Mr Scruff Talks plus electric elephant earsEXCLUSIVEmix

Mr Scruff is the quintessential English DJ. With a well documented love of tea, self draw album and flyer art and a fondness for fish, he has become, over the years a national treasure. Wether playing an extended 6 hour set or producing his own 'home brew' music, there's something attractively eccentric to the way the man works. We caught up with him for a chat on everything from manumission to electrofunk in anticipation of his set at Electric Elephant in Croatia this summer and he was kind enough to drop a splendid exclusive mix to soothe our aching, over saturated eardrums, too…. 

If your music was a type of tea, what would it be?

Probably a decent English Breakfast tea. 

Long DJ sets: I think I first saw you play all night at The Forum in Kentish Town in the early noughties, starting uber-slow with some DAngelo and ending, six hours later, on some futuristic broken house. What is the shortest gig youd accept now, whats the longest youve ever played in public and what are your go-to toilet break tracks?

The shortest gigs tend to be 3 hour festival sets. The longest sets were 10 hours at beachbombing & 12 hours at Lovebox, but 5-7 hours is a good length of time, it allows you to get your teeth into the music & maneuver about without worrying about the time. As for toilet tracks, anything over 7 minutes is a winner.. which means pretty much anything by Fela Kuti.

Production: Do you still produce in the same way you did when you started out – starting with samples and then working them up with musicians – or has your musical approach changed over the years? 

Pretty much the same.. start with a loop or some drums & then build/jam from there. I use less samples nowadays though.

Manumission: I understand you and Treva Whateva were briefly involved with Manumission, how was that? Did they try and rope you into a live sex show?

Manumission was great fun! Myself & Treva played upstairs when it was on Bloom Street in Manchester. Downstairs it was mostly pretty good quality US House, and upstairs it was all over the place, 2 jazz dancers (Segun Lee-French & Danny from the MCR Samba School) on stage, so we got to play a lot of jazz/latin/afro music, interspersed with live cabaret acts & comedians such as Divine David & Martin Bigpig. As for sex shows, that didn't start until they moved to Ibiza.

Radio: Having been on the radio quite a lot throughout your career, how important do you think it is now – in the age of endless music blogs, websites etc – do you think radio is still a vital cog in the music industry machine?

I think that radio is still important, whether is it is terrestrial, digital or web radio/podcasts. You can leave a good radio station on all day, and hear loads of great new music, which is a lot less work than constantly trawling the net. There will always be a place for selectors!

Cartoons: The simple cartoons and illustrations that accompany your music (and merch) are instantly recognisable, who are the artists and illustrators you most admire and how important do you think the role of artwork is within music?

In terms of music illustration, I admire people with distinctive styles such as Lemi Ghariokwu, Wilfred Limnonious, and labels such as Blue Note & CTI. Other artists I like are Douglas Emery & Ali Augur. I do think that artwork is important. It has to look good as well as sound good.

Fish: What is it about fish that you love so much, theres a definite recurring theme in your early productions. Also, it says on your website (under the demo submission setcion) that youre not a fan of ambient music featuring whale song. Whats wrong with whales?! Are fish the only aquatic animals you care for, what about crustaceans?

Nothing wrong with whales, just that they sound a lot better unaccompanied. The fish thing was just a subject to use as a theme for the spoken word cut-up tracks.

Electrofunk: Youve said Greg Wilson was a big influence when you were growing up and getting into the sound of Electrofunk and Boogie. What were the tracks that first got you into that particular music and also, do you think it gets the props it deserves as being the foundation to so much modern electronic music?

The first electro tracks I was into were things like Cybotron & Hashim, and the Street Sounds Electro albums that were very influential throughout the early-mid eighties. I do think that Electro gets the recognition it deserves, and retrospectively, through the work of people like Greg Wilson & magazines such as Waxpoetics, we also get a window on the influences that gave rise to this music, especially how it was a fusion of American P-Funk, such as Parliament, and European New Wave/Kraftwerk etc.

Electric Elephant: Youre playing in the Adriatic this summer for The Electric Elephant festival – theres been talk of the regions similarities to the early days of Ibiza, do you think the Adriatic may be the new Balearic?

I've never been to Ibiza, so I can't comment. What I do know is that Croatia is a lovely place, with lovely people & it attracts a good mix of people from all over Europe. 

Right, that's the reading done, now check out this beaut of a funked out mix – exclusive to RSN n'all:  

Mr Scruff – Electric Elephant Ears Exclusive Mix for Ransom Note by Theransomnote on Mixcloud

Mr Scruff plays the Electric Elephant festival this summer. He's one of a cornucopia of stellar bookings such as Carl Craig, Frankie Knuckles, Prosumer and Michael Mayer which look like pushing this year's festival into a new stratosphere of Adriatic excellence. Check out the full lineup over pon the festival website, we'll see you on the beach…x  

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