AS: It's been just over a year since I last interviewed you for Example Magazine. A year ago you were one half of Submerse, a Future Garage production duo. Over the year I've seen the name Submerse popping up all over the place; interviews, gigs, feature mixes & releases. What's been happening since we last spoke?
Submerse: So much has happened this year it’s crazy; busy none stop all the time! Well, soon after we last spoke I became a one man band, due to moving and work related things. I’ve been pushing out as many releases as I can and been playing gigs all over the show including US, Canada, France, Poland, Belgium, and all over the UK. I also wouldn't really call myself a Future Garage artist as such because I’ve been making pretty broad things the past 6 months from Bassline to House to Moe/J stuff.
The main points of the past year have been releases, having a track picked up by Pioneer for the new DDJ TX1's, gearing up for shows in Japan, producing with The Klaxons, guest mixing for Ministry Of Sound Essential Garage, signing to Faze2 agency, heaps of Sub.fm shows, sponsorship deal with Terratag, charity compilations, and watching so much anime it hurts my brain trying to recap what I have seen. Overall it’s been a super year and all the peeps I have met/worked with have been amazing! Lots of wicked peeps in the world!
AS: So it's been a pretty busy year then! Out of everything that's happened, what would you consider your highlight?
Submerse: Ahh thats a tough one, so many cool things I couldn’t really say just one. The year as a whole has been sweet.
AS: Haha, fair play man. A lot has happened in the bass music world within the last twelve months. A lot of new sounds and artists have been breaking through and absolutely smashin' it. Are there any developments that you have noticed that have got you excited or influenced you in your production?
Submerse: Yeah there is so much good music around right now its awesome, I’m really feeling so much different stuff. Really into Skweee, Witch House and autonomic stuff at the moment. I also think bass music is getting broader and broader by the day, it’s good to take influence from a bit of everything. I still listen to plenty of game music, ost's, a/j-pop/core but I think having such a wide taste in music can help expand your productions and make you want to dabble in a few new things. So many producers to name who have been killing it recently bit massive things coming from every country. It’s been a great start the year!
AS: What's the deal all the Japanese sounds/samples you use? & what the hell is J-Core & J-Garage?
Submerse: Well I'm heavily influenced by anime etc. so it always rubs off on my tracks. I make a lot of serious, kind of sad stuff so it’s always great to make play tracks with fun to them.
Haha, J-Garage was just a funny name to call my productions that have anime J-Pop samples, nothing serious, not a micro genre or anything; taken with a pinch of salt! J-Core is awesome, basically just Japanese Hardcore, not finished any tracks yet myself but it’s just full of energy and there are some great producers.
AS: J-Core sounds pretty interesting. For those who don't know (my being one of them) who would you recommend checking out.
Submerse: Check out DJ Shimamura, M-Project and M-Neko (Who is from the UK!)
AS: You studied Music Production at Leeds Met University. Obviously you must of learnt a great deal about music during your time as a student, and not just in the technical sense, you likely made a lot of good friends, contacts and discovered a lot of new things. Would I be correct in assuming this? If so, university clearly played a big part in your growth as an artist and as a person. How do you feel about the increased university fees and what effect do you think it's going to have, particularly in regards to art & music?
Submerse: Yeah that's all true and 100% correct! I think for myself going to uni helped me get to where I am now. The people I met from nights, other producers etc. were all essential for my growth... but that’s just me and I think it had such an impact because I wasn’t living in a city before. I didn’t know anyone in the scene or anything like that and uni was where I met people. I think it’s shocking about the fees, but just being in a city and meeting people will help you so much. As my old college teacher always said it’s just about getting yourself out there.
AS: Tell us a little but about Heartbeats.
Submerse: Heartbeats is compilation put together by myself, Andy Bee and Price. It’s on sale for £5 and contains loads of unmixed tracks from a huge amount of producers. All the money goes to Red Cross Japan. I couldn’t be happier with how things are going for it and the amount of people wanting to help out! We will be doing more compilations in the future so keep an eye out!
AS: Great stuff! What producers would you recommend people keeping an eye on for 2011, and what can people expect from yourself this year?
Submerse: Lots of great producers doing amazing stuff this year! Far to many to name all of them but watch new stuff from Resketch, Para, Kingthing, Silvanian Families, Kastle, Kanji Kinetic who all have great releases planned! But as I say there are far to many to name! It’s going to be a great year!
As for myself I have forthcoming tracks on Party Like Us, Well Rounded, Frijsfo, Night Audio, Bass = Win, Mutant Bass, Off Me Nut, Formant, Youngunz + more. Also rammo with gigs around the UK and you can catch me in Japan (April - May) playing around Tokyo. I also may be back in the US towards the end of the summer and I have a load of new things in the pipeline that I have to keep hush about for now.
AS: Sounds good man! What's the best way for people to keep up to date on your happenings?
Submerse: I always keep my Soundcloud up to date soundcloud.com/submerse with forthcoming tracks and release info. You can also follow me on Twitter @submerse where i tend to spam a lot!
KoKo (Forthcoming Maltine Records) by submerse
Bubblin' (Forthcoming Frijsfo Beats) by submerse
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