Category Archives: Interview

dB Magazine, Interview, Music, Writing

Dynamite MC

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Dominic Smith, who tears up the mic as Dynamite MC, is one of the greatest MCs in the drum and bass scene. He’s performed with Roni Size and Rapresent, Zinc , Andy C , Marky and a host of other dnb superstars, as well as performed with accomplished hiphop outfit the Scratch Perverts, beat masters the Nextmen, breaks supremo Krafty Kuts, and had his own albums incorporating hiphop and drum and bass. One of the reasons he’s so versatile is because his father was in the armed forces, so his accent is a blend of European accents from everywhere and nowhere. He’s also got a quick mind and a demon wit that helps him perform so strongly on stage in a club of hundreds or in front of tens of thousands.

Smith was forced into MCing “coz I couldn’t afford decks!” he chortles. He fell into performing it as a living “very naturally. I never planned it as a career,” he grins “I had a genuine love for the music, back in the day, and I was happy to be on stage and getting into a party for free, but I’ve improved on that!” Smith laughs again.

I’ve always wondered how MCs do their thing, and found it fascinating that so many can just spit lyrics off the top of their head. I ask if education plays a role in being able to rhyme so well. “I think it’s paramount!” he exclaims. “A stupid conversation leads to stupid rhymes! Education still is and will always be the key.” He mostly rhymes off the top of his head, saying in this way he can customize them for any beat, fast like dnb or slower like hip hop. “I used to have a bunch of writtens (pre-written rhymes) in my mind, but by the time I figured out which one fitted best on top of what was playing, I’d missed the moment! I still got a couple though, I let them stretch there legs at some point,” he laughs.

Smith has worked with a variety of DJs on both their albums, as well as his own tracks. His versatility shows in the fact that he sounds at home busting it to Roni Size or tearing up the tracks alongside the Scratch Perverts. “Different tempos alter the flow, hip hop vocal tracks don’t need MCing over them so I change modes, get behind the scratching, sing more in places; it keeps me on my toes and always interested”. But he does sometimes find he’s rhymed himself into a corner, with a word like orange for example. “Yep, I call it the “MCs cul-de-sac”. It happens but you learn how to style it out! Syringe rhymes with Orange, depending on how u say it,” he adds, chuckling, and then aptly demonstrates.

I try and pin him down on which DJ or which gig has been his favorite, but he’s rather complimentary about all those he’s worked with, and the gigs he’s played. “Honestly, there’s too many to choose from! The Exit Festival in Serbia is amazing, the Big Day Outs I’ve performed at have been wild, Tokyo is always on fire, and Fabric is a winner! As for DJs I’m fortunate to work with some of the greatest , working regularly with Roni, Zinc, Andy C, Marky, Scratch Perverts, Krafty Kuts, The Nextmen… they all bring there own style to the table and are great to work with.” When I inquire if there’s anyone he’d like to work with, quick grin he says “Toni Braxton… And she don’t have to do nothing!”

Dynamite MC plays alongside Roni Size, TC1, Keir, Diamond D the Beatsmugglers, Djon & Skyver plus locals on Sat 30 Sept at Earth

dB Magazine, Interview, Music, Writing

Total Science

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Total Science is made up by DJs Q Project ,or Jason Greenlaugh to his mum, and Spinback aka Paul Smith. Hooking up in the mid 80s on Blackbird Leys estate in Oxford, the two didn’t really get along well at first. “We hated each other at first,” Smith laughs, “but then got chatting about our love of hiphop and our friendship grew from there.” Their love for hiphop was sidetracked by the heavier beats of early rave and jungle, and Greenlaugh was quick to get his hands dirty with not only DJing but producing as well.

Q-Project’s now infamous early 90s junglist anthem Champion Sound was a stand out track in a sea of anonymous dubs, and helped leverage them in the drum and bass scene as producers of class. Recording under the moniker Funky Technicians, 1994 saw their debut with ‘Got to Believe’, a funky rolling number that helped dnb emerge as a dominant force in the clubs.

As the music evolved, Greenlaugh and Smith saw a need to changed their name. “We were at a point in our careers where we wanted to change our style and start making some harder beats so we thought we should change our name to suit our style,” says Smith. As to the origins of the name ‘Total Science’, “Quiff (Q-Projects) made it up. Nicked it off an old electro artist,” Smith says with a wink and a grin.

Total Science are about to hit Australia with their fourth Album ‘Mars Needs Total Science’. Being hiphop heads, you may think that it’s a reference to the seminal Mantronix, but it started off as a bit of a joke. “Quiff had made it up in an interview on Dogs On Acid (the Drum and Bass website) and the concept came after,” Smith explains. “It was that reference from a sample in a Mantronix tune ‘King Of The Beats’, but it was the first thing that came into my head when I had to think of an album title,” he laughs again.

After so many years in the dnb scene, I wonder if they still like hiphop, and if this has inspired them on this album. “We get inspired by all sorts of music from hiphop to broken beat, to house, to rare groove. The list is endless. So I guess the answer to your question is yes, we still listen to hiphop, alongside a number of other music genres that inspires and informs our musical choices.” The guest artists on the album confirms the variety of influences, with guests from all over the broken beat spectrum with MC Conrad, Bugs In The Attic, Grand Agent and DJ Craze.

Drum and Bass has persisted through some ups and downs, but has weathered as a music, even bordering on becoming mainstream, when it could be passed off as a mere novelty in it’s early years. It’s even appeared in video games and in advertisements. “I think drum and bass will always dip into the mainstream, but will never be the mainstream because of its tempo,” Smith muses. “Most people can’t get their head around the 176bpm. As for me wanting it to, I would never want dnb to ever become over commercialized as being underground is intrinsic to the music. But I think it has lasted because it is ever changing. Each year, a new style comes in which freshens up the scene again”.

“I think that push comes from both the producers and technology. Most people will get bored making the same old stuff so mixing it up makes it more interesting and with computers nowadays you can make music at ease and at a really good standard! We have grown so much production wise for a start.” he says of the album. “It is a lot more musical and features more vocal tracks than previous with a number of highly acclaimed artists such as Grand Agent, Bugz in the Attic, MC Conrad and DJ Craze”.

Speaking of games, I had to wonder if they had played FIFA Street 2, which features Groove Rider and Marky presenting the in game radio stations, and they include Total Contrast’s Defcon VIP tune. “No I never did play it because I always preferred Pro Evolution Soccer. And I’m still rocking FIFA 2005 on my gameboy! He laughs.”

Total Science play at the Crown and Scepter on Sat 19 Aug

dB Magazine, Interview, Music, Writing

Krust

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DJ Krust has been an integral part of drum and bass since its conception. He and Roni Size hooked up at the beginnings of the V Recordings label and they’ve been a big name through their individual projects and also through mega-group Raprezent, and also through running the labels Full Cycle and offshoot Dope Dragon. Of late Krust has been a little quiet, but he’s sure to shake floors and hips again with his latest album ‘Hidden Knowledge’, a double studio album full of new compositions and a retrospective of his Full Cycle recordings.

“It’s a Krust album first and foremost,” Krust states about his new album. “What I wanted to do is make an album that was all me. It’s been such a long time since I’ve made an album I really wanted to focus on what I’m about and what my music is about and what people could expect from me. I didn’t want any guests, I didn’t want too many vocalists,” he tells me. “I tried about 4 vocal tracks but I wasn’t happy with them. The vocal track on there, How to Mutate, was the last track I made, and I changed that about six times until I was happy with it. It was a real conscious effort to make some music that was real typical of what I was about and what the label is about and where I’m coming from and where I am going. It was about asserting myself in the scene as an artist and as a producer.”

Krust has included a retrospective disc as well, featuring classics such as Warhead and Jazz Note, in an effort to school new listeners to his sound. “There is a whole core audience that doesn’t know the music, that doesn’t know the foundation of it. It’s to give people a reminder of what I was about, where I came from, and where they can get more of that from,” he claims. From this, I wonder if he thinks it’s a little strange that there is an audience out there that has listened to nothing but drum and bass. “I do find that strange, but I have to really break it down and see how it is for real,” he agrees

“I’m about the source, I try and get the essence of the whole thing. If I hear a record I might hear a great sample, and I’ll wanna know where that sample came from. So once I find the sample, I might buy the album, then a few more albums, and I think sometimes today I think the kids of today don’t know where the music comes from. but I think that’s changing very slowly though,” he smiles.

“This is the same generation that came into colour and cable TV and listened to CDs straight away. But that’s not their fault. They were born into that and they don’t know anything else, whereas we were born into a different generation. We never had colour television or CD players growing up. It’s a generational thing. My nephew who’s 22 is making music and we were talking and I said “Bro, you’ve got to listen to music, listen to records, vinyl, that’s the vibe you’ve got to understand”. And at least he asked the question and that’s good and I respect that of him. I hope more kids back pedal and look at the history of music.”

We then discussed the current state of dnb, with lots of great artist albums coming out and impressing not only traditional junglists, but making waves all over the place. “I think we went through a period where it really got stale, and I know a lot of people weren’t stimulated by the music so much. I myself kinda lost interest in it for a while,” he laments. “But the beauty of what’s going on now is that we’ve been through that cycle now, and the people who make drum and bass have decided to do what they do best, regardless of the scene is trying to dictate, or what the press is trying to dictate. I think it’s really interesting because we’re seeing some proper players talking about the music and the state of play and what they’re gonna do about it and where the music is going to next, that can only be healthy when it comes from within the scene.”

dB Magazine, Interview, Music, Writing

Bass Kleph

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Stu Tyson is no stranger to accolades and awards. Having got a boost from winning the Triple J Noise remix competition with his awesome remix of Downsyde’s El Questro, he’s continued putting out choice singles under the moniker “Bass Kleph” on various local and international labels. This year he’s helped put the Aussie Breaks scene firmly on the map as he and fellow breaks jock/producer Nick Thayer won Best Remix at Breakspoll for their remix of Feelin’ Kinda Strange, originally recorded by the UK’s Drumattic Twins. He’s also been pushing breaks at home with his inthemix06 mix CD and subsequent tour.

“It was a bit of a shock really!” Tyson says of the Breakspoll win. “I mean, we work really hard, but I didn’t expect to get so much acknowledgment from outside of Australia as we have now.” This has of course led to many offers for both himself and Thayer to work with other people abroad, but Tyson has been happily busy in Australia. “I’ve had heaps of offers, but only had time to do a couple as I’m too busy finishing a couple of things including my debut album, ‘Breaking Point’. I think I’m only starting to have the time again now. But I’m really looking forward to travelling the rest of the world. I’ve had a lot of good feedback on my music and remixes from outside of Australia. Apart from the UK, the USA is definitely on the cards. I just got a very flattering email from Jason Nevins the other day actually. It said: “Holy Shit…. I just found an amazing bunch of music on MySpace….BASS KLEPH !!!!!  Amazing, wicked, bangin’ tracks!” he laughs

Like most music scenes, the breaks scene has had its ups and downs. It’s just starting to take of in Adelaide, whilst some Sydney punters are complaining about it being on the way out. “It’s definitely not going away anytime soon,” Tyson states. “The numbers at our new weekly night Break Inn are proof of that. It’s the best breaks night I’ve seen in Sydney since old Beat Fix on Pitt St. I think what’s happening,” he explains, “is that Breaks is stepping out of the fashion spotlight a little. It hasn’t lost its following, it is just becoming underground again, and so far that’s been very positive. That’s the way it was when I first fell in love with it, so I prefer it that way.”

“Globally is a different story,” he continues. “I don’t know how well the nights are going, but I’m not into a lot of the new breaks records coming out. There are a lot of tunes that sound like bad re-makes of older tunes that weren’t that good to start off with. There are still breakbeat gems out there; you just have to dig a little harder and further now. I think I get most excited about the breaks Australia is producing,” he smiles. “Everyone is looking at us now, I think we’re about to take the lead. Guys like Hook n Sling, Dopamine, Nick Thayer and The Street Punx are making some amazing music.”

The inthemix06 CD has also kept Tyson busy, as he’s headed around the country promoting the CD as well as DJing. “Overall it was awesome!” he exclaims. “There was one bad night in Brisbane were they booked it at a new venue, and it seemed like not a lot of advertising was done or something because there was literally ten people there. Which is weird because even when I go there by myself for a DJ set there’s several hundred every time. But all was back on track the next night in Melbourne with 1200 punters ready to have it. Actually all the other shows were dope. Melbourne was massive, Perth was rammed, and so much fun, Byron was a little quiet, but an amazing vibe, Sydney was just enormous then the last show in Canberra with Zabiela was also off the hook!”

Sometimes mix CDs cause a DJ some headaches as they struggle to find a groove for a home audience, but Tyson is happy with the way the CD worked out. “I’d say it’s representative of my live sets. I just did what I normally do, but I kept in mind the environment it was to be heard in, like in the car, or on the home stereo. When I listen to mix cds in those places, I prefer them to have a more up and down, attention grabbing flow than what is often played in clubs.”

You can catch Bass Kleph at Electric Circus on Fri 21 July with Luke Lombe, Noodle, Spark and Activist

dB Magazine, Interview, Music, Writing

A.Skillz

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I was chatting on the phone with Krafty Kuts’ partner in crime, the incredibly talented Adam Mills, aka A.Skillz. He was chilling in bed and having coffee brought to him by Melbourne’s Nick Thayer, who was staying with him working on a track in his studio. “It’s very early; it’s 9:20 in the morning!” he exclaims, “I didn’t have a big one last night so I’m travelling pretty good. Sometimes I have lunchtime lie in and recoup from the night before,” he chuckles

Mills started as a drummer, but exchanged sticks for decks after messing about playing records. “I grew up playing drums and always though that would be my career because that’s what I spent my time studying, and then I started DJing for a hobby and started making beats,” Mills says. “I actually had a music program to record the band, and I thought why not have a bash at making something with that. I made Trickatechnology, and I took it to Brighton to Krafty Kuts’ shop and he really liked it and asked if he could cut a dub plate and play it out. Naturally I said ‘alright’ and from there on I got more and more into DJing and it snowballed really. I started getting gigs and having clashes between DJing and the band, and in the end I had to leave the band because it wasn’t fair they’d miss out because I had a DJ gig.”

Apart from having Nick Thayer over, working on a track, Mills’ has been busy making mix CDs, gigging and trying to concentrate on his eagerly awaited first solo album. “This will be the first one that I’ve done totally by myself. I’m really in the middle of it and aiming to finish it by the end of the year, with a release next year.” No doubt he’ll get some help from Krafty, and he’s been working vocalists such as Curtis Santiago from Canada, who won the Galaxie Rising Stars Award from the CBC a few years ago, and is making waves on the hiphop / funk scene over there.

“I’ve been fitting that around doing a lot of other things, doing the odd remix here and there,” adds Mills. “I’ve just put out another bootleg, called Money Banger and Hotdog, part of the Insane Bangers series, which is something me and Krafty started”. He’s also been on tour in the USA, Canada and recently Australia. “Canada was quite similar to Australia in terms of the scenes there. I’m not strictly a Breaks DJ, although I’m somewhere in that bracket, and they’re really into it and I was really well received, with clubs of about 500 people really going for it, but the American leg of the tour was a very different story. I was playing to smaller bars, and I’m not as well known and don’t have the exposure I do in Canada. But all the shows were good, it was just like starting from the beginning again. There’s a few people over there doing what I do – Fort Knox Five, All Good Funk Alliance, Malente. It’s a small scene, but America’s so big that thier small scene is actually quite big.”

Whilst a lot of DJs including Krafty Kuts are getting into the harder sound of breaks, A Skillz is doggedly a funk fiend and plays the funky side of breaks. I asked him his opinion of the harder stuff, and he is a fan but more philosophical about the whole scene. “With really hard stuff, when a tune is new or unreleased, that’s when it’s having its day, but by the time it’s released it’s got about a month before it’s old news when the next heavy tune comes out. You’ve got to have the new stuff all the time. But with the funky, more musical stuff that’s got more of a hook, and got that melody you really enjoy listening to, it has a longer shelf life, even 2 years down the line. You might find an old tune and think ‘I’ve always wanted to buy this tune’, but if you find an old drum and bass or hard breaks tune you wouldn’t really consider buying it. I think the funkier, soulful stuff has a longer shelf life.”

Talk shifts to his latest mix CDs, namely FreshTrax on the Finger Lickin’ label. “When I did the FreshTrax mix I was slightly frustrated because it was purely Finger Lickin’ material. When you’re quite limited in what you’re allowed to use it is a little frustrating. I did a ‘BoxFresh’ (clothing label) mix with Krafty, and because there was no limit to what we could use – there were no licensing issue or anything because it was a give away – we could use anything. I think when you’ve got unlimited choice in music it becomes really fun! The FreshTrax was at the opposite end of the scale, it was a lot harder to put together. But it’s a showcase of Finger Lickin’ rather than me as a DJ. The one I’ve just finished called Export 2 (due on Finger Lickin’ soon) but I had a lot more choice, and I really had a lot of fun with that too. I haven’t really done a lot of mixes on my own, I’ve done so many with Krafty that it’s not tedious at all!” he laughs.

dB Magazine, Interview, Music, Writing

Koma and Bones

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Often mistakenly called a ‘duo’, Koma and Bones is actually comprised of Chris Kirkbridge, Andy Duckmanton and Jude Sebastian. The three of them met through the usual way most DJ / producer hybrids meet – through a love of music. Duckmanton (Koma) has been DJing since the late 80s, playing in clubs in his home town of Lancaster, close to Manchester. “We met just as all the rave culture was kicking off,” Duckmanton begins, “and I believe Chris and Jude used to come down and sample what was on offer, if you get my drift,” he chuckles, “including the music! But we didn’t get together until some years later. Chris (Bones) by this time had been doing his own thing DJ wise, and in about 95 and we formed a DJ partnership as ‘Koma and Bones’ doing a few gigs here and there but nothing major.”

“Jude, or ‘And’,” he laughs, “had been getting down with a few keyboards and samplers, learning his trade so to speak. I had met him a couple of years previous and knew him quite well, and by this time he had already had a couple of tracks out on his own, so it just seemed a natural progression for myself and Chris to get together with him as our producer and engineer to see what we could come up with, and so here we are ten or so years later.”

A few years ago, Koma and Bones seemed to be everywhere. They had tracks on numerous record labels, and had done remixes of artists such as New Order, Crystal Method, EZ Rollers, with a remix of X-Press 2’s Smoke Machine winning them ‘best breaks remixer’ in the US’s Remix magazine. But of late they’ve been a little quiet. “Funnily enough we have probably been busier in the last 6 months than we have ever been!” chimes in Kirkbridge. “We have launched our label Burrito, recorded for lot49, TCR and Thrust. I guess when you are not doing albums your profile does tend to seem a bit quieter, but that’s the route we have taken”, he grins. “We’ve done plenty of remixes, maybe not as high profile as the New Order one,” Duckmanton chimes in, “but we’ve remixed the Breakfastaz, La Liga, Uptown Connection, Headrock Valley Beats, plus made a track for Rennie Pilgrem’s TCR 100 release, Time Waster. So to us it’s been business as usual really, but I think because we haven’t done another artist album or mix compilation you just don’t get all the same publicity.”

DJs / Producers seem commonplace now days, but Koma and Bones were almost driven to produce to find the sound they wanted to play. “It was the natural thing to try and do in the beginning, myself and Chris just wanted the chance to get a track together just using samples at first to see what we could come up with, but we needed someone who could put it all together someone who had the knowledge and the equipment, so that’s when we approached Jude to see if he would be interested,” says Duckmanton.

Now with a wide range of breaks and producers making excellent music, the boys feel a bit spoilt for choice. “Evil 9, Freeland, Meat Katie, Jono Fernandez, Metric, Cirez D, John Dahlback, Sebastian Ingrosso, anything really that sounds fat in a club,” quips Kirkbridge. “We like to embrace a few styles when playing,” adds Duckmanton. “At the moment we’ve been playing a bit of techno and electro, producers like King Roc, Justice, Oliver Huntemann, D Ramirez to name a few, but we still mix it up with the breaks… I think as long as it’s got a ‘breaks mentality’ we will be into it, the Justice remix of Franz Ferdinand is a fave at the moment and Oliver Huntemann’s Bastard is awesome!”

They’re also well known for making cheeky bootlegs. “We make them, we just can’t talk about them!” cracks Kirkbridge. “Yes, we’ve done quite a few over the last couple of years, of big artists too,” adds Duckmanton, “but I think unless your selling quite a few thousand the record companies wont bother you. I would have thought as its pretty good promotion for the artist – almost like a free remix!” Kirkbridge chimes in again “Hopefully the artists see them as a compliment. But who knows?”

You can catch Koma and Bones playing at the We Love Sounds Festival alongside Grandmaster Flash, Mampi Swift plus IC3, James Zabiela, and Patife with Cleveland Watkiss plus a host of local and interstate guests on Sun 11 Jun at the Shores Entertainment complex, West Beach.

dB Magazine, Interview, Music, Writing

The Hilltop Hoods

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The Hilltop Hoods shot to prominence with ‘The Calling’, becoming the first Australian hiphop act to gain a Gold record. The follow up, ‘The Hard Road’ has a hard act to follow, and not only in terms of sales, but also in of ‘keeping it real’ for the Hilltops. I’d heard rumours and stories that the new album was ‘commercial’, and that the band were tearing themselves apart from within. But talking to Suffa a day after the album was finished made me realise that the Hoods still have it very much together, and no matter what happens, they will always be The Hilltop Hoods.

I asked Suffa if there was any extra pressure to record The Hard Road. “It wasn’t a struggle to record it, but when we started mixing it Baz (Debris) went on holiday to Vietnam,” he laughs. “So that made the mixing down a little bit more difficult.” Of course not having heard the album, I asked Suffa to describe how it sounded. “It’s similar to The Calling but it’s sort of a darker version of The Calling,” he mutters. Dark hey… Could this be a reflection of the way the band is feeling the pressure? “I don’t know,” he chuckles. “It just turned out that way. We don’t plan albums. As the beats are made, as we like certain beats and the album makes itself. There’s a couple of party tracks on there, a couple of jazz influenced tracks, it’s not like it’s some kind of melancholy beast,” he grins.

The Calling’s most popular track is the Nosebleed Section, containing the Melanie Safka sample. Seeing as how she was apparently enamoured of the tune, I wanted to find out what Suffa thought of her and how she came into knowing about this little group from Adelaide. “She got sent the track by a fan she has here, but to be honest I’d rather not talk about that because”, he hesitates, “we’re not having legal issues, but it’s not sorted out completely and I really shouldn’t be talking about it,” he says, and fair enough too.

He does openly speak of how that whole exercise has changed the way the group approaches sampling, however. “We had to either use things on this album that didn’t need sample clearance, or the ones that did need sample clearance we had to chase after and get it,” he explains. “You can sort of take care of it in the processes (of making a track). If you’re sampling a funk artist, they’re sampled so much they’ve got the process in place to legally sample them. You just need to contact their people, they’re people tell you how much it’ll be and how much royalties they want, blah blah blah, and that’s sort of easy. If you go into other genres and sample someone not used to it, it can become difficult. And also during the process you try not to sample records you know you’re going to have trouble with,” he adds with a smirk.

Thanks to the efforts of the likes of Hilltop Hoods, Delta, Downsyde, the Triple J Hiphop Show, and the seminal Aussie hiphop label Obese Records, Aussie Hiphop has blossomed and become a lot more respected by the wider community. “Yeah, the scene, if you compare it to 5 or 10 years ago, the amount of exposure, the amount of groups, the amount of interest, the amount of media attention, it’s a lot healthier than it was,” Suffa exclaims. But when I ask him about the down side of it, he’s quite frank in his answer. “I don’t really want to say negative things about it, you know? I just don’t want to sound like one of those guys who’s gone all cynical,” he laughs.

Although I didn’t like to keep the interview on a negative vibe, I had heard rumours that there was some tension with in the group over creative control. Having chatted to both Suffa and Debris in the past, I found it hard to believe, and of course Suffa set those rumours to rest with a big laugh. “It’s absolute shit!” he cries. “The reason why those rumours come about, and we’ve even seen things where people said we should have a media coach,” he laughs incredulously, “is because we’re such close mates all we do is fucking hang shit on each other all day, so even if we’re being interviewed or there’s a camera there we’re still hanging shit on each other, it’s just the way we always have been. So you know, I don’t know why people want to turn it into some kind of… thing, maybe the people starting these rumours are trying to turn us against each other or something, but it’s just not going to happen. We know each other so well, we just don’t care what they say.”

To help the launch of the Album, the trio will be hosting ABC’s Rage. “We’ve always been so disappointed when hiphop artists go on Rage because for some reason whenever hiphop artists program one of these shows they try to show how open minded they are and play anything but hiphop,” he groans. “Our sole mission was to go on there and play nothing but dope hiphop. So we played 40 songs of just straight up hiphop. We were limited a little by what catalogue they had, but we tried our best to play clips that just don’t get seen and the artists we think should get a little more exposure.”

dB Magazine, Interview, Music, Writing

Tayo

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It was quite early in the morning when I called the UK, and computer problems meant I called a little late and had to cut my interview short, but Tayo, the Don of the breakbeat world, was gracious and kind, and let me conduct the interview without any sense of annoyance, although he did stifle a few yawns every now and then. Having been around since year dot, working with Adam Freeland, being head of Mob Records, who gave Stanton Warriors a push start, and with his radio show ‘Dread at the Controls’ on KISS FM, he is at the forefront of pushing new sounds and keeping the breaks scene vibrant and alive.

He has also put out many a compilation including Beatz and Bobz and Y4K, and his new Mix CD “These Are the Breaks” is the follow up to Krafty Kuts’ fantastic double album from 2003. “They wanted me to do it,” Tayo says about the new compilation. “DMC got in touch and said they were re-igniting the series and they wanted me to do this one. I guess the label wanted to do a breaks series and they already had a brand in place, so they called me in.” The mix is quite different from Krafty Kuts mix. Whereas Krafty blends hiphop, funk, breaks and even dnb, Tayo is straight up dubby breaks, a sound which Tayo has made his own.

“It’s very much the music I’m involved in and that I make,” he notes, “and I’m just trying to bring my own interpretation of the breaks so people don’t get bored of the breakbeat formula. I think sometimes it can be a little straight ahead and know what you’re getting, you know?” and I agree, but also say how I think breaks one is the most interesting scenes out there. “There’s a lot of interesting music out there,” Tayo agrees, “and I was just trying to put my own stamp on it. It does have a few of my own productions on there because this style (dubby breaks) is hard to find,” he adds, “but at the same time making tunes is what I have been doing for the last year or so.”

And that doesn’t mean Tayo is bored with breaks, on the contrary he is enjoying the broad brush that breaks DJs paint with. “If I look through my record box I’m quite happy with what I’ve got at the moment. I’ve been looking out to other scenes, all related to the breaks genre, but not quite so much nu-school breaks, which can seem a little formulaic sometimes. But it was a chance to get some of the stuff I’ve been involved with out there.”

Tayo has been rather busy in the studio. “I’ve got a track coming out on Mantra Breaks I did with Acid Rockers called ‘Shorty the Pimp’, I’ve got another coming out on Aquasky’s label Passenger called ‘Wildlife Dub’, I’ve just done a remix of Basement Jaxx, and I’ve got a single coming out on Finger Lickin’ later this year, and they want me to do some more stuff and make an albums worth. I’m going to let stuff incubate for the next few months and get it done,” he says of the deal, which will be his first artist album. “It’s going to be whole new stuff, because the mix album was done so I could get my stuff off my hard drive and out there. Now I want to concentrate on less dancefloor tracks and more album tracks, with vocalists and so on. It’ll still be dancefloor,” he assures me “but just less 12 inch, shall we say? There will be stuff I’ve worked on but haven’t released… I’ve got a grand idea for it, but whether it works out like that is another thing, but I’m going to have fun trying.”

Tayo is also looking forward to coming to Adelaide. He says he’s only had one ‘big’ show in Adelaide, and that was at the Beach Party in 2004, but I assure him that breaks is a lot bigger now through the efforts of Blake of Stardust, Los Proyectos Magicos, Hi-Fi, and the Adelaide Breaks Collective. Being reassured after I told him about the massive Krafty Kuts and Stanton Warriors show late last year, Tayo is looking forward to “having fun and getting a good crowd” at the end of March.

dB Magazine, Interview, Music, Writing

Jay Cunning

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In the world of dance music, it’s sometimes difficult to remember that having a career that spans over 10 years is in fact a long time to be in the biz. Many DJs come and go, having taking it up as a hobby in their younger days, or as a way to supplement their incomes, but then they have a home and a family, or get a ‘real’ job and don’t have the time, or doing something lame like music journalism. Jay Cunning, whilst still only relatively young, has been at the game since 1989, starting in acid house and working his way through musical styles until he settled with breakbeat in the late 90s.

Cunning is your pretty typical “hard work pays off with a bit of luck and lot of skill” DJ story. His main break into the spotlight was a two-pronged attack with his skills pricking up the ears of listeners on BreaksFM, and also the editors of both Musik and iDJ magazines. “I used to always go to this record store in Kensington,” Cunning begins, “and that’s where I started buying stuff that was a little bit different from house or drum and bass. I started listening to the early Freskanova stuff, early stuff from Matt Cantor (Freestylers) and Andy Gardner (Plump DJs), and I had been buying it for ages but not really doing anything with it, just playing it to myself. And I saw a flyer in the shop for BreaksFM, so I called the guy up and had a chat with Alex (Orton-Green aka Uncouth Yoof) and we spoke for a couple of hours and we got along very well, and he said, ‘send us a CD, and if we like it we’ll put it on the show’. They stuck it on the show and next thing I’m doing the weekly radio show.”

His other opportunity came from the Pressure Breaks mix CD that Cunning puts out. “It’s quite funny, a lot of people think the Pressure Breaks CDs are officially released and you can buy them in shops and stuff, but these are all purely promotional material though,” he chuckles. “It was a way for me to get a mix CD together and out there. The way I was looking at it as a new DJ coming into it was these labels and promoters are getting CDs left right and centre and I needed to do something that was going to get me noticed and really stand out,” so with a friend Cunning worked on the artwork as if it was an actual release. “The first one I did I sent it off to iDJ and Musik magazine and I actually won the competitions with the same CD twice!” he laughs, which was a little embarrassing with the two most popular dance magazines having the same mix out in the same month, but a bonanza for Cunning’s DJ credibility.

And Cunning thinks aspiring DJs need to learn from his example. “I’d say it to anyone who’s starting out DJing, put as much effort as you can. With picking the tunes and doing the mix you could be the best in the world, but I’ve been given CDs with “Bob” written on a blank CD and there isn’t any motivation to listen to it. If you’re getting X amounts of CDs a week, and some one’s gone to the effort of doing art work, as a label boss or promoter you go ‘hold on a minute, I’ll take a listen to that’”, he smiles.

Whilst Jay has been busy producing tracks with 2Sinners and Smithmonger, and running Menu Music, his label that he runs with partners in crime Atomic Hooligan, they’ve also squeeze in a mix for the latest “Beats and Bobs” on Functional. “Both Terry (Ryan of Atomic Hooligan) and I said from the start this should represent what people would hear in a club if Jay Cunning and Atomic Hooligan were on the decks,” Cunning explains. “I will say it is quite conservative, and I use the word loosely, but we’re a lot more cut and paste with rough scratching thrown in and dropping stuff down on it when we play live, but with a mix CD it’s got to be a little more structured. The Mix CD shows a diversity in breaks, there’s techy stuff, funky stuff, tougher stuff, but when you see me and Terry out, you really don’t know what you’re going to hear next; it might be house, it might be drum and bass, it might be a hiphop thing. And this is very much the Menu ethos – creating a party vibe,” he grins.

dB Magazine, Interview, Music, Writing

Coldcut – Matt Black

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Talking to Matt Black was a dream come true. It was he, along with partner Jonathan Moore who got me into writing about music backstage at a gig in Sydney. Fearing I’d never get to talk to them again, I picked their brains until they asked if I was a music journalist, planting the seed in my mind. I must have been asking the right questions this time, because we talked for quite a while, with Black giving me some very verbose answers and some incredible insight into the world of Coldcut.

Their biography fills two pages in small print, and although they have been working for two decades that still doesn’t go far to explain just how much they have achieved. Responsible for the 80s dance smash hit Only Way Is Up by Yazz, Black and Moore went on to form the radical Ninja Tune record label. The label introduced such artists as Kid Koala, Amon Tobin, Jaga Jazzist, and Roots Manuva to the world. They’ve collaborated with political shit stirrers like Jello Biafra and Saul Williams, and campaigned in both the UK and USA against right wing governments and their oppressive policies. They’ve created new ways of performing using audio/video with their V-Jamm software, and they’ve produced on of the best records of 2006 even though the year has only just begun.

Black laughs when I ask if they sleep, given the volume of work they’ve created. ““I actually love sleeping, and find it quite difficult to get up in the morning! I suppose I’m an artist, and one’s work and one’s life are intermingled”, he continues, “there is no separation. Apart from my work, sleeping, and having a life with my family, I really don’t do a lot of other stuff. I don’t really have hobbies as such. I find that my time is filled with what I love doing and different aspects of that, and I don’t really need hobbies. I don’t think Jonathan thinks the same,” he adds, “I think he has a more rounded life in some ways, but he certainly works very hard as well.”

The album Sound Mirrors has been seven years in the making, but the wait is well worth it. Combining magnificent production with amazing collaborations, they’ve produced a stunning piece of musical artwork that warps boundaries and challenges the listener intelligently. Coldcut have always seemed to be able to capture the ‘sound of now’ and extend it to be more relevant to more people, and this album is no exception. One sound that stands out on tracks like This Island Earth and True Skool is the ragga riddims, dubby Jamaican style electronic rhythms which is finding dominance on the dancefloors of both dance and R&B clubs.

“We were working with a guy called Ross Allen, who’s a very switched on London club DJ,” explains Black, “who we used as a sounding board for the album and to keep us in touch with what’s going down on dancefloors at the moment, to give us a different perspective to the Ninja Tunes posse. He turned me onto these Jamaican Riddims and he’d come in with a bunch of new 7 inches every week. I’ve always loved reggae and I thought “yeah, fuck it, I fancy having a bit of this” and went about deconstructing them and finding out how they were made and do our own version of it.”

The collaborations done for the album are inspired, and include Jon Spencer, Robert Owens, John Matthias and Saul Williams amongst others. “It wasn’t so much people coming to us, it was more we’d work on a track and think about who would be good to collaborate to do a vocal with,” Black clarifies. “In the case of Jon Spencer we had that chorus for ‘Everything Is Under Control’ and we were looking for someone with that rock character and energy. We did try out a couple of people who didn’t work out, and then Jon Spencer was suggested to us. We contacted him and he turned out to be a great person to work with – he didn’t hand us a 40-page contract, he just said ‘yeah, I like the track, I’ll give it a go and sort out a deal afterwards,’” Moore laughs.

“That actually worked out very well, because he’s done some live dates with us, which has been off the hook because he’s a great live performer. He adds that rock energy and charisma to the shows. Some of the other tracks were done little or no brief for the artist at all,” he continues. “The Saul Williams track was presented to him as a free canvas to do with what he wanted. We don’t tell the poet what to write the poem about. And he came back with the rather marvellous ‘Mr Nichols’ which for my money is my favourite track on the album.”

Speaking of live dates, I ask eagerly if there are any plans to come to Australia, as their show in Sydney 1999 was simply incredible and is still in my top ten of live gigs. “Not soonish,” Black laments, adding “but in the foreseeable future. Most of our year is booked up but we are hoping to get over sooner than later, and it is on the agenda so hold tight”.