CRYPT INTERVIEW

I’d like to know about the club night Attic, you’re one of three resident DJ’s and co-run the night, right? How and when was it started?

Attic… Well, there’s not much point in talking about it to be honest! Ha, it was a bit of a flop really! It ran twice, the first, we had Synkro headline, was a fair few heads in the venue but really not as many as we was expecting. Second night we had some friends, Goli & Ashburner and Waston, runner of Loft Party Records, they came down and we’re headlining. We had so much hype about the night, then on the night, it was just dead! There was literally about 3 people there. Not a good look really! So yeah, after two extremely bad nights it’s over! We don’t think this part of Essex is really ready for the ‘London’ sound yet anyway, they’re still going crazy over ‘Nero’ and ‘Katy B’!! Ha.

Hahaha. So not a night to be continued then? Would you ever consider starting it up again, in a better location? It seems like a lot of people are doing that lately and the nights are proving to be really popular.

Attic is gone for good! But we are hoping to start a new night up in London at the Rhythm Factory under a new name! But that’s not been confirmed yet, there’s just so much competition up in London but at the end of the day it’s just about getting a good rep and building a name for yourself. So we’ll probably kick things off with a couple of free parties!!

Sounds cool. Yeah, can imagine there’d be a lot of competition in London for this kind of thing at the moment. Then again there’s competition in every part of the music industry, so many new acts coming out right now, what’s keeping you going? What’s driving you to mix and make music right now?

Things are hard for the ‘small time’ events. It’s real hard trying to get your name off the ground, same with being a producer and DJ. It’s really hard getting that first bit of respect and recognition. I myself are still trying to get my name about more and widen my fan base. I think the main thing keeping me going, keeping me mixing and producing, is my love for music! I’ve gone through my whole life being surrounded by music. Both my parents are very keen music listeners. Just looking at my Dad’s CD rack now, Dizzee Rascal, Massive Attack, The XX, Crystal Castles, Trentmöller, and some Reggae mix tapes and a lot of UK Garage too. Even the Burial album ‘untrue’ tucked away in there! So as you can see, it’s very varied. Being brought up with all of that different stuff has rubbed off on me and my own music! Music is also something I’ve really wanted to have a career in too. I always look at DJs and see how mad their lives are. I’d love to be the one playing out to hundreds in London then going straight from there and jumping on a plane and travelling to your next play out somewhere in Europe. What a crazy life, travelling the world and DJing!

Your musical upbringing has definitely played a big part in your production work then? Your style of producing is very distinct, has it been influenced by any artists? A few people have said they feel your style is similar to some of Zomby’s work, do you agree?

It really has!! I can see where people are coming from when they say I have a similar style to Zomby, I do like to add that 8 bit & glitchy sort of sound to a lot of my tracks. I’m also a really big fan of Zomby myself, so I’m sure a lot of his work rubs off on me. So many other artists influence my work too, Falty DL, Untold, Ikonika, I’m a really big fan of Sepalcure too, their new Fleur EP is massive. I can’t go a day without listening to it. But I’d have to say one of the main artists I take influence from, and to be honest is one of my favourite and most loved producers, has to Burial. Everything about his production and style is just amazing. His tracks are more than just 5 minutes or so of music, they tell a story and have a lot of meaning. They’re so distant yet have so much feel to them and I try to do the same with my own tracks. I am a huge fan of his work and really love the mystery behind him as well. He is definitely the producer I look up to most and has a real big influence on my own music.

Yeah, I can see a lot of influences within your pieces but you still carry off your own style amazingly. As a fan of your music, I always find myself wondering what leads you to produce the tracks you do. ‘Aspire’ is an incredible song, with a lot of emotion. When did you produce it? Was there a reason behind the production?

To be honest, I can’t remember when ‘aspire’ was made. I try to put a lot of emotion into my tracks and put a bit of myself and how I feel at that moment into them too. I tend to sample vocal samples, slicing out and cutting the words that have meaning to me. Thinking about it a lot of my tracks do have little stories behind them and to my listeners the vocal slicing probably seems like random sounds. I do get a few people come to me and ask me ‘Does it say so-and-so in your track?’, sometimes they’re right and sometimes they’re wrong! At least some people can make out what they say! I mean some of them are just random slices that I like the sound of once I’ve put them together but I’d say most mean something to myself.

So, you’ve already told me about the club night in London, but what other plans do you have for the future? Any collaborations or remixes we can look forward to?

Hmm… future plans, well right now I’m just finishing off little bits here and there. Been working on some more ‘housey’ stuff with a guy called ‘That Boy Kana’ too which is sounding pretty nice at the moment, so look out for that! But the main thing coming from me and the thing that’s been my main concentration right now is a 12″ & digital EP coming out sometime in the near future! Can’t give anything away about that really, can’t tell you the label either! But things are getting exciting and I really can’t wait to drop that into the current music scene!