Asusu Interview

Currently spreading dubstep vibes across the Bath and Bristol area with his back-2-back DJ sets with fellow bass reprobate Trigger, as well as dropping bare dubplates of his own, here Asusu shares his take on sampling, going deaf after Subloaded and, err... gay marriage.  Questions supplied by Macker.

1) What got you into music? Is there any particular point at which you thought "hey, this is for me!!!", or was it something that you gradually got into over the years?

My turning point was when I started to write lyrics at about 13, so there was a definite start - I can still remember the first time. I was really into my hip hop and rap, and loved the whole sort of scene, which lead me to buy a pair of decks shortly afterwards. It wasn't really a serious thing until I got to the end of school and was at the point where you have to start thinking about what sort of direction you want to head in. I hadn't done a music GCSE, but I took the plunge and went for the BTEC music tech course because I couldn't see myself doing something I didn't enjoy for a living.

2) I'm not particularly big on dubstep, so I don't suppose you could shed some light on it for me. What is it about the genre that you like so much?

This is a toughie! I liked dub before dubstep (Scientist in particular), and when I heard Burial's album it combined these skeletal beats with beautiful melodies and the omnipresent dub test tone. I didn't really rate a lot of the other stuff very highly at the time, I think it was the older dubstep and a lot of the Kode9/Spaceape tracks that got me interested in that. I love the fact that it's such an open genre - you get 2-step vibes, wobbly half-step, techno and really bare minimal stuff. I think that's the main attraction for me, you can listen to a dubstep set and it's constantly changing throughout. Of course, we can't forget the thrill of hearing it in a rammed club on a huge system. It's great to be able to skank out like that, I hate trendy clubs where they play r'n'b and you only go to get wasted and try to pull.

3) Who are your biggest musical influences? Are there any unusual ones, perhaps some that you might not want to admit even?! Go on, you can tell us!

Well, Aim is the artist that got me away from the more commercial US hip hop - he's still my favourite. It's the music that brings back memories of growing up, he makes great funky beats and melodies that I aspire to. Boards of Canada too - they have a very similar effect and a really distinct sound. I started to really experiment with samples when I heard what they did. Another is Amon Tobin, the Splinter Cell OST completely blew me away when I heard it. I admit I don't listen too a lot of d'n'b (if you'd label him as such), but that album was so adrenaline fuelled at points, and really slinky and sly in others. It's not repetative at all, but constantly changing and fresh. As for dubstep - Burial. I came across the scene when I was mainly listening to downtempo electronica type stuff, just really deep music. I couldn't have got into dubstep through any other artist. I'm really rinsing Darqwan's stuff at the moment too, as well as Headhunter. I'd be a bit embarassed to admit to listening to Jehst nowadays, his new stuff really doesn't stand up to his first few e.p's which inspired me more than any other mc. My unusual taste would maybe be Weather Report - they made jazz fusion, it's so funky and great for sampling.

4) One thing that's always amazed me about your productions is your sampling ability. I've known you take a sound and turn it into something completely different, as if by magic! Like the time you made those horns sound like a rhodes, or bird song used as a bass! How on earth have you learnt to do this?

Well, most of my favourite artists make kind of lo-fi sounding stuff, stuff that's difficult to make with synths. I guess part of that is to do with the use of analogue equipment, but sampling from vinyl is a common theme throughout most of the artists. I can't play any instruments either, but I like recording them when I get the chance.Of course, I come from a hip hop background as well, so when I first started to produce it was instinctive to sample. A lot of it's experimentation with filtering, pitch shifting, modulation and just general processing. I find that samples are a lot more pliable than synths, you start off with such a complex waveform so you're not limited to all the obvious synth sounds - if I use a synth, I'll usually bounce down the sound and put it in to my sampler because I can do more with it. I've just started to dabble with Max/MSP too. It's a bitch to learn, but well worth the effort because you can basically build synths, samplers, processing units and just about anything you can imagine to you're own specifications. What really appealed to me is that you can pitch shift audio to unimaginable speeds that other programmes simply can't reach.

5) What do you hope to get out of subsine & where would you like to see it heading in the future?

I think the initial aim of subsine was to spread dubstep to places where it hasn't infiltrated yet - such as Gloucester. I personally want to play a lot more in Gloucester and help to forward that myself, even in Bristol there's been a few people come up and ask what is we're playing. Since we started to discuss possibly releasing other forms of music, I guess that's where we're headed for the future. For the moment though I think pushing ourselves into the spotlight is the most important thing. We have a few contacts here and there, but we need to make our name locally first. It's a prime location for dubstep, because even though it's small, it's got a big d'n'b and garage (mainly grime) following. I think people will definately rate it, we just need to show them the way with a phat system.

6) Are there any genre's that you'd like to try your hand at producing, but haven't got around to doing so yet? If so, why?

Minimal Techno. I started listening to a little bit - mainly the Deepchord stuff - after I heard some dubstep compared to it. It's the only 4/4 stuff I can stand to be honest. They've got the whole lo-fi thing going on with the white noise they use and the delayed chords are one of my favourite ever dubby sounds. I'm not sure whether I'll ever give it a go because you need to be able to immerse yourself in a music form to produce it properly. I don't think I could simultaneously produce dubstep and minimal techno, just like I've lost my touch for hip hop. There are always elements of my favourite sounds cropping up in my music, but I can't just switch styles from track to track. For the moment I'm going to stick to dubstep, but within the next year I want to fuse dub, garage, electronica and downtempo hip hop together. It's hard to find your sound, but I think these are the styles that will come together to form mine. I've also been working on some more spoken word lyrics - kind of like Tricky - so they might crop up somewhere along the way.

7) It's pretty safe to say you like going to live events - what one's been the most memorable and why?

Subloaded 6, 'cos I couldn't hear anything the next day! Well, not much anyway. I accidentaly blew a speaker because I couldn't hear what I was doing, and partly due to a dodgy crossfader on my mixer as well. Surprisingly, we spent most of the night downstairs at Teachings In Dub. They had a proper old school sound system clash, and we only managed to tear ourselves away for a little bit to watch Vex'd and snatches of other sets.

Cool, I know you're a tech head, like myself - what equipment have you got your eyes on, and what would you love to have if money were no object?

Well, software wise - Kontakt 3, Logic 8 and Max/MSP (I'm running the 30 day trial at the moment). I know you hate Logic and Macs, but I'd love one of the new i Macs to run it on too (4GB ram!). Since I can't afford the hefty price tag for Max, I might get PD instead which is a free version that's apparently just as good. It's designed by the same people too, I think. I've been wanting a portable recorder for the past 6 months as well. That'll probably come out of my next chunk of student loan, I've got my eyes on the Edirol R-09. I just received a second hand pair of Technics 1200 mk 2's in the post not 3 hours ago, only to find that they're in a far from satifactory condition. So now I have to go to the hassle of sending the bloody things back and scouring ebay for another pair. I'd like to get a little bit more outboard stuff, a compressor and a tape machine maybe - I'm really envy Malwav's setup.

9) What are your views on gay marriage?

I told you not to ask!!!