Flotilla is Alex Pilkington and Mark Tucker, the label bosses of Ho Hum records, and the latest artist to be profiled in the run-up to this year’s Alpha-ville Festival.
Not content with their already bulging work schedules, Flotilla – originally intended as a side-project – has suddenly grown. The launch of The Flotilla EP earlier this month saw glowing endorsements across the board, with particular love for lead track ‘Behave’ from BBC Radio 1′s Mary Anne Hobbs. Their tense, suspenseful take on electronica is conceived in the shadow of South East London but offers a alternative soundtrack to its murky beauty than the dubstep normally associated with the locale. Likewise, their podcast (available to listen to below) is equally difficult to nail down – being a heady trip through hip hop, ambient soundscapes, beat-driven electronica and a handful of other curios that float Flotilla’s boat, so to speak.
We caught up with Alex to brief us on what’s been going down in the Flotilla camp and tell us how a chance meeting with Neil Young is pretty much responsible for all of this in the first place.
Listen: Alpha-podcast presents Flotilla
Can you give a bit of background information? Who are Flotilla?
“Mark Tucker and I run Ho Hum records, which is an indie label launched in 2007, but we actually started it proper in 2008. I was signed at Universal Island with a project called Custom Blue [with Simon Shippey], we’d finished an album and started shopping around labels but weren’t really getting a response that we thought was tempting, so we figured we’d do a label ourselves.
“Flotilla was a bit of an after hours project that Mark and I would have, to relax from non stop acoustic writing and recording. When we started Ho Hum records we definitely wanted to do electronica as well as the more acoustic side of music so we had these tunes knocking about for ages, then a friend of mine cut it one on a dubplate, which is the lead track on the 10”, ‘Behave’. He said you’ve got to release it, so we did! Even though it was our label and it was a bit like…it’s all about us [laughs]. But at the same time we wanted to do it and so we put it out there. It’s going really well, it’s been on Radio 1 and people have really got into it.”
How did you and Mark meet ?
“Mark was working as an assistant engineer at a studio in West London and my girlfriend at the time was a receptionist. When I left school I wrote to every studio in London about four or five times and didn’t get anything, but my girlfriend needed job and wrote to a few places and gets a job at a studio, now I don’t really get that…Good job she did because I met Mark – as time goes by I probably think that was the best thing that particular ex-girlfriend ever did for me [laughs].”
Can you talk us through the podcast, did you have a specific goal in mind when you were putting it together?
“With Flotilla we love electronica, we also love ambience, and a bit of comedy really. I think it’s all there. You’ve got a John Hegley poem, you’ve got old friend and one of the very best producers out there Mark Pritchard, you’ve got the Formula which is really nice techno-y stuff, you’ve got Gonjasufi on Warp which is more beaty, you’ve got a J Dilla tune that doesn’t sound like anything you’ve heard J Dilla do, God rest his soul, and you’ve got a few ambiences on there. I think that does sum us up really. I love Godspeed You! Black Emperor as much as I love Ramadanman, as much as I love Appleblim, as much as I love Shadow. On the podcast I guess we tried to bring in an ambient side, some quite up moments but also some quite reflective, analogue-y electronica.
“My favourite electronica really is Global Communication, that and Derrick May, Carl Craig Detroit techno – that sort of side of things. Also some of the Wall of Sound stuff I really loved, Wagon Christ on Ninja Tune, that was an amazing project. There’s loads of bits, I won’t bore you for hours….We tried to as much as that as we can on the podcast, tried to get that vibe across.”
Was there a moment in your life when you knew you wanted to make music?
“I can’t speak for Mark, I think that Mark has always wanted to make music but he’s always been on the wrong side of the board really. When I was 20 one of my idols was Neil Young. I was working as a journalist at the time for the South London Press and I was made redundant, so I went over to America to work with some kids with special needs on a summer camp. One of my brothers has special needs and I wanted to know a bit more about it. It was a bit of a life changer to be honest, because we were so late in applying me and my girlfriend were sent to different places, I got California, just outside of San Francisco! Not only that, but I took a guitar, I’d been playing for a couple of years, just jamming after school with mates.
“Anyway, one of Neil Young’s kids Ben also suffers from special needs, and he and Peggy Young run a fabulous organisation called the Bridge School, and it just so happened that this year was the first year the Bridge School upped sticks and sent the kids away for a week – and they came to our camp! Luckily I’ve got a photo of it because no one believes me until they see this funny photo of me standing, looking very nervous with Mr fucking Neil Young! I had a guitar and we talked about it, and he said you just have to do it if you want to do it, and don’t stop. And when I got back I took his advice, I went to live with my mum again, I put a band together which was Custom Blue with Simon Shippey and five years later we were signed to Universal. So yeah, I listened to you Mr Young and still do!”
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