Tag Archives: breaks

Meat Katie

Meat Katie aka Mark Pember hates flying. LOATHES it. You can hear the venom in his voice as he speaks about it. “I’ve done over 60 flights this year, and I still HATE it. White-knuckle ride for me all the way. It’s the take off and landings I hate the most”. Yet why would he agree to do an album and subsequent tour of Australia, knowing that the only way to get here is to fly? “I don’t know… it was stupid”, he laughs, “I love DJing and stuff, love it when I get there… it’s just the flying!” he says exasperatedly. Pember was out here recently promoting the album “Destination Australia 02”, and we spoke in between sniffles as we both had the flu that seemed to wipe out everybody.

Pember got into the dance music scene in the early 90s. “I used to be in bands,” he says of his beginnings. “I started off in bands, and a friend introduced me to samplers, and the first thing I did was sample drums and bass. This was the early days of bigbeat, and it just sounded more dancey, more clubby than the stuff I did previously.” His first foray into dance production was Ceasefire on Wall Of Sound. Pember says, “I split with my partner, and he decided to continue with wall of sound with the name, and I decided to continue with a new project.” That new project was the darker sound of Meat Katie, and for those who wanted to know, the name comes from a film about sex.

Pember has been at the forefront of breakbeat since it moved from being cheesy Fat Boy Slim style breaks to what we know as ‘new school breaks’. The scene has exploded in recent years, and considering Pember once said, “I’m not convinced that Breaks is going to do what Garage or Trance has done. I think it will be a cult scene, healthy but not mainstream” I wondered if his position had changed. “It’s a difficult one, because when I said that I genuinely meant it”, he muses. “It is particularly big in Australia. There are certain acts that I think may break through to the mainstream, but as a scene it’s going to be rooted in the underground – the same as drum and bass. There may be the odd track or two or the artist that goes overground… hearing some of the new stuff, like Plump DJs and some of the Stanton Warriors stuff, I can see the accessibility more so than I did maybe a year ago. But for me, and my own sound, no, I don’t think I’ll ever break into that market. I’d love to, but it’s not realistic for me.”

The recent Destination release is the second in the series, but not many people heard the first mix, done by H Foundation. “There was a problem in that they had only released the Fabric H Foundation Mix two weeks before, so I think EQ had a few issues in that everyone was mentioning the Fabric CD and not the Destination CD,” Pember explains. “And that’s a real shame those guys at EQ are really good and it’s a bit of a shitty thing to happen. But I jumped at the chance of doing it, and I’m a big fan of playing out here and my records seem to be selling well, and I thought this would be a great way to set the record straight as actually what it is that I’m about. By doing a domestic CD I’m hoping people understand my vibe a little better. It’s breakbeat based, but I like to touch on different styles as well, and I saw this as the perfect opportunity to do this.”

Pember’s previous works, such as his track ‘the Hum’ with Lee Coombs, are often dark and tribal, but this mix CD is a lot “lighter”, showing that there’s a lot more to Meat Katie than meets the eye. “I guess it’s how people perceive it. I’m not a moody person, ya know!” he laughs. “Sometimes my music can be mood based, which may lead people to think I’m always like that, but my taste is very broad. I like funky music… I’m not a big fan of cheese, but I do like stuff with a bit of a groove.” This mix CD certainly shows this, as it moves from DJ Shadow to Meat Katie to Matrix versus Goldtrix.

Hum is also the title of his successful club, which is coming up to its 2nd birthday in November. “It’s moved to a new venue, a place called the Fortress, and it’s like two story down basement warehouse venue, and we’ve got a license til 6 in the morning, which is quite a late license for the UK. We keep it quite cheap as well…” Pember says of the club. “We do it sporadically now, every 6 to 8 weeks. Thing is, we get other work – good paying work – elsewhere, and we have families and actually have to make a living as well”, he laughs.

His other project is the label Whole 9 Yards, which has recently released the new Elite Force album. “I’m actually taking a bit of time off, as I have another child on the way which is due in January and I need a little home time,” Pember explains. “I spend a lot of my time running the label, and this will be a great opportunity to put it on the backburner for a little while, to concentrate on the things I need to do.” I wondered if Pember thought it was difficult being a father and working in the music industry. “I think it’s hard having a family and doing ANY job, really” he laughs. “You’ve got a lot of responsibility and all that. I wish I was there a bit more on the weekends… I spend the week producing and running the label, and come the weekends I go out and DJ, and try and grab moments being at home, but now I’m really making an effort to make some quality time. It’s difficult because you’ve gotta make money as well, make ends meet”.

Pember missed Adelaide on this tour, but is sure to return to Australia, most likely after his break in January. “Do you know what? I would love to come to Adelaide,” he says. “It’s a real shame I didn’t have an Adelaide date this time –I’ve been here 4 times now and I’ve never been there! I’m going to harass my agent next time I’m down,” he laughs. In the mean time, get a copy of the Destination Australia 02 CD and prepare for a funky ride through some great breakbeat!

Ils

Illian Walker, aka Ils, is one of the hottest breaks producers in the world. He was one of the first people Adam Freeland signed up to his record label Marine Parade, and he’s been recruited by Distinctive Breaks to produce the next instalment of the excellent Y4K series. Even though the record label that released his first record, Idiots Behind the Wheel, burnt him, the well-distributed promo solidified his street cred with magazine editors, DJs, and label heads across Europe. His second album for Freeland’s Marine Parade was the first full-length artist album for the label, was critically acclaimed and earned him the title of “the producers producer.”

“To be honest I don’t really understand what that means,” he laughs. “I take it in a complementary way I suppose; it’s nice to be recognised in some kind of dimension”. Anyone who’s heard his tunes will notice the incredible complementary sounds he manages to produce seemingly out of thin air. “Being in a rare groove / funk live band had a massive impact on my drum programming and the basslines,” he says, of his days playing bass in a funk band when he was a mere14 years old, but it was the seminal rave act of the 90’s, The Prodigy, that inspired Walker to buy a sampler.

Throughout the 90’s, Walker made his living by working as an engineer for various DJs and producers. It was here his technique caught the ear of LTJ Bukem, who asked him to do work for Good Looking Records, and then later he worked with James Lavelle and DJ Shadow at Mo Wax on the U.N.K.L.E. project. “It was good to be around those kinds of people, to see how they worked, to hear music through their ears. You can sit in the same room with these people, and learn how they perceive music, the sounds that turn them on. And you see different methods of work, some people use different studio, or different kit, and it’s fascinating to work with these other people”, he says of his time spent with these doyens of dance music.

The disappointment with the Fuel label going under and not receiving a cent for his work led Walker to abandon dance for a year or two. “No one’s really seen or heard from the label owner of Fuel. It’s a bit insane,” he laughs. Asked if there’s any chance of re-releasing the album to new fans, Walker is a bit hesitant to look back at that stage in his life. “As far as I know I never signed a contract for that album or anything, so technically I could re-release it, but I feel I should move forward. There’s a lot more music to be written, really.” He also doubts he’ll go back to producing drum and bass, the sound that got him his start. “I’ve worked with a couple of singers who sing at that speed, and if I was producing a singer, and drum and bass really suited, I would do a drum and bass backing track to fit the song if that energy was required, but for myself, I’m not really interested at the moment.”

Looking forward is what Walker is concentrating on. A few of his tunes have been licensed for commercials, which is a great way for a producer to cement their financial standing, but some people point the finger and scream ‘sell out’. “I think considering a lot of breaks doesn’t get mainstream radio play in this country – you won’t hear Ils on Radio 1 – so I think if I can get on TV that’s good from a musicians point of view”, he explains. “I’d be annoyed if my music was used on a tampon advert or something “ he chuckles, “that kind of thing is quite critical. A lot of my older drum and bass is used on gardening and lifestyle shows and things like that and I find it funny. But if it’s for something like Nike, that has really groundbreaking adverts, that use cutting edge editing techniques, that has really cool visuals, and if it’s a cool product, I don’t consider it selling out.”

As well as working on his third album, Walker has been working on the next Y4K Breaks album. “I’ve tried earthing it by throwing a few anthems in there,” he says; on making his set stand out from the marvellous forerunners by Tayo and Freq Nasty amongst others. “I’ve got a few vocal tracks in there; I dunno, something about the Y4K series is it’s usually quite instrumental, so I’ve put a few vocal tracks in there. I think vocals work well over breaks, and tried to represent that in there. There are also some totally new tracks in there by unknown and up and coming producers.” There are also a few of his own compositions as well. “I’ve got a track with MC Dynamite, Roni Size’s MC, that’s totally unheard and been kept under wraps for a while, and some other tracks that haven’t been allowed to be licensed to CDs in the past.”

Walker is looking forward to touring, with the possibility of hitting Australia towards the end of this year. Whilst he has only been DJing for the last year or so, he believes he could pull off a live performance similar to the Roni Size Reprazent live show. “I admire the whole Roni Size live thing, I find that absolutely ingenious. That’s one of the few rare examples of studio sequencing stuff being performed live. And still a lot of people can’t emulate that. That’s the benchmark,” he says. “I have enough tracks that I’ve written in the last 9 years, so I feel I’d be able to go up onstage and give and interesting set. I’ve got enough back catalogue, and good singers and performance people that I believe in to feel it’s the shape of a good show,” he says. But whether it’s a DJ or live set, Illian Walker’s show would be one that is worth hearing.

Check out Ils Y4K mix out soon through Distinctive Breaks, and keep your eye out for a possible tour towards the end of this year.

Planet Funk

Planet Funk is the coming together of Marco Baroni, Sergio Della Monica, Alex Neri and Dominico GG Canu, Italian and English producers who found a common link in their desire to create a new kind of dance music, a new kind of funk. Bored with traditional notions of Italian Dance Music, they sought to inject a new life into the tired cliché that had become their scene. “We tried to produce something fresh. In the creative moment we try to let ideas come freely,” says Marco Baroni, through a crackly telephone line from sun drenched Italy. Meeting in 1999 at the Miami Music Conference, they joined together and produced the incredibly successful “Chase the Sun”, a song that got an incredible amount of airplay, which you are sure to recognise once you hear it. After the release, the guys spent a whopping two years in the studio, producing their debut album “Non-Zero Sumness”.

“We each knew each other through our individual projects”, Baroni explains, “but met up in Miami. We were looking at doing something a little bit different, because we all had been doing this for about ten years or so.” Their time in the studio was well worth it, as they took the time to finish their tracks, and learnt to work with each other cohesively. “Its not so simple as when you stay with people a long time, sometimes you fight maybe for a cigarette”, he laughs. “Now we know each other much better than we did a few years ago and work very relaxedly with each other”.

The album features two incredible singers from the UK, Dan Black and Sally Doherty. Dan Black is the front man for the group “The Servant”, and his voice has that punk rock edge, often sounding like a cross between Ozzy Ozborne and Shaun Ryder from the Happy Mondays. Planet Funk found Black through “the guys from Naples producing his album, and we like the way he sings and he really seemed right”. The decided they wanted his unique voice and punk mentality on their album, and sent him an instrumental version of “The Switch”. “He really liked the music, and wrote some lyrics for our songs. He gives the music a different style, brings a different feeling from ‘dance’. We wanted to get something different from the rest of the album, and people’s reaction is fantastic, they really like it.” Sally Doherty, a folk singer trained in Gaelic and Classical singing, was discovered over the internet, proving that this new medium can work for independent artists.

In addition to winning 3 prestigious Italian Music awards, Best band, Best newcomer and Best dance act, Planet Funk have been played by DJs across the world from Pete Tong to Adam Freeland, and have been highly praised in the European press. However, Marco holds his audience in higher esteem than the press. “We always try to think in terms of the people, because the people, the crowd, are our life. We like to make music for the people. All this reaction from Italy was fantastic, but normally we don’t like to think in these terms. We like to think of music directed to the people as most honestly as possible.”

The live show has become Planet Funk’s main focus; something that I imagine would be quite difficult for a group of dance producers. Baroni is frank in his assessment of playing live. “We like very much to play live. It was another natural step for us. We just love the reaction from the crowd. Our music changes a bit when we play live, we use real drummers, 3 singers, and we make a show of it”. The live show must be pretty impressive, as they have played in front of crowds as large as 70,000 people. The live element has also helped the direction of the next album. “We’ve just started to write for the next album, and we’re happy with what we’ve done so far. The success of the first album is important, and playing live is important. When we try and write new, different things there’s not so much pressure.”

Planet Funk’s album “Non Zero Sumness” is out now through Sony Music, and Baroni says that they’re hoping to bring their live show to Australia during the European Winter. “We’re Chasing the Sun” he laughs.

 

Brewster B

Melbourne boy Brewster B has been making a name for himself over the last ten years in Australian Dance Music scene for being individualistic and having a well-defined sense of fun. From remixing the theme from “Hogan’s Heroes” to writing a song about a bartender, his unique broken beats have rocked dance floors everywhere in Australia, except for, strangely, lil’ ol’ Adelaide. A complete oversight on behalf of local promoters I’m sure. Brewster has a great new tune on the new instalment of the great “If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It Too” CD, a compilation of Aussie breaks which is sure to shine locally and overseas.

Being influenced by groups like Kraftwerk, Cabaret Voltaire, Devo, New Order and early 80’s Hip-hop and Electro Pop, Brewster is proud of his heritage. “I love my chilled groove a lot!” he says. “I guess you could say that’s my roots.” He was discovered by “playing chill-out stuff in my lounge room after a party shut down early and some other DJs were there. They liked what they heard and offered me a gig at their next party in the chill-out room because it was so different from what everyone else was playing.” It’s that difference which defines Brewster. “I play everything from ambient dub to weird hip-hop to soundscapes to the very left! Then there is the dance floor side of things. I love and try to play anything with broken grooves. From electro to breakbeat house to dirty dark nu-skool breaks in to the heavy rolling dark funk style side of breaks. Even DnB with bit of old skool jungle now and then! Basically if it’s broken and make’s me rock, I wanna play it out loud so the dancefloor wants to rock with me”.

His early influences play part in his productions and mixing, as he scratches and samples his name into his set, as old hiphop DJs used to do, “partly to take the piss and to let people know it’s a bit of fun. And if it says ‘Brewster’ won’t that make it clear who this record is by?” he laughs. Using a blend of both an old technology, “but as time goes on its more & more computer based” to make his tracks, Brewster isn’t afraid to work with a variety of people from diverse backgrounds, such as DJ Ransom, Little Nobody, and an “ex-techno dude called Viridian. I think the key is to keep evolving. Stuff I was playing 2-3 years ago people are playing now, so it’s about finding new sounds and making new stuff so the crowds think ‘that’s rockin’ my world more that ever before!’”

The Australian Breaks sound seems to be doing very well overseas, and Brewster thinks this could be because “we have a sound all of our own, that will in time be recognized as a style of breaks. “Oz-Nu-skool” or maybe Oz-Skool?” he says cheekily. “But at the end of the day there only two real types of breaks – good and bad! The Brits make some amazing stuff and some of it is just fillers. Just like here there are toons and fillers. I don’t think it matters were it comes from… just make it rock!”

Fortunately, there are no fillers on the “If it Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It Too” CD, which features such a diverse range of sounds and artists such as Infusion, Hybrid and Brewster pumping out great material. “Breaks seem to have a wider appeal due to some of it live elements,” Brewster says, “With an increased acceptance of electronic music, it’s brought people in to the sound of breaks from outside of the club and rave scene, which have not had it hyped up like in other countries. This has let it grow naturally. Plus I think there is one other key ingredient,” he proclaims. “It’s the climate in Australia. Breaks and warm weather go together just so well. Put it outside in a park on a nice 25c degree day and people will smile and dance for hours in and around the trees! Try that in grey ol’ England!!”

We are hoping that the release of “If it Ain’t Broke… Too” will see Brewster hit town soon. “I’m hoping to hear and see the Adelaide massive groov’n real soon. Its the one place I’ve never Dj-ed!” he cries. “I’ve played in every state at least once a year, and even Tasmania a couple of times.” He’s not sure why he hasn’t played here, but thinks, “maybe Adelaide doesn’t like phat funky dark rollin breaks, that make’s ya wanna shake what ya mama gave ya? I think you guys want to shake it?? Well do ya?!?!

If it Ain’t Broke Don’t Fix It Too double CD, featuring tunes by Brewster B, Infusion, FNDA and remixes by Ransom and Nu Breed, plus a Mix CD of tunes from Volume 1, by competition winner Jeremy Judd, is in good record stores now thru inertia.

Lee Coombs

Lee Coombs is best known for the seminal ‘Perfecto Breaks’ CD, an awesome journey through breakbeat that seamlessly slices together old rave with new school hits. Coombs got his love of DJing from the early days of the warehouse and Acid House parties of the late 80’s and early 90’s. “I just heard the music and saw there was a little scene,” he says, “and wanted to do it straight away. It just attracted me completely, and I made it my mission to get hold of the music. I don’t know what it was, something in me said I’ve got to do that, and I did”. Coming from this background it’s no wonder he’s one of the leading lights of breakbeat. “I didn’t all of a sudden get into breakbeat, it’s always been that way for me,” he states matter of factly, telling the history of rave music from the original funk breaks, through house and the rave scene, right up to drum and bass. “I didn’t go that way though (into drum and bass), I’ve always been playing house music that has a breakbeat.”

For the Perfecto compilation, Paul Oakenfold, impressed by Coombs’ ability, simply rang him up and asked him to do it. “I choose the records I wanted on there, then set about re-editing and remixing, and then I mixed it in pro-tools,” he said. “Records are best for playing in clubs I think, and while it does sound good when you do a mix on decks and record it to CD, I just wanted to have more precision than that, have it exactly how I wanted and make it sound all like one record.” This is not the first time someone has simply liked Coombs stuff so much that they just had to use him. Justin Rushmore of Finger Lickin heard Thrust One, one of Coombs earliest hits, and asked Coombs to join his little collective. “He absolutely loved it,” he says of Rushmore’s take on Thrust One. “He said he wanted me to make tracks for his label. I thought that he was genuinely into my stuff and I was the first artist outside of his collective to be recording for Finger Lickin. The people who owned record labels I had met before were businessmen, they weren’t necessarily into the music, it was all about money. And I thought ‘well, he’s into my music, and he’s prepared to put money into it, it’s gotta be a winner’”.

Coombs is well known for his remixing and re-edits, particularly of older tunes. Whilst there is a lot of quite average remixes out there, Coombs seems to add an undefinable edge to the music that lifts it above the garbage. This may be because of the reverence he holds for the tunes. He says of his edits, “they have a little bit of nostalgia, bit of memories,” and that’s why he likes doing them. “To be honest some of the old tunes were some of the best tunes ever made. It’s to do with the vibe they’re sending out. Music is about vibe for me, about the vibe it is giving, and I just love the vibe of the older stuff. It’s quite hard to describe, and explain,” he laughs. “Just about every rave record from back then influences me. It’s difficult to name names. You wanna name a real classic you’ve got Joey Beltram’s Energy Flash, that’s a big influence and shapes a lot of music for me. Todd Terry, Arthur Baker, lot of names, lots of individual artists you wouldn’t know who they were but made one record that sparked things off.”

Other DJs also appreciate his music, and he has a diverse range of DJs playing his music, from Pete Tong to Kosheen. “Great, fantastic, brilliant, it’s nice to be crossing into other genres,” he says about the wide range of DJs playing his work. “But to be honest, I don’t go with the attitude that I make breakbeat music purely for breakbeat people. I make music and it just so happens it fits in with breakbeat very well. I like to call myself an artist, but I can be breakbeat artist, I can make house, I can do anything really. It’s really nice that people not associated with what I do pick up on it.”

Coombs is happiest at home, as he doesn’t like travelling much. “It’s a bit of a worry,” he says nonchalantly of the effect terrorism has had on travelling. “Travelling is the downside, I do a lot of sitting around on my own in airports. People think DJing is really glamorous but it’s not. It’s hard work. I DJ out of the UK a lot, most weekends I’m somewhere in Europe. Going to the States you gotta do 11-12 hour flight, and obviously Australia is a whole day of travelling, and I’m not looking forward to it to be honest. I can’t wait to get there and get the travelling out the way.” Another reason he likes home so much is the shift in the direction of the scene in the UK. “It’s kinda going back underground, which is good, what I like,” he says. “The big superclubs have kinda had their day, they’re all shut in England now. You had Gatecrasher and Cream and that and they don’t go anymore. It’s all gone back to smaller clubs, which is better for the atmosphere and for taking it back to what it should be. You get people that are actually into the music and not there because it ‘is a club’. It’s no longer the name of the club that’s important, but the music that’s played there.”

Another place he loves is San Francisco. “It’s just a fantastic place to be, it’s just totally different from anywhere in the world,” he says. “It’s totally different from anywhere else in the States! They really get into parties; it’s perfect for DJ’s playing the right sort of music.” Again, his love of music comes out in the reason he loves San Francisco. “I was very influenced by some of the music that came out of San Francisco 4 – 5 years ago. They’ve been making house music on the sort of tip I play since house music began and it’s like a pilgrimage to go there.”

On top of recording tunes for Finger Lickin’, and DJing around the Globe, Coombs also has Thrust Recordings to keep him busy. “It’s my label but I’ve been too busy to do anything with it for the last year,” he says. “On my travels I’ve been picking up artists that I like, and from people whose records I’ve been playing I’ve been getting remixes, and tracks made for the label, and I’ve got 4 or 5 releases now and it’s all kicking off right now.” Some of the artists and tunes coming out are ‘Tribal Tensions’, Elite Force with ‘Double Black’, The Burns Brothers (Jem from Soul of Man & Coombs) with Machine, of which Coombs says is more house orientated. “There is an artist from Toronto called Paranoid Jack, and my remix of Dramattic Twins Mind the Gap,” he says. Not only that, but he’s also done a remix for Air Recording of Tony Faline’s Feel the Funk, which he says he is quite happy with, and has been collaborating with “Meat Katie, Danny Howell, Rennie Pilgrem, Elite Force, Dramttic Twins, there’s a little group of us where we’ll do our edits then swap things around, swap tracks and so on”.

Being the unassuming person he is, he expects “hopefully some really good parties, that’s all I can expect,” when he visits Adelaide next week. “I’m not expecting much weather,” he laughs. Despite the weather, I’m sure he’ll get a warm reception when he plays Traffic.

 

 

Julian Cram

Cut Le Roc

Lee Potter, aka Cut Le Roc, is a funny guy to talk to, making lots of jokes and having a laugh. This is reflected through both the music he makes and plays. He doesn’t take it too seriously, but seriously enough to have a go at changing the perception of the dance music scene as being dull and dark and all about what you look like and what shoes you wear.

Potter first started DJing at the tender age of 12 years old. Rather than picking up a guitar, as he was in his terms “a real hiphop kid”, he went out and purchased “what we call ‘cake tin’ turntables, belt driven things with heaps of slipmats and plastic, anything to keep them going in time”. Skipping school, much to his Mothers’ horror he “basically spent every minute of every day just scratching records and trying to work out how they did things and work out new things”. This led Potter into collecting old funk records, looking for that prefect break, which got him listening to funk, soul and jazzy stuff in general, and amassing a huge record collection.

He developed a passion for dance music in a pretty usual manner “You’d go to a hiphop jam” he says “and it’d be full of blokes with funny hats on with their arms crossed. I’d rather be where the girls are with hardly any clothes on,” he laughs. “But that’s a big no no in that scene – you’re only supposed to like hiphop and that’s it. I found acid house parties quite mad – it still had that funky feel to it, it’s electronic, it’s got this really weird, annoying bird chirping noise, and there’s girls here!” he laughs talking of the Acid House parties his friends took him to. “I started to become more open minded about music, which was a really good thing to happen for my career because if I was still a hiphop kid now, I’d be making good little hiphop tunes in me bedroom, but not going anywhere.”

Something that gets brought up a lot is the fact that he’s listed in the Guinness book of records for playing on 8 decks, a true testament to his skills as a DJ. “I did the Future Sound of the UK (FSUK) 4 mix for Ministry of Sound, and they asked me if I could do something special they could base promotion around, and I said yeah, whatever. They came back and said ok, we’ll have you play on 8 turntables, Vestax have agreed to supply the equipment, we’ll do it at the Ministry, get the press and punters down to see it. Then they told me at the last minute that Guinness may not come down, after I spent two months practicing for it, because they were all out watching people eat beans or something”, he laughs. “But it was more of a fun thing, not something I wanted to be seen as me showing off or anything. It was just a good fun time.”

Now Potter is head of his own record label, as well as a producer and remixer. “I haven’t done a remix in ages, but the rule with me for remixing is I only do it if I like it, and if I think I can bring something to the mix. Not just cheeky samples they can get in trouble for, but even something subtle, like new drums or filtering. Something that brings a new element or vibe to the track.” This last statement is indicative of the philosophy behind his record label, Rocstar Recordings. “I left Skit over a year and a half ago, as I wanted to pursue some other avenues. There were a lot of things happening there, they were focusing on Fat Boy Slim, the Lo-Fi All-Stars, and Xpress2. I said to them that they didn’t really have enough energy to focus on me as they had for Norman Cook, and that’s cool, he was the one who paid for everything,” he laughs “They were cool with that, and we’re still all good friends.”

“I didn’t necessarily want to do my own label, because I know how much work it is and I’m a bit of a lazy bastard” he laughs, “but I sent my stuff to a few people I know who run big breaks labels, people who had put out stuff similar to what I’ve done in the past, and they came back to me saying “we like it and all, but it’s not really the direction we’re heading.” It appears that Potter wasn’t making the same sound as every body else. “Everyone’s doing this new school, tech-breaks, slowed down drum and bass sound. I thought people who ran record labels were like the guys at Skint – quite open minded to musical sounds. I said to them “wouldn’t you rather be at the cutting edge of something new, to turn people’s heads and make them say “that’s really good and new” rather than put out the same old same old? They’d bring out the old “the dance industry is in a real rut, and we’re not selling as many records as we used to”. It’s my opinion that if they’d put some different music out, get the people excited over new stuff, they might buy it”.

“So after about 7 or 8 rejections along these lines I thought, “fuck this, I’ll do it myself”. And what kind of music is Potter bringing out? “It’s just good, funky music. It can be hiphop, it can be house, it can be breaks, it can be disco, whatever. I have a real vast array of artists doing different things for the label. The whole thing is “funk and fun”. Everything is so dark and heads down,” he explains of clubbing in England at the moment. “’Have you got the right shoes on? Is your make up running? Get lost, we’re night clubbing.’ I’m just trying to re-introduce fun and funky music back into the scene, music that no matter what style / genre you like, you’ll enjoy listening to this too. We’re just trying to break out of the mould, do something different.”

Potter is finally going to bring his fresh and funky beats to Adelaide. “Basically I’m going do what I normally do, and to hit you with everything,” he laughs “I’m not going to go too down tempo or hiphop, nor too dark, but take you from head nodding to having it large. Come down and say Hi, I might just buy you a Vodka” he laughs.

DJ Hyper

DJ Hyper aka Guy Hatfield is one of those DJ’s who always seems to have his name associated with words like “seminal” and “ground breaking”. His ‘Y3K’ series of breaks set the formula for the successful ‘Y4K’ series, and ‘Bedrock Breaks‘, based on the back room of John Digweed’s Bedrock club where Hatfield holds a residency, is heralded as introducing the world to breaks. Holding residencies in 3 countries (the UK, Spain and the US), running a record label and writing for music magazines, considering he’s only been DJing “seriously for about the last 4 or 5 years”, is testament to his desire to spread breaks to the world at large.

Hatfield got into breaks because of his “boredom with house music. I used to go to the FREE Parties, but then started to get into hiphop and experimental breaks, ‘Mo wax’ and DJ Shadow and the like, and progressed from there into labels like ‘BeatBox’ and ‘TCR’. I like playing breaks because it’s got the energy, it’s very diverse and it comes from all sorts of [musical] areas. It can be so varied and has so many different styles that it keeps fresh all the time. I like drum and bass, but about half an hour it drives me up the wall, it’s too hard and repetitive – all sounds the same, but I could just be getting old [laughs]”

Having been a forefather of the scene, I asked what Hatfield thought of the breaks scene, both in the UK and abroad. “In the UK the scene is becoming very strong, with lots of people putting out records, some good, some bad, some good club nights and a lot more radio exposure happening. More so on the specialist radio show level, and definitely still underground compared to other music scenes, although there is the potential for cross over in the likes of Terminal Head, [who are signed to Kilowatt]. In the US it’s great, the vibe is great, and its scene is growing. I do some pretty full on touring over there, I will be over for the Miami Music Conference, then back to London, then back to the US for a month. World wide the scene is getting stronger and stronger too, there’s people from Sweden, Hong Kong, America, Australia – Kid Kinobe & EK – and they’re all producing some excellent stuff.”

With the scene growing, and even dnb record labels jumping headfirst into breaks, I asked Hatfield how he will keep ‘Kilowatt’ distinctive from the other labels. “Putting out quality records and not putting out any old shit [laughs]. There are a lot of shit records out there at the moment. The key is not to worry about what anybody else is doing, but to put out good records, quality and not quantity. ‘Kilowatt’ is for artists, in that I’m going to have people I respect and like do albums, not one offs.” The line up is already looking fantastic, with Terminal Head, Stir Fry, Fatliners, and False Prophet being the first signings. Hatfield is not afraid of production himself, being responsible for taking the rather average Addicted to Bass by Puretone (Josh Abrams) and turning it into a stompingly beautiful piece of breakbeat genius. He’s also got a new single Catnip out on Timo Mass’sAcetate Ltd’ pressing.

Hatfield will be in Adelaide for the first time at Stardust Summer Edition, and I asked him what we could expect. “Quality breakbeat – not too dark, as a lot of people think breakbeat is dark, and that can cloud people’s vision of the scene, but I try to stay away from that. I play groovy, funky stuff, where people can have a good, fun time and not stand around the decks looking stern [laughs]”. “Mixing wise I’m a smooth, fluid mixer, or so I like to think, but don’t we all [laughs], blending the tunes rather than jumping around in the mix. And I am very, very fussy about what I play. I lot of records people go mental over I just think “they’re crap” [laughs] and that’s not to knock them down, I’m just really fussy about what I like.”

It’s that fussiness that has led him to be listed in Urb Magazines “Next 100” and put him in the “top 10 to watch over the next 12 months” in US Mixer magazine, as well as being voted the No 2 breakbeat DJ in the world in UK’s DJ Magazine. And it’s his reputation as being a unique and skilful DJ that has this interviewer counting the days to the release of Bedrock Breaks 2 out on Bedrock, and he plays the Stardust Summer festival.

 

The Dub Pistols

The Dub Pistols’ Barry Ashworth is a mainstay of English Dance Music. He has been around since the first summer of love in 1988, when he started two seminal nightclubs “Naked Lunch” and “Eat the Worm”, as well as forming the indie band “Déjà vu”. They were a “dance music band signed to Cowboy records, similar to Happy Mondays and the like,” he says in a typical South London accent. When asked if he’d ever do it again he says that he doubts it, but “you can never say never – two years down the road you end up making music you said you wouldn’t”.

Recently the English music press recently heralded that the past (English) summer was the next “summer of love”. Ashworth says, “If it’s your first time out, then yeah, it probably is the same, but back then things were different from anything else and now electronic culture is a world wide thing. Back then people did it for the buzz, now there’s a whole business / industry surrounding it.”

Ten years down the road, after the disbanding of Déjà Vu, Ashworth formed The Dub Pistols in 1997. The name is a response to the scene at the time, with people being quite purist about electronic music. Combining punk ethics with dub mentality he and Lee “Einstein” Spencer caught the ear of Jon Carter, who asked them to remix the Monkey Mafia track “Blow the Whole Joint Up”. They did, and the result led to them being signed to deconstruction imprint Concrete, home of Lionrock and Death In Vegas.

With these and other seminal breakbeat acts such as Ceasefire, The Dub Pistols helped reshape the breakbeat sound from the formulaic bigbeat into what would become nu-school breaks. “Every sound changes, mutates and moves on” Ashworth says. “Triphop, Bigbeat, Amyl House, Nu-school breaks, Future breaks… but it’s primarily the same thing”. He’s also done a fair bit of work with other people, including working with Busta Rhymes on the Blade II soundtrack, Terry Hall of The Specials, and Horace Andy of Massive Attack of which he says “were big moments for us”. When asked with whom he’d like to work with, he says “Ian Brown (Stone Roses) is someone we’d like to work with… Chuck D (Public Enemy) and also Mike James from the Clash”.

His eclectic taste has seen him push the breaks sound to it limits again, The Dub Pistols’ Y4K release, surprisingly Ashworth’s first mix CD, continues the great tradition of this wonderful series. The album is quite funky, with the emphasis on FUN. This CD is not “me djing in club, people are going to listen to it in their cars and at home, so it needs to be a little more accessible” Ashworth says of it. Not only does it feature the leaders of the breaks scenes such as Layo and Bushwacka, Adam Freeland and Australia’s own Infusion, but also features exclusive Dub Pistols acapella’s by Planet Asia, all mixed seamlessly in a groovy, energetic, head-bop inducing manner.

Energy is what Ashworth is all about. He was kicked out of a club for being too “energetic” once, and his DJ sets reflect this energy and passion. He’s coming to Australia at the end of November (but unfortunately not to Adelaide) and says that while he’s never been here before “He’s heard nothing but good things about us”. For a taste of what he can do check out the latest Y4K breaks mix (out on Distinctive breaks), and if you’re lucky enough to live in the eastern states go catch one of his shows.

 

Written 10/11/2002