News

Lung

Please introduce yourself...
My name is James Ellaway, I'm 19-years-old and I DJ and produce dubstep and drum & bass under the alias Lung.

How did you come to hook up with Alley Cat and her Kokeshi label?
I remember seeing Alley Cat at Aperture, here in Cardiff and I think I had her as a friend on facebook. Cutting a long story short, I sent Alicia a message over facebook with a link to some of my tunes, and luckily she replied and said she liked what she heard! I had no idea she was planning on setting up Kokeshi prior to sending her the tracks, I just wanted some feedback really! So yeah, one thing led to another, Alicia took some time to think about what she was going to do and then told me the good news! It was all very surreal, it still is haha! I'm very grateful she believes so much in the tunes!

Tell us more about your forthcoming single...
The A-side Afterlife was one of the first dubstep tunes I ever made. I think I made it sometime around January this year, I was just messing around with some acapellas I had lying around within the sampler in Logic and, as clichéd as it is, the song kinda just made itself! The AA is a track called Time. This is a bit harder than Afterlife, but still pretty deep, it's a tune I personally prefer. Release is both vinyl and digital format and will be available as of December 14th!

What are you currently working on in the studio?
Currently I have about five or six tunes all in different stages of completion, the majority are actually d&b tunes. I never made dubstep until January this year, was always more into drum & bass, so I'm going to try get a few more d&b tunes finished! I was always just a musician before I got into the technological side of things, I used to play in various hardcore bands, even acoustic stuff! So lately I've really been trying to bring the technological stuff that I know now together with the live element I love too. Expect to hear a lot of guitars, possibly even some vocals (not from myself haha!) on the new stuff.

Do you ever collaborate in the studio?
I've wanted to for a while now, I've started numerous things with a few friends. Someone I'm really interested in working with is a guy called Myrkur, he hosts the Radical Radio show on Sub FM and he was one of the first people to play my tunes out to people. I have a lot to thank him for. His tunes are really deep, he has this element to his production I think a lot of producers lack, his tunes have this songwriting sensibility about them, they're not just intro-drop-breakdown-drop etc etc, they're really well-thought out and meaningful tunes.

Done any interesting remixes recently?
I haven't really, it's another thing I've always been interested in doing, I think right now I'm concentrating on my own sound, and trying to get people to listen to me first, then we'll see what happens! Although if there are any offers out there...

What's the dubstep scene like in Cardiff at the moment?
The dubstep scene here in Cardiff is great, a good friend of mine runs a night here called Neuropol. I say a night, but it's like a community, everyone's really excited about the music and it's built up quite a following, we're a somewhat 40 strong collective of producers and MCs and everyone just enjoys it! And there are some seriously good producers here. Watch out for Magenta, in fact his tune Nosotros was featured in Komonazmuk's guest mix for you guys not long ago. Also, anyone near Cardiff, Neuropol has booked Joker and Blazey for December 11th at The Welsh Club. I'll be playing alongside more Neuropol residents, should be huge!

Which producers should we look out for in 2010?
Definitely check out Magenta, and all the producers associated with Neuropol, everyone has their own style. Myrkur is another one to watch, also we've got some pretty cool additions to the Kokeshi roster, check out Irrelevant and Box Mouse, wicked productions from the both of them. Also, I strongly advise people check out a fellow Welshman by the name of Tolerance, he's featured in the Kokeshi Podcasts.

What are your plans for 2010?
Well, hopefully just gig more, ideally get more and more people listening! Just see where it goes really, it's really exciting times right now so I just want to see what happens!

Anything else you want to tell us about?
For more info on the regular Aperture and Neuropol nights in Cardiff go to www.dirtyrottenbass.com