back from the audience, you can’t buy that high. It’s almost illegal; it’s so good and it’s so rare.”

Sharing his vast knowledge and zeal for the music he loves is at the very heart of what Rodigan does. Whether to a clued-up reggae crowd at a clash, or to a mostly uninitiated rave full of bass-hungry students, Rodigan’s uncontrollable tendency to stop the music and introduce each track with a story about its history or impact is what’s made him a superstar across geographical and musical boundaries. But how did this happen in the first place? What drove Rodigan to stop simply playing records and take to the microphone?

“It’s interesting how that developed,” he muses from behind his spectacles, “because originally when I first started DJing there was no talking. Let’s put this in context, in the 1960s the DJ didn’t have the status he does now, he was regarded as the nerd in the corner who had the records. You had records and you played them on one turntable. In Jamaica, someone would jive talk while you took that record off and put another one on.

“When I first started professionally playing reggae in clubs in London in 1978, it was not acceptable for the selector to talk – the MC talked, that was the tradition, as it still is now in dubstep and drum & bass. So for me, as a white man playing in black clubs in 1978, you had to have a mic man. What used to happen was, you’d play the vocal, then you’d flip it over and play the rhythm and the mic man would talk and rhyme to it. The selector didn’t speak; I used to work with an MC called Papa Face, he was my MC from the 70s to the 80s. Then it changed. The new style of dubplate meant you no longer needed a mic man, the whole business of someone toasting the flipside began to fade away, and it was all about having customised dubs with your name in it.

“So I found myself not requiring an MC in the traditional way, but just playing the dubplates. I started telling stories about a particular song and soon I found myself almost not able to contain myself in wanting to share something about that moment. It just started to happen, and then people would ask, ‘Why didn’t you talk so much about the music this time?’ Then I knew I’d stumbled onto something. I found out that Jamaican MCs were doing impressions of me on stage ‘If Rodigan was here, let me do it in a Rodigan style’, and I realised then it had become something that people expected of me.”

“There was a deafening hush…”

For MCs to be imitating an English-born white man at reggae shows in Jamaica is an indication of just how respected Rodigan was, and remains, on the Caribbean island. His is a reputation built purely on respect for his all-conquering love of Jamaican music, and in his 30-plus years of visiting the island Rodigan has not only earned the respect of the crowds, but also that of those  at the very top of the reggae industry.

“The love I’ve been given in Jamaica, from the first show, has been incredible. I went there in 1979 and cut my first dubs at King Tubby’s and then in 1983 I did my first radio show over there. I’d gone to Jamaica to record shows to be broadcast on Capital Radio where I worked at the time. I asked Barry G, who was the number-one DJ, if he’d do a top ten for me. So he did and said, ‘I’ll reciprocate, come on my show.’ So I went along that Saturday, he turned to me when the news was on, and said, ‘By the way, rather than you just being my guest from England and playing the top records from there, let’s do a clash!’ I said ‘Thanks for the warning!’

“It started at 8pm that Saturday night, and it finished at 2am, and it was the talk of Jamaica. Inevitably, after that radio show, we started doing live shows. The first I did in Kingston was at the New Kingston Drive In. I walked on to stage and there was a deafening hush as they realised this guy Rodigan from London who they’d heard on the radio was actually a white guy. And after the initial shock, I was given a whole lotta love, as I always have been since whenever I play in Jamaica.”

Jamaica is, unsurprisingly, a place very close to Rodigan’s heart and, as a man almost without parallel when it comes to awareness of the music emanating from the isle, his views on the state of Jamaican music today are of real interest. Having previously gone on the record to express his dissatisfaction with so much of the music coming from there these days, his opinions on the latest styles and fashions coming out of JA make for interesting reading…

“Jamaican music is forever changing. But it seems to me it’s become somewhat obsessed with a new style of music, which I don’t identify as being reggae or dancehall, I identify it as a hybrid of pop, R&B and dance. I think the internet has enabled Jamaicans to see what is going on elsewhere. That sounds terribly patronising, but you have to remember that Jamaica is an island, and before the digital revolution, it was its own world in a sense; the music being made was always very Jamaican, the way they dressed was, it was unique.

“Now, they see and hear Usher, Jay Z, whoever, and think ‘I could do that’. So a lot of the music has this hip-hop kind of flavour to it as its backdrop; I find that inadequate. It doesn’t move me, it doesn’t excite me; it doesn’t generate any passion in me to want to go out and own this rhythm, capture this beat.  A lot of it doesn’t have the weight and bottom end and depth of what I would call traditional dancehall and reggae. Now a lot of the music is hypey-hypey for dancing, but it doesn’t have any substantial message or emotion in it other than just fun and vibes. And a lot of the topics and subject matters, in my opinion, leave a lot to be desired. So, I’m bitterly disappointed by a lot of that, I can’t get my head round it musically. There are new artists coming through, but in comparison with how it used to be in the 70s, 80s and 90s it is not as substantial as it was. That would be my observation. But like everything, you never know what’s around the corner.

“Which is why I find the new world into which I’ve been invited by the likes of Caspa so very exciting. Jamaican’s aren’t making dub music anymore; it’s not part of their musical vernacular. So for me to be able to play this great dub music, which I haven’t able to play for years  because the reggae world haven’t been particularly interested in it, is amazing. So for me, going right back to your first question, yes, it’s like the summer of 73 again; I’m 22 again. I’m not saying that to defend my age, but age really is just a number. When you have a passion and a genuine love of something, it never leaves you. Music is so important in our lives. And the thing about music is, when it hits, as Bob Marley said, you really do feel no pain.”

Words: Jon Cook

Photos: Laura Lewis

As printed in trap#004, June/July 2011 – read online here, or buy the print issue here.

www.rodigan.com

BLACK BUTTER’S WOZ KICKS OFF OUR ’RISE UP’ SERIES

Download the first in our ‘Rise Up’ series, courtesy of hotly tipped Bristolian bass merchant Woz. Packed with many of this year’s biggest tracks and enough energy to split an atom, one listen is all you’ll need to see why the young Bristol-based producer is being tipped for massive things this year…

TRACK LIST:

1. Kicking & Screamix (Woz Club Mix) – Amiramor & Woz
2. Cheese & Bun – Lil Silva
3. Planet X – Redlight
4. Froth – Joy O & Boddika
5. Clap – 3hrs
6. Off Track (Woz Rmx) – C4
7. Don’t Ask Don’t Get – Mickey Pearce
8. In The Dark (Woz Rmx) – Charlie Xcx
9. Battlestar – Shox
10. Lock The Door – Hint Ft. Zed Bias
11. Peaches – Blawan
12. Mosquito Man – Redlight
13. Cactus – Objekt
14. Deep In The Valley (Woz Rmx) – Rudimental Ft MC Shantie
15. Highest Order – Conqueror
16. Untitled – Woz
17. Running (Disclosure Rmx) – Jessie Ware
18. The Resistance – Mensah
19. Love Like Water (Toddla T Rmx) – Steve Edwards
20. Must Be The Feeling (Woz Rmx) – Nero
21. Chicken Run – Can Blaster
22. Illa – Woz
23. Absolutely – 3hrs
24 Gain – Woz
25. Blanked – Pearson Sound
26. Custom – Woz
27. Oakay – Woz
28. Hex – Pangea
29. Overdose – Preditah
30. Inside The Ride – Royal T
31. Just E (Breach Rmx) – DJ Cra$Y
32. The BeginningBuy – Jook 10
33. Bring In The Katz – Kw Griff Ft Porkchop
34. Sherlock – Foamo
35. Ray Ban Vision (Luckybeard Rmx) – A Track
36. Changes – Crazy P

“i’m friends with karma”

Originally printed February 2012 in trap#007

Everybody, it seems, has an opinion on Wiley. Godfather of grime, Number-One pop star, household name, Guardian poster boy, internet curiosity… the 33 year-old East Londoner is all those things – and a load more besides.

Unashamedly honest, strikingly candid and refreshingly opinionated, we wish everybody we interviewed was like Wiley. But as he confirmed when Trap spent an hour in his company, there can only ever be one Wiley…

Hello Wiley. How are you today? What you on?

“Yeah, I’m good! I’ve been finishing the album I’m doing with Manga from Roll Deep. We want 12 tunes for it and have finished ten so far. We’re gonna have a few days break now, so we’re not talking about the same stuff when we go back in.”

You’re working on another album already? You’ve released two in the last six months!

“Yeah, I’m in rush. Haha. I’m not, but it’s my job. I just wanna keep working and making sure I’m not lazy.”

You never get creative block?

“No, not any more. When I was younger, but not now. I think you’ve got to be open minded musically; if I’m on a beat, I just try not to stop, I do something, even if it’s just eight bars. I’m on music 20 hours a day minimum. Even if I’m not doing something in those 20 hours, I’m always around it, checking it.”

At your level, some would have relaxed by now and be doing one album every couple of years…

“You know why it is though? It’s the lack of achievement, that’s why I’m doing it. Because if I’d achieved properly, I wouldn’t even have to be fucking about doing all this pop. I’d be living in million pound mansions and that. So that’s another reason I keep going – because I know there’s been times when I might not have applied myself properly, or because I looked at the game from a different angle and tried to stay in the hood. There were loads stupid elements, but now, I’ve just flushed all of that out and I’m just trying to keep everything positive.”

You do want to achieve, then? You want that million pound mansion?

“I do! It’s not that I couldn’t get it anyway if I wanted, but someone like me is meant to be more. That’s all. If you put someone like me in a different country, like Jamaica or America, where there’s a scene that’s worldwide, I don’t think I’d be in this position.

“sometimes i blame myself”

“You know what it is? I love music and all of that, but I don’t love the bullshit side of trying to be famous. And in England that’s what it is, I’m not putting us down, but here the entertainment industry is under control. They limit it. It’s controlled – who goes through the door, who’s playlisted, who wins the awards… But I don’t moan, I don’t think ‘Oh, you didn’t win a MOBO,’ – I just think they missed it.

“Sometimes I think, I never got the chance, sometimes I blame myself. But then I think, if you don’t get along with people for whatever reason, you’ve got to move on. So I’m not gonna hate on the people who didn’t see me, but I just wish they did…”

Do you think there are things you could now hold your hands up to and say ‘You know what, I probably didn’t make it easy for myself there?’

“Yeah, definitely. Relationships and arguments. I often fell out with people – not necessarily a fall out, but things where it made it awkward for us to speak anymore. There’s been millions of situations, I don’t want to hold a grudge with anyone, I know I’m not the easiest person to get along with, it’s true.”

You think after reaching 30, you’ve learnt?

“Yeah, I have learnt but at the same time, I’m not gonna go back. I’m gonna try and get to 40 so I’m content. We’re men now. No one can help me. You just got to go on, not go back and say ‘Oh, I’ve changed.’”

“I learn from Radio 2, Elton John and that”

 
You were one of the pioneers of grime. Many of the scene’s early stars have risen to massive fame, and have, it appears, used grime as a stepping stone to that. How do you feel about that?

“They didn’t use me. If I took them to Westwood, or I put energy into them to help make them into who they were, then we’re just equals. I am Wiley. It could seem that a certain person is higher up now, but at the same time there’s something that I’ll always have that they only might lose if they go too high up.

“I don’t believe that any of the MCs have gone anywhere in terms of music. So and so might be blowing up in America, but music wise, on the mic and ideas wise, I don’t think any of them are far ahead at all actually. They’ve stepped up. But none of them have stepped up and taught me anything. They’ve stepped up and showed me they’re big, but nothing more.”

Do you want that? Someone to step up and teach you?

“Nah nah nah. I learn from other people. I listen to a lot of different music. I learn from a lot of Radio 2 from Elton John and that. I learned from Stevie Hyper D and MC Det and those people!”

Do you sometimes feel like you did all the hard work and building, just for the newer generation to come in and reap the rewards?

“Yeah, how it is now with music here – it’s what we always wanted. Thing is, we’re all 30 now. I wish I was 20 so we could take advantage of it! You get older and you’re like, ‘Fuck. I’ve done all that graft for them.” It’s not like that really, that’s a bad way to think… The garage people must have been like that when we came in, though, and said we’re not doing garage, we’re doing grime – Norris Da Boss and them lot must have thought ‘You fuckers.’

“It’s mad. Maybe it’s a bit of karma. But you know what though? I’m friends with karma mate, I’ll put Karma in a head lock, put it there and tell it to hold on; I’ll be back in a minute. I will get there with karma, trust me.”

“I do understand, I need to have a repent, not repent, but a little session where I’m chilled, and I understand everything that’s gone on, and then just re-invent and move on.”

Which is the name of your album, ‘Evolve Or Be Extinct’…

“Exactly. I was trying to just make an album that I had fun with and was happy with, instead of one that I was, not forced, but asked to make and then not happy with it after. I wanted to do two in one year, but it got pushed into 2012. I’m wanting to work with other people more now…

Such as Major Lazer?

“Yeah I got a tune on there. It’s not gonna benefit anyone except them. I shouldn’t say that, it will benefit me. I like Major Lazer. You know what I’ve realised? That guy Diplo is in a position of power that people don’t even know exists! Power bruv. I’m sitting there thinking ‘I wanna be like one of them then! Why the fuck am I breaking my neck when this geezer, on the decks for an hour, giving people a couple of riddims they love, doing some tunes, and then in the end, Beyonce’s took his fucking track and he’s fucking laughing the geezer! He’s laughing mate, now I know what his goal is, and I like that goal, it’s a goodun.”

“grime could have been the be all and end all”

Back to grime –  do you think the genre still has the street-level relevance it did?

“Grime could have been the be all and all, but the front runners all ran in different directions because they all wanted to be their own king. Some failed and came back to the floor to build up again. Some didn’t fail, but they’ve gone and earned loads of money and lost the reason they’re  good.

“It’s iffy. I could say, ‘you know what I wish I didn’t have to struggle – I wish I’d went that road’. But if I had gone that road, I’d be sitting there going ‘Fucking hell man, I can’t even bust weight with the likkle dons.’ And I’d be pissed, cause I’d have been meant to buss weight with anyone.”

So credibility is key to you?

“Yeah. It’s pros and cons. You know what, it’s slipping away, I was listening to some tunes I’d done the other day and thought ‘I’m starting to sound like an old MC now,’ I thought I’d be able to throw and spit like a young MC forever, but you can tell man.”

Some might say your antics on uStream, twitter etc, where you quite plainly speak your mind, or let people see you cooking lunch, could affect your credibility. You don’t seem to mind sharing your life online…

“The internet is exciting. I never had it when I was younger. So I’m new to it, I want to be involved in it. I wanna show people me as a human being. Just because he does music, doesn’t mean he’s not a human being. We all went to school, we all fell over, we all tried to ride a bike – people forget the normal things. That’s what I try to show on there.

“People say ‘You’ve gone mad!’ and I’m like, well OK, being normal is actually mad. My nan made me a boiled egg. So is she mad? When I get older and make one, am I mad? The world’s crazy, not me. In your mind; there’s things stored in there. For me, boiled eggs and soldiers is one of them. Or a cup of tea, I don’t know. What else was I making? The other day I made breakfast.

“You know what it is, when you’re doing music and you’ve got this image to keep up and everyone thinks you’re a bad-boy MC; they take away the right for you to be normal, the fact I play football on the grass. I’m so normal, I feel like people don’t accept you for being as normal as them, because when you’re a star you’re not meant to be.”

Interview by Jon Cook

Photos: Spencer Murphy

‘Evolve Or Be Extinct’ is out on Big Dadda now.

@WILEY__

“I just make the bass and do it all instinctively”

Hackney-born producer and DJ Champion is one of the most talked about producers on the bass-music block right now. Ostensibly a UK funky producer, his sound is much more than that label suggests or allows.

Champion’s bass-driven take on the genre has seen him receive the backing of grime heavyweights such as Terror Danjah and Elijah, while tracks such as last year’s sublime ‘Sensitivity’ with Ruby Lee Ryder and 2009’s ‘Tribal Affair’ and, of course, ‘Lighter’ have pushed Champion’s name far and wide.

After a 2011 that saw releases for Terror’s Hardrive and the launch of his own Formula Records imprint, the coming year promises much from Champion. Trap grabbed the young producer to find out more about his inspirations and aspirations…

First things first, you’re often described as a UK funky producer – how would you describe your sound?

“I don’t know any more! I suppose there are two ways to look at it – one is that I probably do make UK funky; it’s just very different to the others, whose sound has became the standard ‘UK funky’ sounds. The second is that I never really felt that I made ‘UK funky’, but when I came about it was easier to fit into that bracket. To an extent, it still is easier. But then there’s a confusion regarding that term because UK funky is now considered commercially dead – and at the point it got that status, I started getting bigger!”

You produce a very modern style and sound of dance music. What was the music you grew up listening to and inspires you to create now?

“I’m inspired by the music of my childhood such as reggae, jungle, late garage and early grime. It’s what I grew up listening to as a kid, from my dad playing tunes in the house or at parties, to when I got a little older and stayed with the transition from garage into grime.

“Musically, my dad was a really important influence. I took all his musical characteristics – I love a good bassline like him (his car actually held a record for having the second loudest bassline in the UK and has won trophies for it). I like all the same music he does and my early mixdowns mimicked the way his sound was tuned, which meant lots of tops and sub!

“My mum, in her day, was signed to Island as part of a UK rap group, and my uncle was a well known garage MC on Freek FM called Dollars. Then I’ve got uncles and cousins that are DJs or soundmen over here and in Jamaica, so you can imagine the family parties I grew up with; they were basically raves!”

You’re known for your links with Terror Danjah and the Butterz lot – why do you think you and your music have been embraced by bastions of grime such as these?

“I think, even though I specialise in different music from them, they fully got and felt the vibe I put into my production and latched onto it. Terror actually told me when the first time he heard my tunes was – he was with Elijah at Corsica studios when Heartless were playing there a few years back and they dropped ‘Tribal Affair’; he said he went crazy! Funny thing is, they both don’t like funky one bit, but Terror said that tune reminded him of something he would have made back in the day.”

You gained notoriety from your reworking of the classic jungle track ‘Lighter’ – has jungle/D&B been a strong influence on you?

“See the thing is, when I first made that tune, I didn’t actually have the jungle ‘Lighter’ in mind at all – it’s only when it was done that I felt it needed something and put the sample from the original on there. But yeah, like I mentioned earlier, jungle and D&B is a strong influence overall – only the 90s stuff though, the new stuff just goes hand in hand with dubstep in being mad noisy, which isn’t really my thing.”

In relation to that, some have said that UK funky is the closest thing around right now to capturing the vibe of the early jungle days. Do you agree?

“Yeah, I do, especially in relation to my tracks. With the early jungle days, it’s almost like they only put in the key effective elements of a track to mash up a dance – the bass and drums – and just went with an energy from within, which is how I would describe part of my process of making a tune, and is probably why my tracks hardly have any musicality in them. I just make the bass and do it all instinctively most of the time.”

You run your own label, Formula. What’s the mandate for the label?

“The vision I have for the label is quite simple – I want it to be one of those underground platforms you turn to for ‘that tune I heard last night’. It started off being just my tracks, but I’m eventually creeping in different artists, both new and established. The next release has a Terror Danjah & DOK remix, there’s a planned release for a sick new producer called Notion, and DJ Naughty will be doing some work for my label this year too. There’s a few other plans but I don’t want to say too much too early!”

Who do you rate right now? Who should we be watching out for in 2012?

“I’m definitely feeling Notion right now; only a handful of people have his tracks but they’re doing a lot. There’s this producer from the Midlands called Swifta Beater – I’ve heard some of his unreleased bits and they’re deadly! Also, I’m rating people like Roska, Funkystepz and the artists on Butterz (Royal-T, Swindle etc). I’ve also heard some undercover Terror Danjah & DOK bits that are crazy, so watch out for them!”

What are your plans for the year ahead and your career beyond that?

“I suppose it’s just to release more music for the people and develop Formula further. Beyond that, it’s hard to say because two or three years ago, I never imagined that I would be where I am now. There were always plans in my head to achieve certain musical goals but I’ve always known that I just wanted to be bigger and to still be having fun, so I suppose that’s the plan!”

Any final shouts, thanks and big ups?

“Yeah, shouts and thanks out to Terror Danjah, Elijah and Roska for all there help and support. Big up Two Plates, DJ Shandy, Music House and Cargo Records for all their work on Formula. Big up Notion and the rest of the producers to work with Formula in the future, and everyone supporting me and my tracks.”

As printed in Trap 006, October/November 2011.

Words: Sam Bates

@Champion_DJ