Mathis Neuhaus: You used to work at the iconic London-based record store Black Market Records. What is the secret to a poignant record recommendation?
Dwayne Parris-Robinson: It is along the lines of understanding and reading people. When asked for recommendations, it always helps to throw in a couple of wildcards and work out the further direction from there. That is even more important when people come in who have a certain idea of what they want, because it broadens the gauge. When I worked at Black Market Records, I used to handle the downstairs area which was equipped with dubstep and drum‘n’bass and the other UK styles that were emerging around 2011… There is an element of building something with music that can be fittingly described as curating. No matter if you are DJing, putting out music, or recommending records to other people. People rely on your knowledge and also respect it, if you work behind the counter at an institution like Black Market Records…
MN: And not only do the customers profit from you, but you also profit from working at such an institution?
DPR: Obviously. A lot of music comes in at a record store and you check a lot of it. A thing that has to be put into consideration is that record stores are usually associated with a certain sound. Idle Hands is a specific pusher of certain records, Hardwax too, same thing with Phonica or Sounds Of The Universe. When you occupy a niche, the music is pre-filtered accordingly. There will be odd things in between waiting to be discovered, but I learned most about the UK styles that were on the shelves of Black Market. Upstairs at the store, they sold house and techno and each section had its different workers that were very into the respective scenes. That showed in the clubs they frequented, too, even though there also was a crossover. Going out was often not only about enjoying yourself, but also about hearing new tracks and making a mental note to get that for the store.
MN: How much drive for re-inventing itself does London have at the moment?
DPR: London and the UK music scene is in a fractured place, because it feels like there is more separation than five or six years ago. It is specific in where it goes, and what it is, and what kind of world it falls into. There is less crossover between musical palettes, with exceptions to the rule of course. For example, there is a big bassline world going on right now, but that world is completely separate from a lot of the other scenes. In that bassline world, you may not have that much interest in anything else, and anything else has maybe no clue that this world is massive and doing amazingly well. I think a lot of cities in the UK are just doing their own thing. Glasgow has its own thing, Manchester and Bristol, too. London has its own thing, but since it is so big it can feel more separated. Whereas in Bristol, for example, it sometimes feels like it has a better support network and an artist like Pinch or a label like Idle Hands maneuver different scenes more easily.
MN: Which is interesting, because you fit into a lot of different sounds and scenes…
DPR: A lot of my music has always been UK-informed and taking my own twist on things. I come from a background of grime and dubstep. Those are things that were very formative in my early years. And I took the sound palette and made it my own, by using different tempos, for example. Sometimes, I listen to tracks I made and think that it could be a jungle tune, but more because of the vibe. People who produce jungle would probably disagree, but for me it fits. It is important for me to have a connection to the UK in my music, because it is where I am from and is a big part of my musical heritage. I want to show that the sound of the UK can be done in a way which can connect with a lot of other people in a lot of other scenes.
MN: You are mentioning Tempa, a label you worked for. As an insider how far does such an institution reflect on being an institution?
DPR: Working for Tempa was interesting, because they let me get on with it, mostly. I was signing a lot of the slower stuff, like the releases by Alex Coulton or Cliques, and the label usually trusted my ear. Because I used to go out quite a lot, they often gave me free reign on signing new releases. It was nice to have that trust and I think, even though they knew and understood the heritage and part they played in everything, they mostly tried to keep the music fresh. It becomes harder when your history is rooted very specifically in something, so maybe certain Tempa records did not get the attention at the time, because the people who were listening to Tempa then wouldn’t have been the people who would have picked up certain more out-there records. But Tempa allowed me to occupy some space within that world to explore new directions, and I am thankful for that.
MN: Speaking as an artist, would you say that Britain’s history of electronic music can feel suffocating at times? I think the term nostalgia has to be addressed, too.
DPR: To a degree, there is baggage. And the challenge is to work with it and make it your own. It is hard to not be influenced by such a rich history—from acid house to jungle to garage to grime and dubstep and everything in between. When you got 30 years of history and so much music, especially in the 1990s and early 2000s, when something like garage became a huge commercial success, it is hard not to have that sound be a part of you as a person and artist. For me, music from the UK is characterful music, also because of that history. If you listen to early Photek records, you can hear that it is Photek. The same is true for grime, with early Wiley or Boy Better Know releases. The sounds may not have been the greatest sounds, but they had such a specific character in how they were sounding that made them immediately recognizable. A Ruff Sqwad release from back then just sounds like London—I can’t think of a better way of describing it.
MN: This leads up nicely to something else I wanted to talk about. I feel like the term “sound design” gets thrown around a lot, especially in reference to some contemporary UK artists. I am thinking of Objekt’s latest LP Cocoon Crush (Pan, 2018) or Pearson Sound’s Rubble EP (Pearson Sound, 2018)…
DPR: Objekt’s sound design is phenomenal and quite specifically engineered. It depends on the context and what you want to achieve to do. When writing an album, sound design can be really important, because you want to create a cohesive sound, whereas a dancefloor 12” does not necessarily require the same degree of it, because the function of it is maybe to be hard-hitting. You want it to sound good, but you do not have to go into that much detail.
MN: How is it for you?
DPR: I am still learning to hear and make things I want to. Structuring music plays an important role for me, and I usually have a clear idea of how I want to build up certain tracks. But getting into sounds and their design is something else, because when I first got into music, I just wrote stuff to see what sticks. But the more refined your own working process gets, the clearer it becomes that you have a certain sound in mind that you want to bring into existence.
DPR: I think that is true, since I do not use many sounds. When I finish a project, there is usually not much in it. But again, as I learn more about the process, I also learn to put more elements into my music. I was not comfortable using things like kick drums or snares when I first started making music. So, I just never used them and I managed to mold my own space and sound by not relying on elements that are usually a given. But eventually, as I grew more comfortable with what I was doing, I slowly added some of these elements back in. Which made sense for me after I crafted my own specific sonic region. I also only got my first piece of hardware half a year ag. Before it was always in the box computer, speakers, sample, manipulating sounds the way I wanted them to be.
MN: That’s interesting because, technically, you have all the world’s sounds at hand when working with a computer and you don’t have to limit yourself to certain hardware.
DPR: Yes, but I am very picky with what sounds I like and use. I learned that over the years of writing music. I sat in front of an almost endless library of sounds and realized I do not really like any of them. That is the reason why it became so minimalist—because I do not like to force things into it. I do not like feeling like I have to fill the space. If the space is there and the space makes sense, I rather have it exist and embrace the emptiness as a place to breathe. I think another thing I tend to do in my music is occupying the low end and tops, but leave it hollow in the middle, which gives it a minimalist edge. When there is so much empty frequency, the rest of the other sounds have more space to develop and can take all the room they want.
