Influences: Few Nolder

My first record was GNR – ‘Use Your Illusion’ double album. As my father brought me up with rock background, it was a natural move from Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Whitesnake. Little did I know that the band was already disintegrating at the time in 1994. Axl Rose was infamous for his explosive energy in and off stage and exceptional screaming vocals. He was layering Military hats with bandanas, Scottish kilt with NFL shirts, leather jackets with tight shorts and wore legendary white AXL hi-tops with his name on it. Whole band was characters and talents at the same time, living on the edge with sex, drugs and rock’n’roll.
At the same time their were very talented songwriters and superstar performers, which really impressed me and made me hungry for bigger audience than my parents.

First I’ve heard Stardust – ’Music Sounds Better With You’, then I heard the legendary Daft Punk – ’Homework’ album and sometime later Together – ‘So Much Love To Give’. The sound and approach of the french scene at the time was so fresh and enchanting. Digitally distorted sampled loops dominated the style and few did better than this guy. The power of the bass was so solid under the groove that all you needed was just a simple cut of low end and you had a break down. It was like the Wall Of Sound of Phil Spector in 1960’s has returned to modern times. The tracks like ‘Around The World’ or ‘One More Time’ were visionary and changed the club music forever!

He opened the crazy world of sampling and remixing to me. He was mashing together house, hip-hop, funk, disco and rock. He has done remixes for wide range of different style artists, from Tori Amos – ‘Professional Window’ to Sneaker Pimps – ‘Spin Spin Sugar’ which is the pioneer track of Speed Garage. His original productions were equally amazing as the remixes he has done. He was bending the genres and putting them on the dance floor. I have danced to ‘The Funk Phenomena’, ‘Psychic Bounty Killaz’ or my all time favourite “You Don’t Know Me’. I still have mad respect to the guy who made sampling fun and made better remixes than originals.

When I started to search for alternative rhythms in dance music in my teenage years, I found UK jungle and D’n’B. The big names such as Adam F, Roni Size, Ed Rush, Andy C got my attention. But there was one guy who stood out and it was Goldie. He was the innovator of the D’n’B scene with the first pitch break beats of the ‘Terminator’, an hour long symphonic ‘Mother’ or futuristic ‘Inner City’ and raw ‘Temper, Temper’. His album ‘Timeless’ is one of the best examples how future he was at the time. I was really into his label Metalheadz with artists like Dillinja, Photek, Ed Rush etc. His gold plated smile and ghetto attitude made him a controversial star of ever evolving UK underground. Goldie as an artist had such a daring approach to the scene that only few can handle, it was really inspiring.

At the same time I have started making first tracks, I already understood the difference between a track and a song. My closest experience to songs was being a piano player since my teenage years and playing early church music to jazz standards. Yet I have never created a piece myself and when I started I was an amateur in it. Making a song without songwriting skills was a challenge. The internet was at its infancy, so I started learning from the stuff that was around, listened to the popular stations that played various pop music from different generations, searched my parents and their friends vinyl and cd collections. I noticed that many of the tracks I like where under same name. They were so emotional, unusual and uplifting that I became a fan. Only later I researched that these were Fleetwood Mac, one of the best songwriters of our times, with songs like ‘Big Love’, ‘Everywhere’, ‘Little Lies’ etc. Their unique style mixed blues and folk music with disco pop rock and unforgettable lyrics. Their bands history lasting almost 50 years was also a great thing to discover.

I was not into their music from the so called Big Beat era, although I liked the Block Rockin’ Beats. But the ‘Surrender’ album in 1999 blew my mind and I became an instant fan. It switched the breaks into pumping live sounding dance beats and evolved their guitar leads into those resonating acidic synth lines that their sound is famous for. Their track ‘Out Of Control’ still is one their best tracks for me, so are ‘Under Influence’, ‘Got Glint?’ and the anthem ‘Hey Boy, Hey Girl’ from that same album. Later came the magic ’Star Guitar’, then they returned with ‘Galvanize’ and continue to impress with recent ‘Sometimes I Feel So Deserted’. A mixture of analog synths, live instruments and clever samples made their music diverse and original. I surrender under their influence.

These guys are on my list because of their amazing remix work together with top class selections on Global Underground series. Rooms were getting bigger and underground dance music was shifting from cozy clubs to wider audiences and festivals. Progressive house with trance elements was the hot thing in 2000. Deep Dish was standing out with mystic and floating remix productions with enchanting atmosphere. Those deep echoing metallic percussions still sound amazing today. Strangely their debut album ‘Junk Science’ was too mellow for my taste. Both parts of their mix CDs ‘Yoshiesque’ and their Global Underground features in Moscow and Toronto had significantly widened my music perspective and was the beginning of the new era of dance music.

I was in my first production years and was hungry for new ideas. Being fascinated by the world of dance music already, I started researching quality house labels and artists. In 2004 I found Buzzin Fly by Ben Watt. I found myself listening Everything But The Girl before and loved the stuff, but I have never checked who was on the credits. I was also listening to Justin Martin (later years to Spencer Parker and Stimming). Until I’ve heard that lush mashup of EBTG vs. Soul Vision ‘Tracey In My Room’. Tracey Thorns vocals have always sounded very dance floor friendly since Todd Terry’s remix for ‘Missing You’. And then everything came together and I found out that Ben Watt started Buzzin Fly to follow his passion for underground dance music. He was the producer of my favoured band and owner of a forward looking house label, so It seems that was really following his work at the time.

I became a fan of James Holden when he started his label ‘Border Community’ and released a wonderful track called ‘A Break In The Clouds’ in 2003. Until that I have not heard dance tracks with so much melody and mind blowing use of sound effects. And everything has been done properly without overloading the track, so it was still very danceable. Later I have enjoyed great label’s releases with artists such as MFA, Petter, Extrawelt. But Holden’s top level productions were my passion at the time. I really loved the way he played around with melodies and put lot of unexpected details in it. I was influenced a lot by his melodic trance style in my debut album on Planet Mu.

They say the music has lost the King, Queen and the Prince. Well, Prince was my favourite, although the perfectionism of Jackson and charisma of Mercury are at the same heights. Prince was multi instrumentalist, exceptional guitar player, super productive songwriter, producer and an extravagant personality overall. He made purple colour his synonym and his ‘Love Symbol’ shaped guitar iconic. He was a true rebel, fighting over his artist name and ideas with the labels. He was a rebel in his music too, not avoiding difficult themes as sex. He was a full package of great things that happened to music, he was super talented and expressed himself as a musical royalty. The only way he accomplished this is because of his enormous talent and hard work.