Interview

How did you get into making electronic dance music? Where do you get your influences?

I listened to a lot of different types of music growing up, but slowly got in to electronic music at the time of Moby’s “Porcelain” and then through artists like Aphex Twin, The Album Leaf, Kid606 and even Prolix to MJ Cole. That stuff sparked my interest in actually making electronic music (and still does today) because of the ability to just be locked in and stay listening… despite sounding so raw and unconventional to me at the time. I loved the idea of making music alone and having the ability to experiment with so many new things. In terms of inspiration for writing and composing I get it all around me, though more so from the styles coming out of the UK and largely through artists like Whistla, Submerse & DJ Para. The people I work with and speak to influence me hugely as well, their music and the relationships. Dark or light, they are everywhere.

How would you describe your style?

It’s hard to do as my music is a blend of all my influences and ideas at the time of writing each track. Though I like the term future garage and use that, as I see it as a way forward for my ideas and a movement which is bringing together some hugely influential sounds. I love new and old garage, and growing up in Canberra I didn’t get huge exposure to that early on. I feel there is an endless amount of new thought and style that can be brought in to it from other areas while at the same time bringing a vibe of UKG and even dubstep.

Buck UK & Mirror State – Enola by Mirror State

In crafting this mix for the Crackcast series, Hyetal embarks on a multi-track, multi-tempo, wind through the music that’s making him tick at the moment. From the experimental dubby sonics of Peverelist to the twisted two-step of Pariah, the mix bumps and winds along with a variety of vocals, cuts, tempo-changes and array of sonics.

With a loose house flavour running through the middle of it, but with some incredibly brooding, atmospheric, synthesised touches giving the mix real depth, Hyetal’s contribution to the series represents the diversity characterising a modern producer’s record box. Cramming an unprecedented number of ideas into 40 minutes, this mix reinforces the incredibly positive direction in which Hyetal is headed.

Thanks to Josh K Marshall for the sick Artwork

Interview

How long have you been producing? I think I read that the name FaltyDL dates back to when you were 12 or 13…

Drew Lustman: The name comes from when I had an AOL email account, so that must have been the mid-90?s, or whenever AOL was big. I literally just picked out of the blue “FaltyDL,” and I didn’t spell it right. And naturally I was thinking of a producer name in 2004 or 2005, when I was just starting to make music, and I was like, “Fuck it, go with FaltyDL, try it.”

Were you in New York when you started making music?

No, I was still in New Haven, Connecticut.

… because one of the things I wanted to ask you about was that your music, to me, sounds unmistakably New York in a number of ways. There’s this level in which you’re pulling from all of these classic New York sounds — the garage influence, house. There’s also something of the cosmopolitan nature of New York, because you’re bringing in a lot of sounds from other places like the UK. And then there’s the workaholic nature of your output: you have this sort of “i-banker”-style release schedule. All these things add up to something that’s unmistakably New York. What do you see as the influence of this city on your sound? Did you come here to make this music, or did you get here and this music just happened?

That’s a great question. That’s a great analogy too, with the i-banker thing. One of the biggest influences, I think, of being in New York for me, or any major metropolitan city, is just — the rate at which people create and work in the city is incredible. Everything is so fast, and everyone is so prolific at whatever they do. But yeah, I basically feel like if I spend a day and I don’t do something towards my musical output or whatever, I feel like I’ve wasted a whole day. And it’s really tough. I’ve had to sort of relax and chill out and be okay with not making music all the time, because no one wants to hang out with someone who can only talk about one thing, you know what I mean?

So no, I didn’t come here to make music; I came to New York to go to City College. I did about a semester and a half, maybe two semesters at City College. I was 24 when I moved to New York, or 25? 24, 23… I don’t remember. It was my third attempt to try to go to school, and I was like, “Nah.” I thought I could do it, but really I just wanted to come to New York. And as far as talking to my folks and my friends in New Haven, I was like, “I bet I could go there and go to school,” and they were like, “Yeah, that’s great, go to school.” So I moved to New York and was like, “Eh, screw it, I’m not into the school thing.” But I was going for a sonic arts degree, and I was in these really boring, dry classes just talking about sine waves and partials, which is super interesting, but I’d rather just play with that and experiment and figure it out on my own. I sort of hate being in a classroom, although I love learning and I love teaching, and I respect teachers so much. I have taught in my life, and I respect learning, and I respect passing down knowledge. But [this school experience] was so boring and dry for me. I’d get home at night and be like, “Ahhh, I gotta make some music!”

[From there,] FaltyDL just took off and in 2007, 2008 I started making a lot of tracks. Part of that was just living in New York, too, and having friends that were busy in the arts scene. I have a friend who’s a sculptor who was always taking me to all these shows. And I was seeing how much stuff was actually happening here, and it was incredible. So New York was a catalyst, but I wouldn’t say I came here specifically to do [FaltyDL]. It was a pleasant surprise, coming here and finding out that I could do that.

So you do have some formal training in music?

Yes.

… but not in production.

Not in production, no. I mean, again, a semester and a half of sleeping in classes was pretty much my [education]. Like, I basically taught myself all the programs that I use, just by trial and error over the years. I probably do some things the long way, and I probably do some things the short way, I’m not sure. But yeah, I grew up taking the Suzuki method [music lessons where ear training is emphasized before music reading, the idea being that music is learned similarly to how language is learned]—

Me too, actually, with piano.

I did that with flute at first and then with the bass. I’m so glad I did that, because it developed my ear really well. And I still definitely use that.

You say you do some things the short way and some things the long way. I mean, whatever you’re doing is working, so let’s talk about your workflow. How do you get started on a track?

I get started with any number of things. The big thing, usually, is just the motivation to create, like, “I need to be making something.” So that’s what gets me to the computer. And then it’s a sample: I’ll find a sample I really love, or a part of a song, and I’ll say, “I really want to use that!” So I’ll start [in earnest] with a sample. I used to start with drums, and I used to start with synths and bass and stuff like that, but now I start with samples, and I think my music has become a lot more organic in the sense that there’s a lot more sampling going on. I’m not into [doing] all that much synthesis, I’m not really into that aspect anymore.

So I’ll sit down with a sample, and I’ll start playing with it on my keyboard: I’ll start messing with a filter, I’ll start messing with the pitch, I’ll find a point that sort of loops it, I’ll find the BPM where I can get a tight loop with it, I’ll find parts of the sample that I want to accentuate with a drum hit here and there, then I’ll find another sample. Honestly, and I’ve said this before, at the point at which I start and am happy with the sample I’m working with, I almost have this sort of artistic blackout, like I don’t really know exactly — I feel like I’m almost possessed, like it’s just happening and I’m like sitting there watching myself make this beat. Hours can go by, and I’ll be done with the track later that afternoon. Or, it can be really frustrating and I’ll get nowhere, and I’ll just end up looking on the Internet and answering emails and talking shit with friends, you know what I mean? But for the most part, I’ve been able to be really focused.

Where do you go to look for samples?

Everywhere. I mean, someone will link me to a YouTube thing, and it’ll sound great. And then I’ll be looking on the side of YouTube, and I’ll find another thing. I’ll go somewhere, and then I’ll go somewhere else, and then I’ll go to another link, and I’ll find something. My iTunes library is — I don’t know how many songs I have in here [starts clicking around on his computer], I think I have probably… 160 gigabytes of music, which is a lot of music. I used to have more, actually, but my last computer crashed. So I’ll go into my own library. I recycle a lot of samples, too. Because I write so much music, a lot of it doesn’t come out, so I’ll go back to a song that I started one day, and I’ll be like, “Oh, I still like that sample, but the rest of the track is crap,” and I’ll work from there.

You’re just producing music now, right?

Yeah, I’m just producing and playing gigs. That’s been pretty much the last eight months or so. I’ve been really lucky to go on a lot of tours that have been incredibly life-changing musically and also financially; it’s been able to help me do this.

Let’s go back, then, and talk about how You Stand Uncertain first came together. When did you start working on it?

Start and stop point is really difficult, because… I’m making tracks right now that may get released in four years. The way that I’ve done the two albums with Planet Mu is that I’ve just sent as much stuff as possible over to [label head] Mike Paradinas. When he starts to feel like there’s enough tracks to get together for a release, whether it’s a single, an EP, or an album, we’ll start the email conversation. He’ll say, “I want to release this, this, and this, maybe we can do this,” and usually they grow into larger projects like albums. That’s how the first album started: one track grew into a single grew into an EP grew into an album pretty quickly. Some of those tracks were made months before it was released, and some were made years before it was released.

So when you started working on the tracks that eventually became You Stand Uncertain, you didn’t yet have an album in mind?

I try not to — well you know, actually, about halfway through, I did. You know, my sound is always changing, so I start to get a bigger picture of, “Oh, these tracks actually go together. These are album tracks, not singles; this isn’t just a dance floor thing.” So yeah, at one point, I started to feel like these [six or seven tracks] were actually gelling together, and then I get into that mode where I want to make a lot of things like that. But I try not to focus too much on working towards an album or anything else, because I don’t want to stress myself out too much with worrying about where it’s going to land.

That said, I really wanted You Stand Uncertain to sound like an album. I enjoy an album that you can just put on the record player and walk away and listen to the whole side and then flip it, you know what I mean? I didn’t want it to be a collection of dance tracks, and I think we really did a good job of curating it this way.

With the new record, though, you managed to make something that is really cohesive. When I listen to it, I hear something that thematically totally goes together, that makes sense as a unit. And from a production sense, it seems like a real step forward for your sound. So as you were sending tracks to Planet Mu, were they saying, “This stuff is different. Let’s do something big with this stuff”?

I mean, it just happens really naturally. Mike will start to say to me, “I really like the sound of these tracks,” and he’ll throw out a few adjectives, and I’ll throw out a few adjectives about what the tracks sound like to us, and that encourages me to do more like that. [The album] is definitely a new direction for me, and I think, for me, a new standard of production. In two years I might think that this is crap, and I’ll be doing something totally different. But this is where I’ve been for the last 12 to 14 months, so for me it’s not that new. Like, the tracks I’m actually making right now I think are even more developed in some ways. It’s hard to go back and recreate a sound; I couldn’t go back and make tracks like I did on Love Is A Liability.

Were there any big influences on this project? Was there anything in specific you were listening to as the album was coming together that you think colored your work on it?

Yes and no. There was stuff that I was listening to that got me in the mood to make music. But the stuff I think [the album] actually sounds like is dusty old rave records and weird IDM stuff. There are a lot of funk samples, like Herbie Hancock is someone I was listening to at the time. But what I was listening to was albums. I was listening to things that inspired me to create a body of work, not a single track. Like I’d listen to albums and be like, “This track is great, this track is great,” and they’d all be amazing, but I wouldn’t be like, “I want to make an album like this one track.” I’d want to make an album that was cohesive like that album was.

You Stand Uncertain is the first time you’ve worked with vocalists. How did that process work?

To be fair, I did do a track on my first album with a vocalist. I had complete control, though; she was like, “Here are some riffs, use them however you want, don’t even worry about crediting me.” And I was like, “Are you sure?”

But yeah… once we decided that this should really sound like an album, we talked about what could make it sound a little bit different and more developed than just an instrumental album, [and we decided] some vocals could really help. The first thought I had was this one woman, Anneka, who’s done some other tracks with people on Planet Mu, and I know she’s very approachable, very professional, and just sounds lovely. So that worked very naturally and very quickly. She recorded all these beautiful parts and harmonies, so it was so easy to figure out how to use them.

How did that start? Did she send you stuff first, or did you—

No, I sent her the tracks. I talked to Mike [Paradinas] about getting in touch with her, and he gave me her email. We didn’t know each other, but we have a lot of mutual friends through the label, so it wasn’t so much of a… we weren’t really coming from different worlds, we’re sort of in the same circle of friends, in a sense. So yeah, I just sent her like three tracks, and she was like, “I want to try this one,” and I was like, “Go for it.” It came back in my inbox like a day later, and it was sick.

Another thing I noticed about this record — and this has been a trend I’ve been hearing in your records for maybe the last six months — is that the tempos have come way down from where they were earlier in your career. For me, the anthem of this record is “Voyager,” which clocks in at 108 BPM or something.

Yeah, 107. That’s my favorite track on the album.

Mine, too. So is anything going on there? When you first started producing, you were doing stuff that was really fast, like breakcore tempos. And then you worked your way down to dubstep tempos, like 130 to 140. Now you’re all the way down at “Voyager.” Was going slower a conscious decision, or are you just continuing to find new ways into the pocket?

Yeah… to find something I can sort of swim around in. I think I just get bored at doing any one thing for too long. The other day, though, I went back and made a track that was at about 140, 135 or something. I’ve tried to make a few little juke tunes here and there, at 150. I did one that was pretty good with Machinedrum, actually. But yeah, I just found that 107 to 118 — like, you can just swing so hard in that pocket, or you can be really, really rigid too, and it’s just so much fun. My sets these days, I’m starting off at that tempo, and I’m really just getting into the groove.

What’s getting play in your DJ sets these days?

It depends on what time of the night I’m playing. Ideally, I get to play a lot of the slower stuff… I get to start around 110 BPM and play a whole bunch of house, into some Theo Parrish edits, into some Anthony “Shake” Shakir edits and all these different things that sound so fresh to me, even though I know they’re a little bit older. And then I work up to — well, it depends on who’s playing after me. I try to be pretty conscious of being respectful to the dance floor and what the people are there to do. I don’t want to just go out there and do whatever I want to do. I’ve done that before and cleared floors, you know? It’s like, “Oh, I’m gonna play a track that’s 130 and then a track that’s 180 and then a track that’s 110,” and it’s like, c’mon. Like that’s fun; if you’re going to make a podcast, then go for it. But like, you’ve got a responsibility to the dance floor. People are there to dance. So just something cohesive. The other night, I played from 3 to 4 AM, so I started at 125 and I ended at 170. It was great. In an hour, I got all the way there.

How about your live set? What goes into putting that together?

Taking apart and stripping down a lot of my tracks, finding loops that I like, playing them together and finding good combinations. I also take apart other people’s tracks. A lot of time goes into this, actually. Man, it was so stressful getting together my first live set. This keyboard [he pulls one out from under his workspace]—there’s a piece of scotch tape on every button, and most of what’s written on them doesn’t make any sense to me anymore. And that’s only like eight tracks worth of samples on that keyboard. I used to have a cheat sheet in front of me, too, because you can change the scenes on the keyboard, or go down an octave. So I’d have this other piece of paper in front of me, too, because I couldn’t have two pieces of tape [on a button], and it would say what was on that button two octaves down. It was so stressful trying to get through a live set. I’d see people do it so well, like SBTRKT’s set on — I don’t know what hardware he uses, but he attacks that thing. Gold Panda’s live set is incredible, too… he’s got a lot of synths up there, and he yells in the microphone and jumps all over the place. So I don’t know. I’ll get together something. As long as I can fit my entire live set in my backpack, I’ll be happy with it.

Let’s talk a little about what’s going on in New York right now. There’s a lot of cool stuff happening, and a lot of collaboration: there’s Sepalcure, there are these Percussion Lab Radio sets where everyone comes out who’s in town, there’s whatever Dave Q is behind on a given weekend. What do you see as your place in this scene, and based on what you’ve seen in your travels, where is the scene’s place in bass music worldwide?

I think New York is huge, and there are scenes I have no idea about, obviously. There are scenes that I do know about that I choose not to be a part of, just because I’m lazy and I want to be home, and I want to hang out with my friends. Most of the friends I spend time with have nothing to do with music; they enjoy music, obviously — we’ll go out together — but they aren’t musicians. I think there’s a lot happening in Brooklyn… it’s fucking bubbling. However, I don’t think it holds a candle to the amount of energy in other cities in Europe, because here, there are fewer nights that I would choose to go to and have a good time at. However, the ones that are here I think are curated fantastically. Like everything Dave Q’s done in the past five years that I’ve gone to, I’ve just absolutely loved. And Twisup, his new night, is incredible. Percussion Lab Radio is amazing, too… I was on it last night with Daedalus and Machinedrum and Praveen [Sharma]. I think… [laughs]

I don’t know if I’m getting older, but I don’t really care so much about going out all the time and being part of something. I really, honestly, truly enjoy my time spent at home and in low-key environments. When I do go on tour, I get my fill of [going out and being part of a scene], and I’m good for about three or four months. I guess the long answer I’m giving you is that even though I am a producer from Brooklyn in this whatever-genre-you-want-to-call-it, I don’t have the best answer about how much of a scene there is here. I feel like there’s probably a lot — there are people who are a hell of a lot more involved and push it further than I do, you know what I mean? Maybe I’m copping out… maybe I’m not being totally honest. [Laughs] You know I wish there was more happening here, but again, there is a lot, I’m just not choosing to be a part of all of it. I think the quality is high, though. The quality is fucking high in Brooklyn, I gotta say that. If the quantity is not high, the quality is fucking amazing.

So you wouldn’t really see a need to defect to Berlin or London, because that would just mean more going out.

Financially, it would make sense for me, to be honest. If I lived in Berlin or in London, I would play more gigs, and I would get booked more because there would be no international flights involved. But my family and my roots are here, and I just love New York. Like, it’s fucking New York, it’s amazing, it’s the best city in the world. I wouldn’t want to go anywhere else.

Continuing on about scenes… you mentioned to me when I first got here that you were booked to play South by Southwest this year, and that you’re playing more in the states. It feels like there’s this new energy in the U.S. for dance music. Have you come across that in your travels?>

Uh… it’s interesting. It seems like my life is very focused on a particular type of dance music. However, [there are lots of] parties that have people like The Juan Maclean and LCD Soundsystem and Mark Farina spinning, and that’s been going on forever. So if you’re into a certain type of house scene… I mean, that’s been huge for a long time. When dubstep exploded over here, it was the crazy wobble stuff, which — shit on or not — [that music makes for] some pretty intense parties. And so I’d get booked to go play those at first. I’d go up there and do my thing, and I’d clear a dance floor.

Now I think, honestly, with a lot of the indie crossover albums — and I’m not quite sure what I mean by that, but I’ll use the example of the Caribou album Swim, and the last Four Tet album, and the Gold Panda album, and the Mount Kimbie album, and the James Blake album — there’s a real aesthetic to the sound that’s unique to all those albums: it’s something very tangible and tactile to a whole bunch of different audiences. And I don’t think it’s on purpose: they’re the work of just really genuinely brilliant musicians making amazing music for the sake of making music, and it’s received very well by a lot of different people. That opens the doors for so much different stuff, and it’s refreshing and wonderful, and I’m so grateful for it.

A lot of the stuff that’s gotten big has been the stuff that’s more difficult to define, you know? Like, it’s hard to say that Mount Kimbie is doing dubstep, or that James Blake is doing dubstep. It seems like the indie scene has just become more open to electronic sounds, and dance music just goes along with that.

You mean dance music follows that?

Yeah. Or that, if people are going to be listening to more electronic music, maybe they’ll be open to seeing a DJ instead of a band.

I think we have to stop saying who follows who, because I think at the end of the day, they’re all just musicians, and they’re all just producers. Take Radiohead… what was they’re ’97 album, was that Kid A or OK Computer?

’97 would have been OK Computer.

Okay. So what would they have been listening to when they made OK Computer? They were probably listening to Aphex Twin, Squarepusher… I don’t know what they were listening to, to be honest. So what follows what? What was Aphex Twin listening to? Probably nothing. [Laughs all around] But you know what I mean? Sure, everything’s influenced by everything, but the type of producers who I know are so dedicated and have such a deep feeling inside of themselves that they have to create music, that it comes from somewhere that is totally on its own. Sure, you’re influenced by things that you hear, but I don’t think that they’re necessarily all following indie rock.

I think we’re getting a little off-track, although I’m with you 100% on this point… these are really excellent points. I was talking specifically about audiences and how their reception has changed to dance music. My experience has been that audiences are more receptive to this music now, and I was wondering if that was something you’d noticed in your experience.

I think a big part of that is because the press and the scene say it’s okay to like that. And by that I mean, they’ve given a lot of coverage to it. You want to go out there and have something you know. If you’re listening to something that doesn’t have an easy 4/4 kick, that’s not super easy to dance to — if you don’t know the track inside and out because you’ve heard it on five different blogs and you’ve had it on your iPod for the last six months, you might not like it when you’re there at the club. I think the press is incredibly important in that it lets people hear things; it gives people time to sit with the album. Like for instance, let’s say you saw Mount Kimbie play their whole album, and you’d never heard it, and the press had never said anything about it… you might be terrified by it. I mean, it’s gorgeous, but you’d be like, “This is sonically beautiful, but I’m not sure I understand this yet.” Or you might get it, because it’s kind of tangible. But it helps to know something for awhile, to sit with it. And then you can feel like you’re having a more personal connection with the music when you’re at the club listening to it. I don’t even know if I’m answering your question yet.

No, I think this is really interesting stuff. But we’ve reached the point in the interview where I have to ask the token Falty-is-a-former-sushi-chef question. Where’s the best place to get it in New York?

Oh my God, so many places. There’s a few places right around the NYU area that I love. There’s one called Tomoe, which is on… shit!

Thompson Street, right? I’ve been there!

Incredible! Incredible! Affordable, incredible sushi! The place is no frills, but it’s like—oh, it’s so good. And then there’s Marumi, which is a couple of blocks away, around Houston and Bleecker. [It's on Laguardia Place. – Ed.] The expensive ones like Nobu and Blue Ribbon are amazing, but you’re going to just spend so much money there. Oh! The best place is on St. Marks between First and Second Avenue, called Natori. I lived right down the street and would literally go in there four times a week, and they would be like, “Drew! What’s going on?” You go in there, and there’s a really cool waitstaff that comes and greets you at the door, and they bring you like five menus, like all these little laminated menus. And they always have crazy — like, they have alligator on their menu, and all these really bizarre things. But the quality of fish there is incredible. And they also play this epic muzak the entire time, like MIDI versions of crazy Frank Zappa tunes and Celine Dion songs, and then some Japanese girl band doing something like covering a Metallica song. Really weird music! But they’re not weird people. And I don’t even think they know how weird it is that they’re playing that music; that’s the bonus, is that this is just normal.

The Hard Wax and Ostgut Ton man lays down an energetic, hour-long mix for this week’s RA podcast.

As far as contemporary Berlin-based house and techno producers go, you don’t get much better than René Pawlowitz. When he’s not spending his time behind the counter at the city’s legendary Hard Wax record store, he’s busy conjuring up all manner of material in his studio, taking inspiration from classic Detroit and Berlin techno while infusing elements of hardcore, breakbeat, dubstep and ambient along the way. Although the majority of his output is released under the Shed banner, Pawlowitz has diversified his sound with a number of different pseudonyms. His white label offerings as Wax and EQD have become essential selections for fans of rugged Teutonic techno, while he’s also turned his hand to 140bpm bass music with his work as The Panamax Project.

Although René has garnered a reputation for his prolific and consistent approach club-oriented 12-inch singles, he’s also proved his mettle when it comes to creating larger bodies of work. His debut album came in at the #1 spot in our top albums of 2008, with RA’s Will Lynch championing its “lustrous aesthetic, oblique rhythms and coherent diversity,” so seeing as his sophomore full-length—entitled The Traveller—is due to hit the shops later this month, so we thought that it’d be the ideal time to let Pawlowitz demonstrate his idiosyncratic vision of how techno should be.

What have you been up to recently?

Too many things that have nothing to do with making music.

How and where was the mix recorded?

Two MKs and a Ecler mixer at the Hard Wax store.

Can you tell us a little bit more about the mix?

It’s a usual Shed set – made for an audience that is more into house and techno. And good to have it in a club as well as at home.

Do you have a preference out of DJing and playing live?

I like both and I need the change to keep both things interesting.

Your love of breakbeat, hardcore and dubstep is well documented. Do you ever manage to incorporate much of it into your sets?

I always try to do that. Not easy to handle all that kind of music in a set. It’s always an adventure for me and the audience as well. Haha…

Did you find the album recording process any easier this time around?

Same procedure as every year. :)

What are you up to next?

No plan at all. As always. Almost.

Boulder Colorado’s Communikey festival and Belgrade, Serbia’s Dis-patch festival have teamed up to produce a unique cultural exchange. Taking off right after the Communikey festival in April, the Viceverse tour visits 14 cities in the US, with MUTEK hosting the grand finale during its Nocturne 4.

After taking a break to recharge, the Viceverse tour will start anew in the fall of 2010, focusing heavily on Eastern Europe.

Taking time out of the hectic touring schedule, Viceverse tour artist Piece of Shh has prepared an exclusive mix to give you a taste of what the Boulder-Belgrade collaboration is all about.

>> READ ALL ABOUT THE COMMUNIKEY FESTIVAL ON MUTEKMAG <<

To this end, we present a round up of this year’s Cross Section download albums. Each bursting with a month’s worth of tunes from the band’s we write about.

Check out your favourites and discover 2009′s wealth of great, new talent.

Visite www.clashmusic.com

On first hearing the music of New York based producer Svpreme Fiend, there is one comparison that instantly leaps to mind: Burial (Indeed, he says that besides the late, great J. Dilla, Burial is his biggest influence). Texturally, their music shares alot of common ground. The haunting vocals, deep pads and lo-fi production values found in Mr Bevan’s work are also present in Svpreme Fiend’s tunes. However, his music is by no means a “rip off” of Burial’s and, no matter what the similarites are between these two artists, it has its own very unique feel to it.

I think the key difference is  in the atmosphere that it creates. Svpreme Fiend’s music takes me to a warmer, more comforting place. The insecurity and lonliness that eminates from Burial tunes such as “Untrue” and “Distant Lights” or the deep sadness of “Near Dark” isn’t felt with Svpreme Fiend. Sure, the music is still melancholic but the lead melody lines in tunes such as “Prover” or “Assurer” are nothing short of uplifting. The stripped down percussion, placed low in the mix, is made up of clicks, pops and heavily filtered snare sounds. It gives the tunes a certain organic quality to them: the drums in “Affecter” remind me alot of Mount Kimbie. Another similarity with Burial is that the rhythms are often built up around the ghosts of 2-step but this gives the tunes a real swing and bump to them. In a time when a lot underground electronic music is becoming saturated with sub-standard releases made solely to please the DJ and the “raving crew”, these kind of raw, honest and achingly beautiful sounds have never been more essential.

He was kind enough to put together a nice little mix for us which we urge you to check out.

Steven Jude to those who know him best, Noodles is one of our favourite DJs and producers in the UK, and his FACT mix only puts him higher in that hierarchy. He founded Groove Chronicles in 1996, and it quickly established itself at the vanguard of UK club music, releasing a series of phenomenal tracks engineered by El-B. A distillation of R&B, jungle, broken beat and house influences, their 1998 single ‘Stone Cold’ is widely regarded as the creative high watermark of UK garage, and Burial speaks often of his admiration for it.

Noodles continues to operate the Groove Chronicles/DPR label, releasing new music alongside archive classics [we asked him, and 'Stone Cold' is getting re-issued on vinyl, before you ask - Ed]. His FACT mix features material from himself, MJ Cole, Menta, Sunship, Architeches and more ghosts of UK garage past. We’d suggest you download it, so long as you like stuff like dancing and fun.

Reso stunned us recently with his forward-thinking Heavy Arms EP, pushing the boundaries of dubstep with his futuristic, innovative sound. Elements of garage, 8-bit electro, breaks and more all mash-up within the EP to make for a seriously fierce sound – and this podcast is no different, skipping through styles effortlessly.

The 25-year-old has been getting much love from Radio 1’s Mary Anne Hobbs for almost 3 years now, and has scored serious acclaim for his remixes for the likes of Buraka Som Sistema and Jamie Woon. With a debut album promised, it’s a very exciting time for him, and we think he’s one of the scene’s most exciting producers. Lap this up and crank it up loud.

This week, we can bring you an exclusive mix from your boy. Featuring no less than ten of his recent productions (including unreleased jams and tracks from forthcoming new mini-album, Bravery), plus your first chance to hear Sbrtkt’s forthcoming single for Ramp, Luke Vibert’s remix of Falty’s ‘Human Meadow’, and recent tracks from MJ Cole, Gemmy and Boxcutter, it’s a great mix, and provides more insight into one of the brightest stars of the muddled post-garage spectrum that is dance music in 2009. And while you’re downloading it, you can read our full interview with Falty here.

http://ra3.residentadvisor.net/audio/RA170_090831_FaltyDL-residentadvisor.net.mp3

Published / 31 August 2009
Filesize / 44.22 MB
Length / 00:46:02

The NYC-based 2-stepper mixes up the tempo on this week’s RA podcast.

Looking at Planet Mu’s 2009 release schedule, you can’t help but feel slightly overwhelmed. Come the beginning of September, Mike Paradinas (AKA µ-Ziq) has already released albums by Shitmat, Milanese, Like Vibert, Few Nolder, Venetian Snares, Legion Of Two and Boxcutter. But arguably the most interesting full-length that the label has birthed this year is the debut album from New York-based producer Andrew Lustman. Love Is a Liability saw the 2-step template turned on its head, with Lustman’s rich melodic textures and hyper-kinetic beat programming injecting a fresh sensibility into the genre.

Not one to rest on his laurels, Lustman has already completed work on his follow-up album, and showcased a fresh direction with his To London 12-inch on Ramp Recordings. While the title track on the latter sees him pull off a wonky house workout complete with wiggling synths and skippy rolling percussion, “Meta-Cognist” proves that he can also craft lush Detroit beatdown-inspired material with the best of them. Similarly, Lustman’s RA podcast journeys through beat-driven low tempo sounds, inventive new-school UK garage, dubstep and even some wild drum & bass courtesy of Luke Vibert. We caught up with him by e-mail to ask about the mix, his penchant for UK producers and his relationship with the Planet Mu boss.

Ultragamma – Stars Collapse
Architeq – Sleeping Bear Lament (Take remix) [Planet Mu]
Floating Points – Esthian III [Planet Mu]
FaltyDL – Play Child [Planet Mu]
Floating Points – K&G Beat [Planet Mu]
sbtrkt – 2020
FaltyDL – Time
FaltyDL – Bravery [Planet Mu]
Untold – Don’t Know Don’t Care
Boxcutter – Other People
Joy Orbison – Wet Look [Hotflush Recordings]
Luke Vibert – Belief File [Planet Mu]
sbtrkt – Laika [Brain Math]
Joy Orbison – Hyph Mngo [Hotflush Recordings]
Toasty – The Knowledge [Hotflush Recordings]
Spac Hand Luke – Like A Machine [Rephlex]
Amen Andrews – Screwface [Rephlex]
Aphex Twin – Inkey$ [Warp Records]
FaltyDL – Made Me Feel So Right [Planet Mu]

www.myspace.com/faltydl
www.faltydl.com

Source : Resident Advisor

What have you been working on recently?

I’ve just been finishing up some remixes and mixes. A few new 12-inches along with an EP on Planet Mu later this year too.

How and where was the mix recorded?

I recorded this mix from most of what I play out live lately in Ableton and an Akai MPD24. I did it on my desk in my bedroom near the entrance to the building that I live in. I can hear fire trucks go by me all the time.

Can you tell us a little about the mix?

It’s basically the bpm range I try and go through when playing live. Start around 95 BPM and end around 170 BPM if I can. I think it’s fun and challenging; that’s quite a lot of range and if I can keep people dancing, I’ve succeeded. I hate to see the room clear!

You have cited jungle as one of your major influences. What was your entry point into the genre, and was there any place to hear it out in New York?

Yeah, there is Konkrete Jungle and other nights, I imagine. I hear it mostly on my iPod though, raving in a train going 45 mph underground through Manhattan at two in the morning. That’s the best, I think—alone and completely geeking out on jungle. Shit is out of control! I can’t get enough of it. I’ve done 20 minutes of Remarc to end a set before, and the crowd lost it all together. They loved it.

Nearly all of your podcast is composed of tracks by English artists. Are you a bit of an Anglophile when it comes to your musical taste?

Haha, maybe yeah… I don’t know, I just keep my ear to the ground, and what’s really doing it for me right now is coming out of Europe, although I could have easily done a 45 minute mix of LA hip-hop too.

It must have been quite an honour to be picked up by Mike at Planet Mu. Did you actively send him your material or did he find you?

I sent Mike so many tunes at one point he said, “Alright, alright… I get it!” But then I sent him “Human Meadow,” the first track on my album, and he was blown away a bit by it, I think. From there it’s been a great working relationship. I think there is a mutual respect; obviously I have a tremendous amount of respect for Mike and all he has done for music, what with his own productions and his mighty label. He has helped me find out who I am as a musician and producer, without even knowing it I imagine. Dope dude.

What are you up to next?

I’ve got a few things coming out and a Europe tour in mid-September, Fabric in London and Golden Pudel in Hamburg, then more dates back in England ’til the 20th. Come down and say hello!