Daniel Avery: Pure Grooves

It’s interesting you talk about mixtapes. As the death of the cassette is something I feel very passionately about. Not for the format but rather the culture behind it disappearing. The whole drag and drop mix CD culture doesn’t sit very easily with me. When you had to make something on cassette, the amount of effort that was required to craft a mixtape meant you didn’t put on any tracks you didn’t genuinely love.

That’s a very good point. It’s exactly that mentality that I try to stick to now in everything I do.  At this time with electronic music becoming so huge and having crowds that are becoming so much bigger there is always questions that are asked like “Why don’t you wanna play in Vegas?” or “Why don’t you wanna do that thing?” and the answer is that I’d have to dilute what I love doing too much. Going back to Andrew Weatherall, I think that is the stance we should all take – just play records that you love. Anything that doesn’t interest you at all is cool to disregard.

It’s  also been interesting that when doing promo for my album I noticed that some members of the press and PR companies assume that making a DJ mix can be done in like 10 minutes. “Can you do a mix for these guys?”  Then I have to explain that I’ve just spent a month making a mix, fine tuning it until I’m super happy with it.

I remember you did a podcast for us which we all greatly enjoyed…

I did! But they take time. You’ve got to go and seek out records that are interesting as you don’t want to be playing the same records as everybody else. You’ve then got to know those records inside out and then work out which sounds go with each other and how it flows and what it’s going to represent in the mix whilst the mix itself has the really represent something. It’s a big process and very much like the mixtapes you were talking about just now.

Or at least it should be…

It definitely should be. I genuinely believe that.  So to answer your point I do think it is sad that genuine mixtapes are dying out but I hope there are still enough people who realize the value in someone’s heartfelt selection. They shouldn’t be throwaway and they should have a meaning behind them.

I do think that’s become a bigger problem within the scene in the digital age in that a lot of music does feel very throw away in nature. Even certain movements, if you take Dubstep for example,  the way a lot of the music within that scene has been discarded by people who literally  couldn’t get enough of it only a shortwhile ago seems to be a worrying trend for the industry in my opinion.

Yeah, it’s funny how quickly things can move isn’t it? I do think there is a lot of disposable music out there and I think it is down to the producers themselves a lot of the time. If you make tracks that are just there as “here’s a huge drop that will make everyone go crazy for a couple of seconds” and that is all the track is or a DJ who plays an hour long set that is just drop after drop after drop with nothing in between then what do they expect to happen? It will be short lived as that is what it is; a short burst of excitement. A short adrenaline rush which ends and then you come down. It’s over. In a lot of ways I think if that is the sort of music you make or play or push then you can’t be surprised when people get bored of it but I’m not going to bad mouth anyone and good luck to people doing whatever they want to do. These days anyone can be a DJ and I really believe that to be more true than ever.

For sure. I have a very socialist outlook on software and access to being able to make music but do worry about the level of quality control or lack thereof being enforced by emerging producers on themselves.

Me too. But as with so many things barriers being removed is going to create hacks, short-termist people looking to make a fast buck.  For me it’s all about believing in it. I feel very fortunate to do what I do, to be able to share music on such a scale and play amazing clubs like fabric and I feel if you don’t feel fortunate to be doing what you’re doing then you probably shouldn’t be doing it. You need to be honest with yourself – ask does this sound amazing to my ears? If you truly believe it does then go for it and sometimes that can take a while. A few times I’ve played a track that has bombed because it wasn’t the right time or climate that has then gone on to come good when I’ve persevered with it  because if it’s good then people will come to it. Or the right people will come to it. Eventually!

Continued on page 4

DTPodcast 214: Daniel Avery by Data Transmission on Mixcloud