We have been speaking to Graymatter over the last couple of months and have managed to get a mini GET SOME interview with him! He is a favourite of ours here and is definitely one to watch this year and from what I have heard from his new album, Mind Over Matter, he is bound to blow. We have also managed to book him for our June event at the Gramaphone so look out for that one… Greymatter is not only a great producer but he has some very interesting views on the music industry and sounds like he has his head screwed on. The album was released on CD on Monday and Digital version is available as of tomorrow, be sure to get your self a copy. Check out the interview below.
PEACE
GREYMATTER INTERVIEW
Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Graham. I spend all of my time working on music in one form or another.
Where are you currently based?
South London
When did you first get involved with music and what were you doing?
Been buying and listening for as long as I can remember. Dance music started with commercial dance when I was 11 or 12 – ‘Now’ compilations, Dance Mania etc. I liked piano breakdowns, particularly fast ones, dirty I know. That led me to hardcore and jungle around 1993/4 onto happy hardcore then trance funky house big beat electronica all forms of soul and jazz Brazilian African over 15 years….. now literally anything gets a run. I went through a stage of listening to music I didn’t like just to create reference points and a fuller musical landscape – knowing what something sounds like has
always been more important to me than knowing the name of the artist/track/label.
Started messing with DJing at 15 after a moment of clarity whilst listening to a United Dance 1 compilation I think; realising it was two records playing at the same time was pretty special. Went straight out and bought a 12”, modded a broken turntable I found in my loft and mixed to radio for a few months until I got some belt drives. The rest was step by step.
I grew up in Maidstone, which had a lot to offer in terms of dance music at the time – Club Class was rammed every Friday and live on Radio 1 a fair bit. There were also some good hip hop and drum and bass sessions around town. The big events were at Atomics, which was a 1000 capacity square room, face the front, elevated booth, big system. Influence wise that place is second only to Plastic People for me, it used to go off. We also had a couple of good record shops and there were a lot of raves in and around Kent so there was a decent scene.
How has the music industry changed since you first got involved? In your opinion, has the online revolution has a positive effect on what you do and the music industry?
Big question, too big to answer properly here. Changes have been enormous – some for the good eg access to music, access to production software, discoverability of music. Some for the bad eg falling sales, falling publishing income, the increased speed at which scenes are born and die, less time given to attention given to individual tracks, increased hype level.
The whole game has flipped. There is no longer one answer to surviving in the music industry – you have to know your market inside out. And theyr’e all different.
Do you find there to be a prejudice against DJ’s who use MP3′s and is software like Ableton Live bridging the gap?
I think there is yes, but people are going to have to get used to it. Personally I have always embraced new technology – I use everything be it Ableton, Serato, CD or vinyl. What comes out the speakers is the most important thing for me.
I do have issues with people playing low quality audio though. I recently heard about a night in Portsmouth that only allows music downloaded from blogs for example… I don’t have all the details but i’m guessing its a proper ear basher.
What can we expect form Greymatter in 2010?
Second album, a few collaborations and remixes, a jazz project, some techno, more on Wolf Music and a live show
If your career in music was to end tomorrow, what would you do instead?
Carpenter
Who should we be watching in 2010?
New stuff from Mark Pritchard as Afrika Hi Tek is BAD, Illum Sphere, KRL, Klic, Throwing Snow, Blue Daisy, VVV, Wolf Music, Subeena, Sampha, Americen Men
And finally, please complete the following sentence…
I badly need some at the moment so its definitely….
GET SOME… sleep
BUY MIND OVER MATTER HERE!
