Inkswel: Soul Connections

Yeah completely makes sense to me. Why do you like to work with vocalists so much?

Music. First and foremost, it’s about music to me. And I guess carrying on from your previous question, I got a bit bored of the straight up hip hop formula, beats, raps, cuts, rinse and repeat so to speak. I find a similar boredom with house also, not to say things can’t be simple, I love simplicity. I just think if the track is simple, bring a musical element, bring a vocalist or musician, make it soulful you know? 

More than anything though I just like the vibration and energy you get from someone else’s take on something, I think collaboration is a really powerful force and tool, and I just want to share and create interesting different music with interesting different people, friends or those far away. I think its a perception thing, everyone hears something differently, they perceive different things, patterns, structures, fabrics, movements, sounds etcetera. So I really think this is the starting point of creativity and originality. You look at music these days, you can say its all been done before in terms of genres and technicalities, if you break it down, but the truth is, that isn’t not true at all, because every single thing is slightly or incredibly different and this really keeps everyone interested. The honesty I guess.

Cool, that’s a nice way of looking at things. Were there any producers who inspired the vocalist element much in your style? And whose been the most interesting vocalist you’ve worked with?

I think Roy Ayers definitely centres a lot of his music around the vocalist, and I guess all his music is written or presented in an emotive fashion, so that’s the kind of thing that sticks in my mind. I guess also 80s soul, funk or boogie- whatever title you give the post disco thing, has a heavy vocal concentration, I guess at the time it was the futuristic sort of R’N’B. People have always wanted to hear love songs pretty much, so that always works. Beyond that, pre hip hop I was really absorbing the broken beat and the early mid tempo house stuff in the late 90s and early 2000s, so stuff like Bugs In The Attic and Red Nose District definitely influenced me a lot, and they always worked with interesting vocalists.

Best vocalists I’ve worked with? Ummm that varies I guess, everyone really brings their flavour so its hard to pin point. I really loved working with Chico Mann on the Firecracker release, he can really flip things creatively, he brings a definite style with him which has its constraints sound wise, but he manipulates that style so creatively that its very original given its context. I also really enjoyed working with Paul Randolph purely because he is so professional and talented to boot! Big fan of his work over the years.

Yeah fair enough. I’ve heard your a bit of a drum machine enthusiast, what’s your favourite bit of kit? 

Yeah big lover of my gear. Always on the quest for more, wish I had more but the constraints of money I guess are always a problem! Currently playing with the Yamaha GY series a lot, the 10 being my current little favourite, cheap Lo-Fi goodness!

What do you think about Roland announcing they will start producing the classic 808?

I’m not too sure really. I heard about it like everyone else, but it doesn’t really get me that excited, I’m not against the idea, if something is good, it’s good, simple, whether old or new. There’s plenty of new gear that I’m into, but just like everyone else influenced by the past, I do love the older gear, the original 808 is such an irreplaceable machine, so it’s a hard one. Major factor for me is I doubt it’s going to be much cheaper than the OG anyway, but I guess we all can pray Roland prove us wrong! I’m a bit over the nerdy gear thing to be honest, a lot of it seems to be about bragging writes thing these days, I know dudes that make really dope music on Ableton and Fruity Loops, and then I know dudes that make amazing music on Analog and vintage digital hardware, but I also see a lot of people doing the opposite. I think it’s about the final product first and foremost

There are also hundreds of ‘shitty’ bits of vintage hardware out there that no one even bothers to use that are amazing purely because of their flaws or constraints. It’s the way you use things!

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