Appleblim

Emma Warren

OK, so we’re here on the couch with Appleblim, who co-founded Skull Disco with Shackleton. He put together the most recent Dubstep Allstars compilation, and you may have come across his past podcasts for Resident Advisor and Rinse FM. And you will probably have heard some of his records as well, especially for all of you guys that were at the gig on Tuesday. So, welcome, Appleblim…

Appleblim

Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks.

Emma Warren

Yeah, so we are all very happy and excited to have you here on the couch. A lot of people here, as we just said, will have heard you play on Tuesday night… that was quite a few people, at that gig.

Appleblim

That was a crazy gig, totally unique venue, crazy. I think everyone who was there would attest to that.

Emma Warren

So maybe, for anyone who wasn’t there, can you paint us a little picture about what happened?

Appleblim

Just many, many people. Crazy, semi-outdoor venue, which I believe was built for an Expo here a few years ago, which they are still using for these kind of community festivals, which is pretty amazing, and it was free. Yeah, just more people than I have ever seen in one place at any one time, I think, pretty much.

Emma Warren

It was people for as far as you could see in every direction. I mean, many thousands getting heavily into what you’re playing. I noticed you were playing vinyl and CDs, is that a new move?

Appleblim

Yes, unfortunately I am a self-employed musician at the moment, and I used to be a bit of a dubplate purist. I don’t know if people know what dubplates are, they are basically one-off acetate records that you cut off your exclusive tunes. But it is quite expensive, and at the moment I can’t afford to cut dubplates. So, I’m having to learn how to use CDJs, which I was vehemently against in the past, but needs must, so hopefully it went OK.

Emma Warren

Do you think purism has been quite a big motor of a lot of creativity? There’s a lot of good things about it, and I think for a lot of international DJs, they are used to playing CDs as well, and the dubplate purism isn’t quite as deep. Do you think there is maybe a benefit of being flexible about it?

Appleblim

I think it can work both ways, there are real advantages. Well, the reason that I started cutting was just because every time I went to a dubstep club, that’s all I saw people playing. So, to me, it felt right to do that, and I started to get exclusive tunes. Well, my partner Shackleton in Skull Disco could never really DJ, even though he felt like he needed to cut dubs, and he did. His music is very percussive, and when you don’t mix that kind of stuff very well you can really hear it. So he’s converted to Ableton, and it’s completely taken on a totally different thing, and it’s amazing. So, I think in certain ways it could hold you back and in certain ways [you could benefit from it]. I think the reason that it’s good is investing in your tunes, you know? Like, you’re not going to spend £30 on cutting things you haven’t got faith in, so it kind of works two ways. But, obviously, a lot of the other top ten dubstep DJs still use plates, and I think that’s correct. And getting a mastering job on them, which has a kind of sound to it, you know? One person will be mastering most of your tunes, so it’s going to have a feel of their sound kind of thing. It works both ways, I think.

Emma Warren

When you do cut dubs where do you get dubs cut?

Appleblim

Transition. The first times I went down to FWD>>, which is the first dubstep club, 99% of the things that were played on plates were cut at Transition. So I’d just go home and look up, “What is this place?”, and finally get to go down there and meet the guys. For me, it comes from being obsessed with jungle and drum ‘n’ bass back in the mid-’90s. A place called Music House was kind of the equivalent of what Transition is to dubstep. So, it was kind of like a dream come true to go down there and get a record mastered. There’s people down there that are queuing up and kind of chatting about things, and swapping things, so it’s kind of like a little community thing, which is a very nice thing to be involved in.

Emma Warren

I can remember back in jungle days going to interview Ed Rush and Optical. We went down to Music House, and we were sitting there and it was kind of like an A to Z of jungle, plus I think Danny Rampling walked past, which was slightly unexpected. But yeah, those places are really important, and no doubt when we have Goldie on the couch next week, some of that will be talked about again. But I just want to pick up something that you just said? You mentioned Sam Shackleton, your musical partner in Skull Disco, and kind of touched on the way he plays live. Can you tell us what you hear when you go and hear a Shackleton set?

Appleblim

Well, yeah. It started off that he was just using Ableton to try and line up his tunes and do a standard DJ set. But he is getting a lot, lot deeper into it and re-editing and composing live, as I’m sure people are aware with Ableton, it has got that potential. So, every show that he does is very different, and he feeds off the crowd, and it’s kind of like a completely different vibe to if he was just playing a few of his tunes. Anybody that has seen him or anyone that hasn’t, I highly recommend you to check him out next time he plays – it’s stunning stuff.

Emma Warren

And just again on a DJing tip for a minute, I know that you DJ around and about at – ordinary is probably the wrong word because they are not ordinary places, but the kind of dubstep places, clubs. Where else have you been DJing recently?

Appleblim

Quite a lot of festivals and stuff this summer. Like, Glastonbury is a big deal for me because I used to go when I was young and I hadn’t been there in ten years. I got invited to play there this year, which was brilliant. Playing on an outdoor stage, crazy. Even one of my old teachers from my degree was there nudging people saying, “I used to teach him,” which is really nice to know about. The guy that got me through my degree, basically. And then Bestival was brilliant as well, which is a festival on the Isle of Wight, which people might have heard of. I went to Japan last year, which was obviously a big deal.

Emma Warren

And so, when you are DJing now are you playing some of the new stuff which you have been making?

Appleblim

Yeah, yeah. I mean, currently I am involved in quite a lot of collaborations. I’ve found that creatively, on my own recently, I don’t know if it’s like creative block or inspiration to finish things. I find it a lot easier to have someone to bounce ideas off, which I think the participants will hopefully find out of this is that collaboration is just so much fun, and can push you into areas that you wouldn’t normally go into. So some of the things that I’ve been happiest with recently are things that I’ve done with other people. Either from Bristol, a chap called Peverelist, or a very young dubstep person called Ramadanman, who I’ve been making stuff with, and a chap in Nottingham called Geiom who people might have heard of. They are all things that I’ve really, really enjoyed.

Emma Warren

Can we have a listen to one of these new collaborations?

Appleblim

Yeah, I’ll play you the me and Ramadanman thing.

Emma Warren

So, when did you do this?

Appleblim

Maybe a couple of months ago, it’s pretty much finished. It has quite a long intro.

(music: Appleblim & Ramadanman – “Justify” / applause)

Emma Warren

So, a reminder then that dubstep is not just about wobblers.

Appleblim

For sure.

Emma Warren

So, tell us: What is that? So new it does not have a name?

Appleblim

Yes. Unfortunately, if anyone has any ideas, it’s imaginatively titled “140” at the moment, as in the BPM.

Emma Warren

Ramadanman is an interesting person to mention now, because he is someone who has gone in a relatively short period of time from a kind of super fan of the music, someone who was always out, always there at the very start and the very end, to someone who is running a successful label, Hessle Audio, putting out some really interesting records. And he is a very good example of that transition that lots of artists go through from fans to creator. But it is something that happens quite a lot in dubstep, and it is definitely your route, isn’t it?

Appleblim

Yes, for sure. I was just very inspired by the club FWD>> that I went to, just randomly a friend recommending it to me in late 2002. It was just one of those life-changing moments in the same way as when you first went out to a drum & bass rave, or a jungle rave, or a hardcore rave, like, “What is this?” I got obsessed with it and went every month, it was monthly at the time. I don’t know, people may not know the club Plastic People in London, it is a small club but with a really big sound.

Emma Warren

So when you say small, it is like 200 capacity, 250?

Appleblim

Yes, it’s really intimate. The people who built it basically got it exactly right. For instance, no glitz, just purely about the sound and no lights. No one is down there to kind of check out people dancing, or what they are wearing, it’s just the sound. It’s just all encompassing. It’s the kind of place that is entirely correct for the music, really. So, I ended up just chatting to the organizers at the end of the raves and stuff, and eventually that’s how I got to know them all and how I was asked to sort of help out promoting the music, basically.

Emma Warren

So, let’s just stick around this minute for a moment in 2002 where you walk into FWD>> for the first time. I just think sometimes getting a picture of those moments is really interesting and useful. What did you see, what was so fascinating about it for you? Who was there?

Appleblim

I mean, like I said, I’ve been inspired by raves, ’92, ’93, and then again moving to London in ’94, and going to things like Metalheadz, and just being blown away by sound, almost not believing. You leave a night, it was like, “What on earth did they just do?” You know, Grooverider or something down at Metalheadz, I don’t know what they did to my head for an hour. It was just really enjoyable and it’s that same kind of thing, almost being wrongfooted by something. It’s so different or inspiring, so my favourite DJ down there at the time was Youngsta, who would be playing a real mixture of anything from grime to kind of breaky stuff to just the beginnings of what people would think of as dubstep now. Just a completely packed room, electric atmosphere. To me, it was like I had found out where the rave was again, because I had been going to a lot of electronica-type gigs even around that same area in Shoreditch, and they were just getting drier and drier and less and less people kind of dancing and stuff. And walking into this place was like, “Right, this is where it’s been hiding…”

Emma Warren

This is where the spirit of rave has been hiding. I think we definitely want to talk more about FWD>> and your relationship with that whole family, but I think Skull Disco is one of the things that people know you best for, or certainly something that kind of propelled you to where you are now. So where shall we start with Skull Disco? How about telling us how it came about?

Appleblim

I used to go raving at FWD>> with a bunch of friends. I worked at a record shop at the time and I worked with the best friend of Shackleton and my other best friend in London. We all used to go out and go to raves at FWD>>, and come home afterwards and be inspired. And listening to the pirates, Rinse FM obviously mainly. Tuning in every week and getting to know the DJs and texting in ridiculous requests.

Emma Warren

Who was your favorite DJ at the time?

Appleblim

At the time, it has got to be Youngsta, really. He is technically amazing and a really funny chap as well. Shackleton had been making beats, and I had been mucking around a little bit, but we were inspired by going to FWD>> and hearing this kind of bass music that sort of didn’t really have a name then. Shackleton had played me a few things, and it was kind of like, “Yeah, I think that’s OK,” and he had saved a bit of money and he was like, “I really want to put something out,” inspired by what we saw going on down there. And I happened to have just started a degree in music technology, and I had been given an old PC, and I got myself a copy of FruityLoops because I’d heard that the producers that I loved were using that. Skream and Benga and Plasticman all made their beats on Fruity, so it was like, “I’ll have a go then.” And Shack heard the first thing I did and said, “Let’s just do it, let’s just put something out for fun.”

Emma Warren

And whose idea was the name?

Appleblim

That was Shack. He is a lover of a good pun. So “school disco,” “Skull Disco,” you know?

Emma Warren

It would be really good to have a listen to some of the music you are talking about. Shall we hear something?

Appleblim

I’ll play an old thing that I did on Skull Disco, which is directly inspired by stuff that Skream and Benga were making early on. This is just me trying to do something like that, really.

Emma Warren

You said that you had read in an interview with Skream and Benga used FruityLoops so you used FruityLoops. How did you get on with it in the first place?

Appleblim

I found it pretty easy just to get involved with, and it is still what I use now, and quite a few of my mates still use it.

Emma Warren

It’s funny, you do a whole degree in music technology and you are still using FruityLoops. That says something for the person that invented it.

Appleblim

It’s like the grime tunes I loved at the time, like some of my favorite ones were made on PlayStation and stuff. So, it doesn’t really matter as long as it sounds good. I’m sure people would argue with me about that.

Emma Warren

So what are we going to listen to?

Appleblim

It’s a tune called “Girder” off the second Skull Disco release.

(music: Appleblim & Shackleton – “Girder” / applause)

Emma Warren

So how far into your production career were you when you made this?

Appleblim

It was still pretty early days, really. That was probably the second thing that I finished. I was still in the “lucky mixdown” kind of period really, not really knowing what I’m doing but kind of just trying my best.

Emma Warren

A lot of people who have sat on the couch and talked about what they do and how they do it, have talked about how they started by trying to make a record they liked, and that process seems to be quite common. You hear something you like, you go home and you go, “I wonder how they did that?” And you learn to navigate whatever you are using. Was that the case for you?

Appleblim

Entirely, yes. It was directly inspired by beats that Skream and Benga were making back then, very raw and stripped down. The fact that it was FruityLoops I heard, or read in an interview, and thought, “Hmm, I think I can probably get into that.”

Emma Warren

Can we have a listen to something else again, early days, early, early days that was directly inspired by something?

Appleblim

Yes. I mean, like Digital Mystikz, when they first started getting played down at FWD>> was like a massive, massive influence and again I sort of tried to do something a bit like that but mixed it up with… I was a big fan of Ed Rush and Nico and Trace and stuff like that back in ’95, ’96 and it has got a bit of that in there as well.

(music: Appleblim – unknown)

Emma Warren

I think everyone kind of heard what you were saying then. But maybe, just kind of say it again, what was in there for you that you then took into your tune? By the way, it is slightly rare that record, Digital Mystikz – “Chainba”…

Appleblim

It’s just really sort of strange music, when Youngsta and Hatcha first started playing “Chainba”, it was kind of like it took you off a bit. It took you a couple of times to stand there almost getting used to dancing again, the same way when I first heard jungle or whatever. You have to think about how are you going to move to it. But it was just kind of like bleeps and bass, and the rhythmic diversity of it that was sort of quite astounding, I thought. Elements of all my favorite things distilled in a way that I hadn’t heard before. I wanted to get involved in that.

Emma Warren

You mentioned Metalheadz a minute ago, and Mala and Pokes and Loefah all went to Metalheadz. Did you know them back then?

Appleblim

No, no, not at all. I came from a town called Plymouth in the south-west, which had a big rave scene. But I moved to London in ’94 and listening to the radio and stuff like that was just mind blowing. And trying to find out where the raves were, and eventually finding the [Blue Note] in Hoxton Square, and I caught the last couple of those there, and followed them around religiously for the next three or four years, really.

Emma Warren

It’s funny though, isn’t it? I remember Mala saying before, they were the first guys in to Metalheadz and the last to leave, they’d be queuing up and they’d be like, “There was always some guy who was reading the Times in front of us and some other dude.” But the same was for you. A lot of people seem to have their first – what would be the word – subsuming, like totally lost in a scene [experience]. That’s a very poorly put together sentence, but they kind of had their very first musical epiphanies around Metalheadz. I guess, you may have had that conversation with them?

Appleblim

I think that’s the thing that even with Kode9, as well, and the music that you hear them make – it is almost this idea that they have come out of jungle and drum & bass, but they are not trying to make something that mimics it. I feel like you can feel the ghost of that stuff in there, just in these spaces almost between the rhythms, rather than trying to fill them up.

Emma Warren

The ghost of jungle, the ghost of rave. You mentioned Ed Rush and Nico and you may have mentioned Optical, not sure. What was it about that No U-Turn stuff that you particularly liked?

Appleblim

Just raw energy, basically. Seeing them play out in those days, it was mad. They seemed to create their tracks designed to be mixed together and they seemed to know the inside and outside of each other’s tunes completely. Ed Rush and Trace back to back, they’d be mixing and the Amen would be firing on one deck and in the space that it isn’t there would be another one, it was completely linked. Reading about their studios and stuff as well, Nico and the whole kind of… someone would be bringing in a fresh tune, just as they were mixing down another one, and mixing it into what they just made, and taking it out to get it played in the evening. It was just really, really inspiring and a really primal energy kind of thing.

Emma Warren

You always had a very good line in titles, [like] Soundboy’s Ashes Get Chopped Up and Snorted. Was that before or after the Keith Richards story came out? Do you think he’s a secret Skull Disco fan?

Appleblim

I reckon he’s been ripping us off.

Emma Warren

Tell us a bit about the aesthetic of the label. Obviously, the name of the label, the titles, the artwork, you’ve got some records down there, let’s just get them out.

Appleblim

Show them around.

Emma Warren

How important was it for you to have that whole thing?

Appleblim

It was massive, really. I learnt a lot from it, really. In the first couple of releases people were talking more about the artwork than the music, really, because I think it was probably of a higher standard. Eventually, we started writing stuff that maybe stood up to it. But basically, Shackleton comes from the kind of punk rock, DIY, fanzine side of things, so he was always very big on visual things. A friend of his used to draw things for his fanzines, and it sort of made sense when we started the label in getting him involved again. It was like all one guy, one of Shackleton’s oldest friends who comes up with all of the visuals. So, it has definitely taught me something about it. Like, there’s something really nice about faceless white labels, I think, in terms of a lot of the stuff that I used to buy – grime and dubstep – in the early days was just random pressings of like 500 white labels. You never really knew who it was, which is definitely something sort of good about that. But also to identify with something and especially in the age of downloads and stuff like that. I think to give people a product that has got something special about it, is really, really important. So, I have made sure now that we have finished Skull Disco, the next thing I am doing, I really want it to be presented in a different way, but still with very strong visual elements, I think. I think it’s just that people really cherish that, when they buy something.

Emma Warren

But Skull Disco during its lifetime was a really successful label for you, wasn’t it?

Appleblim

Yes, yes, unexpectedly so. I think Shackleton’s music carried it though for a certain amount of time and was distinctive and different enough, and was picked up on by techno DJs, which we never expected to happen at all, who all started pitching it down, and putting it in their sets and stuff. We never expected it to do anything. We were trying hard to flog copies to Black Market [an important record store in Soho, London] of our first release and stuff, people were a bit confused by it, like, “This is weird, it looks like a heavy metal record.” But, gradually, it has become something that was successful, that was not anything that we ever intended. And, now, after ten releases, it has kind of run its course, and I think to try and carry it on and make it work in any kind of way wouldn’t be right. It has been a nice chance thing that everything has worked out, but to try and engineer it again I don’t think would work. We are kind of doing our own thing separately now. Shack is still making music, but it is going to be a different kind of thing.

Emma Warren

So can you tell us the story about how you got the Ricardo Villalobos mix of Shackleton’s “Blood on My Hands” to happen?

Appleblim

I just read in magazines that he had been charting it, basically. We had been booked for Bestival for the first time, in 2006 it was, and he was playing there as well, and I’d been a fan of his records but I’d never seen him DJ. I had missed out on him becoming this big DJ. To me he was still just a weird experimental techno producer, really.

Emma Warren

It’s funny how that happens sometimes, you think someone is one thing, and the rest of the world has caught on to the fact that it’s something completely different.

Appleblim

Totally, totally. So, we went down just to check him out, really, and I had had the foresight to think of bringing along parts for one of the tunes that he had been playing. We just kind of stood down the front and shouted until he noticed us wearing our Skull Disco hoodies and waving a CD, and he eventually kind of looked down and walked over and looked at me and said, “Shackleton?” I said, “Nah, nah, it’s him…” I just put the CD in his hand and shouted “Remix!” at him and he nodded, and put it in his bag and I thought that was the last we’d hear of it. But two weeks later he gets in touch and says he’s done it. Bonkers really, you know? It was 20 minutes long and he was telling me that he couldn’t make it any shorter, and if I wanted to have a go at changing it in any way, then I was welcome to. So I had a weird opportunity of trying to re-edit this massive 20-minute tune and I couldn’t really do anything with it either, so I said, “Look, let’s just cut it down the middle, stick it on two sides and see what happens.” And that basically just saved the label. We were struggling at that point, and we were about to put it to bed after it wasn’t even breaking even. He gave us the remix without even talking about money. He really liked what we were doing, it was a gift to the label, and it went on to sell nearly 8,000 copies now on vinyl. So it is a shot in the arm for us completely. Now Shack has returned the favor by remixing him.

Emma Warren

It’s funny though, isn’t it? Because often from the point of view of someone that’s into music or going into the record shops, you see these things as fully formed entities, don’t you? You don’t imagine or look at a Skull Disco record and think, “I’d better buy this because they might be struggling.” You don’t have the sense of what’s going on behind the scenes. It’s quite interesting to see that even the people that have got the labels and are doing things are going through the same trials and tribulations that anyone goes through. I also really love that story because it’s just so fantastically democratic, there is no “We were backstage with him,” or “We were hanging out here,” it’s literally just you’re at the front going, “Look, it’s us, we are our T-shirts!”

Appleblim

He was a really genuine chap, and there were lots of other people sniffing around when they heard about the remix who wanted to release it and he was just really adamant that it was like, “No, this is for you and your label, it is not about anything else. I just want you to carry on doing what you are doing, and if I can help in some way, then all good…”

Emma Warren

Shackleton’s kind of – you can’t really use the word publicly because he is so unkeen on being public – but he seems to have a very extreme discomfort around the word dubstep and the connotations of dubstep. Do you think his response is kind of at the far end of the spectrum, or is reflected by other people within the scene?

Appleblim

Yeah, I’m not sure. I mean, in a way I sort of marketed the label as something that was exploring dubstep and grime and bass music, and, at the time, that was the correct kind of thing. But I think after it became a whole, “This is dubstep,” I think Shack really lost interest after a year or so in these incredible records by Digital Mystikz and Skream and Benga and stuff like that. He moved on to other things, and felt like we had kind of been carried along with that stuff. So, yeah, I just think he is the kind of guy that isn’t in it for attention or being part of any kind of scene. People were saying about the remix being this meeting between techno and dubstep. It’s like, he didn’t really have a clue about any of that stuff. He wasn’t hugely into dubstep at that time and he doesn’t know a lot about techno, you know? So it’s kind of like it’s just something that kind of happened, and I think he just would prefer to sit at home and make music and put it out and whoever buys it buys it and that’s it. Whereas I’m a lot more into the whole process of promoting a record, and I read magazines obsessively, and like to know what people are playing, who is working with who, and it’s two different ways of working, really. I think it’s probably the right time for us to go our separate ways and do our own things.

Emma Warren

And how do you feel about the internationalization and expansion of this kind of unwieldy thing we call dubstep?

Appleblim

It’s all good. I don’t know, I don’t know. I go out and I hear the big tunes getting played and to me it doesn’t inspire me as much as hearing the really weird, fringe stuff. But as long as people are happy and dancing it’s the same as anything. If people can say, “Drum & bass is dead,” or it’s no longer experimental, or whatever, then surely it is, you just need to find it. And if people are still raving and having a good time, then that is what you want, basically.

Emma Warren

There’s a different energy in some of the dubstep clubs than there was, say, a year ago, or 18 months ago. Although having said that, what was there in, say, 2006 was a very different energy to what was there in the days when it was all being developed. How do you feel about that difference?

Appleblim

When we first started going to FWD>>, it was less about people raving and dancing, it was more just kind of people stood listening, which is cool but we kind of couldn’t not be moved by the music, so we would just go crazy.

Emma Warren

And when you say “we,” who do you mean?

Appleblim

Just me and my crew of people, so Shack and our friends. And it is really nice to know that the people down there kind of appreciated it, because they were sort of like, “Oh yeah, I remember you were coming down and going mental.” And DMZ eventually kind of asking us to play there and stuff, as a direct thing that we had kind of inspired them by just being that enthusiastic about the music. So, I think that kind of energetic response to music is really, really important. But I think there is a danger of it becoming a bit macho and all the big builds and drops and stuff like that, and people having a big kind of mosh and pushing each other around. I’m not into the aggression side of it, but I’m definitely into people letting go and really brocking out…

Emma Warren

Brocking out… What was the last record that you heard out that made you stop and go, “Wow, what is that, what is it doing?” You know, that kind of feeling you get when you hear something and you think, “I can’t say I like that because it doesn’t really make sense to me yet, but I’ve been alerted to something in it, and I know that once I’ve figured it out I am going to like it.”

Appleblim

Hard to say, really. Around this kind of genre there’s a chap called Jakes from Bristol, who is just making bonkers stuff. Really, really, really odd, but still kind of works on the dancefloor. They are kind of bangers, but they are really off-kilter, kind of strange, awkward rhythms, which are always going to appeal to me, basically.

Emma Warren

Is this a wonky banger?

Appleblim

Yes, perhaps.

Emma Warren

The word wonky seems to have different connotations. Wonky has been used a lot in lots of different genres, but it is kind of like it means you have got your wonky pop electro stuff, so I feel like wonky is one of those words, like trip hop, which means about 15 different things, and eventually will, kind of phoenix-like, turn into something and become something else.

So, where were we? We are talking about you and all the people that you were with at DMZ and that kind of energy. I know, that leads us nicely to Bristol, because the kind of people you are talking about form the sort of Bristol contingent. For people that don’t know, Bristol is a small city in the south-west of England that has quite a strong bass and reggae heritage. It is a port, so there was lots of geographical reasons why it has this. But this is where Massive Attack came from, this is where the Wild Bunch that preceded Massive Attack were from, and where Roni Size and his Reprazent crew came from. Aside from my potted history of Bristol, what does Bristol mean to you?

Appleblim

I mean, I studied in Bath, which is not so far from Bristol. So, as I was traveling back to London every week, and going to FWD>> and stuff like that, we started hearing about someone doing stuff in Bristol, which is a chap called Pinch, who was the first person to book any of these Croydon [dubstep] outside of London, really. And so it was like the first place where it kind of took hold and we were just down there at all these early nights when 10, 20 people would turn up.

Emma Warren

So, you didn’t know about it before, you just heard about it and made sure you were there?

Appleblim

Yes, yes. We were just surprised that there was something going on in Bristol because we had always had to go back to London to check stuff out. The reason that Pinch started doing it was literally, so that he could hear the music more. He came up to FWD>> once and was blown away, and , rather than us coming up, all the time, he wanted to bring people down and show people down in the south-west what was going on.

Emma Warren

Bristol has become a really important second center, hasn’t it? Obviously, that all taps into the musical DNA of the place. The “Bristol sound…” you can end up just putting labels on things, but maybe, from your point of view, what is happening in Bristol? Who are the people that are operating there?

Appleblim

There is such varied stuff coming out that I don’t think you can just call it one sound, like a Bristol sound. But I think the one thing people have in common is not wanting to copy what is going on in London. So, it is obviously directly inspired by, but trying to do something a bit different with it. You have people like Forsaken doing something that is rhythmically diverse and obviously sounds quite a lot like old drum & bass. Then you’ve got Headhunter doing real sorts of clean, mixed-down bangers and you’ve got Peverelist doing this strange, slightly slower, almost techno kind of thing. And the thing about Bristol I have found is that it is very open to newcomers and people who are doing something different. It is very inclusive, whereas I found London at bit more kind of closed off and kind of cliquey. But they are very keen for people to just get involved down there.

Emma Warren

And there are some really new, young producers coming through as well, aren’t there, like Joker.

Appleblim

Joker and Gemmy, and some really amazing vocalists down there. There is so much potential over the next few years, and the house that I live in, there’s three of us that produce, and all these guys that know Joker are coming over and doing vocals for my mates’ tracks, and it’s sort of organically moving along really nicely.

Emma Warren

You were talking about vocals, do you think Bristol’s heritage of vocalists and the soulful element that is from the city, do you think it is going to mean we’ll be hearing more songs like the Pinch tune that was on his album?

Appleblim

I definitely hope so. There are a few guys, a chap called Shads, doing things like R&B, soul-influenced over the top of grime or dubstep beats. When you get a strong vocal tune in dubstep it shines out so much because there are so few of them. So you get something like “Jah War” by The Bug, remixed by Loefah, with Flow Dan on. It just shines out because it’s incredible, there are not many vocal tunes. You might get the Pinch one with a female vocalist on, or Geiom doing a tune with a local girl from Nottingham, like a song. I think there has to be more of that, definitely.

Emma Warren

Can we have a listen to something that you have done? You mentioned Peverelist, that’s the correct pronunciation, isn’t it? It took me a long time to get that one right. Wasn’t his original name the Peverelist Hatfield Junglist?

Appleblim

Hatfield Peverel Junglist Massive, yeah.

Emma Warren

That’s it, Hatfield Peverel Junglist Massive, which is even more of a mouthful. So, tell us what you are going to play and give us a little bit of context. He runs Rooted Records, right?

Appleblim

Yeah, one of the things I used to go to Bristol for most, when I lived in Bath, when I was studying, was to buy records. Barely anywhere in England was even stocking grime or dubstep and he was just passionate enough about the music just to be ringing up the people who made the records and saying, “Look, can I get 20 sent down here.” So, he has got quite a unique position. Obviously, it’s a real focus for our area as well. So, yeah, I just got to know him through going to raves and found we had a lot of tastes in common and started doing a few tunes together. This is a thing called “Over Here”, which ties in a bit to something that I am doing on my new label later, which is a remix of it by a house guy called Brendon Moeller. So, I’ll play the original now and maybe play the remix of it later.

(music: Appleblim & Peverelist – “Over Here”)

Emma Warren

Thank you very much for that one. Give us an idea about how differently you work now than when you first started. So what’s the picture when you were making this, when you two were making this. What was happening, where were you?

Appleblim

I tend to sample a lot of stuff, whereas in the old days I just used to kind of use whatever was really available on FruityLoops, really. Trying to get presets to sound good basically, just by messing them up with effects. But, generally, I start by sampling tons and tons of stuff these days, which is one of the fun things about working with Ramadanman as well. He just uses what is around, synths and stuff. I like to try and create things that are unique, basically. I sample from the strangest places that you can, and try and make different sounds out of… it might be strings or guitars or anything, but it will end up sounding nothing like that. So, that’s kind of how we start with these things, it’s just sampling, just crazy stuff really, just trying to make our own unique sounds out of it.

Emma Warren

So what specifically crazy stuff are you talking about?

Appleblim

Could be anything. I am just a real record collector, just because I worked in a second-hand record shop for years and years and years. Progressive rock, things that you think that no one will have heard anyway. Or just even really common stuff, just trying to make it sound really different – I just I really sort of enjoy the challenge of working with sound and trying to make them different to how they first sound.

Emma Warren

And any, apart from sampling, more music-based stuff or effect or making your own sound type stuff?

Appleblim

Generally trying to get a bit more into synthesis. Like I said, I did a degree in music technology, which gives you a kind of basic grounding in these things. That’s been a fun thing about getting to have a go on the Junos and so on upstairs, which is something that I’m working on with a chap called Geiom from Nottingham. He’s got a lot of analog synths and it’s just so fun to get hands-on with those things. For me, it’s much quicker to get a sound that I like out of those than messing around with the mouse on a flat screen. It just seems so much more real and fun playing with an old synth like that, so definitely something that I want to invest in soon.

Emma Warren

Geiom is another interesting artist, isn’t he, with a pretty broad sound from the more electronica stuff he does on his own label to tunes like “Reminissin’,” which is a kind of soulful, vocal track. And you were one of the first people to play that as well, weren’t you? So, what is it like around Geoim’s house then, and what is the picture of where he is with all these synths?

Appleblim

He’s obviously a collector of those kind of things back from the electronica days, really. He had music out on Skam Records, which is obviously heavily to do with Autechre and Gescom and people like that. So, he comes from this kind of melodic synth kind of background. It’s just really inspiring to step into someone else’s space and see how they do things. He’s got a very unique way of working with those things, and I found it instantly kind of inspiring and we came up with some really good ideas really quickly.

Emma Warren

Unique how?

Appleblim

I guess everyone has their own tricks of the trade, and he just happens to have his own sort of ways of doing things, as I’m sure everybody does. But things that I hadn’t seen done before, and just a really quick and effective way of working with the set-up that he has because he’s obviously got used to it over so many years.

Emma Warren

And have you got any other new collaborations that you can play us?

Appleblim

I’ve got something which could tie in with an inspiration on Skull Disco, which is the Rhythm & Sound kind of axis from Berlin, who worked with a vocalist called Tikiman, which I’m sure some of you will have heard of, who is one of my favorite vocalists. So I could play you a snippet of something they did together in the kind of mid- to late ’90s, and then I’ve been lucky enough to be asked to remix something with his vocals on, basically, which is a dream come true, so I could play a bit of that as well.

Emma Warren

So, tell us what this that we are listening to exactly?

Appleblim

The next thing that we’re listening to? It is Rhythm & Sound featuring Tikiman, called “Never Tell You”, on a label called Burial Mix, which is a label that myself and Shackleton were obsessed with, basically. We bonded over it. So, to end up kind of working with those kind of people is crazy, really. I’ll play a bit of it.

(music: Rhythm & Sound feat. Tikiman – “Never Tell You”)

(music: Appleblim & Komonazmuk – unknown)

Emma Warren

That’s not sounding so rough to me. So, what is happening with that then?

Appleblim

That is going to come out on a label called Simple], which is run by a chap called Will Saul that I have just been hooking up with recently. The original is by a chap called [Sideshow], who usually records for Ninja Tune as Fink, and does this kind of really, really varied stuff. He was a big fan of Tikiman, got in touch with him, and got an exclusive vocal off him to build a work around. Something that was just a joy, really. Really well recorded and really original, soulful reggae vocal.

Emma Warren

Too right. It’s interesting though, isn’t it, how the sonic aesthetic that underpins the dubstep stuff really can actually so easily be transported to a different framework and make it make sense and really show something that you weren’t expecting in the genre it lands on.

Appleblim

We didn’t really know what to do with that because it’s 138 beats a minute, so we thought we’ll stick to that because the original is, and we’ve done something, which for 4/4 is quite fast, but hopefully it still works. And the label are really happy with it so that’s all going ahead. Me and Ramadanman have made a house tune that will be coming out on another label related to that, which is quite interesting as well. Just trying to keep doing different stuff around the kind of edges.

Emma Warren

Different stuff around the edges, all fertile places. While we have Tikiman in our psychic space can you tell us a bit about… because you are in there kind of tight with all the Hardwax crew now – how did that happen?

Appleblim

That was literally we just got booked to play in Berlin a few years ago, and we were invited to come along to the shop and just had a chat with them. I had been chatting to the shop anyway, just in my sort of role of trying to promote music, when I was working for Tempa Recordings, so I had actually randomly chatted to this guy Thorsten at Hardwax, which I didn’t realize was a producer of some of my favorite kind of records from 10 years previously.

Emma Warren

Which records are you talking about specifically?

Appleblim

A label called Chain Reaction, which came out of the whole Basic Channel kind of camp. It was kind of the next generation below them, kids who were inspired by them around the shop and around the mastering house that was related to them, which is called Dubplates & Mastering. Just through randomly chatting to this guy, through talking about records and the fact that they were really liking Tempa’s stuff and selling a lot of it and I was sending them special stuff and generally striking up a good relationship with them. I was like, “Oh, have you heard of this guy T++?”, that I was kind of hearing some interesting stuff by, and he said, “You do realize this is me?” I was like OK, and it was like, “Shit, so if you’re T++ that means you must have been Resilent and Erosion and Various Artists, which were these people on Chain Reaction, which was all him, so it is really amazing. These are tunes that completely blew my mind in ’97, and to end up in touch with them and releasing stuff by him and working together and stuff. We just got invited to the shop and to the mastering house, and I cut dubs there and we met all of the gang, and they are just really positive music people and we were welcomed into the family really nicely. They are really big fans of Shackleton, basically, which is quite overwhelming for him, with them being such a big influence on him and stuff… But it’s a really wonderful place and clued up people, and passionate music people, basically.

Emma Warren

So, where else might this relationship be taking you?

Appleblim

We shall see. We shall see. They have just started doing dubstep parties at one of the biggest techno clubs in Berlin, which is called Berghain, which is a legendary kind of gay techno mecca, basically. It is straight-friendly, but it is run by gay people and it gives the whole place a certain vibe, basically, because it is not the kind of place people come in the same way as Plastic People… it is not about picking up chicks, it is a very different atmosphere when gay people are involved, I think anyway. I think it is really, really positive. And they’ve opened it for the first time on a Friday. It generally opens on Saturday and runs right through till Monday, but they have opened it on a Friday, and the first one was a massive success, completely sold out and Berlin seemed to be really ready for this different kind of tempo and sound and stuff.

Emma Warren

It’s interesting because the gay club element has been so important of all the way through music history, from disco to the Chicago clubs to the things that invented Chicago house and then onwards throughout. That’s really interesting to hear that it’s influential again, or instrumental again in a completely new way.

Appleblim

It was fascinating. I have always gone to gay clubs throughout my life, I have got no qualms with it, but to go somewhere like that and feel this non-stop kind of party energy, people who are completely dedicated to putting on a special experience every weekend, weekend in, weekend out. And you see people there [for whom] it doesn’t matter what you do in the week, you go to Berghain on the weekend, and it’s incredible, totally incredible.

Emma Warren

I think anything that generates that sort of dedication is naturally going to end up being really interesting because it is all about, totally obviously like your grandma says, you reap what you sow, you get into things what you put out. In my experience it seems that the worlds that have ended up being most interested in are the ones people feel most connected to. They don’t just want to consume, they want to create. It’s not enough just to be passively absorbing it all, it is all about what you do with the goodness you get from it.

Appleblim

It is the dedicated ravers. You see the same people in there every time, and on a Sunday when you finally finish they set off fireworks as you leave the club for the last 150 people that have stayed until the bitter end. Which is a nice little touch, just putting it to bed for another week and then, “See you next week.”

Emma Warren

So where did the fireworks go?

Appleblim

It’s just kind of outside the venue as you walk away, down the long kind of avenue that leads up to it. It’s a really strikingly visual place, anyway, and the way they have got it designed on the inside is really incredible. Similar to here, actually, in the fact that it is ex-industrial space that has been done up with elements of the original architecture left. So, the inside is still grimy and stony, but you have really nice couches and stuff in there and you are not allowed to take photos in there because it feels like they are cheapening it, and just attention to detail, basically.

Emma Warren

That is an interesting thing, actually, because a few places DMZ in particular, although it is not strictly adhered to, do encourage that kind of no photography rule. What do you think that brings to a club?

Appleblim

I think just keeping your night special, really, and it is good to take home the memories that you have in your head. If people want to take photos, cool, but you go to gigs these days and it is like everybody has their phones up and the flashes and stuff that is off-putting. So, down at somewhere like FWD>> you are not there to take photos of the cool people, you are there to dance.

Emma Warren

But that’s interesting, isn’t it, that whole idea of documenting stuff inside your head, rather than relying on a bit of technology to document it for you. Although I have to say that every time I have ever tried to take a picture with my phone when I’m at a club all I get is a black screen with a little bit of red in the corner. I’ve got about 100 of those pictures, black, maybe a bit of blue…

You have had a long career on the dancefloor, basically, before your time as a producer. What do you think your time spent on the dancefloor, almost like the graft of the dedicated – I don’t like to use the word clubber because it seems somehow cheap –music obsessive, whatever... what has that given you?

Appleblim

I think you just learn what works on a dancefloor, or the kind of things that moved you. Sometimes, I think, you can worry if people aren’t dancing on the dancefloor but then you could get 20 people coming up to you afterwards and saying, “That was actually just amazing,” and they were zoning out. So I think it works both ways. People don’t always have to be going mad on the dancefloor to be having a really good night. But I think if you have been there, so many times at FWD>> or DMZ, I’ve closed my eyes and been carried away completely to a different place. And that to me is what it is all about, basically. If I can provide that for someone else, then that is the job done, basically.

Emma Warren

There is another musical incarnation for you outside of the dancefloor, isn’t there? You were in a band for… how long?

Appleblim

About eight years, nine years. So all this time I was raving in London, I was playing bass in a band, which was obviously very separate in one way, but it equally just totally immersed in music, basically. Like, practicing every moment that we could, just being totally dedicated to what you do.

Emma Warren

So what was the band and what did it sound like?

Appleblim

We were called the Monsoon Bassoon, which is one of the worst names ever. But we were very, very complex progressive, mathematical, psychedelic rock music, really. So deeply untrendy for many, many years. But we actually ended up getting to be slightly darlings of the New Musical Express for a very short time, which was a bit weird having been completely anti- all that kind of thing for so long. Like, “Screw the mainstream press and screw the NME,” and all this. And when they start actually bigging you up, you’re kind of like, “Oh actually, I quite like this.” So, we got single of the week in there three times in a row, which was completely bizarre, really. It helped us become popular for a while, in terms of audience coming to gigs. But we put out our 7”s and albums and stuff, and I am really, really proud of that stuff. That was my life for a very long time. But when the band split up, and the other guys had built up their own studios and had things to do afterwards I was left on my own, basically. All I could do was play the bass, so I was kind of left not knowing what was going on, and that’s when I decided to make a break and go to university and learn how to use computers and stuff, so that completely changed my direction of music making.

Emma Warren

So, during that period, it was basically, “By day and early evening, I’m the bassist in a math-rock band, by night and early morning I am a hardcore raver having it to 2 Bad Mice.”

Appleblim

I always wanted to try and combine the two but it never really happened. The other people in the band weren’t really feeling that kind of stuff. I always thought that I’d try and bring my bass and that kind of influence into what I am doing, and I haven’t really found an appropriate way of doing it. So, hopefully, maybe this week, I was hoping to try and jump on the bass and see if I can get involved in what some of these guys are doing and see if that can help, it might be fun.

Emma Warren

You seem to be more about podcasts than a weekly show in the style of someone like Skream?

Appleblim

Yeah, I was asked basically after doing just few “cover shows”, as they call it on Rinse, which is the biggest pirate for this kind of music and currently trying to go legal. So, I did a couple of those, but because I’m based in Bristol, it is kind of hard for me to get up to the studio, and they were just like, “Look, why not do a pre-recorded thing and send it to us and we’ll broadcast that late at night when there is no other people on air?” And then, to be honest, there is so much just from the downloads, really. That’s the main thing, so it doesn’t matter who is locked in at four in the morning in London, you know that it is getting broadcast to everyone worldwide. And also, it is there to download afterwards, so it goes out to a heck of a lot of people. That has been really fun and something that I really want to get more into, just radio in general, just spreading music to people, basically. That’s always been my kind of little thing, really.

Emma Warren

It is a pretty broad selection you are spreading, I noticed on the tracklist for some of them like the Beach Boys, some Black Dog, my mind is going blank and I can’t remember what else, but it is not just music from the world you are involved in you’re playing?

Appleblim

I just think that perhaps that is one of the things that I have got that other people haven’t all got. Some people might have fresher tunes, some people might have something different in that way, but I am just a music fan basically, who has been exposed to lots of stuff through the work I have done. I have been inspired by people playing stuff, so I think if you can just chuck a few things out there that might get people thinking, that has got to be a good thing.

Emma Warren

So who else have you been doing podcasts for since that?

Appleblim

The main big one really was a site called Resident Advisor, which is a renowned kind of techno and house website, and it is a really, really good site, actually. Really easy to use, really interesting kind of feeds of news and information and videos and reviews and everything. They were fans of the label, and just randomly got in touch and asked me to do something. So, I thought that because it’s for a house and techno-based website, it would be nice to do something that is taking in both, and the influences on dubstep I have from the house and the techno worlds. So, it was cool to try and combine those two things, and people seemed to really like it and it’s opened a lot of people up from different scenes. Because certain people will download it for the dubstep and end up hearing this spacey kind of minimal stuff and a lot of people will be downloading it because it has a Radio Slave tune on it, and they might hear something from Pinch on it that they really love. So, bringing a few things together.

Emma Warren

Obviously, your link with Tempa and Rinse and Ammunition is in deep, because you worked there for a long time. You’ve done the podcasts, you did volume six of Dubstep Allstars. How important is it having someone like Sarah [Lockhart] at the helm, who seems more concerned about getting you to do what you want to do than necessarily filling up clubs to the maximum every week with the same people?

Appleblim

I think the whole thing with the Allstars series was to do something different each time that represented a little snapshot of whatever was going on. The first one was Hatcha, and he was basically the only person playing it then, the only person playing the likes of Skream and Benga and Horsepower, and Geeneus and whoever. It was amazing to be asked to do one. I think it was simply that I was playing something a bit different basically, which I think they saw as being relevant, whether it was little warm-up slots down at the club. Sarah obviously was feeling what she heard and she was like, “Maybe you should do the next Allstars?” I nearly fell over when I heard it and then spent about six months banging my head against the wall trying to get this mix just right. But it was just nice to be able to present tunes by people that I think are really, really talented to the world. So, maybe trying to introduce people like Peverelist and Pinch to a wider audience.

Emma Warren

I think it’s quite interesting that you specifically got to work with them, because you obviously knew them from out and about. But again, I think from the outside, you always assume that people who work for an organization, they all know each other. You never really think about the fact that people had to do things to get a job, if you know what I mean. How did you start working for them?

Appleblim

I basically used to randomly e-mail their kind of generic e-mail address just through being a nerd-o kind of fan boy wanting to kind of push the music to as many places and people as I could, because I was so passionate about the sound that nobody seemed to know about it, so I was asking them to send things to certain magazines or to certain bloggers who were writing about stuff that I thought might be interested in the stuff Tempa were doing. I never got a response from those e-mails. I didn’t even know if those e-mails were actually working. Every now and again I just sent one just in case. In the end I just got a kind of one line e-mail back saying, “What’s your number, bruv?” And then randomly got a call out of the blue just saying, “Would you like to do something a bit more official?” Trying to help the whole sound to a wider audience, basically.

Emma Warren

So, bringing things back up to date, with Apple Pips. Tell us, why did you start the label and what did you want to do with it.

Appleblim

Originally, it was before Skull Disco actually stopped, and the whole point with Skull Disco originally was just me and Shackleton’s music. And then, gradually, little things started creeping in from around because, just naturally, little collaborations would happen, remixes or people that we had been inspired by. Whether it was Peverelist or Pole, all these things we really loved. But there is a lot of tunes that I was being given, which I really think deserved to be out there, which wouldn’t really have been suitable for Skull Disco. So, it made sense to start something new with a different design aesthetic and a different sound. I was lucky enough to get introduced to a chap called Martyn very early on and play some of his tunes for the first time. So, the first thing that I signed was a Martyn tune, two Martyn tunes, which did really well. It is just basically trying to represent some different stuff from the fringes of dubstep or techno or house or whatever – just interesting stuff. So, there’s stuff from T++ from Hardwax, Ramadanman, people from Bristol, like Komonazmuk and Gatekeeper. There are just so many good tunes around that it would be silly not to put them out, basically. I’m struggling even to get those out, so I think I’m going to have to start another couple of things and get them all rolling because there just seems to be a whole heap of interesting music that should be out there, really.

Emma Warren

I think this would be a great moment to listen to some of the stuff you were talking about. What do you suggest we listen to?

Appleblim

I could play you a little thing, which is the second release which is in the shops now, which is a remix of the track that we heard earlier by me and Peverelist.

Emma Warren

So, you were talking about a different design aesthetic?

Appleblim

Obviously, I just wanted it to be very different looking from the Skull Disco stuff but I still wanted to have a very strong design. So, we went to something really kind of far out and quite hard to design, so the colors will go through many different shades of apples, basically. So, we can get away with red and yellow and green and all sorts, and the inside kind of comes through like that. The designer basically is the guy who designs Tempa’s sleeves, and I always really, really wanted to work with him, got on with him really well, and he loves the music as well so it was natural asking him to do something and he absolutely smashed it. I will play you a little thing, so this is a remix by a chap called Brendon Moeller and again this came about really naturally through chatting on MySpace and sort of saying, “Oh, I like your stuff.” And, “I like your stuff.” This is the remix of me and Peverelist by Brendon Moeller.

(music: Appleblim & Peverelist – “Over Here (Brendon Moeller Remix)”)

Appleblim

That was really interesting to me because it is the kind of thing that you could pay anyone to do a remix of something and they could just knock it out. But this was just something that happened naturally, and he has used something that was previously kind of 140 beats a minute, dubstep or whatever, and re-contextualized it into this weird house kind of thing, but kept a lot of the original, which to me was just fascinating in hearing how he did that. I’m really, really pleased and proud to be releasing something of that quality by him.

Emma Warren

And how did that hook up happen?

Appleblim

Just randomly, literally through MySpace kind of thing, just sort of hitting him up and saying, “I really like your stuff.” And him getting back and it just happened naturally. He did loads of mixes of it. He is really prolific, he just kept getting feedback off us and he’d do another one, and the next day there will be another remix in the inbox waiting for you. But there is another one, which is actually going to be on our final roundup of Skull Disco. This was the first compilation of our first five releases on vinyl, and we’re going to do one last one which is six to ten, and the remixes which have come about quite nicely – not things that we paid £1,000 to get this trendy person to remix it. It is just more people that we have met on our travels and have been interested in our sound and stuff. So there’s some stuff by Geiom, stuff by Pole, Peverelist, and that will be the final missive from Skull Disco.

Emma Warren

I think we should put it out to you lot, but while you are marinating on your questions and getting them ready, is there some kind of upfront exclusive forthcoming Apple Pips business you can allow us?

Appleblim

This is something interesting from T++, who I was talking about earlier, who obviously used to make, before minimal was trendy, minimal techno when it was really just stripped-down techno music. But now he makes this kind of really strange almost breaky-influenced, sort of dubstep-influenced, I don’t really know what it is, but I really like it. I’ll play you that, which is going to be out soon.

(music: T++ – “Audio 1995#82”)

Appleblim

A lot of them are really close to Robert Henke, who is instrumental in writing a lot of stuff for Ableton, twisting up these old things that they made with analog things, in this digital, new kind of way.

Emma Warren

And very much reflecting that in the title. So, who would like to ask Appleblim something?

Audience member

It’s a kind of an open question, but how do you feel about the balance between the more abstract elements in dubstep? Do you need use the pattern cliches and the rhythmic thing, because I feel that dubstep could go further without having to stick to this cliche on the rhythm?

Appleblim

My favorite stuff getting made at the moment by the big producers is stuff that is just rhythmically different. So, even someone like Skream or Benga, who might do some stuff that is a bit rolling and a bit more regular, they can turn around and do these completely crazy, jerky kind of things, which is what I love, really. That’s what I love, the garage influence really, the syncopation, the funk, rather than rigid beats.

Emma Warren

Any particular tunes you are talking about?

Appleblim

I get to see Skream a lot less often these days because he’s always so busy playing all around the world. I think there is a tune either called “Callous” or “Fick,” which is just completely bonkers and it is really rhythmically strange. Love that stuff, anything that has got triplets involved in it or off-kilter rhythms, that’s the stuff for me, really.

Audience member

Does that worry you? Do you feel in some sort of frontline of that, trying to push it further?

Appleblim

I always try and do something a bit different. But getting protective of a sound is strange really because you want to do what you want to do and just do it, and some people are going to go with you and some people aren’t. So it’s like, if there’s a whole bunch of people that want to rave to a certain style of dubstep, then, all good. I might not be down there, down the front, getting into it, but I am just a bit less inspired by the more regular kind of rhythmic stuff.

Audience member

Just about the remix, the one that was on Simple Records, you said there was another one related to that.

Appleblim

Yeah, yeah, I could play a little bit of that as well if you like? It is basically just me and Ramadanman just making some sort of house music, really, which is going to come out on a label called Aus, which is Will Saul’s other label. Both of those labels really inspired me over the past year or two, basically, in their design and the whole sound of it. Just really deep, melodic kind of stuff, and really interesting artists from Prins Thomas, to Motor City Soul and stuff like that, but I could play your little bit of this.

(music: Appleblim & Ramadanman – unknown)

Audience member

Is there some kind of explanation why this dubby music is coming from the United Kingdom?

Appleblim

Good question.

Audience member

The weather?

Appleblim

It could be. I guess, it is like hardcore started in England, and then jungle started in England, and that was something that obviously couldn’t have happened anywhere else other than London or whatever. Because of the influences of bass music, and dubstep comes out of that, really. I don’t know why that would be, other than it is an island with a lot of influences from a lot of different places, with an immigrant tradition that I think we should be proud of. It’s a shame my people seem to be hating on that at the moment in England, all the asylum seekers and stuff. We are a nation of immigrants and that is why our music is so good, basically. I think it is something that should be invested in, and obviously we all agree on that.

Audience member

I would like to hear a little bit more about your influences, because you mentioned Metalheadz before, but your sound and I guess the Bristol sound in a sense, is a much more like a techno take on dubstep. If I think about DMZ, that’s when I hear Metalheadz much more obvious, so just different things, I guess?

Appleblim

Coming from the south-west, I was massively influenced by Aphex Twin, basically. I was obsessed with him when I was a kid, and that leads you into the stuff like Drexciya and all that kind of stuff because Rephlex, was some of the first people to turn us on to that kind of stuff. So, going from there back to the Detroit stuff and then people like Autechre and stuff like that. Anyone who is into rave music has to be into techno, surely, and house. So it all just comes through, whether it is Beltram, right up to Robert Hood, it is all out there. It is just something that I have been passionate about for a long time, and it happens that we can try and bring those influences in.

Emma Warren

Do you have a favorite Aphex Twin moment?

Appleblim

There are too many, there are too many. I was stupidly obsessed with him.

Emma Warren

Did you ever see him do his live thing with the teddy bears?

Appleblim

Yes, deeply disturbing stuff from inside a wendy house in Finsbury Park.

Audience member

Coming from Australia, I guess, I got into the dubstep thing around the Allstars Vol 1. I remember it was just so amazing to hear that sound, and it took a while for it to cotton on over there as far as gigs and stuff. So, it must have been really amazing for you to be a part of that whole thing, to be able to witness it from beginning. But, I was also going to say, just with regards to music how long you spend on a tune? You have quite long, progressive arrangements.

Appleblim

It kind of varies, really, according to different things. I used to spend absolutely ages and ages on mixdowns and stuff, just again and again and again trying to get it just right. But I actually work a bit quicker these days, and if it sounds good, it is good. So, it might be like a couple of days of ideas and a couple of days of mixdown kind of thing, try and not labor too much on it and move on to more inspiration and collaboration.

Emma Warren

You solved the problem you posed at the beginning of how you finish something.

Appleblim

Yes, just walk away, basically.

Emma Warren

If it sounds good, it is good. That sounds like quite a good motto to live by… Frank Zappa says, “If it sounds good it is good.” So any other questions? Or is this time to say thank you very much to Appleblim? If you have any other questions, obviously, just come up and ask the man. But it has been a really interesting two hours, we have had some really fantastic music and it’s been a pleasure to spend some couch time with you. Thank you very much.

[Applause]