"Nature, surroundings, emotions, sex.. I find inspiration in many things. I like to look for beauty in everything. I am influenced by both synthetic and natural objects, but what I love is when they are combined. This is something I like to reflect in my music. I love the combination of natural sounds and digitaly synthesised ones. The combination can be both beautiful and uncomfortable, and I enjoy using this combination in my music to create different moods." TechDiff
Hello Dave, how are you? First of all, tell a few words about yourself.
- My name is Dave, I'm 26 years old I grew up near London, but I know live in Brighton in the UK
How did you get into breakcore music? What is your musical background?
- I think I kinda just drifted into Breakcore. I'm really into playing guitar, and production started off as just a way of making a track to jam on my guitar over. Then I started getting more interested in the production and gradually the guitar faded out. My compositions became more complex. Then I heard some Aphex and Squarepusher, which got me more turned on to how electronic music could be really pulled about and made interesting and that got me really going. Eventually I was making some pretty crazy kinda music and started putting it on some DnB online forums. People started telling me it was breakcore but I didn't know what that meant. So I started searching out for some. The more I heard the more I realised that my music fit quite nicely into this kinda genre. I dont like to call my music breakcore, since a lot of the stuff I make isnt. but sometimes people need to tag the music with a genre, just for their own benefit, and I guess breakcore is the one that fits best.
How can you describe your sound? What's about your influences? What kind of music do you listen to and admire?
- I like to think that my music has quite a dark, modern, digital sound, or at least my more recent stuff. Right now I'm feeling really influenced by Cyberpunk books like William Gibson's Neuromancer etc. And I'd like for my music to reflect the kinda atmosphere that I feel when I read these kinda books. I used to find a lot of influence in the countryside and nature. The place I used to live had lots of fields and parks and I liked to try and incorporate lots of natural sounds. But I've been spending so much time in cities recently thats its given me some different influences. A different approach to forming ideas.
I've been listening to a lot of different stuff recently, I moved house not so long ago, so all my CDs are really in a mess. I've just been grabbing the nearest one when I leave the house. I think right now in my CD player is Fire Garden by Steve Vai. At work I've been listening to Devo and Frank Zappa, and for electronic stuff, I'm really liking a couple tracks Gromov gave me, and Black Ham for Dubstep.
What kind of software n hardware do you use for playing and producing?
- I work mostly with FL Studio and Reaktor for producing. I'm so used to FL, it was one of the first programs I used and I like knowing where everything is and I can get the results I want pretty quickly, but I still find new little things all the time, so it keeps me interested. I use FL for sequencing but for nearly all my sounds I use Reaktor. I love the flexibility of it, the sound quality is awesome and the kinda stuff you can do with it just blows my mind. Im also using Soundforge for wave editing and occasionally I use Logic to master stuff a bit.
Live I'm using just Reaktor. The last few months I've been working on a new live set up. I'm also using a UC33 midi controller, midi keyboard, and an old Kaoss pad working like a 4 way X fader. There are still a few bugs to iron out, and I'm waiting for my new laptop to be fixed before I can start using it live, (my current one will crash very very quickly) but I'm really excited to get out playing with it in the new year.
The best liveset you have ever played.
- Hehehe, this is a difficult one. I played one last year with a few friends, a kinda 4 person live improvised thing. It was at a private mini festival, about 500 people. So much fun, we had glowsticks and all kinda stupid stuff going on. Really amazing fun. What makes a good gig for me is when you don't feel like you're performing as a DJ, but instead you're just part of the party. Everyone is dancing and having a great time.
What do you think about modern breakcore scene? Any interesting stuff you have heard recently?
- Again, a tough question. I'm probably not the best person to ask since I have a very small perspective of the breakcore scene. I've met quite a lot of people, some are nice, some not so nice. And been to a lot of partys, some good, some not so good. I think that the scene in the UK is very different from in Europe. I much prefer partys in Europe. There are a lot of drugs going on at parties in the UK which isnt really my kinda thing. I like parties in Europe because everyone is happier and they are there for the music and for fun, not just to get wasted. I dunno really...
I've heard quite a lot of cool stuff going round, the stuff that really gets me excited is normally stuff that has a lot of energy, and something which has some thought and purpose behind it.
I've heard a lot of things recently which is kinda breakcore by numbers, like, someones got themselves a kick drum, a crappy amen loop, some kinda ragga sample, mashed em all together and called it breakcore. There is a lot of this kinda stuff at the moment. The stuff that really excites me is the stuff where you can tell someone has spent a lot of time and effort trying to get everything just right, put a lot of thought into it.
One year ago russian label Allergy Records released your "Coronation Of A Cursed King". How did you meet Gromov and what can you tell about your interaction?
- I started talking with Gromov on myspace, he sent me a message asking me some stuff about production and we got talking. A while later I was looking to do some travelling, maybe some shows on the way so I asked him if he knew anyone in Russia who might be able to help. He just kinda ran with the idea! He organised me a few shows and also asked if I was interested in releasing some tunes on his label while I was there. He managed time to it so that we released the EP at a show in St Petersburg which was awesome fun! We've had a few shows since then, we did a couple together in the UK a few months ago and I was back in Russia in September for another show in St Petersburg. I hoping to get him back to the UK for some more gigs early next year!
Any releases coming out soon? What is your plan for the next few months?
- I've got quite a lot of stuff going on at the moment. I've been really busy trying to get stuff finished for a few different releases. I got approached by a couple labels late last year about doing a release so hopefully that will come through soon. Also a couple tracks for compilations, and Gromov and I have plans for a split EP in 2009. Aside from that, I'm working on some more chilled stuff for a net label release some time 2009. As for gigs. I'm gonna be taking it pretty easy for a few months. I had some major eye surgery recently so Ive got to stay put for a couple months. But after that I'm hoping to have a pretty busy year. I want to get over to Russia again in March/April time, and hopefully get Gromov over to UK in April as well. I think the time off will give me the chance to finish sorting out my live setup and getting all these tunes finished. Hopefully the rest of the year I can spend gigging and traveling and doing all the things I enjoy!
Do you know smth about Ukraine?
- Hehehe. I was lucky enough to go to Ukraine a few years ago to visit some friends in Kiev. I had an awesome time walking around all the underground shops, freezing my balls off in the middle of January! I was over there when the Orange revolution was happening which was a pretty crazy time. Loads of people all camped out in the central square in Kiev.
I think my favorite thing I saw was a little museum with all these miniature artworks , like a chessboard on the head of a pin, or a rose inside a human hair, all done by this one guy, pretty incredible! I'd love to go back sometime, maybe not in January though, too cold for me!
Last question: wtf is breakcore?
- Easy, erockaerb spelt backwards.
And final words to ukrainian breakcore massive.
- Hahaha, Well I'm writting this in December, so keep warm guys, all the best for the new year, I hope to be over there in 2009!
interview by Brutallo [brutallo.blogspot.com]
(c) 2008, breakcore.com.ua
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