What does the DJ do when he becomes disillusioned with the art form?
Clash spoke to Guy Andrews about returning to his roots in ambient and post-punk, and how his debut album, ‘Our Spaces’, reflects a unique marriage between techno, bass music and live instrumentation.
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This album sounds completely different to your previous releases. Can you tell me a little bit about why that is?
It was me struggling to sustain writing that type of style of dance music. I felt myself pandering towards DJs. To be honest, I was getting a bit tired of that. I find it really difficult, as it’s not really ingrained in my musical make up, my musical identity. I get bored too quickly. The album came about by playing all these DJ sets and writing all this music and feeling quite unsettled by it all. I thought “you know what, why don’t I just delete everything and just start again? Why don’t I just write stuff that is reflective of what I’ve listened to all my life?” Like post-rock, ambient and all that kind of stuff.
The album has a lot of organic percussion on it. Was this a conscious decision?
Yes, I was listening to post-rock and some metal here and there, and being quite frustrated at how hard it was too integrate that into bass music and techno. I don’t want to discredit bass music and techno. I still love those genres but I personally found it really hard to blend in live instrumentation – which is what I wanted to be writing! That’s what spurred on this stylistic change. It was my own need to express myself the way I wanted to.
Do you think the unique sound you have found on this album is one you will stick with?
It depends. I can never really predict what I am going to write. I would love to hone in on a sound a refine it a bit more but I could so easily fall into being content with writing a certain style of music. Maybe I will get bored again, like I did before! Or maybe people listening to my music will get bored. I’ve got to develop it. I’d like to dive further into the live instrumentation side of it. Stuff that I’ve been writing recently – like the post-album material – is really a mixture of a lot more live instrumentation.
Has this new organic sound changed the way you play DJ sets?
I haven’t actually played out in a really long time. It was an active decision to leave that where it was and to shift towards live performance. All the shows I have lined up over the next three months are, all of them, me performing live. Whether it’s with Neill, the guy who drums for me, or in a more solo setup. My booking agent asked me: “do you want to DJ?” and I thought “actually no, not really”. That’s not to discredit it at all. But I’m not cut from that cloth. I don’t really let loose in clubs. I’m a bit reserved. I’m too chilled to stay up until 7pm that next day [laughs]. Live gigs and the whole format of that lends itself so much more to who I am and what my influences are. I want to create in front of people.
You grew up in Brighton. Do you think the city’s focus on rock music over dance music influenced you?
Yeah, completely. It’s interesting you say that as I recently moved up to London in August. I suppose the reason I did that was because of work and friends. But I really found the music scene down there was lacking quit a bit. When I first moved there about six years ago. There were a number of promoters that were doing really, really interesting things. On a weekly basis, you would have everyone from XXXY to Julio Bashmore playing. Bass Music was getting big and techno was getting big as well. A lot of these DJs were coming down to Brighton and playing really interesting sets and then suddenly everything got too popular and the house stuff started to get really commercial. I lost interest in that.
You don’t collaborate with other artists much. Do you work better alone?
Oh yeah, definitely. I think my process with writing has taken such a long time to develop that when someone comes on and deliberately disrupts that, my quality production decreases massively. I have a set ways of doing things. When something interrupts that process, the result is just bad. But then again, recently I did a collaboration with an Erased Tapes artist called Masayoshi Fujita that was made at Maida Vale studios for the BBC and that was interesting because he’s a vibraphone player and classically trained and, of course, I’m not [laughs]. I’m just the producer guy. I found collaboration like that, with two highly distinctive musicians – that kind of works for me. I had my own boundaries and he had his and they complemented each other. Mine is such an insular process. It’s kind of introverted. When someone comes in and disrupts that everything become imbalanced. I can’t cope.
The album is coming out on Houndstooth (Fabric’s label). Did they allow that independence to flourish?
They didn’t A&R the record at all. Which is a really big thing for me. I’m really open to feedback from my manager and close music friend but for me, I just don’t really agree with that. That’s why Houndstooth are great. It just happened that when I finished the album and listened to it back with my manager we were both like “this is a Houndstooth record!” I sent it over to Ross (of Throwing Snow) and within 25 minutes he had sent it to all these people, including Rob Booth (of Houndstooth) and then within 10 minutes he had emailed me saying "let's meet up". We went for a beer and he was just like: “I’d really like to sign this”.
Do you have a history of playing in non-electronic bands? Does that seep into what you do now?
Before I started releasing under my own name I had an act called Iambic. It was still me writing and producing all the music. It’s how I know my drummer Neil. It was kind of ambient, post-rock kind of stuff. This is why I wasn’t too scared of putting together a live act between my drummer and me because I’d done similar stuff before. I wasn’t too adverse to live electronics and working with structures which changed dynamically during the set. It’s not completely alien territory to me.
You seem to have come full circle in terms of your productions.
One hundred percent. It’s really interesting because a lot of people I’m working with at the moment, I worked with back when I was doing the whole Iambic project. For example, Zack who designed my lighting rig is an old friend of mine – a really great guy and super talented. I knew him back from those days. When I sent him and some other friends the album they were like “this makes total sense; this is a combination between what you listen to, what you have written in the past and where you should be now”.
It’s gone completely full circle. It’s just like where do I go on the next record? I’m not entirely sure! I’ll figure it out.
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'Our Spaces' is out now.
