teshno

their ep for hypercolour/glass table associated label, losing suki, last month was enough for me to want a teshcast from this pair immediately. read the review, but it ably displayed a range of fresh bass styles which the series has thusfar lacked. when installent j landed, though, that was instantly rectified.

it’s a tight, bumpy mix through some bold bass notes, garage-y vocals, more stripped down technoid sounds and names like ramadanman and midland, instra: mental, martyn and previous teshcast guest, kidkut. before you tune in, get the low down on this previously rather mysterious pair; a pair who have remixed those including classic boss luke solomon in the past…

hard to find anything about you on the net… is that conscious? what’s the thinking behind it?

there’s no design or really any particular reason for our anonymity. laziness has a part to play as well as the fact that we’re hardly shameless self-promotors. we do have a blog that’s been somewhat neglected for the past twelve months, but we’d say that’s more down to priorities as making new music always takes priority over self promotion for us. we’ve learnt a lot in the past year about the importance of making your presence known and as a result you’ll probably see us posting more regularly.

as such, please introduce yourselves as openly as you feel comfortable doing so!

we’re just two dudes that make beats. liam and niall. comfort levels aside, there’s not that much else to it.

how did you meet, and what keeps you together?

when liam was about four his parents brought this kid home and told him he was his brother niall. this makes it pretty easy to stick together. though there are no less arguments in the studio.

it’s a damn tight mix you’ve done me – suggests you’ve been djing quite a while?

we’ve both been djing for quite a while now. ten plus years. as djs we try not to be swayed by trends or charts. we’ve always just played the music we wanted to hear and what we thought other people might enjoy. in many respects we moved to europe and the uk because there seems to be more opportunity to cross between different genres without declaring allegiance to just one. even though the mix doesn’t necessarily lend itself to that, the next mix we do could be a completely different story.

so how did you first get into electronic music? what did you like about it, what were you listening to?

hip-hop. from the very beginning djing was an opportunity to scratch. we both started djing before either of us was old enough to get into a club, so dance music was something that came later. in the beginning it was gangstaar, smiff n wesson, souls of mischief and dr octagon to name a few. at the same time, through working in a record store we were exposed to a lot of variety and eventually became less draconian about our love of hip hop. mostly it was downtempo stuff, then we got the mpc and got really into jazz and funk through digging for samples. from there the tempo just crept up until we’re at our present state. still probably a bit downtempo for some, but not really being club people we’re not exactly the type to write bangers, though we try to. it just never comes out like that.

and when did you decide to start playing/producing it?

since we started buying records, we’ve wanted to be on one. it’s a pretty normal thing to aspire to for the music lover. niall started playing guitar when he was a kid and when liam started djing it seemed like a musical partnership was a comfortable role to fall into. we’d never really gotten along as brothers prior to music. we got serious about it probably around the time we left uni and were looking for a reason to move overseas.

have your tastes/styles evolved much since the beginning?

without a doubt. like we said before, we don’t obsessively follow trends. we just like what we like and try not to let anything else influence that.

your ep for losing suki was a hard one to pin down… what’s going through your head when you make tunes – what are your goals with them, or what are the aesthetics you’re going for? anything specific?

there’s no real science to it. we’ve attempted to sit down and make a “dubstep” or “house” tune but it always morphs into something completely different. i think our lack of concern for aesthetics is a big part of our sound. though it’s not necessarily deliberate, it’s just natural.

is it a good summation of where you’re at or will your next release be wholly different again?

we don’t feel like we’ve made any declaration with this ep. i think our output so far has been more a stream of ideas rather than a statement of intent. in a way it seems a better reflection for our output to be slightly erratic and disjointed. who knows what the next release will sound like.

do you each have specific roles in the studio/booth? how does that work?

in the studio niall tends to play while we both produce and sculpt sounds in the computer. niall’s played guitar and piano for a while so he tends to take a more active role in terms of germinating ideas. in the booth everything is fifty-fifty. one mixing and lining up a track while the other goes “king tubby” on the space echo. for the live set it’s pretty even as well as it’s more an exercise in arranging and sequencing sounds rather than traditional musicianship.

are you doing this full time? if not what do you do outside of music?

we both work in retail. it’s spectacularly un-glamorous.

where and when was the mix recorded, and on what?

it was recorded in our house over the past couple of weeks on a mix of turntables, ableton and traktor. it’s nice to get the best of all that dj technology offers these days. we’ve never understood how one format can be better than the other. the means by which you mix is pretty irrelevant as far as we’re concerned. it’s more the output.

what was the thinking behind it – does it rep one of your dj sets?

of course. but it’s no line in the sand. just a bunch of tracks we’re into at the moment that all mix nicely (almost). there’s house, techno, garage and some stuff that’s all of these things.

what else you got coming up/working on?

we’ve got a remix we did for luke solomon coming out shortly on classic recordings. losing suki are looking for another ep from us as soon as we can but our main focus at the moment is our live set, which we’ll be debuting on the 14th of october at schlonc the trendy mullet records night with luke solomon.

anyone you feel needs bigging up?

definitely matt from trendy mullet records. jamie from hypercolour records. luke solomon doesn’t really need bigging up but he can get some anyway. our parents and girlfriends. did we mention we’re just as bad at promoting others as we are ourselves?

download teshcast j ~ kamo or listen below

tracklist:
deepchild – skunk disco
kindimmmer – vodka and lemon
ramadanman and midland – your words matter
paul frick feat. matthias engler – knock on wood
martyn – all nights
funkystepz – fuller
boddika – breezin’
lv + josh idehen – melt
rednal kidz + 1 – i think of you (matthew herbert mix)
t williams – heartbeat
machine drum – mean mean
mickey pierce – me + u
crst – walk on
huxley – madatme
solead – loose powder
loco dice – tight laces
arkist + kidkut – vanilla imitate
instra:mental – forbidden
arkist – rendezvous