“Where are you guys going??? you can’t go through this way”

The last words we hear as tonight’s headline act and I head through an almost hidden door behind the DJ area in Carbon nightclub in Galway. This door takes us through to a dark oblong room with a crash barrier at the end. Behind the door an F1 rig rumbles away to the great annoyance of my dictaphone and every now and then a little wave of dry ice creeps under in mock horror movie fashion. This semi-closed door was being held shut with a kind of tall plain pub table. I re-wedge the door shut and begin our interview in near darkness.

The talent at DubCulture tonight is Jamie Roberts aka Blawan, a hotly tipped producer from Sheffield who came out of nowhere last year with his debut release, Fram/Iddy, for game changers Hessle Audio. But for him it didn’t feel like that…

Jamie – “I wasn’t plugging away at the production side of things but I had been working away at the DJ side of things, being a bit naive thinking I would get gigs off the back of my Djing I soon realised that wasn’t the case. So I kind of went in hard trying to find my sound and do something different and I was just really lucky.”

Lucky likely had little to do with. After sending on some tracks to Untold he got a phone call from an excited David Kennedy (Ramadanman/Pearson Sound), a member of the triumvirate which makes up Hessle Audio, that same day. With this release he joined a small number of high profile artists on the critically acclaimed label.

Jamie – “We’re like a tightly knit group of people. I think with Hessle they’re constantly wanting to push new artists but at the same time support their artists. Just like with the forthcoming compilation, theres everyone and a few other people released on it which is wicked to be involved with. With Hessle it’s more like, if the choon’s right; it’ll come out…”

For those unfamiliar with Hessle Audio, it is a bass music label based in Leeds which has been at the forefront of new directions in the big mess of music that has been known as dubstep since 2007, and now on its 18th release. The 13th Hessle record last May was Blawan’s debut. Jamie gives us an insight into the process involved with releasing on such a label.

Jamie – “With the first Hessle release they were like “Yeah we got the tracks, we really like them but just hold them for a bit”, Ben(UFO), David (Ramadanman) and Pangaea, they all went out and played them and said they got a good reaction and I think it was off the back of that they were like “right we’ll put them out”. I think if you’re making dance music you’ve got to test it out in a place like (indicating Carbon nightclub) this haven’t you, cos thats where its being played. If you’re writing an LP or something for headphones its not necessarily gonna be that, but if you’re writing dance tracks.”

Next up Blawan followed James Blake, Untold & Pariah in the new generation of UK producers to be added to legendary Belgian label R&S. I ask him how this came about…

Jamie – “You know Arthur (Pariah), he was good friends with Ramadanman and I got to be mates with him and he was like “you should send some stuff to R&S” and I was like “no I’m not gonna send some stuff to R&S; they’re just gonna shoot me down” but I sent some stuff, I think it was about last August, not long after the Hessle release, and the tracks came out around March. Them tracks have been sitting around for a while.”

Rob – “The acid 303 sound on the EP was different from the previous release, retaining the swing to the tracks but perhaps inconceivable as a Hessle track…”

Jamie – “Yeah, for me it’s nice to be involved with the R&S guys and the Hessle guys. It’s nice to be in the two camps cos with R&S and I can kinda explore a sound more, whereas with Hessle its always about innovating, writing new music that sounds interesting. They’ve got such a tight A&R with the tracks, I find it really hard to write a Hessle tune cos I’m constantly saying to myself, “Is this good enoungh?”

Thankfully we won’t have to wait a further 9 months for the next Blawan track with 2 more due in the coming weeks, I asked him about these releases and the inclusion of a blast for from the past…

Jamie – “The next thing is the Hessle compilation, which is pretty special. I’ve got a track on that, and that’s out on the 16th. The compilation is pretty special. They’ve got that old D1 dub on there, (called sub zero) which I was as shocked as you were about. When I saw it I was like, wha? Cos the last time I heard that was when Youngsta played it in like 2005. It’s a sick track, it’s sort of a precedent for all the 808 stuff thats going around now. That track is pretty much just 808.

Then I’ve the Getting Me Down track on white label….”

Rob – “Presumably because of the vocal sample?”

Jamie- “Yeah, it kind of annoyed me a bit that people were sparking all these rumors about it not coming out, and I’d never even acknowledged that the track existed. Which is kinda of the way I work anyway, I try and keep it on the down low, I don’t really like people playin it out until its ready to come out. With the Hessle release, I wrote Fram in 2008, so its a really old track but I was still really happy for it to come out. Some of the other stuff is like that, the lead track on the R&S release, I wrote that ages ago as well. I think its definitely the way I like to do things, not in a stuck up way. It just keeps a bit of mystery.

I think some people utilise the internet a bit too much. Some people write a track and as soon as they’ve rendered it off they’ll upload it to Soundcloud and expect people to comment on it and all that bollox and it’s a complete ego trip. And what really they should be doing is just writing tunes that are good enough to be released and getting the crowds reaction. For me, cos I’m a big vinyl head anyway, vinyl is proper important, I think if you’re putting unreleased tracks up on the internet and then they come out subsequently on vinyl, the incentive isn’t there to buy it on vinyl cos people have heard it before and they can buy it on digital so I think keeping something quiet is an important part of the process.”

This year saw the end of the line for the iconic technics 1210 model, and much shouting and speculation has been done about where things are headed next in underground. An industry standard replacement hasn’t yet emerged but the at a glance front-runners for some time now have been Serato/Traktor Scratch and Pioneer CDJs. We talked a lot about our mutual love of vinyl and how we’re both stuck using a mixture of formats at the moment (serato and vinyl)

Jamie – “I’m trying to get away from playing serato and I hate Cds…A few years ago I used to cut acetate all the time. Its just so expensive though. Your talking 35 – 50 pounds… you can get 2 choons on that. Wheres the incentive to do that when you can just download it for free. But yeah, I think once I get some money I’ll start cutting acetate again.”

Rob – “So do you think the art of vinyl Djing is dying out then?”

Jamie – “I dunno, I kinda think that sometimes; thats its only a matter of time before vinyl dies out. But the longer it goes on, it seems to contradict that cos theres still a lot of people who are still really on vinyl. Vinyl sales aren’t that bad. The Getting Me Down release, my initial plan was to do a really small press and maybe do another one later but ST were like “Naw, we’ll do a big press” so it’s gonna be a big one off press. Once its done it’s done. And for them to risk with essentially their money; to print all these copies out and see how it goes, and they’re the people who’re at the forefront of sales, they’ve all the figures and everything. That’s a confidence boost. I think vinyl and Djing has a very long life left.”

Blawan is certainly a producer noted for the quality of his output rather than its quantity, a fact he seems keenly aware of. He mentions he’s knocked out about 30 tracks this year and I ask him why he’s holding all this back…

Jamie – “I’m just really wary about over doing it. Cos I could put like a release a month but that’s not a good look. It’s not what I wanna do. I wanna put out records that are the best I can do. I don’t want people going out there and spending 7 fucking euro on a vinyl when it’s something I just punched out in a few hours and I’m not really happy with it but some other guy is happy with it. I want it to be the best thing I’ve done and that’s why I think it was 9 months between the Hessle and R&S releases. That wasn’t because I wasn’t writing any music, it was because I wanted make sure my second release was the best thing I could do.

I’ve got a couple of other things lined up. Obviously there’ll be another R&S thing I think probably around summertime or something. There’ll be another Hessle thing. Theres a few other things I could do right now, but whether I need to or should do them is another thing. But you know there’s plenty of time man. There’s no rush. If a track’s good it’ll have a life span. If a track’s shit it’ll get forgotten about.”

Outspoken and with clear opinions on what he thinks are some of the wrongs in todays underground, Jamie returns to this topic of the unnecessarily ferocious pace of todays internet driven music scene.

Jamie – “Thats the problem with the internet right now, everyone just wants fresh all the time. Just let things breathe a bit. Its too fast, way too fast. This is partly the problem I think with like sales and music now. Some labels, I’m obviously not gonna mention any names, but they’re putting releases out every two weeks. You don’t need to be doing this, people are still going to be buying your records. Just pick the best out of them. Don’t just release a 12” every two weeks and expect people to still be buying it, cos its not fair on the people buying it and its not fair on the artist either. I don’t know, I’m just havin a rant (laughs), people can do what they want. I’m not gonna tell people what to do. That’s just my personal view.”

Rob – But if you ran all the record companies….

Jamie – “Ya! Haha if ran everything then no one would put out anything! and everything would just take ages!”

Rob – “So Blawan says slow the fuck down?”

Jamie – “Ya just slow the fuck down basically. I think theres a real sense of people wanting everything now. And I know people appreciate the music, but ya gotta appreciate that the producer maybe wants to take it somewhere or take his time. I think thats what i’m trying to do, I don’t want to put everything out cos if i do it’ll just end up being really messy, there would be no fluidity to the releases. I think thats what im trying to do, keep a nice flow going rather than just have craziness!”

And so ended my shady interview with a producer who certainly seems to know what he’s about, but definitely without any ego attached. Blawan’s subsequent set, supported by Deletia, Welfare, Noid & Phonetik, was satisfyingly good, based firmly in techno and house with some stepped rhythms thrown in for good measure and featured tracks by himself, Sandwell District and (at least) one off the new Instra:mental album.

When talent of Blawan’s magnitude is matched with the ability to think clearly, foresee the path he wants to take with his music and the integrity to make it happen as he wants it to happen and in his own time, an illustrious career is surely to follow. One would expect Blawan to have a formidable back catalogue within the next five years, but only time will tell….