Future Entertainment’s Welcome events have always been massive way to kick-start your year and Welcome 2003 is going to be no exception. Sister Bliss of Faithless fame headlines this year and D-Compression pulls on the hotpants in preparation:
Most people would probably know you best for your work with Faithless – It must be such an exciting creative partnership with Maxi Jazz & Rollo, are you able to tell us a little about your role in the creative process?
Basically I write the music – we have lots of conversations about the things we want to write about and then Maxi will write the lyrics and Rollo and I produce it together. That’s pretty much how it works.
Are they quite separate processes – putting those pieces together?
Rollo and I tend to work together first before we actually get Maxi involved, we tend to give him lots of music to see if he’s inspired by it and then he’ll write lyrics afterwards.
What future directions can we expect to see from Faithless?
Wow, very hard to say at this point! We’ve just finished touring and I’ve been off DJing – I’ve been to South America which was fantastic, actually with Timo Maas who’s going to be playing with me in Melbourne. So I haven’t really done an awful lot but I have started writing. Basically at the moment I’ve just been collecting fragments of music and we’ll put it all together maybe next year and start making an album. For me I’d like us to take a different direction, I’d like us to do something really challenging and make a great album.
The remixing projects that you’ve undertaken cover such a diverse range of artists – everything from Kristine W; to Moby; to Roxy Music! What approach do you take with your remixing, is there a particular feel you’re trying to achieve?
It really depends what the song requires really, the basic premise is that we have to like the track in the first place – as they say, you can’t polish a turd! We try really hard not to choose turds in the first place – we try to choose music that effects us emotionally.
The Back To Mine compilation that you’ve put together with Rollo was such a surprising mix of tracks – does that reflect the diversity of your musical interests?
Yeah I would say it’s exactly that. It really is the kind of music that we would listen to at home, you know jumping up and down, putting different tunes on, deciding to have a cup of tea and a smoke and then putting more mellow tunes on – I think the way people listen to music is not really as linear as the music industry would like to have us think.
So no turds that required polishing there?
No! I mean each tune was brilliant to start with, we didn’t do anything except stick ‘em on a CD one after the other – it was probably the easiest album I’ve ever made because really I didn’t have to write anything!
Sister Bliss, you’re performing a DJ set at Welcome 2003, DJing is really where it all started for you isn’t it?
That’s right, I’ve been making music for years and I’ve been playing musical instruments since I kind of five years old but I absolutely love DJing. I love other peoples records probably more than my own so DJing is a good forum to kind of let loose on that level. It’s something that I’ve done for… god, nearly 12 years now and I’m still just as obsessed with it as when I started!
When you’re looking for tracks to incorporate into a DJ set, what is it that attracts you to a piece of music?
It’s all sort of different things really. It’s an atmosphere – I think music creates an atmosphere: It can be hard; it can be aggressive; it can be groovy; it can be emotional; but generally I like stuff that has a real groove to it. Some very funky drums, some great bass lines, you know – sonically exciting! Those are the records that I try and look for.
How do you balance your love of DJing with the touring and production demands of Faithless?
Well basically with Faithless it has to come first, because it’s a big travelling machine and if I’m not there it doesn’t work – so I can’t just say “sorry guys I’m off to DJ” if we’re in the middle of a tour. So I have to kind of do little bits in between the gigs when I can and then wait for the year off (which has started in September) and then I’m back on the decks in a vengeance – making up for all that lost time!
I guess that way you can come back to it refreshed at least, with a fresh perspective?
Yeah I guess so, I don’t feel that I do anything particularly different to what I’ve been doing for the last 10-12 years… that sounds really sad – it doesn’t mean that I’ve been standing still but I basically play music that I love and I try to put it together in a way that is exciting and dramatic and emotive.
What can the crowd look forward to from your performance when you appear in Melbourne?
Hopefully a bit of excitement, a bit of emotion; me prancing up and down, singing all the words to anything that happens to have lyrics on it; very bad dancing; and hopefully a tough groovy uplifting “welcoming in the New Year” kind of a set – probably with a nod to the things that made this year musically exciting for me personally.
What are some of those things that have made the year musically exciting?
Well a lot of the different records, you know things like Cosmos, certain records that reaffirm your faith in music. There’s been a lot of kind of talking down of house music in the last year, with certain super clubs not having such a good time in the UK. But pretty much every where I’ve played its been as full of enthusiastic people as ever. House music is not dying in my eyes and that’s something I like to touch on when I’m DJing – the records that have turned me on this year because there’s been some great music.
Is the UK sound evolving?
Very hard to say because British music covers so much – you get records that sound like they were made in Italy that were actually made in Basingstoke; you get records that sound like they came straight out of Brazil and they’ve come from south London, you know? It’s very hard to pin down and that’s what I love about the British sound, it seems to be a melting pot for global influences. For me British music is kind of where it’s at really… apart from American hip hop which is just pretty much better than everything at the moment, things like Missy Elliot and Timbaland – they’re very inventive.
Do you ever incorporate that hip-hop sound into your sets?
No not really, I pretty much DJ house from all ends of the spectrum – from kind of your groovy US house; to tribally house; to more progressive stuff; to techno. I’m really trying to mix it up but I don’t generally play hip hop when I’m in the middle of a house set – maybe that’s a bit of limited, maybe I’m just not clever enough, but I like my club music to be pretty much club music.
You can experience the very clever Sister Bliss performing at Future Entertainment’s Welcome 2003 at Melbourne Park this New Year’s Eve, Sounds on New Year’s Day in Sydney and Summafieldays on the Gold Coast January 4th.
