This week’s interview & mix comes from The Invisible.
Introduce yourself and tell us about the part of the UK you’re from?
I’m Dave Okumu from The Invisible and I’m a musician and producer and writer based in London. I’ve lived here for a number of years now.
Can you tell us a bit about what you’ve been working on recently?
This year has been a really kind of rich and fruitful year. The third Invisible record came out in June, which was the first one which was fully self-produced so yeah, I’ve been working on that pretty hard, right up until release. I also had a project earlier on in the year, which was a Gill Scott Heron retrospective I was lucky enough to be musical director for. I’ve also been reconnecting with many of the artists I have worked with previously; Jessie Ware and Rosie Lowe and also meeting new artists every week in the capacity of a writer, producer or collaborator. So yeah, it’s been a busy year so far.
And can you talk us through the mix?
I guess I saw the mix as an opportunity to shine a light on music which I love really, which is what I try and do when I DJ and whenever I have the opportunity to share music. It was great to be kind of looking at that from a British perspective because I feel like there’s so much incredible music being made in this country all of the time. I suppose there’s a part of me that does relish the opportunity to cast a light on the buried treasure because I think there are people doing things that a lot of time people aren’t aware of, which is influencing and shaping other areas of culture. I love basically sharing music that’s really inspired me and a lot of comes from my peers and people around me and that really excites me as well.
Which British artists excite you?
There’s many, a lot of them are in this mix. I think Gwilym Gold is an absolute unsung hero and national treasure, same with Darkstar actually. I put a rework of theirs from our album in which I actually prefer to mine! And Jamie Woon, that record Making Time just really blew my mind, I think that’s an absolutely timeless record. I also put Radiohead on there, they’re a band who have been an enormous influence on me and hugely, hugely inspiring and it just amazes me that they still continue to make such great work having made so many great albums. I put Rosie on there as well, who is one of my best friends and she lives locally to me and it’s really wonderful to live in a community of creatives. Rosie, to me, is one of our country’s great songwriters so I absolutely love her songwriting. Then there’s Eska, without her, the landscape of British music would be completely different. I think it’d be a lot worse and I don’t think it’s widely known how much she has influenced musical culture in this country. I wouldn’t be making the music I make without her influence.
Nice, and talk us through some of your British DJ Heroes?
My heroes are people around me, any opportunity to hear Mica Levi DJ is fantastic. I guess going back a little way to when I was a teenager, I guess I’d go and see Gilles Peterson a lot and you know, I still think he’s doing fantastic stuff. I love people who have broad tastes and where it doesn’t feel like there’s any genre barriers or anything like that in place, where music is celebrated in a really holistic and free way. So I’m really drawn to people like Gilles and Benji B and Joe Hot Chip. Obviously there are the national heroes with Rodigan but yeah, the people around me have always been my greatest inspiration.
Great and what’s on the cards in the immediate future?
I’m basically about to go on tour with The Invisible, so we’re just easing into doing live shows and festivals over the summer then we’re touring in the autumn so I’m just really looking forward to clearing the decks and kind of getting stuck into that. There’s always creating and writing and production simmering away but really my eyes are trained on the live show and that’s what I’m thinking about all the time at the moment. So I’m very much looking forward to getting out on the road in September.
And finally, where is the best place in the world you have performed and why?
Sometimes the places that are best on paper don’t turn out to be the most memorable gigs. I was thinking about the last DJ set I enjoyed because I DJed at a new festival in Croatia recently and I was DJing in this amphitheatre that was built by scouts, under the stars with the sea next to me and that was really magical and there weren’t many people there but I was having an absolute ball. Equally I DJed in The Bunker in Deptford which was this grimy little bar and I had such a good time I had backache for about 4 days afterwards. So in one sense I don’t hold onto one particular place, it’s just about the moment, giving it everything you can and enjoying every performance.