This Monday’s FACT mix is a light-footed journey through house, techno, garage and dubstep from one of our favourite current artists, Manchester’s xxxy.
Xxxy, real name Rupert Taylor, came to our attention with the snaking house of ‘Sing with Us’, featured on Fabric’s Elevator Music compilation alongside music from Untold, Mosca and more. Taylor seems to get better with each release, the recent ‘Know You’ and ‘Blue Flashing Lights’ (featured on a split infrasonics 12” with Ike Release) glorious rollers that haven’t left the FACT DJ’s bags since their release, and he helped fill up one of our busiest Lock Tavern sessions to date alongside Guido and Ramadanman this July.
His FACT mix rolls through gently swinging vocal house and garage, before turning its attention to busier UK cuts, including recent favourites from Hackman, Pariah, Breach and Julio Bashmore. It climaxes on one of the tracks of the year, Hyetal’s dazzling ‘Phoenix’.
You can read FACT’sinterview with xxxy on page two of this article.
Tracklist:
San Soda – Ode Aan de Verkeersdrempel
FaltyDL – St Marks (Cosmin TRG remix)
Shiny Objects – Black Spaces (Pezzner Version 1)
Surrealism – So Much
San Soda – Hypocrisy
DJ Gregory – Work Me
Seiji – Elevator
DJ Gregory – Vem Rebola (Oh Mix)
Julio Bashmore – Footsteppin
Breach – Fatherless (Doc Daneeka MRR SNRZ mix)
Dj Sdunkero – Choosing Love
Hackman – More than Ever
xxxy – Ordinary Things
Wafa – Pop Up (Canblaster remix)
Zeppy Zep – Rebis
Pariah – The Slump
(Joe- Claptrap)
xxxy – Bodymoving
Hyetal- Phoenix
Photograph by Jonathon Beattie
xxxy, what’s your story? Where do you come from? What do you do?
“I am from Manchester, I work by day, produce by night and if I’m not DJing at weekends then I am catching up on sleep or producing.”
Like many of your peers, you come from a background associated with dubstep but your tunes roll closer to 130bpm, and there are clear techno and garage influences in what you do. What music is particularly inspiring you right now?
“My current inspirations are, amongst others, Anthony “Shake” Shakir, Karizma, the R&S & Trax reissues (‘cause I missed most of these first time round) and The Tempa El-B compilation which I thought I’d lost but found in a cupboard.”
How do you think your music’s developed across the four or five 12”s you’ve put out now? And any idea where it seems to be going?
“The first three (on Formant, Mindset and Pollen) were all made around the same time and seem to reflect the large amount of techno I was listening to at the time, the infrasonics 12″ was my take on break-driven house music (not progressive trance as some mp3 sites would have you believe) and my forthcoming EP on Fortified is my experiments in garage. Not sure where it seems to be going, let’s just hope people keep enjoying it!”
Tell us about the mix you’ve done for FACT.
“The mix is a selection of tunes which are currently killing it for me, from the exquisite deep house of San Soda, slowly progressing tempo-wise passing through Hackman’s anthemic ‘More than Ever’ and finishing up with Hyetal’s brilliant Prince meets sci-fi soundtrack anthem ‘Pheonix’. I’ve thrown in a couple of new productions from myself as well.”
What releases / new projects do you have on the horizon?
“Up next is my Fortified EP which should be dropping within the next month, after that there will be releases on Well Rounded, Ten Thousand Yen, Orca and Hopefully something else on infrasonics. I feel pretty blessed to be working with all these amazing labels.”
Tell our readers something they won’t already know about xxxy.
“I’m a little bit obsessed with cheese.”
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