EL-B INTERVIEW

‘I don’t really know what Future Garage is and I don’t care to keep up with the latest media names. It’s mostly all just dance music to me. “Give me groove to make me move – that’s all I’m concerned with,” Lewis Beadle emails. The underground producer, best known for his work under the moniker El-B, left his boundless mark on the music world in the late 90′s/early 00′s. Growing up on the road, the South London producer toured with his father, a saxophonist for various musical groups. “The music scene was great – jazz/funk/rare groove/disco – and, of course, the British 80s pop scene,” he says. At a young age he began work with Steve “Noodles” Jude, forming the overwhelming Groove Chronicles. “A demo tape of mine fell into Noodles’ hands while he was working at Unity Records/London. He had a great knowledge of production and the bizniz and saw potential in the programming. In 1996 we had our first release’.

In late 1999, Lewis left to begin his solo career as El-B “I had to take time out to create the Ghost imprint. It was something I had envisioned and I had to follow it up correctly, surround myself with it and nothing else”. El-B took the style he had adopted whilst working with Noodles and fused it with his lowered sound, lively grooves and haunting basslines, gaining yet more underground recognition. In 2000, the Ghost imprint was born, now firmly anchored with a pioneering status. “I started it ‘cos I found the whole UK garage scene too soft. But that harder style had already been tested back in 1999, on DPR Records.”
Where’s Ghost Recordings at the moment? Lewis says he feels it’s “in a strange, maybe political place. Producers are pushing for new, better, fresher sounds all the time’. Whilst working with Ghost, El-B began work with elusive Dubstep producer, Burial. ‘We have a lot of love and mutual respect as for each other producers and it’s great to be a main influence to a talent as great as him, though I’m sure I stress him out…’.
Is there anyone we should be listening out for right now? “CASKI, coming soon to Ghost Recordings and featured on the “Ghost Chaser” LP.’