Category Archives: Writing

Infusion

Infusion has been rocking Australia since the mid 90s, but has found their star rising ever quickly skyward, first being signed to Thunk Recordings and then their tune Dead Souls being picked up by Adam Freeland’s Marine Parade label. The Wollongong trio of Frank Xavier, Jamie Stevens, Manuel Sharrad are the current leaders of Australian Dance music, holding the torch proudly high as they tour around the world, performing blistering live shows to packed houses. I spoke to Frank Stevens after a quick tour of Argentina and Chile, and the big UK festivals.

Their most recent big date in the UK was Glastonbury. “We had two shows at Glastonbury, one which was live to air on Radio 1, and then we had another gig in the Glades tent, which is a bit like the Boiler Room tent at the Big Day Out, and it was really good. We had about 5000 crazy English people jumping and going crazy,” Xavier laughs. “Creamfields Argentina was amazing,” he gushes of last years’ festival. “We played for an hour and a half, and when we started there was about 150 kids there, and by the end of our set there were about 18,000 people there! We played Argentina and Chile this past weekend, and that was just incredible. I don’t know how they’ve found out about us, but news just travels fast around that part of the world.” Infusion is also big in Japan. “We’ve played Tokyo about five times, and the last time we played was in a club called Woo, to about 2000. The Japanese really love their music, will really give people a chance.”

Although they were featured on Triple J and played the traps in Australia, it took some time before they got a wider appeal. “We’ve been playing around Australia since, well I joined in 1996, and it wasn’t until 2001 that we went overseas. It helps when overseas people rate us, and we play some of the big festivals over there, then Australia goes ‘Oh, hang on, they’re doing quite well over there, let’s give them some more attention.’ Steven’s is quick to point out that’s not the whole of it, and is very loyal to Infusions early fans. The fan base that Infusion have crosses borders and genres, most obviously because the band refused to be pigeonholed. They combine breaks, techno, trance and progressive, and there are influences and similarities between them and a wide range of groups, from Icehouse to Pink Floyd. “Every band has influences and ours is from the late 70’s and mid 80s. I was into Depeche Mode, Beach Boys, Japan, Bowie, but we all listen to a lot of different things and I guess when we all get together there’s such a big range of differences it becomes a big melting pot.”

Another contributor to the wide fan base is the internet. “Even though I’m not a big fan of forums, forums have really helped us a lot,” Xavier states. “Kids from all different countries posting ‘you’ve really got to check these guys out’… the news gets spread around. We’ve just released the album in Argentina, Chile and Canada, and with the push of the bigger record label it’s just been getting bigger and better for us”. But Xavier isn’t so keen on File Sharing. “A lot of people seem to download the Radio One BBC files and I don’t really mind, because it’s on radio in the first place. Radio One is a promotional tool for us, so that doesn’t really bother me. But with the album we checked to see if it was on soulseek last week, and it’s not there yet, so lets hope it remains like that!” he chuckles “But it happens with every band, you can’t avoid it. It’s killing the industry, but what can you do, it’s going to get worse and worse.”

I mention to him that another person I interviewed had a similar view, and that they though file sharing would force the price of bands upwards so they could recoup their record sale losses. Xavier disagrees. “It won’t force the price of bands up; it will encourage bands to tour more,” he says. “It encourages them to get off their arses and not sit back and wait for people to buy their records, but get them out there and earn their money the good old-fashioned way,” he laughs.

Infusion has definitely shown they can earn their keep, with vibrant live shows that equal rock performances in energy and vibe. “With a live band there’s a whole lot more energy than what you can see on stage with a dance act. If you see people like Underworld and Chemical Brothers they’re stuck behind keyboards twiddling knobs,” he says, “and although it sounds live and it’s ‘big’ sounding, it still doesn’t have that appeal of when you have a drummer and guitarist going at it, there’s a few mistakes here and there that leap out at you, and people get a lot of energy from that. The way we play is quite similar, with got a vocalist, and the sounds and way we mix are quite live, and the energy as we’re all jumping around… we’re not sitting behind laptops and twiddling knobs.”

Andy Smith

Andy Smith is the DJ behind one of the best mix CDs ever recorded, The Document, and it’s follow up, the Document II. He’s also one half of the incredibly upbeat and funky Dynamo Productions with Boca45 (Scott Hendy), and in a little unknown group called Portishead as tour DJ and sample finder. On tour recently to promote the new Dynamo Productions Get It Together, which features remixes of their finest tunes as well as a few new ones, I managed to catch up with Smith after a very successful Melbourne solo gig. “We’re not going to Adelaide or Brisbane,” he laments. “I asked the promoter why how come and they didn’t really give a good answer, so I don’t know why were not going!”

“I did a Northern Soul night last night in Melbourne,” he states, “It’s a bit of a hobby for me,” he claims of the Northern Soul music. Relatively unknown in Australia, Northern Soul, called that because DJs in the North of England in the 70s would play this rare American pre-disco soul music, is regaining popularity in the UK. Smith got into it by digging for records. “If I found a label that was interesting I’d listen to it on my portable turntable and I guess I must have heard a few things… like the uplifting vibe on this one, or the fantastic voice on that, or it had a piece of music that was just amazing. I’ve started up a monthly club in London, and that’s become one of my favourite club nights, it means I can go a bit deeper, do something a bit different.”

Deeper and different is what Andy Smith is all about. From the sombre sounds of Portishead, to the upbeat tempo of Dynamo Production, to making mix CDs that feature James Brown, Cut Chemist and Kate Bush, Smith has a diverse and interesting musical knowledge that he clearly wants to share with people. “Basically my role within Portishead was finding samples, obviously I’ve got a big record collection. Before I met Jeff Barrow, (the main producer behind Portishead), I was a DJ… obviously I still am,” he chuckles, “and when I met him at the youth club, in Portishead (the city from which they got their name), I was cutting up funk and hip hop, and he was one of the few people around who understood what it was all about. The whole Portishead sound is from Jeff, utilising the bits of the records I was finding him. When they went on tour, he was keen to help people realise the origin of the Portishead sound. That’s why I did the warm up set playing original breaks and hiphop and a crazy kinda scratch mix before the show, to show people where their sound came from.”

Given that both his mixes and the Dynamo Production stuff is so upbeat, I wondered if the being the Portishead DJ had its drawbacks. “Depending on where I am in the world,” he says “Some places in Europe, I’ll go to a gig, someone will come up to me and ask me to play a Portishead record, which annoys me really,” he grumbles, “as they don’t know about the Dynamo productions, but by the end of the night they will know. The Dynamo stuff is more me,” he pauses. “I like being in a club and rocking the crowd, seeing the smiling faces and people having a great time. Doing the Portishead thing is great because I get to play my stuff to a different environment, but week in week out, I’m a club DJ.”

The Document II was an astounding mix, and testament to his skills as a DJ. “I have a rough plan, but it all comes down to what you can get cleared (by the record company)”, he says of his mixes. “I might submit 20 tracks and get only 6 or 7 back. So I might have two tracks that mix really well, but one might get rejected, so I have to go back and put them together the best I can. I was really lucky to get that Kate Bush track,” he laughs. “I really wanted to do a mix that had a totally different intro, to make people go “wow, it’s got Kate Bush on the intro”. Some people don’t understand why I’ve got Kate Bush on there at all, they’re like ‘what’s that got to do with it?’ whereas others think it’s something really special, but as long as people talk about it, I really don’t care!” he chuckles, “but I was really lucky to get that and the track that hiphop track that mixes into it. I think Kate Bush has done some fantastic music, and if someone picks up that CD because it’s got Ultramagnetic MCs on it and then think ‘oh, I actually like that Kate Bush track now’… it’s all about opening up people to the music.”

Smith loves the scene in Australia, and he and Scott Hendy seem to have a rapport with Aussie artists, having done remixes for the Resin Dogs and Katalyst. “We did those remixes because we come out here a bit, and the Resin Dogs were kinda into what we were doing and simply asked us. The link with Katalyst is through the label (Invada) and last tour. The scene out here seems pretty good for what we do; our album did better in Australia than anywhere else in the world, which comes down to the promotion invada gave it really, and the crowd here seem to be into what we’re doing. In the UK if there’s no scene for ‘that thing of the minute’, people might pass it by, whereas over here people just listen to it, they don’t really care what they ‘should’ be listening to. The UK press tries to tell people what they ‘should’ be into, but here people listen to what they want, which is a lot healthier really.”

The new Dynamo Productions album features remixes by Katalyst, One Cut, Krafty Kuts and Jimi Ently Sound. “I’ve known Krafty (Martin Reeves) for quite a few years. We’ve always thought about getting him to do a remix. Most of the people we remixed we knew, and offered to do their remixes, so I think we owe a few people some remixes,” Smith laughs. “The Jimi Ently Sound were a band that used to play at Holiday Camps in the UK in the 60s. Someone found a master tape of them doing a version of Apache (originally by Cliff Richard and the Shadows), which then got put out on a 45… But it’s a scam,” he admists with a laugh”, it’s Jeff Barrow and Adrian Utley from Portishead who wanted to do some things under a different name without people buying them because they were Portishead. It now says “produced by Portishead”, but originally it was going to be a quiet sideline,” he chuckles again.

For the future, both he and Scott have a lot on their plate, and the continued collaboration may come to an end. “ I’ve got a Northern Soul mix out in October for BGP records, and then maybe I need to make a few more phone calls, send a few more emails and get working on Document III,” he says. “Scott’s done a solo album, out on invada, under the guise Boca45 called Pitch Sounds which is also out in October, so he’ll probably be doing promo stuff for that for a while, and if that goes well he might want to continue the solo stuff… but I think we’ll probably at some point get back together and do something, I’m just not sure when,” he adds optimistically.

Hooligan Soul

The Hooligan Soul boys Grif and Pab have been causing havoc around Adelaide for a number of years now, DJing around town at various venues with various amounts of success, as well as playing live with some of the most important drum and bass DJs to visit our shores. These bad boys of beats look like they’re about to take off both figuratively and literally, with the continued promise of a new album, a possible tour of Hong Kong, Singapore and South America and with Pab just coming back from a successful tour of Bali with Aphrodite and DJ Rap.

We caught up with them fresh from an exhaustive night at Mojo West at the surprisingly popular Hooligan Jam. “Yeah, it’s going pretty smooth, the last vibe was absolutely rocking!” Pab enthuses. “It’s the only place in Adelaide you’ll hear proper UK Garage, and the last one we kinda got a bit adventurous and dropped a bit of Grime and 8-Bar in there too, and the crowd dug it! Nice and busy, it was cool.” Their other gig, Wednesdays at the Cumby, is also going along strong, and both the boys hope that this will continue over the summer months.

The boys have been hard at work on the album, due out soon through 618 records, out soon. “We’ve been promising it would be out for god knows how long now, but we SWEAR this time we mean it when we say it’s almost ready”, they vow. “Other then that, we’ve been pretty busy with shows and what not. We got our Wednesday night thing at the Cumberland, Mojo, Rukkas as well as various shows at Traffic. On top of that, Pab’s just come back from Bali, and we’re both going back in a couple of weeks, and Griff’s just recorded the new Beat Smugglers album, and they’re on fire at the moment as well. We’ve remixed Mobin Master recently, and we’re also working out a remix for the Jungle Brothers. We’re in the process of sorting out shows in Hong Kong and Singapore too at the moment, PLUS Pab is sorting out some stuff in South America. So yeah, we’ve been pretty busy lately.”

The Hooligans describe they’re sound as “Our own”, to raucous laughter. “I guess it’s a kind of like the link between the smooth, rolling “Liquid” stuff and the harder, gutsy sound. I know it’s a cliché but we don’t want to be classified as one thing. Guys like Marky, Stamina MC, Moving Fusion, Grooverider, Marcus Intalex, and Calibre, they’ve all given us really cool feedback, saying our sound is really unique. And I don’t mean in a “um… yeah… wow guys, that’s really… umm… unique” way, when people just say that because it’s shit,” they laugh. “I think Marky’s been playing Runaway, and apparently Rider was battering a tune of ours we handed him at Winter Enchanted last year. To be honest they probably don’t play much of our stuff though cause we’re too slack to send them new stuff!” On the local front, it’s a little different. “Some play our stuff, some don’t. Skyver & D-Jon play our stuff, Mark 7, MPK and Patch play it a bit… but it’s kinda weird. We guess they got their own tunes they want to play, cause they complain we don’t give them our tunes, but when we do they play them fuck all!” they laugh.

Their sound, like most performers, has developed as they’ve grown, and now they even dabble in a little hiphop and 2-step. But the boys claim that the main thing to change “is the sound quality. Our first tunes were musically watertight, but they were mixed like utter poo. We’ve got the mixing part sorted now; it’s just so much cleaner! That’s the only real thing really, our style has probably changed in subtle ways, but we’re still the same team of village idiots making what we like to make.”

The boys, and Lexy, the lead female singer, are looking forward to playing interstate and overseas. “I just returned,” Pab states. “I had two shows in Bali which I found out were the best two shows Bali has ever had, and they’re up for Event of the Year awards there. I represented Hooligan Soul, and the entire Adelaide Massive”. But the boys won’t be lugging their equipment around, as was so common in the past. With CDDJs, it has become a thing of the past to see Grif lug in two mixers and a PC. “It’s too much of a headfuck, and to be quite honest, we both like DJing and MCing more.”

 

Ugly Duckling

Ugly Duckling are one of those bands where you hear their music and are instantly happy because of it. They have a funky, fresh vibe that’s infectious and fun. Their first album contained such tunes as Pick-Up Lines and A Little Samba. The former lambastes the stereotypical wannabe ladies’ men, whilst the latter an amusing send-ups of hiphop braggadocio. The second album was Taste the Secret, which celebrated “Meat Shake”, a restaurant where the gimmick is everything has meat in it. Throughout the album the trio explain their woes at working, the fight between “Meat Shake” and “Veggie Hut”, and a whole host of other funny and clever songs, such as ‘Mr Tough Guy’ that pays out the idiot who acts tough at hiphop events, and Potty Mouth, a song with the wonderful line “All you really wanna do is make a fast buck / That’s why rap sucks, it’s too limited / Potty mouths wanna keep hip-hop primitive”.

To my surprise, and perhaps even horror, I discovered that Meat Shake is actually real, and that the boys did work there. Although not a massive corporation as portrayed on the album, Meat Shake is a very small, family-owned establishment Andy Cooper, aka Andy Cat, one of the MCs of the group, explains. “So this has been fun for all of us. I’ve heard that (the Meat Shake) business has picked up considerably in the past year, and they loved the song and the album”. Given the topic of the last album, I had to ask if anyone in the band was a vegetarian. “I’m not even sure if anyone in the group has been a vegetarian for a day!” replies Cooper. “That’s not a judgment against veggie-people, and the point of our album was not to pick sides as much as contrast two different points of view. Actually, the ‘meat shake’ thing was more a metaphor than anything else. We were really talking about western culture and more specifically music culture, and, more importantly, we were trying to be funny.”

And funny it is. Some might say fucking hilarious, but not UD, who try not to swear on their albums. “All of our music is ‘kid tested and mother approved!’” Cooper laughs. “It’s something that is important to us – there are plenty of groups that talk dirty so we liked the idea of being different. Plus, we wanted to be able to play our music for our families and not feel uncomfortable about it. I have to say that this is not revolutionary,” he adds, “in fact, most of us love early De La Soul, Rakim, Biz Markie, Jungle Brothers, Run DMC, and those bands were, for the most part, squeaky clean.”

Not only do they like those bands, but also there are very similar elements to them in their music. Although they had the questionable fortune of forming in late 1993 in Long Beach, home of gangster rap, they took a decidedly different path down the road of hiphop. The origin of Cooper’s stage name is rooted in the gangster mentality, being that everyone, including Andy’s gym teacher, referred to themselves as “dog”, so he chose Andy Cat in order to be different. “We never entertained the idea of going gangster,” Cooper says. “We wouldn’t have gotten anywhere with that because I don’t think anyone would believe that we were thugs. Being different has worked, for the most part, to our advantage so we can’t complain too much. One thing about us that is often overlooked is the fact that we grew up around gangs, violence, drugs and all of that stuff.” Dizzy, the other MC in the group, was even thanked on the first Compton’s Most Wanted album, Straight Checkin’ Em’ record. “Ironically, we are much closer to that culture then a lot of the people who make fun of us for being so un-street,” Cooper says.

Their sound is often called retro, or old school, but that tag is unfair as it’s almost as if people are saying they don’t like to look forward or progress. “Certain people love to label bands and the “old school” label has stuck with us because we have a traditional sound. That perception is out there and it has been harmful to us. For example, we didn’t make a single reference to old school on our latest album and, in my mind, we put together one of the most creative records in years, yet often, Taste the Secret was categorized as a throw-back thing.” Maybe it was the fact that it was a theme album, or maybe that the tunes were simple yet deep, but either way the album certainly sounds different to the new school rap that poisons our airwaves. “But we’re not ashamed of our roots,” he continues. “On the contrary, we’re extremely proud of hip-hop heritage and we will continue to draw from that well, but we, more than most groups, combine new ideas with traditional rap values, and if that’s a terrible thing then I’d rather be terrible.”

Following a theme album is often a hard thing to do, with the expectation to follow it with something equally quirky. Ugly Duckling has given us Taste the Secret, a mini album that “closes the book on meat shake, although we may make mention of it on future albums,” Cooper explains. “But, honestly, making a concept record was extremely difficult and I for one am looking forward to making a normal album next time. It’s hard enough for us to get anything done as it is!” he laughs.

UD’s hiphop heritage shines through from the album to the live shows. “Our show is all turntables,” Cooper begins. “It costs more money to put of our stuff on wax but we feel that it is well worth the trouble. Turntables are to hiphop what drums, bass and guitar are to rock. Hiphop began with the DJ and we would feel funny doing anything else. In fact, we just got an offer to do a live, radio set in Australia but we were told that we couldn’t use our DJ and would have to rap over a CD… we politely declined,” he says with a wry smile. I ask about the possibility of CDDJs… “It’s very convenient isn’t it? Kind of reminds me of the guitar-style keyboards smooth-jazz guys play with a strap over their shoulders. It just isn’t right. The possibility of the needle skipping is part of the thrill!”

Another thrill is seeing these guys live. They give it their all, and they have a similar presence to the Beastie Boys. Last time they hit Adelaide they played a rather short show, and left us wanting more. But it was on a Tuesday night… “We’ve really tried to step it up for this tour!” Cooper exclaims. “The show is much more theme-oriented and crowd participatory as well so, hopefully, people will be pleased. We will do everything we can to entertain you good people… we’ll come to your houses and force meatshakes down your throat if we have to!” he laughs

Qbert

Throughout history, certain individuals have found callings, and through that calling have redefined the world we live in. Edison, Mozart, Einstein, Da Vinci, Picasso, Warhol; genius that took what we knew and changed it, made it new and also made it acceptable, usable, common. Richard Quitevis is one of those people. Quitevis weapon of choice is the turntables. Under the moniker Qbert, Quitevis has won more awards and is held in higher esteem than any other DJ. For him, turntablism is an obsession, but it’s an obsession that he wants to share with the world.

“It was just the weirdest sound”, Quitevis says of how he got into DJing, “and growing up in San Francisco there was a lot of hiphop and breakers around. And scratching is like the weirdest sound, I really fell in love with it, and now it’s my musical choice.” Some would even call it an obsession. In his old studio named ‘the Octagon’ in San Francisco, DJ magazine reported there were 16 Vestax units as the focus of the room, and that ‘every moment, unguarded or otherwise, finds QBert squeezing, fondling, stroking or otherwise manipulating a slab of vinyl’. “It’s a lifelong commitment,” Quitevis says. “Like a kung fu artist perfecting his skills, or a Jazz musician honing his skills,” and whilst I can’t see him, I can imagine him fondling a turntable as he speaks from his new set up, the ‘Temple Warplex’ in Hawaii.

However, turntablism for Quitevis is not like some guarded secret that only a few can know and learn. Quite the opposite in fact, as through his company Thud Rumble, he is bringing ‘the scratch’ to the world. Ranked in the top 50 most influential media companies of the decade by A Magazine, and one of the top 25 Most Creative Companies in the Bay Area by San Francisco Magazine, Quitevis and partner Ritche “Yogafrog” Desuasido are making a name for themselves outside of DJing, whilst keeping Djing the major focus. “Thud Rumble is a company that caters to the scratch DJ niche market,” Quitevis explains. “We make sound effect records, slip mats, instructional DIY videos, we design mixers.”

“I’m very into minimalising everything. We’ve invented the scratch records with all the best breaks and sounds, so a few records with these sounds is all we really need these days,” he say. “I also have a new turntable coming out in July, the QFO. Basically it’s made for portability.” The design is a high-torque circular turntable with an integrated 2-channel mixer, featuring an ASTS (Anti-Skipping Tonearm System) tone arm and pitch control. This was the next evolution in portability from the infamous ‘Kut Mobile’. “The Kut Mobile is a big turntable set up I plug into my car, but I’m still stuck in the car, and it was a question of how can I now take this out of the car,” he laughs. “I live in Hawaii and I like to go to the beach a lot,” Quitevis says of the idea behind the design. “I was like ‘how can I be like the guitarist who plays at the beach all the time, or the bongo player. A violinist can go to the mountains to play. Why do us DJs have to be stuck in a house, scratching while staring at a wall?’ The idea was why don’t we attach a fader to the turntable and make it portable.”

Quitevis also has had a hand in developing a scratch notation device, allowing scratches to be recorded on paper much like musical notes can be. “A-Track (Audio Research + the Allies) and John Carluccio (director of ‘Battle Sounds’) perfected the system. I wanted to do the musical notation as it’s kinda like what we all see. It’s like a universal scratch pattern. When you move the record forward, the on the page line goes up, when you move the record down the line goes down… I dunno if that makes any sense right now”, he laughs, “but if I want to see what a specific scratch looks like, I will definitely write it out. But most of the stuff is in my head.”

With advances in technology like the Pioneer CDDJs and Final Scratch making inroads on the DJ scene, with Allies’ member DJ Craze using Final Scratch in his performances, and Quitevis wanting to make things more portable, I had to know if he’s ever used these new tools. “I’ve messed around with them, yeah,” he muses, “but I’m definitely an analogue type of guy. I like the rawness, the feel and ‘real time’ of vinyl. A good comparison would be between someone playing a piano as apposed to someone playing an electronic keyboard.”

Quitevis rarely tours, but is making his way down to Australia at the end of June. “It’s very important to live your life, period,” he says of not touring as much as other DJs. “There’s got to be a balance. It’s kind of obvious. I know guys who tour their whole life and it’s like ‘what the hell are they doing, you’re going to kill yourself out there!” It’s like a prison to be touring your whole life.” Adelaide is a scheduled stop on this tour, and we are very lucky to have this great talent, no genius, finally hit our shores. “Whilst you’re waiting, check out www.djqbert.com and www.turntabletv.com,” Quitevis mentions cheekily.

Richard X

Making mash ups in his bedroom, Sheffield based Richard X’s talent caught the ear of DJs and the press alike. In a sea of simple mash ups, Richard had a fresh sound that combined the complexity of the popular in an artistic manner, but with dancefloor, and more importantly, commercial viability. His first mash up, working under the name Girls On Top, was a limited seven-inch featuring, on side A the Whitney Houston-meets-Kraftwerk contemporary classic ‘I Wanna Dance With Numbers’. On the B-side, Richard placed his all-time favourite track, The Human League’sBeing Boiled’ beneath TLC’sNo Scrubs’, creating ‘Being Scrubbed’. These two fresh-sounding, icy electronic R&B anthems took London by storm, and were considered novel, not a novelty. His next single had on the A-side ‘We Don’t Give A Damn About Our Friends’, a version of which the Sugababes would later take to the top of the charts, and on the flipside ‘Warm Bitch’ married The Normal’sWarm Leatherette’ to Missy Elliott’sShe’s A Bitch’.

The name Richard X has nothing to do with fighting oppression ala Malcolm X, but rather happened as a bit of an accident. “It was quite a while a go when I was doing the Girls on Top bootleg,” says Richard. “Because I wrote a letter to someone and wrote ‘Richard’ and then put a kiss, which is the ‘X’, it became Rich X, then Richard X as it became. Richard Y was another popular name; it’s what my mum used to always say – ‘Richard, Why?’” he laughs.

“At the time it was more I was bored of electronic music, and still loved with music from my past, and I was also into the RnB stuff quite heavily, you know ‘the American Pop’, since 1997,” Richard relates of his first track. “At the time it was at odds with British electronic music – a lot of people couldn’t see the similarities (between pop and electronica) but I could. For me they were cut of the same cloth, they’re both minimal, both pop songs, and I saw it as a logical step to do it as a booty. I don’t think anyone had done a booty outside the world or house music, or the world of ‘art’. It was very fresh at the time.”

This gave rise to a whole host of bootlegs, sometimes called mash ups, or ploppers (plopping the vocals of one track over the instrumental of another with little production) or, my favourite term, Bastard Pop (the illegitimate child of two unlikely pop songs). Richard wishes to distance himself from this scene, although he states, “I’m not a person to say that it’s rubbish or it’s unfashionable. I always said it wasn’t just about making bootlegs, and that’s what I’ve tried to show with the album (Richard X Presents the X factor). I’ve been doing other stuff as well, I’ve been writing and producing for other people,” he adds.

“But I try to avoid playing at the nights, just making bootleg after bootleg, because it’s bit of a trap; a trap for artists just to do one thing, it always is. That’s the only downfall in that. I like some of the stuff, and I see the Get Your Booty On web board as something really healthy, and there’s some great talent out there. I’ve got nothing bad to say about it at all. I’m just more interested in the people who take it a bit further, into the realms of making ‘unofficial remixes’, adding more of their own sound, less about bootlegging and more about traditional production.”

Richard is philosophical about the future of pop music as a whole; the way it’s made, as well as distributed. “I think what will happen is filesharing will get regulated. It is inevitable; but the only thing is I don’t think you can blame piracy for the crash of the music industry business. I think there are other factors in that; most of it lies in the hands of the record companies themselves. Companies run by shareholders are never particularly stable, and when things take a downturn it’s ironic that bedroom musicians and the people who don’t have to spend thousands of pounds putting records out, they’re the people who benefit,” he says. “Independent music will probably get a big boost in the next few years because we have that mindset of doing things on the cheap, or not getting a lot of money for it. I say we,” he says as an aside, giggling. “I’m now on a major! But I think it’s a re-adjustment. If I was a young artist doing it all again, I wouldn’t be worried at all, I’d still get my music out in one way or another.”

Being signed to a major label that helped the much-undervalued Sugarbabes to chart success with the tune ‘Freak Like Me’, there’s a delicious sense of irony that’s not lost on Richard that his album has copyright protection. “The copy protection never works, people can easily get around it,” he says. “You used to get around it just by drawing with a black marker on the CD… but don’t quote me, I don’t want people wrecking their CDs!” he laughs. “It was more of the downloading thing, which is ironic because of where I’ve come from. Sure, back then I had most of the records, but there were a couple of things I got from Napster and Audio Galaxy. It was novel way of making music. It was almost at the point where you could physically manipulate anything in the world without having to buy it. It was exciting, I was on the ‘cutting edge’”, he says with a hint of sarcasm.

“But you can’t not have copy protection on records,” he continues “But rather than hide it away and pretend that I don’t have to conform on an EMI recording, I thought lets make it really huge… just have me standing in front of this big sign! Originally it was going to be carved on a gravestone, but they weren’t having that. But it’s a red hearing, its not a matter of selling out,” he states. “I think that’s what most people might want to criticise me being on a major for, but all the records I’ve ever made have been pop music, so it’s where I should be naturally,” he says, with just a little hint of egoism.

Moving on, Richard has done the latest Back To Mine CD, which is surprising in it’s lack of well-known pop tunes. “They’re just great little records that I really do play at home,” he says of the tunes. “I could do a 20 pop record tune mix easily, but I didn’t want to do that. Electronic music was more than just the pop, it was the weird TV theme tunes, like ‘Tomorrows World’ that you’d hear once a week and get really excited about, and that’s what I was trying to capture.” Also noticeably absent is his favourite band Human League. “Last year I talked about nothing else apart from Human League. I went on about it so much it’s slightly perverse not to have included one of their tracks. But I think everyone knows the Human League, with this I wanted to make it… not deliberately obscure, but full of things that are great that you may not have come across before. I went for an obscure Heaven 17 track to represent them. Because there were a few electro compilations out there last year, given that everybody suddenly liked electronic music again, their music did get aired again, I thought I’d look elsewhere. I wasn’t being snobbish and it certainly wasn’t a dis,” he chuckles.

Nubreed

I had a chance to chat to Nubreed’s Michael Walburgh aka Mykel just after Easter, the first Easter they had off in over 3 years. These hard working Melbourne lads have not only been touring extensively over the last few months, but been busy in the studio recording their first full-length album – The Original. Known for an awesome live show, and deep, nasty basslines, Nubreed are the darlings on the breaks scene, both here in Australia and abroad.

Walburgh says that having time off over Easter was a good chance to catch up on what’s happening around the place. “There was a big 33 1/3 show up here in Melbourne with Freestylers, Uberzone, Grass Roots; and the drum and bass crew – Pendulum, and Shapeshifter. It was a really mad weekend!” he enthuses. “I met Uberzone back in Miami a few years ago, and we were talking about hooking up and doing something, and now he’s got some new releases and is itching to get stuff heard and work with us. Aquasky were down here too, and we hooked up with them too.”

This is pretty much how Nubreed got out there in the first place, just by networking and being in the right place at the right time. “We put together a demo show reel and I had the fortune of being in Miami with Rennie Pilgrim, Danny McMillan, Tayo… everyone who’s anyone in the breaks fraternity was there. I got the chance to pass the tape around and through that we got lots of good recognition. And I suppose Adam Freeland, touring with him when he came down a few years ago,” he adds.

Nubreed are as well known for their bootlegs as they are for their originals. Bootlegs are illegitimate recordings of artists, and Nubreed have done a range of stuff from Alanis Morrissette to old school hiphop greats. They’ve done legitimate remixes, such as the awesome Born too Slow by the Crystal Method. “We’ve done a few live booty’s, stuff that works really well live, that we don’t sell or whatever. They came about from the Phil K / Nubreed shows that we did a few years ago,” Walburgh explains. However, the album is full of brand new material. “The Album is a catalogue of or work since about 1997. ‘The Original’ is all new material, and the second disk is mixed by our mate Phil K, and has lots of the vinyl only, hard to find recordings for your CD buying community. On the album we try to morph ourselves in all the directions we’ve wanted to go. We wanted to elaborate on the vocal tunes for this CD release.”

I had to know if they preferred making original tunes, or doing the covers. “It’s all part and parcel of it all. You have to be able to sustain a living. We don’t have any part time jobs, so we try to keep any avenue open to us. It’s a balance, you’ve got to do as many remixes as you can to keep yourself fresh and out there, on the dancefloor and in DJs boxes, but at the same time keep your ideas that you’ll think will work in circulation for your original material.”

Nubreed are keen to get back on the road again with their new live show, one which now features a drummer. “We’ve been so bogged down by the machine behind getting an album actually out there, the artwork, the legals, and so on. We’ve been working on a new live format too. We’ve got a new drummer!” he says excitedly. “That’s worked really well, and we’ve got a lot more options open to us with the drummer. There’s obviously a lot more album based material in the show, so there’s going to be a lot more depth to it. It’s not going to be a straight dancefloor set, which is what we usually do in clubs and dance arenas. This will be a chance to do OUR show, really get into it and play a lot of the older, unusual stuff as well as the new stuff. Dave (the drummer) has played for Wicked Beat Sound System and On Inc. If anyone has met Dave our drummer he’s quite infamous. He’s a great energy; he’s the equivalent of Animal in the Muppets,” he laughs.

“We’re beat orientated anyway, and the only reason we haven’t crossed over to a 100% live format is because we didn’t want to have to compromise on our production values of what we produce in the studio. With software and the money we’ve made and saved over the years we’re at a point where that’s now possible. Dave’s a lovable larrikin type. The three of us (Nubreed) have been together for the last 15 odd years, we’ve known each other forever, and for someone else to come in, despite the odd teething problems, is really good. It’s added a fresh and new approach for us.”

Luckily this current live arrangement is coming to Adelaide, most likely in a smaller, more intimate venue like Traffic, rather than the raves we’ve seen them play at in the past. “Every time we’ve been to Adelaide it’s been at a rather large gig,” Walburgh says. “Its mainly Blake (DJ John Doe) who has really spearheaded us there in SA, he took a punt on us – he’s got a real diverse edge in what he listens to. We slipped really well into that vibe as we do tag some drum and bass on the end of our usual set. He saw a vision of what could be, and it worked really well. One of the best gigs we ever did was at Stardust with the Ez Rollers and Shimon. That was great – you had a really energetic crowd, they were there for it, it was just a mad vibe to be caught up in all that. You caught us at a good moment,” he laughs, and then adds “that’s the thing with Adelaide you never know what to expect.”

 

Skalpel

Webster’s Dictionary defines scalpel as a small straight knife with a thin sharp blade used in surgery and dissection, associated with clinical precision. In this respect, Skalpel couldn’t be more aptly named. Their eponymous release on the enigmatic Ninja Tune label is a wonderful CD of cut up Polish Jazz, infused with a hiphop mentality. The cuts are so precise that sometimes you forget you are listening to a collage of tracks, and not some lost, original Eastern European jazz recording from the 60s.

Skalpel are Marcin Cichy and Igor Pudlo, from Wroclaw, Poland. Marcin Cichy, is the main speaker in our phone conversation, but Pudlo is in the background, confirming details, like their age (29 and 37 respectively). Knowing very little about Poland’s scene, I asked what it was like over there. “We can only say that it is very poor, that’s why we’re releasing our record outside of Poland,” Cichy says in a think accent. “There is no press for electronic music, and only two or three labels that deal with this kind of music. So if you want to make a living in Poland making music it is impossible because you can’t sell more than say a thousand electronic CDs, I think we do much more interviews for Australia than in Poland,” he laughs. Quite a tough gig, and it’s surprising that they got heard at all. But due to modern technology, they managed to get their tape to Ninjatune’s Solid Steel radio show, which attained them some notoriety.

Having interviewed DJ Vadim for one of the rare magazines that dealt with electronic music in Poland, the pair was soon discussing samples, obscure breaks and the Polish music scene with him. This led to combined tour with Vadim’s Russian Percussion, at which they presented an amazing 4-deck show all over the country. Later that year Skalpel released a demo, Polish Jazz, which not only received a lot of critical acclaim, but also led to the duo signing a contract with Ninja Tune, because of the quality of the music enclosed.

“We listen to different music,” Cichy says of Skalpel’s musical tastes. “We listen to old music, 60s, 70s. Igor is into the Beatles, the B52s, punk rock, and I listen to hiphop, warp records, funk and that. But for this record we’ve concentrated on the Eastern European sounds. We wanted to develop sampling this sound; we concentrated on records you don’t get to hear and sounds you haven’t heard before. We’re Polish, and we use Polish samples, this is our image and the way we do things,” he states.

Polish Jazz has had a rough time of it, having been outlawed by the communist government since the 50s right up until the 80s. “They didn’t like it because they connected Jazz with freedom, and it was something they didn’t want,” Cichy explains. “For example, we sampled one track from a Polish movie, which was called ‘All that Jazz’ (Byl jazz), and it is a film about the first Polish jazz band Melomani. The film was forbidden in Poland as well.” The film was made in 1981, 30 years after the group it was based on, but still seen as too risqué in its home country. As one would expect, this makes it hard to find records as well. “When it comes to vinyl it is really hard to find, because it wasn’t released in Poland, but now there have been some early jazz re-released on CD. Most of the good records went to Germany,” Cichy laments.

Through such things as Glasnost and the fall of the Berlin Wall, and it’s incorporation into the European Union, Poland has become a growing modern nation-state, and as such has had access to a wider range of technology. “It’s different than in the 70s or 80s now, you can get anything, it’s just a matter of money. When you live in Poland, you make very little money, and everything costs a lot more than in other countries,” Cichy says, and then explains its easier to go to Germany to buy sound equipment, simply because of the cost.

“The whole album was made at our house,” Cichy says of producing the album “We’d start at Igor’s house, talk about music and records, drink our cups of coffee of course, then come to my house and put stuff together. We don’t need a studio; we just need good computers with a good sound card, that’s all. It’s not music about hi-fidelity sound; we look for particular sounds that will represent the Skalpel sound, and we don’t remove noise from the records. We like it to sound a bit dirty,” he laughs. “We wanted to name it ‘From A Dusty Crate’, and we wanted to capture that old sound, so it sounds like those old records you found in your basement or somewheres.”

Totally intrigued by their sound, I had to know if there were any plans to tour outside of Europe. “If it comes to recreating the LP live, we don’t think that’s possible,” he says. “But we do our live thing, which is a 4 turntables thing with our VJ, and we create a different experience. We do ‘Adventures in Space’ which is based on spoken word from children’s records based on space, and we play abstract beats and our VJ plays visuals to that.” Which, of course, sounds even better, but it looks like we won’t get a chance to see that, as Skalpel will be busy promoting this record, and preparing for the next one. But that’s not too bad, for now we can listen to Skalpel’s debut on NinjaTune.

 

Freestylers

The Freestylers’ Matt Cantor is chatting to me over a dodgy connection munching on some toast, so it’s very hard to hear him in some parts of the conversation. Which is a real pity because the Freestylers are amongst my favourite producers, and have been for about 8 years. Unashamedly responsible for some of the biggest “big beat” records around, they’ve progressed with the scene and have arrived with Raw As Fuck. The first single Get A Life hit the No. 1 spot in the English dance music charts with very little promotion. “Obviously we’re really happy with getting number one in the charts,” says Cantor, munching on some toast. “That’s with absolutely no promotion; it’s just people going out and buying the records. It’s nice to know that people still know the name and want our stuff. It’s the first thing we’ve had out under the name Freestylers for a few good years.”

The Freestylers disappeared for a while after the collapse of their record label Freskanova. “For a while there it was really great, just a bunch of friends together and we all used to A&R it”, Cantor explains. “We’d been recording for the people who ran it for a long time. But I guess it just ran its course. They lost a lot of money and went bankrupt and ceased to exist.” This explains the absence of the band, and also the rise of a little group called Raw As Fuck. “Just to keep the music out there we decided to put some underground breakbeat out under the name Raw As Fuck. And another year down the line we thought the dust would have settled, and we could go buck to out former name. In a stroke of genius we decided to call our next album Raw As Fuck”, Cantor laughs.

The Freestylers are just about to embark on a whistlestop tour of the Eastern seaboard, which upsets this reporter greatly because I’m not located on it! “This time it’s just me and Aston,” Cantor relates. “It’s a real whistlestop tour, we’re just coming to play our new material. We haven’t been down there for about a year and a half, we’re just in and out of there in a week, doing these four big parties.” But there’s hope yet, as Cantor says there’s definitely talk of getting the whole band down for the big festivals next summer. “The band hasn’t actually toured Australia yet, and we’re very keen to get the whole band experience down there.”

“It’s funny because I don’t actually tour with the band any more,” Cantor explains. “It was just getting exhausting, and me and Aston found we were doing the same job on stage anyway. Ashton enjoys the pressures of the road, whereas I enjoy being in the studio and DJing and stuff.” He goes on to explain that he saw the band at Fabric, and says he was very impressed. “We’ve down size the band… we used to go out with break dancers and stuff,” he pauses. “I suppose you could it an attempt to be more ‘serious’. The sound has got a little heavier; the music we’re making is a little more heavy. The band no longer has Navigator and Tenor Fly; we’ve got a MC called Surreal who’s got his own style, you know. We’ve got Valerie M doing the vocal tracks still, and bass, and drums, and Ashton on his stack of samplers. It’s a much tighter but much bigger sound.”

I asked if the the Freestylers still play the old stuff, either their own or that of the other bigbeat players. “The thing is it was really fun back in the day, there were some really fun records. But if you start thinking music was better back then than it is now, it’s probably time to give up”, he states matter of factly. “We’re really excited with the what’s happening now… that’s the great thing about the breaks scene, things are always changing. We’re branching out away from the progressive stuff, and doing the more raw sounding music, big basslines and more drum and bass influence. The great thing about the nature of breaks is that it’s always changing and evolving.”

“Raw As Fuck (the Album) is looking to come out in early June,” Cantor says excitedly. “Push Up, the next single is going to be out in May. We’ve pulled all the Raw As Fuck tunes together and those tracks still sound fresh. A lot of people didn’t hear them, as they came out as an underground thing, and now people are going to get to hear them with a whole heap of new stuff.”

Kid Koala

If hiphop and turntablism conjure up images of trendy young kids with too much attitude, performing impossible technical tricks in front of a self-involved crowd of cap wearing wannabes, then get ready to have your world turned upside down by Kid Koala. Having parents from Hong Kong, but being raised in Vancouver and Montreal, Canada, Eric San aka Kid Koala has a diverse cultural background to draw upon, but it is his background in classical music that led him to the wheels of steel. Being one of the most enigmatic producers on a Ninja Tune, a record label that is renown for it’s eclecticism, in conversation he is very down to earth and friendly, jumping around the place, looping upon himself, much like his records, and is also very quick to laugh. After finally getting through, “It’s turning into one of those fibre optic traffic jams”, he laughs, and we chatted about his history and his upcoming tour with RDJ2.

“I’ve actually been to Australia once”, San quips when I ask about his DJ name “but I don’t think that trip had anything to do with it. There was a drink in Canada when I started DJing in the late 80’s, a really sugary beverage called Koala Springs. It had this really big stamp that said ‘Made In Australia’, which is really funny because every Australian I’ve spoken to has never heard of this drink,” and I had to concur that I’d never heard of it either. “It was actually quite a popular beverage especially amongst those who likes really sugary drinks,” he laughs. “So anyway, my mum would buy cases of this stuff from Costgo [the Canadian version of Bi-Lo] and if you were a kid, you know, 25 and under or whatever, you’d always be offered that – it’d be milk, water or Koala Springs. My friends started calling me the “Koala Kid” as a joke, as there were always empty bottles of the stuff around my room”, he laughs again, “and that’s the real story”.

San starting DJing in the early 1980’s, “in my really awkward, pimply period before I discovered discover girls”, he chortles. Inspired by the sounds of New York’s hiphop scene, as well as the sounds of the British cut up artists like Coldcut, he says “at one point you stop spending all your money on firecrackers and candy and spend it on something you decide to get into. Some kids get into comic books and I got into records,” he says.

“I think it was the classic music stuff I was doing. It was like an elastic band being pulled back,” he says referring to the stress of his training. “Because it was such a strict music experience for me as a kid, just being told ‘you have to play this 500 year old piece exactly the same way it’s been played for the last 500 years – any deviation will lose you points with the adjudicators'”, he laughs. “It wasn’t a very joyful musical experience for me, so when I first heard scratching the first thing I got from it was that it was so free from these rules. And the people doing it were maybe 10 – 15 years younger as opposed to 500, it was more within my grasp. I was like “oh there’s these DJs and they’re doing their thing and they’re really good at expressing themselves and they’re not like buried somewhere” and again he breaks into infectious laughter.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he begins, with a hint of seriousness in his voice, “I think at the time I was just too young to understand how you play a classical piece and actually put your own feel into it. For me it was just a rope memory exercise, and now obviously I’ve grown to like and understand all kinds of music. But when I got into turntablism there was a central idea that all the DJs, whatever they were doing, they were trying to do something new. And I think that was the most impressive thing to me. Technically I didn’t know what they were doing”, he confesses. “I didn’t know how they were making the sound, I just knew that every time I got a new hiphop record the producer or DJ behind it was trying to do something new. You never knew what you were going to hear when you dropped that needle, and I really liked that, and I think that’s something I keep to heart when I go to play or go into the studio. In my mind, if there were any rules to scratching, it would be to do something fresh,” he states.

One of the tunes that San is most famous for is Drunk Trumpet, a fantastic scratch fest involving a trumpet being played over a 12 note blues loop. It’s distinctive sound drew me to Kid Koala, and I still haven’t heard anything like it. “I think for me when I started scratching it was very percussive,” San begins, but the falters as he tries to describe the process behind the tune. “How can I say this? I’m a big Louis Armstrong fan, and I know I’m doing him a disservice by comparing the two,” he laughs. “For the first few years I would say [my scratching] was very percussion orientated and very much into making the WEIRDEST noises ever. Stuff that would stand out and make you go “What is that noise?” And I still like doing that, making the freakiest noises ever,” he giggles, “but I think that from playing with bands and playing with other musicians that it’s equally as interesting to try to blend in a certain context. ie: you’re scratching, but you’re scratching on a ballad, so how can you do that? For me starting to do that with Drunk Trumpet – trumpet through a melody scratching – you’ve got a 12 bar blues song, is there a way to play and actually run within that by scratching? Trying to figure out how can you do something that can only be done on a turntable, but doesn’t totally overtake the rest of the song.”

San is stoked to be on the Ninja Tune label. “I can’t really imagine being anywhere else”, he states matter of factly. “Coldcut were one of the first tracks I heard with scratching, and Bits and Pieces was very inspirational to me, and still has a big influence on the things I do, so philosophically there’s that kinship. They’ve very patient and they let you explore whatever music avenue you want to and give you time to fall on your ass and take a break if you need to,” he laughs.

Being based in Canada, but flying to London every few weeks to do a Ninja Tune performance means San has racked up a lot of frequent flyer points. “Let me put it this way – we’re very excited to be coming to Australia for the first time. I’ve been touring across oceans since 1996 and still haven’t made it to Australia,” he sighs with a smile in his voice. He’s also looking forward to touring with RJD2. “We’ve never worked together before… it should be fun!” he exclaims excitedly. “I’m a big fan of his work and I’m really excited to see him play. I know he has a show that he does, and a have the show that I have and we’ll do them on tour, but who knows what we will do with the remaining time… we’ll probably open it up”