The year 2002 has been an eventful one for a young man named Ashley Anderson. Better known to most as Katalyst, he recently picked up a couple of gongs at the recent DMA ceremony in Sydney. While he got into the biz working with the late Mike Wright [DJ Illpickl], it’s under the moniker Katalyst that he’s really begun to make an impact. Ashley’s debut album – Manipulating Agent – a classy blend of influences and genres – was a distinct nod to his roots in soul, funk and hip hop, and hugely well received locally.
“I was pretty happy about the win – obviously. They’re probably the best catogories to take out at a music awards ceremony in my opinion. I actually didn’t expect to win so I hadn’t really prepared a proper speech, think I forgot to thank a few people as a result,” he grins. “
Promoting Manipulating Agent meant taking on quite a lot of semi-live shows on Ashely’s part, performing with album turntablist Leeroy Brown. He’s keen to scale things down and head back to the studio in 2003. “I’m slowing down a little bit on the touring front, which is really good. I haven’t been traveling nearly as much, which is nice after a pretty busy year. I’m about to do the Shadow support this weekend, which should be great, I’m really looking forward to picking his brains about the label side of the industry as much as his music.”
In addition to his production work, Anderson hooked up with Portishead’s Geoff Burrow last year to create a new imprint – Invada Records. Their ethos is an eclectic one, with releases by artists like UK outfit Dynamo Productions already in the pipeline. I comment that he seems to have established himself much more as a name to recognise in his own right than as ‘that guy working with the guy from Portishead’. “Yep, I think initially people were thinking Geoff was going to produce the album for me, but that’s totally not the case – Geoff provided a wealth of advice, but the work is Katalyst.”
Ashley is currently putting together a rework of his award-winning debut. “Basically what we decided to do was remix Manipulating Agent – titling the album Agent Manipulated. Yes, we thought long and hard about that one,” he smiles. “We’ve got lots of good people remixing the stuff off the Manipulating Agent record. A couple of English remixes, Dynamo Productions have done one, a group called One Hundred Strong, a couple of other people, some of Geoff’s friends. From Australia we have Ransom, Koolism, Rhibosome, DJ Soup, Resin Dogs, 2 Dogs, Geoff Blunted, Sanda from Good Buddah, I’m doing one and I’m putting a couple of tracks on which didn’t make the original album. That’s going to keep me busy up until the end of Feb, and then we’ll probably do a tour with it. After that there’s a Dynamo Productions album we’re due to release and those boys are going to come over and do an Invada tour.”
How does he find remixing his own work? “It’s fine because the way I usually approach remixing other songs is just to lose the beats, especially if it’s a vocal tune. I just did a Rockmelons remix a couple of months ago now, for example. Because it was a vocal tune I just took the vocal and made another song. New music, new beats.”
An ETA for a follow up to Manipulating Agent is a little hazy at the moment. “I’m not sure at this stage – I have no firm dates. I’ll have it finished some time next year. It’s hard to say, at this early stage, I’m just keen to get back in the studio. I’ve been buying a little bit more gear in preparation. It will probably have quite a bit more vocal content, more vocalists and MCs. We’ll probably end up sourcing a couple of overseas MCs. Will he work with Leeroy again? “Yep, but I might actually do some more of the cuts on this album myself. Lee’s very talented and I love what he does but sometimes I have different ideas about what might work with a song because I’ve written the actual tune. I’ll be working on my ‘skeelz’ over the next few months.”
Katalyst appears at:
Tabernacle in Byron Bay on NYE
Big Day Out in Sydney on 25th of January
Sydney Festival Hahn Bar on January 25th (evening set)
