Lachie Gordon chats to the DnB legend ahead of the February release of his new album Mosaic.
dBridge is no normal dnb producer. Arriving in London at the beginning of the '90s, his brother took him to the hardcore raves where the genre was slowly giving birth to the forefather of modern dnb, Jungle. Instantly hooked, he knew that he had to be a part of it. Twenty years later, via duo Vicious Circle and supergroup Bad Company, he's one of the most respected and influential producers in dnb, and, with the help of Instra:mental, has taken a scene repeatedly written off by critics as stagnant, and completely turned it on its head.
As I chat to dBridge in his newly rewired studio, surrounded by a bewildering array of equipment ranging from '70s synths to a top-end Mac, he looks back on one of the many times when even he was frustrated by the inward-looking genre: “I wasn’t into the direction Bad Company was going and it felt like there wasn’t really a place for the music that I personally wanted to make.” Luckily Zinc saw the potential in his unique style and released ‘The Monochrome EP' on Bingo Recordings, providing a confidence boost and propelling him into a thriving but relatively underground community of like-minded individuals also disillusioned by the direction that dnb was going.
Several years and many massive tunes later a track called ‘Naked Zoo’ by the relatively unknown duo, Instra:mental, came to his attention. “I was just like, hold on a minute,” he tells me, “what the fuck?! I need to work with these guys! I had similar ideas of melody lines and key changes and it was nice to find someone else who was doing it – and doing it really well; it inspired me to push myself.” This was to prove a meeting of huge significance for the dnb world, with the ideas of these three artists slowly seeping through their sets and into the consciousness of other producers. This wave of change built towards the end of the last decade, growing faster and faster as it was chased by the threat of the latest mutation of dance music, dubstep. “It definitely gave dnb a kick up the arse. I think that the scene sees that unless it really starts sorting itself out then it will be left by the wayside.”
The most recent significant development in this saga is dBridge’s latest project, the compilation album Mosaic, released on the 31st January on his own label, Exit Records. True to previous Exit form it reeks of quality – each and every tune is a carefully crafted gem which seamlessly meshes into a mosaic that displays dBridge's own vision of dnb. “First and foremost,” he explains the criteria he was looking for, “was soul – where you can feel that a part of the person is in the tune and there are slight imperfections in it.” In more recent productions he's begun to add an extra element of himself into his tunes by writing and performing his own lyrics on top of them. “I enjoy the songwriting side of it – it adds a whole other dimension to making the tune, with new melody lines to work around your instrumentation. It's also that part of you which no one else can copy.”
So, what’s next for dBridge, Exit and the ‘Autonomic’ sound as it's become known? Well, the future looks very rosy indeed. Exit has a mouthwatering selection of projects in the pipeline, starting with an album from duo They Live (Consequence and Joe 7), followed by LPs from Dan Habarnam and Loxy and Resound. Towards the end of the year it's the head honcho’s turn for the limelight with his second album, following on from his stunning 2007 debut, ‘The Gemini Principle.’ Perhaps more excitingly he also has a long overdue live show with Consequence lined up. “It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do,” he explains, “but I wanted to do it with someone else so we could bounce ideas off each other.”
dBridge is a very different music lover to you and I. His life in drum and bass reads like an elaborate romance, with fall outs, moments of passion and moments of hate. But when it all comes down to it, this is a man besotted. I naively ask him what it is about dnb which keeps drawing him back and like a hopeless addict he explains, “It’s so interwoven in the formative years of my life that I can’t let it go I just love it, and I always will!”
Mosaic is out on the 31st of January on Exit Records and launches at the Nest on the 1st of Febuary with a ridiculous line up including Instra:mental, Skream, dBridge, Genotype, Loxy, Code 3 and SP:MC
Photo: Theo Martindale
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