This week’s interview & mix comes form The Fancy human Soundsystem.
Introduce yourself and tell us about the part of the UK you’re from?
Lucatwana – There’s two of us, Rob’s the tidy looking one, and Tom the hairy vegan… We hail from the muesli militant hippy town otherwise known as Brighton, but are now living in the big smoke… We met at music college 23 years ago. Which gives us both the fear ha.
Leigh – I’m the bald one, hailing from sunny Crewe in the North West, residing in London for the last 20 years. I’ve been involved in music all that time, either DJing, working at labels, or tinkering with music. I also ran Urban Torque for over 15 years, which is dormant for the time being, but still hangs around in the background.
Can you tell us a bit about what you’ve been working on recently?
Lucatwana – at the moment we’re focusing on productions for our Fancy Human imprint – that’s kinda been ruling the roost this year…
Leigh – Likewise, it’s all about my own productions at the moment for Fancy Human, and will continue for a good while yet, it’s nice to focus on our own little label! I got a Nord Lead 4 recently, so I’m probably going to be twiddling the knobs on that for the next few months.
And can you talk us through the mix?
Lucatwana – Traditionally Leigh mixes a deeper sound than us, whereas we tend to be a bit more all over the place – we wanted to represent a decent cross between us all to represent what floats our boats as it were…. For this mix we sat around and made the selections collectively before turning the decks on – was quite a nice way to work as it goes!
Leigh – Yeah, agree, was much fun making this mix together with the chaps, I do tend to gravitate to all things deep, and while this mix still is awash with those sounds, it certainly has more energy which the chaps bring to the table. I do still get a buzz out of playing our own records in mixes and them holding their own against producers we really respect. We transition from 117 BPM, up to around 122 so the groove intensifies as we bumble through.
Which British artists excite you?
Leigh: not the first track obviously, French to the max that one! Hidden Spheres is a relatively new artist on the marvelous Rhythm Section International, Bradley Zero’s ever on point Peckham based imprint, Tom is from Manchester and is really starting to make a name for himself, his latest release which this track is taken from is called ‘Well Well’, highly recommended. Harry Wolfman is another Brit on here, he’s been around a few years now, but he consistently delivers great releases. Adesse Versions is an alias of Kevin Gorman, a UK producer active since 2001, great new EP on Italian Toy Tonics label.
Nice, and talk us through some of your British DJ Heroes?
Lucatwana – We first got into dance music in the early 90’s and were fortunate to enjoy the djing skills of the wiggle boys, and have always doffed our caps to Terry, Nathan and Eddie…. They still know how to throw a party too. It’s hard not to mention Andrew Wetherall too as he’s brought us so much joy over the years. Currently we’re loving the Wolf Music gang – we love head honcho’s Matt and Stu for their sheer feel good disco and deep underground vibes, and the rest of the roster get a hats off too.
Leigh – Well, we’re do you start? Back in the early 90’s when club nights tendered to be more diverse in terms of different sounds in different rooms you tended to hear a lot of different music and styles. Andrew Wetherall is certainly someone I can agree with the chaps on, Ashley Beedle, Rocky & Diesel, the whole Junior Boys Own crew were big favs and still are. LTJ Bukem really got me in to Drum & Bass when I knew nothing about it, and I’d give props to Sasha & Digweed, I loved the melodic epic sound of that time, the true tech house sounds of the late 90’s through Terry Francis, Layo & Bushwacka, MR C etc, anything that was on at The End, the list goes on really. There’s a really great new producers coming through all the time, can’t vouch for their DJ skills, but they’re making some rather splendid music.
Great and what’s on the cards in the immediate future?
Lucatwana – A bit of djing here and there, and releases each month on Fancy Human – the next is Lucatwana’s “Taste It, Don’t Waste It” in September, and Leigh’s “There’s No Meat on Your Love” following in October.
And finally, where is the best place in the world you have performed and why?
Leigh – for me it was Cielo in New York, which I played at back in 2008, the small space, perfect sound system and booth were a joy to play on. Going back further, in the early days of Urban Torque at Heaven, I got to play every Friday night for 2 or 3 three years on the main floor, the vibe and energy in those days was great and I got to warm up for heroes like Dave Clarke, Carl Craig, Trevor Rockcliffe to name a handful. Sadly I never got to play at The End, which was always an ambition, I did play at AKA the bar above a handful of times, so close!
Lucatwana – yeah we can’t top that, so we’ll be quiet 😉