A sides is no stranger within Drum & Bass.
Beginning back in 1992 with his own releases & setting up Eastside records with Ola, we’ve seen & heard how versatile his releases are.
A sides has a long history within music & M_A wanted you guys to have an insight into his music career.
A sides you’re known to be a veteran within the music industry.
What’s your opinion on this status that you’ve been given on social media?
It’s a strange one as I’m still active within the music industry but I mean can you really apply the term veteran to someone who is still active? any how i’ll take it as a compliment :)
Lets chat about the history of your production and record label…
Going back to 1991, can you count how many releases you’ve had?
Looking back its way over 550 but then you’ve got to take into account all the remixes, compilations, all the engineering I’ve done which i never got credit for which never had my name on those releases & only got paid an engineering fee but overall we are looking at 600 plus figure which includes non D&B.
Production wise I started messing around way before 1991 purchasing a multitrack the recorder and my first set of SL 1210’s at the age of 15 with my wages from a milk round
Thank’s for being guarantor Mum x
Tell us about your transition from Hardcore to D&B?
Originally i came from Old School Electro and Hip Hop to Hip House to Hardcore then over to all genres of Drum & Bass.
Music then & music now?
A lot has changed within music I have made tempo wise from the early days.
starting at round 122BPM & now working at around 175BPM but Drum & Bass music still remains fresh and innovative and groundbreaking which is great and production skills are second to none.
I do feel the D&B is misrepresented commercially to the masses because what people are hearing in the mainstream is very watered down and isn’t real Drum & Bass. People need to dig deeper and find the real side of D&B, what it really is!
So going on from that.
Do you think having D&B compilations in high street stores like HMV can help educate?
I haven’t really paid it much attention but I think compilations can help if they are compiled well and contain a mixture of commercial and more underground Drum & Bass.
D&B Releases?
From my current experiences i feel that the industry is changing when it comes to releasing music.
I am always thinking of ways to restructure how i release my music in the future.
Labels are starting to see more income from streaming from places like Spotify etc and are also setting up their own stores i.e Bandcamp to sell their product direct.
Vinyl is becoming more of a collectors market now.
I see a lot of labels using crowd funding through sites such as Qrates to do limited vinyl presses and it can be profitable on limited presses if it’s set up correctly.
I think most people who buy vinyl nowadays are either serious collectors or people who appreciate the art side, the cover and they like to read the sleeve notes and sit at home and just play a record on 1 turntable.
They are not worried about how loud it is any more as you can have your loud digital version if you are a DJ.
RIP Loudness war!
Quart Sector releases?
My idea was to have the Quart LP released as 5 individual digital EP’s / Sectors over a period of 5 months and then release the whole album and some exclusive bonus content as a single package in the new year along with crowd funded vinyl releases, something special.
I feel a lot of albums get overlooked nowadays because there are so many tracks on them and people tend to forget about them very quickly especially if there are a lot of albums coming out in a short period of time so to release as 5 parts helps to prolong the life of the music and also prolong my publicity as an artist.
Your views on Quantity & Quality of releases?
Nowadays you don’t have to outlay much money to get a release out there in a digital format so really you can do what you want to musically which can be a good or a bad thing so labels can be more risky about what they release as they don’t have to pay large amounts of money on vinyl manufacturing.
Every label is different though some will have less releases but better quality and others will have more releases with less quality.
Swings and roundabouts but the label that releases the better quality would hopefully shine through!
Record Labels, your thoughts on them at present?
Some are good and some are bad :)
If you are keeping it real and in it for the right reasons then i salute you!
What’s your opinion on production, the track length times becoming shorter?
Production is great and just always seems to get better and better as technology evolves.
It doesn’t matter to me about track lengths I can roll them out in the mix either way as DJ on Serato, I don’t mind a 3 or 4 minute tune but I do agree a lot of song lengths are getting shorter.
Part of me thinks with the track being shorter it makes it more radio friendly especially commercially but it can also make a song sound more interesting if things are happening quicker but for me sometimes i love a track that just rolls out too.
A sides, you’re also known to be a global Dj.
Are there any countries you haven’t played at an event?
I haven’t been to India, Indonesia, Bali,Turkey, Vietnam, Venezuela, Peru, Chile, Egypt, Ukraine, Malaysia etc but I think I have played in more countries than I haven’t lol.
So do you think that’s due to lack of D&B knowledge or event promoters?
Some countries have very small scenes if any so I may never get to play those ones.
I also feel a good established agent always helps but I do a lot of my own bookings direct, I also wish i got more love from UK promoters like I do from other countries but got to say thanks to promoters like Innersoul, Launch and Soul In Motion who have shown me great support in the UK.
Do you think events are looking all the same lately, not much variation on line ups?
I don’t really venture out to a lot of nights so it’s hard to say but I prefer the more underground events where promoters book a varied line up and keep it quality.
Label nights can all be the same but it depends on the label roster and how often they do that label night in the same city.
My ideal night is to have several rooms all playing different styles of music.
Forthcoming events, tours, projects end of this year & 2017?
I think I’m in Cardiff on 2nd December and then off to the USA over Xmas and New Year before heading straight to New Zealand from early Jan till April for the Sun And Bass tour.
Project wise I’m looking to get in the studio in New Zealand with Nathan Haines to work on new Sci-Clone projects for Metalheadz and hopefully before i leave the UK a collaboration with Serum. The Quart project is now a wrap for me so its time to move on to the next episodes!
Well it’s been a pleasure asking you these Questions.
Thanks for letting us interview you.
To get up to date news on forthcoming releases from A sides click these links.
www.facebook.com/pages/djasides
Also Quart Sector 4 release is out this Friday…
Check it out.
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