When it comes to having an identifiable yet never predictable or generic sound they don’t come much better than Dylan Rhymes, known to his mates as Martin Beaver. A major player in the breaks scene of today, as well as a prominent artist in the house and tech scenes in years gone by, he has built himself a solid reputation for being a talented and ingenious producer, and more recently, a fantastic DJ.
Across the course of his career the Woking native has written and played everything from chunky house to deep, minimal tribal grooves and of course ballsy breakbeat, all with a distinctly techy edge and a genre-crossing attitude. And it’s exactly his intention to have such a diverse yet at the same time so readily identifiable sound: “I’m always taking in different influences, but ultimately I want to have a specific sound that people can recognise as my sound”. In the early days, those influences were the likes of electro pioneers Kraftwerk, hip-hop legends Run DMC and synth pop star Gary Numan, while more recently Rhymes has been feeling the indie rock vibe, which definitely shines through in his latest tracks and remixes.
As a producer, Beaver has been in the game for years, both as solo act Dylan Rhymes, and also as a member of many collaborative efforts. In the early nineties he built his own studio with long time friend Justin Drake, and the pair started releasing quality techy house under the moniker Outsiders on the highly acclaimed Junior Boy’s Own label. But it was his work with both Drake and London DJ Clive Henry as Peace Division that really kick started Beaver’s career: “Those early days with Peace Division were really important…We had a sound that we’d crafted, and it was great…In fact I only left the group because I released a record as Dylan Rhymes on Junior Boy’s Own that sold really well, so I started producing on my own”. Several solo releases later on labels such as Whole9Yards, Kingsize, and his own Blue Black imprint, as well collaborations with the likes of Meat Katie, and remixes for Tony Thomas, among others, Beaver was well and truly on his way.
Through years of studio experience, Beaver has honed producing his unique yet diverse sound down to a fine art: “I try to make things as original as possible, so they don’t all sound exactly the same, but there is some degree of similarity amongst tracks so that I have a certain sound. Generally I tend to stick to some sort of framework when writing a track, as it cuts out of a lot of unnecessary experimentation, and it stops me from labouring too long over a piece of music. If I spend too much time working on something, I can lose the buzz for the project, and it shows in the finished work, so I try to avoid that.”
But he’s not just a talented and efficient producer. Beaver has been DJing since the age of 15, and has successfully managed to juggle both art forms across the course of his career. However, it hasn’t been easy: “sometimes DJing can hinder my production work, as I don’t get much time to be in the studio when I’m on tour. For example I went away over Christmas and New Year to the US and then Canada and only just returned, and I haven’t been back in the studio yet. And just the same, if I take time off DJing to focus on producing, I can get so in to writing tunes that it takes me some time to get back in to DJing”. But for the downfalls of trying to juggle the two, Beaver notes there is a positive side to both DJing and writing tunes: “I can use the DJing as promotion – to help sell more records. I can also use the DJing to test out unfinished tracks, or even parts of tracks, just to see how they’re working on a dancefloor, and whether it’s worth continuing to work on them”.
And for the technophiles out there, Rhymes is one of the next generation of DJs pushing the ground-breaking “Ableton Live” software, which he believes is definitely the way forward: “The fact is there’s just stuff you can’t do with CDs or vinyl that you can do with Ableton. For example I could be mixing two tracks together and then at the same time looping an acapella and a loop from another track on top of that – you’d need like 4 CD players to do that!” But unfortunately for all the work he puts in to his DJing, there’s some negative reactions to the fact he’s behind a laptop rather than a traditional set of decks, with some people arguing that the computer does all the work for him. However Beaver’s response to those who tell him it “looks easy” is simply: “go do it yourself! In reality it really comes down to how much or little effort you want to put in to it. I chop all my tracks up in to loops and make a lot of edits, and I even key all the various parts of tracks so I can layer them, rather than just mix the end of one track in to the beginning of another. I’ve often spent whole days chopping up tracks and making loops and edits!”
And if all that hasn’t whet your appetite for Beaver’s upcoming tour of Australia, here’s something else to get you salivating: he’ll be bringing with him a fresh bag of dirty tech funk, tasty house and tech, and big ballsy breaks, as well as some brand new productions, including a monstrous remix of Vandal soon to be released on Lot49, a track featuring Odissi on vocals, as well some unfinished tunes he plans to unleash on Australia’s dancefloors. Bring it on.
You can see Dylan Rhymes when he tours Australia as part of Two Tribes/Future Music Festival in February and March:
Fri Feb 24 – Two Tribes, Brisbane (BUY TICKETS)
Sat Feb 25 – Two Tribes, Melbourne (BUY TICKETS)
Fri Mar 3 – Academy, Canberra (BUY TICKETS)
Sat Mar 4 – Future Music Festival, Sydney (BUY TICKETS)
Sun Mar 5 – Two Tribes, Perth (BUY TICKETS)
