Matt Edwards Interview

Ahead of November's ‘A Night With… Radio Slave’, in the incredible and intimate confines of Star of Kings basement, we conducted a lovely interview with Mr Matt Edwards aka Radio Slave aka REKID aka Cabin Fever aka Canvas aka DJ Maxxi aka Seadevils aka… enough, let's delve deeper…

Hey Matt,

Long time no speak… hope you been well.  I know you may have answered a couple of these questions before but i’d be great if wouldn´t mind answering them again to contextualise the whole A Night With… Radio Slave for everyone.

Where are you and what are you doing?
I’m in Berlin arranging visas’ for Russia and the USA.

I know you´ve done long stints at Panoramabar with Rekids but is this A Night With… concept something you´ve attempted before?
Not really but I’m really into the idea of a DJ playing longer sets. It’s impossible to paint a picture of what you’re about musically in 2 hours.

You´ve recently released a best of your remixes. What´s your favourite/re-edit bootleg you´ve done that never made the light of day on an official release?
Maybe the Quiet Village remix of Massive Attacks’ Protection. I’m still listening to this alot and it’s just a shame they scrapped the whole project.

Everyone who´s done an A Night With… has laid down a manifesto of sorts for their eight hours by picking us a track to reflect each hour of their marathon. I´m wondering if you could do the same but maybe do it via your many guises?

1. Quiet Village – Maxxi & Zeus – The Struggle – International Feel
2. The Machine – Root People – Pyramids of Mars/Rekids
3. Rekid – 85 Space – Soul Jazz
4. DJ Maxxi – Rinder & Lewis – Glutony – AVI
5. Radio Slave – Adam Beyer – No Rain – Radio Slave remix – Drum Code – no online-ness… sorry 🙁
6. Radio Slave – Unknown – Don't You Know – Cabin Fever.
7. Radio Slave – Motor – Mmm – Radio Slave remix – CLR recordings – no online-ness… sorry 🙁
8. DJ Maxxi – Bee Gees – You Should Be Dancing (Victor Rosado remix) – CDR – no online-ness… sorry 🙁

Radio Slave, REKID, Cabin Fever, Canvas, DJ Maxxi, Matt Edwards, Seadevils… a schizophrenic moniker for every day of the week. What inspires your many different pseudonyms and which is your favourite? Or is it merely a case of a time of year/what mood you´re in?
Creating an alias can really put you in a certain space like with the Quiet Village stuff, and the same goes for Radio Slave although it all depends on what I’m working on. Recently I’ve been doing some more pop styled productions but I guess this is where Radio Slave began with the edits for Kylie etc

"A lot of people make a living by imitating other people." Matt Edwards. How have you stayed original and true in everything you produce?
I’m always trying to take my music in new directions but it’s incredibly difficult these days as there are so many people making tracks…The trick is to spend a lot of time in the studio and not sample other peoples drums.

Hip Hop, where did it all go wrong? When you first came on my radar you were often doing numerous re-edits of big league hip hop tracks. In fact, when I worked at ZZonked I was sending you a load of big room hip-hop. I barely listen to any hip-hop these days. What went wrong? You cite the death of Dilla as the nail in the coffin but surely there must be other factors in play?
I know and I’ve heard a lot of good hip hop this year so it’s aint dead ! and for sure Dilla was a real inspiration to me but life goes on and kids like “Tyler the Creator” and “Earl Sweatshirt” are making some amazing music. And that’s whats so great about this art form is that it is constantly challenging and re-inventing itself and these days you only have to stop record shoping for one week and you can miss so many gems,

You mentioned in an interview in 2009 that you weren´t sure how long you´d continue with the Radio Slave moniker much longer… and yet here we are the tail end of 2011 with him live and kicking. Couldn´t kill him?
Yeah, there have been times where I wanted to change stuff and after the success of Grindhouse there were some times where I wasn’t comfortable with some of the more commercial gigs but things have turned around and I’m super happy with where I play and who I’m playing for.

Japan comes up in your interviews as on of your favourite place to play in the world because you don´t have to play any hits. Hopefully a dedicated RS audience in the UK will mean you can do just that in London?
If I said hits what I meant is I that in Japan I don’t have to play house or techno and can play Jazz, ambient and well just about anything. The Japanese audiences are very open musically and as nearly 95% of the crowd aren’t on drugs you don’t get that thug mentality of people asking for something “harder” or more “power” !!!

Maxxi & Zeus – American Dreamer – quite an out there production. Any plans for an album?
Maybe not as Maxxi & Zeus, but there will be new Quiet Village material in 2012 and just writing about this makes me excited.

"I’d be up for visiting each and everyone that illegally uploads music with a gun and baseball bat, but James and I are working on an alternative!" ME in IA ´09. What was the alternative you came up with?
The app that erases your hard drive if you download anything illegally. Yeah, we’re just running tests.

Do you still buy records? By that I mean new releases…
All the time. Everyday of the year ! For me it’s the only way to enjoy buying music.

What´s the set up when you play out? Can we expect lots of dusty classics getting an airing throughout the night?
Right now I’m travelling only with cds and use 3 cdj2000’s but for this event I’ll be playing vinyl !

That new Nina Kraviz release on Rekids is incredible. Like the bastard child of Matias Aguayo, Detroit Grand Pubahs and Herbert. What else have we got to look forward to in the coming months of Rekids?
2012 is already shaping up to be an amazing year for Rekids.

Can you pick us your Top 5 releases/remixes under any of your many guises?
That’s a tuff one but I’ll try…
1. Rekid – Legend – Soul Jazz
2. The Machine – Continental Drift – Rekids
3. Quiet Village – Can’t B Beat – Whatever We Want
4. Radio Slave – Screaming Hands – Rekids
5. Slam – Eternal – Radio Slave Remix – Soma

Is there anything musically you can´t stand? You produce such an incredible breadth of music that it´s hard to think anything you don´t like. You´re a massive fan of gabba, yeah?
For me, I can’t listen to anything that’s super fast like trance or gabba. 

Musical highlights of the year?
The movement festival in Detroit. I loved every second and I heard some incredible music from dj’s such as Marcellus Pittmann, Andres, Boo Williams and Glenn Underground. If you’re a electronic music fan then this is the festival for u…
Cheers and see you Sat really looking forward to it.

Wil

There's a handful of £10 tix left for the event on saturday here:

A Night With… Radio Slave
Saturday 12th of November 2011
10pm-6am
Star of Kings,
126 York Way, 
Kings Cross, 
London, N1 0AX