This weeks interview & mix comes from Speakman Sound
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Introduce yourself and tell us about the part of the UK you’re from?
Hi we are the Speakman brothers, Todd and Guy of Speakman Sound. We are Currently London based but we grew up in Glastonbury, Somerset, home of mysticism, The Tor, the festival and the resting place of King Arthur…
Can you tell us a bit about what you’ve been working on recently?
We have been busy writing lots of new material to build our catalogue for new upcoming releases. We are doing this in amongst lots of other types of work, not least of all composing for several films and mentoring and offering work experience for ex young offenders at our studio.
And can you talk us through the mix?
We didn’t have a huge amount of time to put the mix together, however we really wanted to try and represent the collective we feel a part of with artists such as Georgia Mason but also the other circles co-existing and growing in London. We feel that there is a real exciting sound developing in London, We are living through a fascinating time with segregation, isolation, disenchantment etc etc etc is ripe all around, unfortunate and horrific this all is but it is through these sort of times that great art can be developed, people have things to say, social commentary must happen, art can become a great documentation of time. Throughout the whole mix we have tried to show different modern perspectives through choosing music of different cultures, from hip hop, to world influenced to singer songwriter etc.
Nice, give us a taste of some of your favourite British artists at the moment?
I will pick 3 of the artists we featured:
Georgia Mason, who we feature a lot on our music is a dear friend and has a fantastic voice! From the first time we heard it we knew it had a unique timbre that would marry harmoniously with our sound. Her own stuff is really interesting and all though she has a lot of colabs with her writing we can assure you she is a fantastic writer on her todd.
Benjiman Clemintine – I (Todd) found Benjamin by accident when searching for Benjamin Britain on Spotify. I just fell in love with his voice, it is like a young, modern, male Nina Samoan if she was from South London.
Jon Hopkins – A fantastic Talent and his new album ‘We Disappear’, blew me away. Very much a enter the void type album.
Cool, tell us about some of your British DJ Heroes and influences in general?
Four Tet – if you have not experienced a set from Four Tet get out and prepare for a sonic journey across the world!
And what’s on the cards in the immediate future?
We hope to build a larger catalogue of tunes and release a new EP early on in the New Year. We also will be going live after Christmas which we are really excited about.
And finally, where is the best place in the world you have DJ’d and why?
We do not yet DJ, however as a performer I (Todd) has really enjoyed gigging in Switzerland. A city called Rheinfall. I was really well treated and the waterfall there is incredible, thawed water straight from the ALPS.