Klute has been releasing forward-thinking drum & bass since the mid 90s and with the release of his sixth studio album on his Commercial Suicide label on July 26th, Music for prophet, shows no sign of slowing down. We spoke to Klute recently to get the scoop on it...

How does it feel to be releasing your sixth album?

Part of me thinks I should be doing something a bit better with my life than pumping out drum & bass albums! I still really enjoy it and I'm surprised that I've done six. Doing an album is a lot of work.

How does the planning go for each album, do you sit down before it all starts with a theme of sorts?

For the last few years I've felt it's better to present my music as an album rather than singles, for me it's more enjoyable. So I've got into the habit of continuously writing music that tends to sit there because it doesn't make sense to me as a single.

Your albums always work as an overall experience, from beginning to end, do they just come together naturally?

I write everything independently of each other and when it comes down to a compiling stage I just start shifting things round like those square puzzles where you shift things around to make a picture. It's a bit like that and sometimes I find I have to write a bit more music if there's a gaping hole in the way that I want it to run or I'll write a little bit of music to join things together.

 

 

The feel of the album comes in the arrangement afterwards and it would be a dream to release it as a single vinyl album where you could listen to it as a whole. However you can't do that so I have to arrange the album for CD, which isn't my favourite format but it's the one that contains it all.

Do you find that good tracks don't fit and get left out then?

Yes, there were quite a few this time. It had been an extra year since I had done an album so I was quite self conscious about this one and I over produced and made too music. I was just driving to make more tunes so I ended up with a fair amount of overspill and I still don't know what to do with the rest of the stuff at the moment.

I was going to do it with a single CD without any techno this time so I would have had a tremendous amount of overspill but I think people have become so accustomed to the techno now so I decided to do it again.

What's the thought process behind the title?

Firstly it doesn't have any religious connotations at all. The first comments I got when I announced the name was people worrying that the word prophet had been appropriated to mean the Prophet Muhammad. So you'll notice that the word prophet in the title is in lower case so as not to address any prophet in particular.

 

It's just a play on the word profit. Music for me is something that transcends description, it's a higher form expression, a spiritual thing, blah blah blah! In this day and age there's so much emphasis on being commercial within music, it's difficult enough to stay afloat being blatantly commercial and I think a lot of people are just making music that fits in.

There always has been this anti-consumerist philosophy behind Commercial Suicide...

Obviously by releasing music for purchase I'm already playing the same ball game as any other corporate musician. I'm very conscious of that element  and there's a fundamental conflict of interests with art and commerce, I don't think they're mutually agreeable. It's understandable that money weighs heavily in things and things are judged by financial success rather than any creative merits.

There's always an underlying self-deprecative humour going on as well...

Yes, I think self-deprecation is a form of sarcasm and it's a quality I look for in people. It just shows a sign of humility really, rather than saying everything is wicked or it's all good. To me that stand point is empty; it's vacuous to say that everything is great the whole time, it's boring.

That "it's all good" mentality is very prevalent with drum & bass as well...

Yeah, part of that mentality is what propels the whole thing and in some ways it's quite a comforting thing to be shielded by this rigid discipline of 'this is how things are'. However, on the other side, it's really frustrating that people do follow the status quo so much. Where I get particularly frustrated is when minor changes are described as next level but then again this what makes the drum & bass community so weird in its own way.

Are you able to sum up the album at all?

I've been asked a few times already about what's different about this one and I feel pressured to say it's something really exciting and different but it's just me and more of what I do. It's not been designed to be my great departure.

 

After my last album I thought I would approach it differently but instead I sidestepped into doing stuff for The Stupids again during 2008 and the first part of 2009. So my musical curiosities were taken care of in a completely different way. So I just wanted to present what Klute is rather than try something natural for the sake of it.  

 

 

Any collaborations you can tell us about?

I did a track with Dom & Roland and one with Stamina who lent the vocals to a tune called Strange Dinner. This was more like a solo album compared to other ones where I've worked with more vocalists. I didn't feel particularly vocal driven this time round. Vocals became something completely different for me because I'd been singing in the band and writing lyrics and it tapped out my creative need to express that.

 

Doing The Stupids again was meant to be a side thing but because we all wanted to do it properly and it took a huge amount of time and energy reapplying myself to write two minute punk songs. With drum & bass you play something for five seconds, loop it eternally and spread things out on a computer but with a band you've got work out where it's going to progress and how the vocal is going to fit into it.

Has the album you were working with The Stupids come out then?

Yeah, it was called The Kids Don't Like It and it came out last July. The record label was really supportive and paid an enormous amount to record it and then didn't do the whole part of selling the copies. They've got an impressive distributor that's rubbish for anything apart from black metal so it's something I want to address when we come to do the next one.

 

It's frustrating because people didn't know it was out there. That's the nature of punk these days, it's even more DIY than ever. You can't just make a good record and the scene will generate it like drum & bass, you really have to get in there and network but I just don't have the time.

How were the live shows with The Stupids, was it a completely new crowd?

It was half and half really. I suppose the most vocal part of the crowd was the old boys going 'I've been waiting x amount of years to see you' or 'I remember this and that', which was nice but tiring after a few times. It's not just been the old heads though, there have been a lot of new people and it's just been really great playing.

Have you ever thought about doing a Klute live set rather than DJing?

I did it back when I made my first album in the late 90s where I took out the Atari and basically pressed play and triggered the sampler and stood there trying to look busier than what I was. I just thought it was ridiculous so I gave up. I don't really see the need.

 

Even if it was a case of using new technology like Ableton I still don't see the need. I do correlate drum & bass with DJing and if there were ways to make that more interesting then I'm all for that. I would like to investigate Traktor Scratch or something like that to see if it improved the art of DJing and I would like to have the ability to mix more than this linear way.

Your track Always Dreaming is in many ways classic Klute with that blend of euphoric melancholy you do so well...

If there is one thing that I aim for, like a kind of signature vibe, it is that sweet melancholy. It is my favourite thing when I stumble across music that I like.

 

 

What equipment are you using these days?

Like most people these days it's all in the computer but I will return to a hardware set-up when I have access to the space again, which will probably be within the next year. I do miss it and there's nothing like a synth with knobs and the sound is so much more satisfying.

Any current favourite plug-ins you'd care to share with us?

I'm a big fan of Spectrasonics just for the volume of usefulness you can get from Omnisphere and Stylus RMX. I love the SoundToys plug-in series - they're designed by the same people who made the Eventide algorithms, they're extremely high quality. Regarding my sequencer I'm still a big fan of Cubase but I'd like to have a look at Ableton.

What's the next challenge for you?

Like I just said, getting more space in the studio. I've really got back into playing the drums and I'd like to a "proper" musical album. I can also play other instruments and I can sing but I just need a little bit more space to do that. Not just physical space but mental space.

 

I'd like to do something along those lines, really push myself. I love drum & bass but I owe it to myself to step outside of the drum & bass comfort zone and do something different.

Beyond the album what's in store for Commercial Suicide this year?

The Nymfo single Matchstick has just come out and there's another Mindscape 12" coming called Damn Tough. Then there's something from Amit, a 12" from The Upbeats and something from Dom & Roland and Vicious Circle as well.

 

So there's quite a lot and I'm already talking to some of those people about return visits so it's going to be a busy last six months of the year. I'm also thinking about releasing an artist album by someone else again. I just want to see who I think would be the best person.

 

Words: Colin Steven

 

 

• Klute
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• Commercial Suicide

Related Links:

• Video: Loadstar - Space Between
• The Usual Questions: Klute
• Klute's Commercial Suicide Plans
• Klute Celebrates Ten Years Of Commercial Suicide
• Klute Commercial Suicide Interview

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