Interview with Cristoph

Congratulations on the album. We’re huge fans. It’s been on repeat in the office. And on the drive here! How did the album come about?

Basically the start of the year – about January – I was starting to fall out of the love with the industry as a whole. It was a really strange feeling. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. I had quite a turbulent year last year. My Dad passed away. He was my mentor in life. So that hit us hard. Harder than I realised. I spoke to Daley (HS82), and he mentioned a few things. We spoke to the Knee Deep In Sound crew, and they offered me this album. And it instantly gave me some focus. It gave me my passion for the industry again. I had a few ideas. I’d always wanted to write an album, but I didn’t think I was ready for what you would class as a full studio album. The idea behind it was still to be a bit more dancefloor led. But not peak time bangers kind of thing! My idea was to structure it how I’d structure a set. So it would go on a journey.

It is certainly that!

I try not to stick in one genre too long when I play, and that’s what I wanted the tracks to do. Both individually, and when you combine them together in the mix. And it went from there. They offered it, and I basically accepted it within the conversation; went home, told them my idea, and they were like: crack on with it! It went from nought to a hundred in like a couple of hours, really!

This is set to be the first in a series of albums, right? Did that add any pressure to the creative process? Being the first to take the reins.

To be honest when they offered it, I don’t think they had thought too much about the series concept. I never, never ever think what other people are doing, or what the label’s plans are. I’m myself, and I’ve got to get my story across. Get my music into people’s ears. And, I’ve got goals and targets which I’ve set myself, and that’s what I focus on. I don’t focus on what or who could be next. Or anything like that. I mean, it’s an absolute honour to be given the chance to write the first album. So it was pressure that way. But it was a nice type of pressure. It was nice to have, because to have someone like Hot Since 82 have belief in you is a big thing. It’s surreal. He’s someone who I look up to. Who I’ve looked up to for a fair few years now. Do you know what I mean? It’s perfect.

KDIS is certainly a label you’re synonymous with after several releases. Did you take a different approach with making the album as opposed to when you’re making a track?

It was kind of. When you write an E.P., you tend to do a theme over two or three tracks. Or you’ll just write some singles and you’ll think, yeah, a few of them could be tied-up. Even some labels you’ll give a bunch of tracks and they’ll chose three, four, five or whatever from that bunch. It just totally depends. I don’t think I have a way I specifically write an E.P.

So is that to say they gave you more of a free reign?

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. There was two tracks in there – ‘Closer’ & ‘Alone’ – which I had already sent to Daley. We’d been speaking about writing a bit more downtempo music over emails and texts, things like that. And I said I’d done a few tracks with cool vocals, and I sent them across. And they instantly wanted them. This was before 8-track was even mentioned. It was like last year I think. He even played ‘Alone’ at his ENTER. show at ADE last year – it was around then. So instantly they wanted those two tracks on the album. I had written ‘Catsy’ – the end track – and didn’t know what to do with it, with it being a bit more of a euphoric track. But when I was playing it in sets, it was going off! And everybody was messaging asking “what is this track?!” Videos of it were getting posted online. So that left five. So I structured a set in my head, and wrote those style tracks for that area of the mix.

For us a testament to great music is when you hear it for the first time in a sober state, and your serotonin starts firing – and that’s what happened when we first heard this mix! It’s full of peaks and troughs.

Yeah! Absolutely.