To what extent do you mix samples and synths? How do you go about it?

“It’s done with computers, but I’ll sample a synth break, rather than a drum break, where there’s just a chord on its own, and then take that out, load it into the sampler, and have it as its own key. That goes back to the hardcore thing, a lot of the rave tracks, they’d sample one chord, and then make a melody out of it. It sounds wicked, and kind of weird. Then I layer it up with my own synths, make it hard to identify, try to mask it, basically.”

How did you hook up with Werk Discs?

“I finished Lemurian, and after that, I sent a couple of tracks to Darren Cunningham [aka Actress, co-owner of Werk Discs], and he said he’d be up for doing a 12” or a 7”, without any talk of an album. We kept in contact and I was sending him tracks that whole time, and it turned into doing an album.”

Who are some of your all-time favourite artists?

“Aphex Twin was one of the first people I got into after the rave stuff. His approach sounded quite wrong, it sounded like someone in their bedroom. That blew me away and revolutionised it a bit for me I think. I got into hip-hop a bit later, Wu Tang, De La Soul, Madlib, and all that kind of thing.”

Do you see your music as being rooted in hip-hop or something separate?

“Primarily, that’s what it is. I’m going to try as many styles as possible, but I’ll always produce in the way that I like to hear a hip-hop track produced. I keep that with me, I guess.”

When Lemurian dropped, people weren’t ready for that sound, but it’s a different musical landscape now. Do you feel an affinity with other electrofunk/ wonky hip-hop producers like Dam-Funk, Hudson Mohawke, Samiyam?

“Totally, Samiyam in particular, when I heard his stuff it was like, ‘shit, he’s doing exactly what I want my stuff to sound like’. In other words, really raw and woozy. I love all that stuff, Dam-Funk and Hudson are amazing, but I kind of want to get away from that stuff now, there’s so many people doing it. The new people seem kind of influenced by Flying Lotus, whereas for me, it was Wu Tang or Madlib, they’re the originators.”

It seems to be the case now that producers are making one style, and then moving onto something different to avoid being pigeonholed…

”It’s really exciting I think, there are a lot of people in the same frame of mind that I am. From here it could go literally anywhere. This year will be wicked, to see how people change.”

What’s next on the Lone agenda?

“I’ll be keeping the Lone name, whatever kind of style I do sounds like me now. I’ve got a couple of tracks, which I think are going to come out on Werk, kind of Detroit house tunes. Hopefully in the early part of this year.”

Ben Murphy

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 12:36 pm and is filed under Features, New talent and tagged with Lone, Werk Discs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.