Over the years the Drum and Bass Community has gone through massive renewal and revamping. Drum and Bass has been a continual evolution, from the early 90’s days of jungle and hardcore, through the Jump Up revolution in 96, and the dark step and roaring bass lines in the last few years. In these last few years however, drum and bass seemed to slip back into obscurity for a while, the sound had not changed for a while, the bass lines all seemed to sound the same, production lacking uniqueness. But like all main forms of Dance Music, new sounds and new ideas started breaking back in, older artists are forced to change their ways or face extinction, and new blood takes the reigns.
It’s 2004 and drum and bass is looking stronger than ever. A whole range of new sounds are coming out of not only England (the genre’s home and strongest supporter) but all through Europe, the States, Brazil and of course Australia and New Zealand (Check out Pendulum, Concord Dawn, Greg Packer, Vice Versa). The sounds are expanding too, the pure Latin funk of DJ Marky and XRS, the dark dirty step of Jonny L and Tech Itch, the roaring bass and trance like synths of John B and Concord Dawn, and the Jazzy yet deep flow of High Contrast and London Elektricity.
London Elektricity have been around a while, first starting their own label ‘Hospital’ back in 96. They burst on to the scene with their slap funk masterpiece in “Song in the Key of Knife” and their follow up LP, “Pull the Plug”, which was so different to the dark steppy and jump up flavour of the time. Originally the outfit consisted of Tony Coleman and Chris Goss, but the men parted in 2002, Tony taking the reigns of London Elektricity, and Chris taking over management of the ‘Hospital’ label, both with great success. Hospital is now 70 releases old, and one of the premier Jazzier DnB labels.
Tony went on to create his first LP as a solo artist with great success. “Billion Dollar Gravy” was released in May last year and heralded a new era for drum and bass. Better still was this, during recording, a late night phone call came through asking LE to play live at BBC’s Maida Vale studios for Fabio and Grooverider. Tony, together with album collaborators Liane Carroll, house music legend Robert Owens, and the Jungle Drummer (rumoured to be able to keep a 200bpm Amen break up for 2 hours…) went and played for Fabio and Grooverider, and London Elektricity LIVE was born.
Although London Elektricity LIVE isn’t touring Australia, Tony will be out soon with latest jazzed up dubs and owning over 20 Hospital records myself, I naturally jumped at the chance to ask Tony a few questions about LE, himself, LIVE, and DnB.
Lets start with a few of the regular questions which I am sure you get asked all the time. Which artists are tickling your pickle right now?
In D+B it’s SKC from Hungary, Syncopix from Germany, our own Nu:tone and of course High Contrast! Outside of d+b it’s Amp Fiddler, Matt Herbert and TY.
What’s been doing, where have tours been taking you lately?
Been playing with the band around Germany, Belgium and the UK a lot. Been DJing a lot in Eastern Europe – the best parties are happening there at the moment, places like Estonia, Budapest, Prague, Krakow.
Ok, this could be a bit interesting. What is one of the most crazy fuck ups that have ever occurred whether it be in your writing, business or playing?
January 2001. London Elektricity (at that time consisting of me and Chris Goss) were booked to play Vibes on a Summer’s Day in Perth. My back went in the taxi on the way to the airport – They wouldn’t let me on the plane. I met Chris at Heathrow, gave him my tunes, and went home in tears.
And how did you overcome it?
I didn’t overcome it – but I hope to when I come over this time!
Since you’ve parted producing with Chris Goss, how much do you have to do with the running of the Hospital Label (and offshoots like M*A*S*H)?
I have as much involvement as I ever did in terms of A+R – it’s me who has the final say on d+b signings. I do spend less day to day time there as I am touring quite a bit, but I end up working a lot of weekends to catch up with my admin duties, contracts, accounting, all the really glamorous stuff.
Along these lines also, how much involvement do you have in developing new talent for the label, such as artists like High Contrast, Cyantific and Nu Tone?
I’m fully involved in that – we all are in the office here. All our staff have an input into our music – even the work experience helpers we have. It’s an open office so everyone gets a say. But it is essential that I’m feeling a tune and that I want to play it out before it’ll get
released.
Originally, you and Chris started out as more of a house outfit, is that correct? And then discovered the beauty of the breakbeat. Is there a reason London Elektricity doesn’t do slower tempo tracks with that Garage/Broken Beat feel, along the lines of Hospital Garage boys Landslide and Phuturistix?
Originally, we were full on Acid Jazz heads back in the late 80’s – we ran a label called Tongue and Groove. We actually started Galactic Disco (our house label) at the same time as Hospital in ‘96. London Elektricity is a d+b artist – I do make slower tunes sometimes, but I want to do whatever I can in D+B with London Elektricity.
The great influences in Drum and Bass; people like LTJ Bukem, Hype; all started out mixing and producing Hardcore. What did you cut your teeth on, were you jumping round to Luna C and realised, ‘hey, a saxophones and a few funky synths and this could be cool’?
Er no! I try really hard not to use saxophones! Nothing personal against sax players (except an ex girlfriend but that’s a long and boring story) but I went off the sound in ‘97. Our formative years making d+b were spent trying to perfect a new blend that we called ‘loungecore’ – kind of Martin Denny meets Goldie. It shows in our earliest releases like ‘Harp of Gold’ and ‘Flight of the Vulture’ we had some rules – our tunes had to sound fully organic and gritty, no digital crap in there, no fluffy stuff. More of a hip hop sound.
When the inevitable writers block strikes, is there one track that you go back too, to draw inspiration?
One or two: Made in Japan by Deep Purple, all albums by Steely Dan, the Super Discount album, Hermit of Mink Hollow by Todd Rundgren, early Steve Reich, it’s along list.
We’ve all read about London Elektricity LIVE. When are you going to bring this funk fuelled fusion down under?
Whenever we can find a good tour agent in Australia – the one who tried to book us this time fucked it up big time – I hope he didn’t damage our reputation – if he did, I’ll happily pay him a visit when I’m over!
As LIVE, do you only play tracks from Billion Dollar Gravy, or are there a few secret gems that have to been seen to be heard?
Nah we play quite a few tunes from Pull The Plug (LE’s 1st album) plus we do a cover of ‘Spread Love’ which has become a bit of a Hospital anthem, and we are writing some new material for the next album which we’ll perform live before it’s even recorded. I’m well into doing that – it’s a rare thing to do these days when everyone has a laptop studio.
Now that LE Live is going great, have you started producing tracks with the Live band in mind, or even solely for it?
Funny you should ask that – see above!
And any chance of a pure London Elektricity LIVE CD?
You are on message aren’t you?!? Scary. We’re releasing a London Elektricity DVD in May – Called ‘Live Gravy’ it’s a 1 hour performance form the Jazz Café London Oct 2003, and almost 1 hour of footage of the band members brawling in ditches, sexually abusing the band mascot ‘bobo’, insulting each other and everyone in foreign countries (or any city outside London for that matter), attempting and failing to soundcheck, you get the picture….... there’ll also be the 2 wicked animated videos for Cum Dancing and Billion Dollar Gravy. So there!
London Elektricity LIVE is a very unique group, especially in the drum and bass scene. Is it an idea you see other people within the community picking up?
Yeah there seems to be an explosion in new live d+b bands in the uk. I hope some come through that we can work with on Hospital.
Continuing with your latest album, Billion Dollar Gravy received unanimous acclaim from drum and bass communities around the world. Firstly, what’s your favourite track from it and why?
It changes, but this month I’d say it’s Fast Soul Music – it’s probably the deepest track on the album, and I really like the hypnotic flow.
Secondly, ITM is home to a lot of Dance Music enthusiasts and a lot of wanna-be producers looking to create that unique sound. What kind of equipment went into the production of this cd, software, hardware or both?
OK. This album marked my transition away from MIDI gear to Digital only production. I made it with Reason, Cubase VST 5, Peak and Nuendo 1.6. All on Mac.
And third, in regards to the Billion Dollar Gravy cover, as well as some other recent songs such as Jonny L – Lets Roll, do politics and drum and bass mix?
Only if you stir hard enough. And you need a big spoon too.
Be sure to catch Tony Coleman of London Elektricity on his DJ tour:
Syd – Thu Feb 26 @ Moving Through Air (BUY TICKETS)
Mel – Fri Feb 27 @ Prince of Walex (BUY TICKETS)
