Following a plethora of releases on an impressive host of labels that includes Alphacut, Subvert Central, Offshore and Transmute, ingenious drum & bass duo Macc and Dgohn are set to release the Some Shit Saaaink LP on 19th July. Originally surfacing on vinyl on the Subtle Audio imprint last year, the LP will see a full CD release on Aphex Twin's Rephlex imprint.

Some Shit Saaaink is the first full-length project from the pair, and sees them let loose a stellar arsenal of tracks from the vaults that they have amassed over the years.  

Eschewing the constrictive trends of modern drum & bass, they deliver up a barrage of inventive rhythms and swelling atmospheres over the course of the ten tracks that make up the LP.

Eerie soundscapes mutate and twist themselves around the percussion as layers of drums pierce through the haze, transporting the listener into a dystopian vision of the future.

Amalgamating live instrumentation with intricate programming, the album manages to retain a feeling of fragility and soul that is so often lacking in modern electronic production without losing any of its impact.

Kmag caught up with the pair to find out more about the project...

Hi guys. For those that don't know, can you please introduce yourself?

Hello, we are Bob Macciochi and John Cunnane.

How long have you been collaborating for and how did it first come about?

B: A long time. We went to school together and became friends at about 12. We were in a god-awful band we'd rather not talk about by the time we were 14 or so, so we were already collaborating by then. Ten years later we'd grown up a bit and expanded musically, and ended up doing some drum & bass sort of stuff. Didn't imagine we'd still be talking about it...

What exactly are the dynamics of your relationship in the studio? How do the tracks come together?

J: We're chalk and cheese, we argue like mad. It's sometimes a wonder anything comes together at all to be honest. Often it's because we are talking about the same thing in different ways. Like, 'move that sample forward' means 'move it left on the screen' to one of us, and 'move it right' to the other. When you have such different ways of talking about things, you get a bit pissed off from time to time. About every five minutes.

B: To be honest, it's that which makes these tunes what they are though. It's a proper head-on collision of our different approaches. I tend to favour a natural-sounding thing, whereas John likes to do things 'wrong', 'cause he is a contrary bastard by nature. The number of times I have said 'but you couldn't play that on the drums John!', and I get 'I know!'. We just hear things totally differently, and it makes for interesting stuff, I hope.

The drums are clearly the focus of a lot of your tracks, delving into intricate rhythmic patterns and time signatures. Is that the starting point for the creative process for you?

J: It's almost impossible to say where or how these tracks started. Most of them are six or seven years old now, and we're getting old... We did sometimes start with a drum pattern, but it's more about the rhythm section as a whole – you know, drums and bass, what this music is named after – rather than just drums. There are people more drum-centric than us. Anyway, drum-wise, Bob's a drummer and likes to make a nice natural-sounding and interesting beat, then I like to piss all over it.

It is refreshing to hear electronic music imbued with a more organic, human sound. With the advances in production techniques over the last decade or so, do you think that something has been lost in drum & bass / electronic music as a whole?

B: Doesn't sound like much of an advance if you ask me. Production is supposed to serve the music, not the other way around. Maybe that's what's changed. I love quality production as much as anyone, it's what I do for a living, but it is all supposed to serve the idea. The cart certainly seems to come before the horse these days. It does seem to be prevalent in drum & bass, though there is still idea-led stuff around.

Do you think that remaining detached from any kind of 'scene' aids creativity and originality?

B: I dunno about remaining detached from a scene – certainly we have made good friends who we still see regularly and have beers with. So we are sort of a part of that, we just don't latch onto it as the definition of what we should be doing. We like to do what we like to do, and we'll do it whether anyone is listening or not. We're just making our music, simple as that.

The music seems relatively removed from the current goings-on of the drum & bass scene. Do you pay much attention to what is going on around you musically?

J: A tiny bit maybe, but only what our mates are doing. I don't know anything about this 'drum & bass scene' thing. We just like to make tunes really.

B: I don't think there's anything deliberately removed or anything like that. We've always just been more interested in what we're doing – is this good, is this crap, do we actually like it? - than what anyone else is up to, at least when we're making music. It's just the music we make, it's... honest like that. Even the artwork, it's based on doodles and notes from when we were making the tunes. I don't get all the pantomime 'rudebwoy' business with the funny hand signs and the hats and that. We're just a couple of pricks making some tunes, really.

If not drum & bass, from where do you take your musical influences?

J: Absolutely everything I've ever heard.

Having previously been released as a vinyl EP on Subtle Audio, how did the link up with Rephlex for the full length CD come about?

J: An email.

B: Pretty much... The CD album was always going to come through Subtle in addition to the vinyl. Conor at Subtle has been a long-term supporter of both of us, individually and collectively - can't say enough nice things about him. He knew all these tracks were sitting around and had been for five, six, seven years, so he said 'bollocks to it, I'm going to put them out'.

We got the whole project together, absolutely everything down to the art, sound, vinyl, CD – everything. About a week before it was meant to go out to the distributors, Rephlex came in and said to hold everything. Aphex Twin had been playing some of John's stuff and a few of our bits all over for a while, but that was madness. So eventually it was agreed for Subtle to put out the vinyl, and Rephlex put out the CD. It's completely mental, to be honest!

With the material on the album coming out of the vaults, have you been working on any new material? Have you got any projects in the pipeline?

B: Yes, we do need to get our arses into gear.

J: In the pipeline, yes. However, we need a plumber.

Words: Sam Collenette

 

Macc & dgoHn - Mustard Greens

• Macc
,
• dgoHn
,
• Subtle Audio
,
• Rephlex

Related Links:

• Macc & dgoHn - Some Shit Saaink Preview
• Pinecone Moonshine's Sound Of New Music
• Issue 79
• Subtle Audio Release New Compilation
• Free track: Polska

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