UK house cohorts Doc Daneeka and Benjamin Damage have teamed up for a collaborative album, They! Live, on Modeselektor’s 50 Weapons label.

Both Daneeka and Damage hail originally from Swansea, though Damage first made his name as a producer and DJ while based in London, collaborating with DJ Venom. Daneeka remained in Swansea until the recording of the pair’s album in Berlin this Autumn, releasing singles on labels like PTN while also managing his own label Ten Thousand Yen, which has released music by Julio Bashmore, XXXY and, appropriately enough, Venom & Damage.

As FACT found out while speaking to the pair over email, releasing an album together couldn’t have been more natural – they’ve have known each other for over 10 years, and balance out each others “personal deficiencies” pretty nicely.


The first collaboration between you two came out this year, but you’re both from Swansea. Did you know each other before?

Doc Daneeka: “Yeah, as it goes. Ben and his brother taught me how to use Logic and everything else, so we’ve known each other for easily over 10 years”.

At what point did you decide you’d collaborate on an album rather than just singles? Was it an offer from Modeselektor, or a decision you two made to pursue that path?

Benjamin Damage: “After doing the single we were really excited by the direction we were going and thought it would be good to have an album with that same mood. When we talked to Modeselektor about doing an album for them, it was an easy decision”.

What do you think it is that makes you work well together? Doing a whole album must inevitably be testing, in some way.

BD: “It was a huge test. We only had 10 weeks to complete the whole thing from scratch, we were in Modeselektor’s amazing studio with nothing but a mastering date we had to finish everything by. The guys were amazing though, they are such genuine people, I can’t speak highly enough of them and everyone at the label”.

DD: “It works out pretty well. I think we both explore different aspects of production – I’m more sample and rhythm based and Ben is more tech and synth based, so we kinda balance out our personal deficiencies”.

How was it recording the album in Berlin?

DD: “We’re both staying, put it that way…”

What’s the significance of the They! Live title?

BD: “It’s one of the influences we had making the album. There are quite a few films we were watching that got us into a certain mental state which I think comes through all the tracks on there”.

The album features several vocal appearances from Abigail Wyles. How did that come about, and did you always want the album to feature a prominent vocalist?

DD: “I have been working with Abi all year on various things – one will be a solo single coming early next year too on TTY – but pretty much on the day we decided to do the album we figured we wanted her on it, she just has the right tone for what we wanted to work with. I also think the aesthetic choice to have her feature so heavily is it helps deliver a consistent theme”.

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