The inside of BBC's Maida Vale studios is surprisingly uninspiring.

Endless dimly lit corridors - punctuated by the occasional humming strip light - bore their way deep into the building's underbelly, carrying an empty silence that doesn't do this creative haven justice.  

Tired walls and worn carpets line them. It's understated, and could be any nondescript office complex found in the country's capital; not exactly what you would expect for the live recording of tracks from Blame's new album The Music, but first impressions can be deceiving.
 
Two floors down, after a gauntlet of fire doors, it all finally begins to make sense.  Gathered outside studio MV4, home of the infamous John Peel sessions, perched on a jumble of discarded speakers and sound equipment, are a handful of the collaborators handpicked by Blame (aka Conrad Shafie) for today's recording.

Amongst them are Dynamite MC, Alex Mills and Camilla. They make small talk whilst waiting for their turn on the mic - "I tried horse sushi today," quips Dyna. The girls look at each other, intrigued, but slightly queasy.
    
As they talk, the faint concoction of vocals, bass and percussion seeps its way through the sound proofed studio door as the first track of the day gets underway. 

 

 

Soul-diva Jocelyn Brown is belting out the yet to be released, but sure to be crowd pleasing Set Me Free, her infectious motherly persona causing widespread smiles throughout the room, most visibly on the face of the man behind the keyboard, who is beaming with a childlike grin.  And so he should be.

He is the reason why all these vocalists, percussionists, PR crews and sound technicians are here. It's his day; a reward for all the exhausting studio hours spent creating his long awaited debut album, which from what can be heard, was well worth the wait.

The Music is a short story of Blame's almost 20-year musical journey and is poised to launch him into upper echelons of drum & bass royalty. Yet for the DnB purists out there expecting a 12 track slab of 170 bpm, this album is offering up something a little different.

"The thing is my album is still probably 70% DnB, but I have always found DnB to be quite limiting. You have to keep the same sort of tempo and bpm and there are only so many sort of vocal patterns that work," explains the London-based producer. "Drum & bass has got so many great influences and sounds that if you slow the tempo down, you can really take the drum & bass sound, put it into different formats, and make something special that people won't have heard before."

 

Something special is exactly what he has created. The album, though slightly departed from the Blame sound we are used to (only slightly though), still harbours soul-ridden dance floor anthems such as Because Of You and the aforementioned Set Me Free, but also throws a few electro-edged, breakbeat-driven curveballs at the listener with the recently released On My Own featuring Tynchy Stryder and Star with Fuda Guy and Camilla.

 

 

For those of you reading who are now thinking that Blame is about to do a Zinc - up sticks and make for slower tempo-ed pastures, you needn't worry.  Sure enough The Music has been Conrad's chance to think outside the box and explore his inner creativity that has been suppressed over the years by strict musical guidelines that are now acceptable to be broken, but that's not to say he doesn't still love DnB.

"Drum & bass is in my blood and I have never stopped loving it, but as a producer I have always liked working with people outside of DnB, like Tynchy Stryder, Alex Mills, Fuda Guy... everyone here today really," he says. "All I want to do is explore music's potential. You have to be able to change tempos, bpms and styles, so as an artist I wanna make music people can relate to, but with my sound."

The collaborations on the album walk hand in hand with this sound, with Blame opting to stray away from wholly instrumental tracks. The vocal elements that feature heavily on The Music have allowed tracks such as On My Own and Because Of You to segue their way from the underground, onto the mainstream wavelengths, whilst maintaining every last crumb of credibility in the process. This crossover affect was something Blame had always had in mind with the album and the emphasis on vocal driven tracks helped carve out the final product.

"I did have vocalists in mind when I crafted the tracks and luckily when they heard them they connected with the sound. When I got the chance to work with Tynchy in particular, I knew I would have to slow my sound down though, to the bpm he works with, but also keep the Blame elements in the track," he points out.

"When I worked with Jocelyn Brown I managed to get a really 70s disco vibe going within the DnB track and I hoped she would like the tempo," he continues. "She told me she had been waiting for someone to work with on this type of record, so that was a really great moment for me.

"I really don't wanna make instrumental music anymore as I always think there is part of the track missing if the vocals aren't there. I always used to love making instrumental music but now I am a vocal man."

 

 

Thanks to the score of top-notch vocalists and the unfaltering quality of the sampling throughout his debut long player, Blame has managed to create tracks that can be effortlessly replicated live, using percussionists, guitarists and keyboards, without losing any of the production value.  

The recording at Maida Vale is testament to this, although it's hard to believe it was a project he didn't always want to be involved with.

"Doing Blame live is something I have always been apprehensive about. Drum & bass is very mechanical, the drums are always very precise, so taking it live means stripping it down to its bare components," he explains. "What really put me off is the possibility that it would not sound like your track, so when I got the chance to do it I always wanted to make sure it sounded like my music.  

"I made sure I built the backing tracks up, and then I would play bass over it. After that I would get the guitarist in and the percussionist and vocalists, capturing the original vibe and also the liveness. As I said it wasn't something I always wanted to do, but when my label suggested it I thought why not, let's jump in at the deep end."

In all honesty, I don't think we expected anything less from someone whose first word as a child was "music".  He has always been a meticulous producer, one of a rare breed, who in the world of music is just not comfortable being comfortable.  

He is always looking to explore, redefine and ask questions, whether it be taking his first steps into the rave scene 20 years ago with the seminal Music Takes You, which he made with a simple Casio sampler in four hours of studio time, or with his new venture The Music, which is getting the royal treatment at Maida Vale and looks just as groundbreaking for its generation.  Not only are people now telling him his sound has come full circle, but it seems that his creative juices have as well.  He is back pushing the musical frontiers, and loves it.

Whether his wife Kelly, the self professed "studio widow" does, is another matter. But after 16 years with Conrad I am sure she is used to it. "He spent the whole of the night before our wedding finishing off the Jackson 5 remix instead of doing his speech!" she jokes.  

Luckily she is out of earshot when Blame tells me he was more nervous about nailing the remix: "You can freestyle a speech but how often do you get to remix Jackson 5!"

The interview - which has changed location to a picturesque pub in Little Venice courtesy of a PR packed BMW – is now nearing its end.  Having been so engrossed in what Blame has had to say, I managed to omit a question which probably should have been asked earlier: "Have you always wanted to be a DJ?"

He pauses and smiles: "I think everyone wants to be a DJ, but I made music before learning to spin records. Music was always my main love, DJing was great, travelling round the world was too, but producing is my real love, and is what I want to do forever."

 

Well amen to that.

Blame's album, The Music, is out in June.

Words: Colin Steven
Photography: Rhodri Jones / www.bbc.co.uk/1xtra

 

Blame & Friends at Radio 1Xtra May 2010 by newstate

• Blame

Related Links:

• Blame The Remix Competition
• Free Blame Download
• Blame Remix Project
• Blame Remixes Jacko
• Six Of The Best: Blame

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