Ninja Tune boogie-merchant Slugabed is making some of the most radiant dance music around.
At 23, Slugabed – aka child of Bath Greg Feldwick – has amassed a pretty sizeable discography, notching up releases on Planet Mu, Ramp and Stuff. His music, indebted to boogie and G-Funk, sets rubbery synth tones over rhythmic templates that tilt from hip-hop to dubstep. His sound is technicolour, sometimes silly, always downright fun.
Off the back of next month’s ‘Sex’ single, Slugabed has a new full-length in the works, titled Time Team. Due out on May 7, it’s another set of sensuous, funky cuts. The record also arrives accompanied by some brilliantly highfalutin scientific mumbo-jumbo: expect a sonic exploration of “hexagonal crystals…which must be aligned and oriented with Earth’s spin axis” (or so says the press release).
Feldwick is set to launch the album with a bash at London’s Crucifix Lane on April 20, featuring sets from Lazer Sword, Falty DL, Chrissy Murderbot, Dark Sky and Illum Sphere. We briefly caught up with Feldwick to discuss kit, kitsch, and – naturally – “fannies and pubes and nervousness”.
“I kinda pride myself on having a fucking stupid basic studio.”
Time Team has a distinctly analogue feel throughout. What sort of kit did you use to make it with?
“It’s actually all put together in an old version of Fruityloops, but using a few different synths and a lot of vintage drum machine sounds and a lot of compression. I guess it creates the warm analogue kinda feel. I don’t have much analogue kit at all. I kinda pride myself on having a fucking stupid basic studio. I’d like to get some more synths and stuff when I can, but for now I’m totally into slumming it.”
As the title Time Team suggests, the record digs up quite a lot of vintage sounds. Is there an element of homage to earlier eras of music-making in what you do?
“Sure. I mean, I didn’t ever consciously decide ‘this track is a tribute to whoever or whatever’, but obviously I like a lot of music and that’s going to shine through on anything I do. I wouldn’t ever want to be making full on throwback vintage music though: that’s been done, and therefore no fun.”
“It’s about a childish giggly notion of sex, all fannies and pubes and nervousness.”
There are some amusing track titles on Time Team. Is humour something you try and inject into the music itself?
“I never really try to inject anything into the music. I just get ideas in my head and try and put them down on paper. Not paper, obviously, but you get the idea. I guess sometimes i will have silly ideas in my head and sometimes i will have more serious ones. It’s interesting to think that instrumental music can be amusing though. I wonder how that works.”
‘Sex’ is the lead single off the album, and there are some pretty sultry sounds on the LP. Do you design your music to be sexy – an aphrodisiac, even?
“No, not really. Just wrote a bunch of tracks about a bunch of things and feelings that I’m into. The track ‘Sex’ [free download here] is more innocent than the title lets on. It’s kinda about a childish giggly notion of sex, all fannies and pubes and nervousness. Silly song really.”
Finally, tell us a little about those worthy-sounding “computational experiments analysing the directionality of hexagonal crystals”.
“They’re going great, thanks.”
Joseph Morpurgo
ninjatune.net/slugabed
