Dimensions: Moxie

NTS resident chats to ClashMusic...

Community is a curious thing.

It’s a term bandied about by politicians from every shade of the political spectrum; easy to locate but difficult to define, it’s something which art – in particular, music – thrives upon.

Dimensions has a sense of community. Launching this year, the festival is the chilled out little brother to Croatia’s well established electronic hub Outlook.

NTS has a sense of community. Based in East London, the online radio station fuses cutting edge beats with a local concern, allowing their free-flowing programming to dip into areas commercial outlets could never touch.

With Dimensions fast approaching, Clash took the logical step and tracked down resident NTS beat merchant Moxie – who also plans to fly out to Croatia in just over a month’s time.

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So, your first time at Dimensions. Have you explored similar events?
Well it’s the first year of Dimensions but I played at Outlook – I think this will be my fourth year. I’m actually really looking forward to Dimensions, just because the music, for me personally, there’s loads of stuff that I really want to check out. It’s going to be hard to tear myself away from all the different stages but yeah, looking forward to it.

There’s so much going on but I think I’d have to say… I’d like to see Little Dragon because I’ve never really seen them before. Also Ben Clock, someone else I haven’t seen before. Jaar, just because I missed him last year at Sonar. Also just kind of walking around, discovering stuff and listening to DJs that I might not have heard before. Also, Motor City Drum Ensemble because I really like his mixes and again, I’ve never been able to see him live. Loads of people – pretty much everything.

Do you have any highlights from past Outlook events?
Last year I did the Swamp 81 boat party at Outlook and also I did another Deviation boat party at a festival called Stopmakingsense. I’ve been to loads of boat parties as well, just from going to Outlook over the years. The Deep Medi boat party I went to about three years ago, that was amazing. Mala, Silkie, Quest.. a good few of them. I think there’s always a boat party every year which is kind of the boat party everyone talks about – I’ve had some good memories out on the boats. The thing is if you go on the wrong boat and you get stuck on it, it’s terrible. If you go on the right boat and it all comes together then it’s great.

You mention Mala, his Cuban experiments have caused an enormous stir this year…
I went to the listening party last week. I thought it was great. It was really, really good. It was in this sort of intimate private members club in London. I’m really, really excited about it because I think it will be a good direction for dubstep to go in. Something good for Mala, to be put in that position to collaborate with all these artists and then to bring something together. Both aesthetics, still making it very much London, and dubstep, but also bringing that Cuban flavour. It’s really good, I’m really excited about it.

That pattern of non-Western culture mixing with British electronic music seems to have developed over the past 12 months.
Completely. It’s just a different direction, a new angle. Keeping it more up to date and having that being really inventive, and having new ways to sort of still reflect the sounds that you’re making but also working with musicians that you wouldn’t usually work with from half way around the world coming together and just making something really exciting. I think that’s what it’s about with music. You have to keep moving forward. It’s good to reference what you’re doing but also to just interpret it differentlu.

How big a role does the internet play in this?
We have all our different scenes that happen in London, in the UK it’s great to think that this might also be happening in America as well. There’s all these different pockets of scenes that you wouldn’t really know about unless you were there and because of the internet, it allows you to really research and discover. I think the internet can be a great thing but I also think that it can be not such a good thing, because in terms of DJs relying on just the internet. Their discovery only goes as far as that.

You also need to be in record shops, I think, because that’s just what I was brought up with. Talking to people directly. Picking up tunes that will only be pressed and won’t be available via the internet. In terms of like connecting with people, making those initial discoveries then yeah, of course, you can’t always travel and meet people so if you can use the internet then that’s great. For collaborations to come from that is always great.

NTS has made fantastic use of the communal aspects of the web.
You know, the thing is Femi is a music lover and he’s put a lot of heart and soul into it so I think to be honest I think the success he has is fully deserved. I think it’s a really great thing and for me, I’m just happy that people had cottoned on to it. They’re backing it. It’s all from the heart. Femi’s worked really hard so yeah, I think it’s really great that people appreciate it because it’s not a money making thing. It’s all about community. People are coming together from all over the place in East London and doing shows that aren’t just about club music but all sorts, what’s happening on their road, in their estate and also just talking about poems or rave culture in the 90s. It’s so broad and that’s why I think it’s so great, just because it’s not just one thing. It speaks to an audience that is from many ages and backgrounds. I think that’s why people are backing it so much and are behind it. You can just see, because it’s honest, it comes from the heart and people can see that.. and that’s what NTS is.

Are you finding that more and more new producers can locate you and send you their stuff?
There are always things which are coming through. Sometimes it’s hard to stay on top of it because when I go through music sometimes I’ll go through a phase where I’ll be fully involved in that. I have to be in one of those minds when I can really go through everything. It’s good though, it’s great – people send you music because they want to know your opinion. To be able to give them feedback, it’s good. Sometimes you can feel guilty about taking too long to get back to people, but it’s just about fitting everything in.

Catch Moxie bi-weekly on NTS, 3-5pm Wednesday.

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Dimensions runs between September 6th – 9th.

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