if you aren’t familiar with furesshu‘s excellent work to date, read this review of his upcoming ep for one-to-watch label, project squared, for a bit of background. if you are familiar with his (roughly) berghain aligned techno sound, read on for an insight from the man himself…
where did you grow up and what music you grow up around?
i grew up just north of brighton. most of the music i was influenced by came from my older brother who played garage and drum & bass. my dad had a big impact on me musically aswell, he collected a lot of music and would play stuff like massive attack in the car.
when and how did you first come to hear electronic music? can you remember why you liked it?
my brother started learning to produce music on reason. until this point it wasn’t obvious to me that music could be electronically created. the idea really excited me and stuck in my mind.
are those early musical references of any consequence on you as an artist/person/dj now?
yes definitely, i think if i didn’t have them i probably wouldn’t be doing it at all now. even if the experiences were quite naive i think it was really important for me to have them at a young age. i feel it was also important for me to listen to different genres of music and understand what i liked about music to define my taste and myself musically.
when did you start djing/producing and how long was it until you were happy with your stuff and started sending it out? and why ‘furesshu’?
i first started to mix on my brothers turntables from the age of 12 or 13. i eventually acquired them from him but unfortunately they broke a year or two later and i didn’t replace them until i went to uni. promoting the seasonfive night got me back in to it, and soon after i picked up djing again i was producing as well. for the first few tracks i made i shared them with friends but after a couple months i started sending my music out with their encouragement which resulted in it being well received. i was interested in japanese culture a while back and adopted the name furesshu consequently.
tell us about your parties in bristol… what experience/insight have they afforded you ? have they had an impact on you as a producer or?
will (orca recordings) and i started to promote seasonfive. initially it was just for a bit of fun and because we shared the same love for the music. as the night gained success we started taking it more seriously and becoming more inventive with our bookings by bringing artists from outside of bristol, with many coming to bristol for the first time. i made some really special relationships there particularly with will & dave (hyetal). promoting seasonfive helped me to develop my own taste in music and it encouraged me to start producing and djing more seriously.
in a city famed for primarily its dubstep/bass music, i wonder how you came to techno?
promoting, producing and djing dubstep definitely helped me to discover techno. i always like the more techno sounding style anyway and i remember hearing the odd claro intellecto track on mary anne hobbs show and ben klock’s guest mix. the first and most defined experience thought was flipping over a scuba record and hearing marcel dettmann’s remix of ‘from within’.
anyway, i now understand you’re moving to hamburg… home of dial and diynamic among others… what’s brought that about and why make the move? you off on a serious house flex?
not quite, i’ve been wanting to live abroad for a while now and have been keen on germany due to music and design influences. initially i thought berlin because of the music scene there. however having given it some thought i decided i’d go to hamburg instead and try something different. i also have a good friend living there and i met a fantastic group of people whilst playing at tone division last year. i am hoping the move will give me a fresh sense of direction both musically and for life itself.
did you not fancy trying to start a new techno empire in brizzle?! what do you hope will be the advantages of a move?
i did think about it but the reason why i stopped doing seasonfive was partly to concentrate on music on a more personal level. despite this i think i would have thrown some parties anyway as i enjoy it, but ultimately it came down to being unhappy about the current spaces in bristol and i wasn’t in the financial position to start a d.i.y style warehouse event.
parallels with berghain style stuff, ostgut, ben klock etc seem obvious – is that fair? is that a vibe you’re interested in? how did you come to that?
i think that at the moment a lot of house and techno music has the ostgut ton/panarama bar/berghain affiliation due to the media surrounding the scene, there is also a rather diverse and extensive range of artists who are playing at the venue, or are supported by the residents playing their music. it’s easier to label in that way then give individual credit to other labels/artists/djs because it has a lot of attention surrounding it and has become the epicentre for that style of music.
what is it about their music/the music you make that interests you? anything in particular like an aesthetic, emotion, repetition or…
the groove between 125-130bpm interests me a lot. i like experimenting with this tempo working to re-create and capture moods of current and past musical experiences. i’m also heavily influenced by areas outside of music like design, film and astronomy. i feel the music that i buy & play reflects this to a certain extent as well.
have you been to the place? how was it? i think it seems a bit extreme for me… tales of fisting on the dancefloor etc…
yer i have been several times over the past few years, most recently for the funf release party. it’s great, it’s the most impressive venue i’ve ever been to, the building is incredible along with the sound-system and dj program. i tend to find myself spending more time in panoramabar now though; the vibe is a bit more social and intimate. yer a lot of the crazy stuff about berghain is probably true, i’ve unavoidably witnessed a couple dodgy things and heard stories from friends but it’s no reason to be put off going.
there seems to more of a brush with house on your latest ep – what influenced that? or what influences you generally?
it changes, but i often go back to music i used to listen to for inspiration. i was listening to a lot of old jungle like source direct, photek, ltj bukem and releases on moving shadow at the time i wrote the tracks for the “lucid ep”. the tracks are a result of those influences but put together in different styles, resulting in ‘all i want’ having more of a house influenced up front dance floor style than ‘lucid’.
is this a full time thing for you and, either way, what do you do day to day, outside of music?
i’d like to get to a stage where music can become part of my income, but i think its unhealthy to rely on it as a main financial source. outside of music i work freelance as a graphic designer and recently i have been working on the artwork for hyetal’s debut album.
what have you got coming up? what are your plans for 2011?
later this month the lucid ep is being released on project squared, which includes the track ‘all i want’ and a remix from shifted. march/april will see the esoteric ways ep launch on commune recordings imprint. i also have some gigs coming up in bristol, london and hamburg and i’ve just done a mini mix for crack magazine which you can find at soundcloud.com/furesshu along with the rest of my tracks.
any artists/labels/people you’d like to big up, known or unknown?
shouts go out to shifted, asusu, sigha, truss, paul cooper, richard carnes, colony, torque, will and dave plus all my friends and family especially my girlfriend, becka x
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