“The way artists treat their influences is strange when you think about it.
It seems that there’s always some kind of temptation to show the world that you sprang forth fully formed. That you were some kind of prodigiously natural born selector.
I sure as hell wasn’t, and I’m proud of that.
I had to work to find music I like in a process that took years for me to build up any knowledge or experience I could be proud of.
I still feel very much like I’m just scratching the surface of what moves me and what makes me move.
As a result I always find myself reluctant to do “influence” mixes that show where I came in at this from.
When I see other people talk about their influences it just never seems to chime with my own.
I wasn’t listening to Miles Davis when I was 10. I’m just not from a background where that ever could have happened.
At the beginning of lockdown I promised to do mixes for everyone who asked. It’s been a slog, and I’m still working through them, but this most recent for @chineurs_de_madrid turned out to be the dreaded “Influence Mix” format, and I couldn’t really say no.
So I’ve gone balls out and honest:
My musical decision as a producer have been influenced way more by the movies I watched than by any exposure to dance culture, and the artists who got me in to dance music were The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers. Things like Model 500 came way later, and as legit as they make me seem I’m just not interested in lying, or faking what I am in a bid to comply with what somebody else thinks is cool.
This is about as honest a sonic trajectory as I ever could have created to show my influences and if you’re familiar with my work you’ll know how true that is when you listen.”