Stuart Warren Hill and Robin Brunson, aka Hexstatic , specialise in creating audio and visual shennanigans. Much of their music involves integrated visual experiences, and both of their main album releases for Ninja Tune have been CD and DVD combinations. Robin is now starting his own Lower Level Records imprint so we got him to put us in the picture...

Why are you starting your own label?
I started making stuff for the forthcoming Trailer Trax album as a side project and it was almost complete before I knew it. Ninja's schedule was already full for this year but I obviously wanted to get it out asap, so I decided to start a new label for this and some future 'Hexstatic presents' releases. Ninja agreed to publish and promote it so it seemed like a nice new challenge.

Who is involved with running it?
It's mainly me but, like I said, Ninja are promoting and publishing and Kudos are distributing it.

What's the concept behind the label?
Just to put out some new and fresh stuff from Hexstatic and others, probably with a slightly heavier / darker slant, although saying that an element of humour is always necessary in anything we do or release.

Tell us more about the first single...
Gammera is the first single out 22 March. It's made up from samples of an old Gammera film that I found was in the public domain. For those that don't know, Gammera is Godzilla's original nemesis, so you get the picture, marauding monsters terrorizing the earth with their powers. It seemed to work well with some heavy beats and bass, as you can imagine.

There are two excellent remixes, one from George Lenton which is dark and brooding and an insane remix from Akira Kiteshi. Both artists were people that had really pricked up my ears musically over the last year so I contacted them about the remixes. Amazingly Akira, aka Tommy, is related to Stuart!? It was great because we did a swap, he supplied the remix and I did a video edit for his Ming The Merciless release. Both worked out really well and we're planning some more stuff.

 

Who else will you be releasing?
At the moment it's just a vehicle for this year's Hexstatic projects. Stuart has a project called Holotronica which is more about 3D live performance but he's hoping to produce some material to release later in the year. I'm also on the look-out for new talent and hopefully these first releases will help it grow into something that can support other work.

What is your Trailer Trax album all about?
It's all about samples from some old films and drive-in adverts that I found. I really love all of those cheesy alien films and also the great old adverts you used to get in cinemas. So I've cut up all these with elements of dubstep, techno, electro and drum & bass. The album will be accompanied by a 30 minute iPod movie which has all the tracks mixed together and the idea is it's like the 'coming atractions' or preview slot you get before films. The album is kind of going back to what I've done best in the past really, back to basics beats and bass fuelled by video samples.

There is quite a lot of dubstep influence on there as it's something I'd been listening to for a while but never made the real jump to produce or DJ until now, but I think the genre has become really inspiring of late and producers like Akira Kiteshi, Reso and George Lenton really pricked up my ears, along with that L.A. sound that's going on at the moment, it sounds really fresh and new, much like the first time I heard Planet Rock. We had experimented with that kind of sound in the past with Distorted Minds from Master View back in 2004 but never really took it further.

I read that you have a new AV show with all new material coming...
The show will be an expansion / remix of the AV album movie, and will encompass all those elements and more, stuff that I wouldn't be able to release for copyright reasons. I use Pioneer DVJs for the show so the whole thing is the video synched tightly to the music. I'll also be trying out some stuff with Ableton as you can run video from it now and it opens up some nice possibilities for live cutting and manipulation of that video.

There's a launch on May 13th at Cargo with former DMC champion DJ Woody presenting his new AV set using Serato video, and a tour at the end of April, beginning of May is being set up at the moment.

Anything else you want to tell us about?
There will be some special bundles of the single and album with extra videos, etc. from the Hexstatic Bandcamp page.

• Hexstatic
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• Ninja Tune
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• Akira Kiteshi
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• George Lenton

Related Links:

• Trailer Trax Releases Free EP
• Akira Kiteshi interview & 2 hour dubstep mix
• Akira Kiteshi Guest Mix
• Dubstep Label Screwloose Launches
• Slugabed Signs To Ninja Tune

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