This week’s interview & mix comes from Russ Yallop.
Introduce yourself and tell us about the part of the UK you’re from?
I’m Russ Yallop and am originally from Brighton, but live in London now.
Can you tell us a bit about what you’ve been working on recently?
I’ve just finished working on an album project for Avotre, the second in the House Lessons series, full of new original tracks by myself as well as some great remixes by others. Now it’s all done I have had a bIt of a break and am now working on some new EP and collabs.
And can you talk us through the mix?
I made the mix in Ableton. I like to really chop up tracks when I make a mix so that you have full control of how it flows, snip a bit here and there, maybe use a loop from another part of the track, enables a much better end composition. As for the music it’s really a mixture of all the styles I’m listening to and playing at the moment, from eclectic lush chordy beats at the start, to more driving stuff in the middle.
Nice, talk us through the British music featured in this mix? Which British artists are you most excited about?
The British mini-mix I did for The Selector is rapid flash through what you can hear in the British scene at the moment (You can listen to that mix here). Last year an artist called Ben Grunnell made a stamp on the scene with intricate call-response groovy tracks that were some of my favourites last year, he features in this mix.
Cool, tell us about some of your British DJ heroes?
I suppose Jamie Jones and Damian Lazarus, both were instrumental in the start of my career but also played a big part in influencing the music I would go on to make and play.
Great and what’s on the cards in the immediate future?
I’m doing an album tour throughout March and April where I’ll be playing shows to promote the House Lessons album and then after that getting in some valuable studio time before the summer starts!
And finally, where is the best place in the world you have performed and why?
It’s a boring answer but it has to be Ibiza, as nowhere can compete with the scale and quality of the clubs combined with the attitude of the free-from-work-for-a-week crowd that inhabits them.