Lynx has had a remarkable rise to to top of the drum & bass scene since the release of his Carnivale and Disco Dodo singles in 2007. Released on Soul:R and Creative Source respectively, they brought him to the attention of the drum & bass public as a highly skilled, forward thinking producer capable of making a variety of styles. His debut album with Kemo in 2009, The Raw Truth, only reinforced this and now Lynx is ready to take things to the next level again by starting his own label.

Entitled Detail Recordings, the first release is out on May 31st. Keep it Low features Kemo on vocals and guitars by Rob McRudden. We spoke to Lynx recently to find out what he has in store for us...

It's been a while since The Raw Truth came out, how do you look back on it now?

It was over two years in the making and it was a long process but enjoyable and I learned a lot. I've always felt I'm more of an album artist but it was good to get back to doing singles again and not having to worry about the bigger picture of how an album should be or what the path of the album is. Now I'm just back in the studio just writing whatever comes out each day.

Did get right back into making tracks as soon as the album was out?

No, between June until October I wrote very little. After October it built up pretty quickly and I got back into the flow of it by November and it's been like that ever since.

Is running your own label something you've wanted to do for a while?

It's something I've been considering for a long time but I think now is the best time for me to do it. I just think it's like a new start, it feels like I'm back to the same period of time when I was doing Mariachi and Uno.

Has your approach to making music changed since the album?

It's a bit more free thinking at the moment, less constrained by styles, and that's not just drum & bass. I'm just writing whatever comes out, a little bit of kind-of dubstep, electro, anything.

Musical boundaries not being so rigid any more must suit an artist like you...

Yes, it definitely opens up the doors to be able to try other things. The great thing with the way the music industry is right now is that leaves the door open to anyone who's up for trying something a bit different. There's the opportunity to do really well out of it.

Why have you set up the label?

The label is pretty much for my music and collaborations with other artists. I'm not signing other artists, but a big part of the label's ethos is what I like to think of as a Chinese whispers approach to music.

For example, I might upload a beat and a bass to our website and then people can download that and actually add to the original piece of music. You see a lot of remix competitions around but this is more about collaborating and me using my music to inspire others to add stuff around it and hopefully come up with a much more diverse, interesting product at the end of it.

The parts for the first track I want people to collaborate on will be uploaded in May. I don't see anyone else in drum & bass doing that and that's my angle of why I want to start a label.

Nowadays it's more about turnaround of music than anything, and I feel that's positive but you lose collaborative spirit and Detail is a big part of bringing that back. The main focus is my music but once every two or three releases there will be this collaboration releases that is part of a bigger working project.

The first track I'm uploading is a track with Kemo called Burn. It's half finished, the intro is there and drop just basically does very little, it's a beat and a bass and the idea is that people add their touch on that. Potentially it could be a collaboration of ten artists by the end of it, which I think could be really interesting. For more info on getting involved with future detail collaborations, check out the website and SoundCloud page.

What's the thinking behind the name?

Attention to detail, because I think that works with my sound. I put a lot of effort and time into not just crafting a club track but something that's listenable on all levels. It's always been my ethos that every track should be different from the last.

Which labels will you continue you to release on?

Right now my attention is on Detail Recordings. However i do have a single forthcoming on Blackout and remixes of Bop's Tears Of A Lonely Metaphysician on Med School and the Collie Trips remix for Marky on Innerground.

Have you got a set release schedule in mind or will it be flexible?

Vinyl wise I want to do six singles in a year but there will also be a lot of exclusives available via mp3. I do a lot of vocal tracks so there will be instrumental versions of tracks available on mp3. For Keep It Low, the first single, I've got five different remixes done of it already. I'm trying to cover all angles with other genres of music as well. There's a fidget house mix, wonky hip hop mix, breakbeat, dubstep. I've done two of the mixes myself and it's really good fun.

Tell us more about Keep It Low, the first single...

The track is actually a collaboration between myself and Kemo and another producer. Sadly i can't mention who it is because he is exclusively signed to another label now. I am sure those in the know realise who it is. So the track was started at the un-named producer's place. We went to a percussion shop in north London and we both spent about £100 on some percussion and recorded all the drum sounds from scratch. This is a process i have been doing for some years now that can give you really interesting and unique results. We had this really cool minute and a half loop with a minimal-esque tribal feel that made up the intro. The B-side is Bangin Arcs and it's one of those tracks I didn't even know if I liked but I've been playing it out in the clubs and it really goes off so it was a no-brainer and it's still quite experimental in its approach.

 

LYNX Ft KEMO Keep It Low Detail 001 by DetailRecordings

 

Do you have any more releases in the pipeline?

It's still up in the air but I have about six songs that I think have potential for the next singles.

How do you find the balance between DJing and producing?

There's definitely a limit. Personally I feel two gigs in a weekend is enough, any more than that and it just gets silly. It eats into the next week of writing and general day to day stuff.

I really enjoy it now, a lot more than I did maybe two years ago, it feels a lot more natural now, the longer I've been going on I'm playing more and more of my own music and it feels honest, I'm being me and I know some people might criticise that because they want to hear an across the board set with the latest tunes from a bit of everyone.

But I think with my production it is quite across the board because I think I have quite a diverse sound so that translates in my DJ sets. I'm not trying to compete with the likes of Andy C, Fabio and Grooverider, they will always be the leaders as DJs but I'm a DJ and an artist at the same time and what I'm trying to do is fuse all that together. You can check out my forthcoming gigs at myspace.com/stevelynx.

Any other collaborations you've done recently you haven't told us about?

I'm working a lot with a guy called Hellrazor, a guy who used to write music many years ago for Breakthrough Records. He's the guy who runs the studio I used to work at as an engineer four years ago, so I'm back there a lot writing music. Being back there also feels like a new start and it's really cool as it's a nice working space. Hellrazor has been writing music for about 20 years.

I've got a couple of bits with Marcus Intalex and DRS and a vocalist called Ciah who I collaborated with before on a track called Wonder, we've got a new thing called Open Close Lock that's going down really well and is possibly the second single. Malibu Rhodes, who I wrote Mariachi with, co-produced the first single Bangin Arcs and forthcoming single on Blackout called Star with a talented vocalist called Bashiyra.

Then there's an Australian vocalist called Spikey T who has worked with a few people and Matt Flores who is based in Cologne, he's a house / techno DJ, and also a guy called Ben Newman who used to be in a crazy funk band called Corduroy who would swap around their instruments mid-set.

The collaboration possibilities will go through the roof once I upload these parts. I'm really excited about doing that just to see what comes back.

Why so many vocalists?

They add a completely new dimension to the song, possibly a third dimension that without a vocal is very hard to achieve. It's always been something I really enjoy doing, I don't know if that's coming from my engineering background or what, it just feels natural for me. I try to give a lot of respect to the vocals.

I hear a lot of vocal tunes in drum & bass but a lot of the time they're dubbed out, huge echoes to fit them into the song whereas I try and make the song fit with the vocal. I guess it may be a commercial approach to it even though my music isn't 'poppy' I think the sensibilities behind it and the mixdown and everything is quite commercial.

Any plans for a new album?

I'd love to do another album. My next album, if and when it happens, I think will be, I'd certainly like to fuse a lot of the different sounds I've been doing together into an album. Really push the non-drum & bass as much as the drum & bass.

I know The Raw Truth did that but I'd like to take another step with a lot more eclectic sounds, so like the possibilities of mixing an almost commercial pop house tune with deep Global Enemies style drum & bass song. I think that things have opened up so much more nowadays that the possibilities to do that are there.

That's just thinking off the top of my head, that's not literally how I will do it. The more open I can be as an artist the more creative I feel and hopefully the more people will respect what I'm doing.

What other styles of music are you making?

A lot of it's hard to say. I could say I'm making some dubstep but it's not really dubstep, it's my take on it and it doesn't really sound like dubstep. The closest I could describe it is dubstep meets electro pop. I'm not very knowledgeable about dubstep but I like the tempo and the idea of is it half time or double time? That's exciting and adds a lot of possibilities.

I've just made a poppy track with Stamina. No idea what's going to happen with it yet but it's very commercial, it sounds like Basement Jaxx I guess. It probably won't be released as Lynx.

I've got an alter-ego called Loose Spring Steve that I use for my poppy stuff. I'm making house, and trying to get back into the pop production. I was doing that many years ago when I was an engineer. It's a very different way of working to drum & bass, especially when you've been making drum & bass flat out for four years. I had stopped the pop stuff as my career took off in drum & bass.

I'm not writing a lot of it but I'm really feeling the glitch hop / wonky hip hop stuff at the minute. I love the freedom and looseness in that, it just feels, for the best reasons, really niave music. There's no constraints, it can be whatever it wants to be. I find that really exciting. Mike Slott, Hudson Mohawke, that kind of sound.

Download Lynx's guest mix

Tracklisting

1. TuneBoxii - Bits & Blocks (Lynx Remix) - Run Riot
2. Data & Dynamix ft. Kathy Brown - Compassion - Metalheadz Dub
3. Need for Mirrors - Panoramic Views - Dub
4. Lynx ft. Kemo - Keep it Low - Detail
5. Lynx & Hellrazor - Silver Glide (Bop Remix) - Detail Dub
6. Blu Mar Ten - Believe (Bop Remix) - Blu Mar Ten
7. Lynx & Malibu - Bangin Arcs - Detail
8. Nu:Tone -  Set Me Free - Hopsital Dub
9. Alex Reece - Pulp Fiction (Lynx Remix) - Dub
10. Dadahack - The Strong One (Lynx Remix) - Dub
11. Total Science & SPY - Ploc Monster - Dub
12. Lynx - The Foundry - Detail Dub
13. Lynx & Hellrazor - STePToE - Detail Dub
14. James Blake  - Give a Man a Rod – The Bells Sketch
15. Lynx & SDM - ? - Detail Dub

Mix hosted by www.digital-tunes.net

 

 

To book Lynx click here

 

• Lynx
,
• Detail Recordings

Related Links:

• Free Lynx Track
• Lynx Video
• Lynx Plans New Ways Of Collaborating
• Lynx & Kemo interview for Bodytonic
• Lynx Interview

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