Mala (Digital Mystikz)

Benji B

Morning everyone. It’s my great pleasure to welcome to the couch this afternoon, Mala. [Applause] How are you doing?

Mala

Yeah, good.

Benji B

How are you finding the academy?

Mala

It’s an amazing experience because again... I’m just going to go straight in here!

Benji B

Yeah, do it.

Mala

Because technology seems to be separating everybody further and further away from actual human connection. So I think whenever people from different parts of the world can get together to share ideas, share music, share whatever, in a positive way then that’s definitely a blessing for everybody. So, I feel really privileged to be here, to experience what’s been going on.

Benji B

Yeah, I saw you late night last night getting into it, making beats upstairs.

Mala

Yeah, this lot were so hungry I couldn’t get into a studio myself. Every time I was walking around these guys were just working, so there was good energy last night.

Benji B

Well, it’s a real pleasure to have you here in Barcelona today, thank you for taking the time to join us.

Mala

Thank you.

Benji B

For those of us in the room who aren’t familiar with everything that you’ve done, could you maybe introduce yourself and fill us in?

Mala

I haven’t done much but my real name is Mark, but everyone calls me Mala, a nickname from when I was younger. I set up a record label with a couple of friends back in 2004, the label is called DMZ. I set it up with two of my friends, Coki and Loefah. From having the record label there was nowhere to play the music, so that’s why we set up our night. Since then I have set up another label because I was getting sent so much music from people around the world, and I found myself in a position where I was able to get other people’s music to be listened to. That’s really why I started up my Deep Medi label. Through producing music, I got asked to play music. That’s why I played my music out, it was never an intention to become a DJ or anything like that. That’s what I’ve done briefly over the last few years.

Benji B

Where are you from?

Mala

I’m from South London, a place called South Norwood.

Benji B

OK, and how long have you been making music for?

Mala

I started making music about 1999, 2000. That was mucking around with one my friends, he had a laptop which he had FruityLoops on. His laptop was so messed up we couldn’t actually save anything on there. So we just used to write music all night and then we would record it onto tape cassette, and then that would be the tune and then the next day we would do the same thing. But it wasn’t really until about 2000, I got the music program Reason, and I when I got Reason it kind of changed everything in my production. I found that the translation from whatever was in my mind I could quickly lay it down and get it out. I think as a producer, or anybody creative, sometimes you can be bogged down by the technical side of things and that can obviously stop the flow of creation. So, for me, using a program like Reason at that time just felt really natural. 2002 is when I decided I was going to buy a good pair of studio monitors, because I was just using my hi-fi monitors before that. So in 2002 is when I decided to take writing music seriously, really.

Benji B

When were you able to make it a living?

Mala

I got made redundant. I was doing youth work for about three years. The problem is with the government, like a lot of governments, they set out things with, in my opinion, false intention. They set up a music workshop area where kids could come down and we would teach them Logic and Reason and things like that. They funded it for a few years and after that they took away the funding, so then you have to get funding for yourself. That’s what happened in this case and I got made redundant. And this was last March, and that’s when I decided that I would give it a go and see if I could do this thing full-time.

Benji B

So just to give us an idea of where your head is at right now, have you got something currently you’re working on musically?

Mala

Not current. I can play you something relatively new.

(music: Mala – Unknown)

Benji B

When was that made?

Mala

2005 actually. But I only started playing it in the last eight months or something.

Benji B

So do you consider music that you make dubstep?

Mala

I don’t really consider it anything at the time. It’s not like I make something and spend ages listening to it after it’s made. And a lot of time when I’m writing stuff I have doubts about what I do anyway, so I don’t really call it dubstep or anything. But I guess generally it’s called dubstep because of media and the need to have to put everything in a box or on a shelf.

Benji B

That said, there is a very strong scene, certainly in the UK and I’m seeing worldwide, as you are, of producers that are naturally gravitating towards each other. What are the advantages and the disadvantages of having a genre or a movement as powerful as what’s being called dubstep at the moment?

Mala

Well, I guess the benefit is definitely bringing people together that may be like-minded in certain ways. Back in 2004, the handful of people that were doing things then, it was very, very tight so you used to see each other all the time, and in that respect it’s really positive. And as well, before, there was this real sense of what dubstep was – I think in people’s minds, the listener as well as myself as a producer, you’re not confined to these limitations in your mind. Now, dubstep seems to have become something, so therefore if you can’t tick that box, that box, that box, and that box then maybe it’s not dubstep. But I don’t really know what dubstep is anyway, so for me I just try to keep doing what I’m doing regardless of anything else.

Benji B

It seems that a lot of dubstep, or music that is played at dubstep dances, is all around the 140 BPM mark.

Mala

Yeah, I think there has always been a similar tempo. I think maybe it started slower than that, maybe 138 BPM. I think 140 BPM seems to be the set speed now. I guess it makes it interesting sometimes working in one tempo, because by manipulation of space and sound and time you can make something at 140 BPM sound really sluggish, as Loefah does brilliantly, on the half step, and you can have something that’s more percussive and that makes something feel like it’s faster than 140 BPM.

Benji B

Have you got the “Anti War Dub”?

Mala

Yeah.

Benji B

Talking of percussive, is it too early to draw that one?

Mala

No, we can play it. This was a bit of a funny track because I actually finished it about nine months after I started making it, and I originally started making it in 2004. Basically, I was thinking back then of doing some sort of album and this was going to be a little bit of an interlude in between tracks. It just started off with the bassline and Spen G.’s voice, and about nine months later I turned it on to have listen to it and the beat just came to me.

Benji B

And this is on DMZ?

Mala

Yeah this is the number seven. We pressed a certain number of these, but I never want to repress this record again so these are the only ones.

(music: Digital Mystikz – “Anti War Dub”)

Benji B

Is that still a big tune for you everywhere?

Mala

It’s kind of crazy sometimes the reaction it gets when I play it. I started playing it again recently at the last couple of shows but I hadn’t played it for quite a while before then, because it’s kind of an old track and you have to try and keep things moving forward or you get stuck. Sometimes I have been stuck, it feels like I’m stuck with the same set for ages. So sometimes you have to force yourself to play other records. It’s kind of strange, because, like I said, [with] how the track started… I always find that music has a life of its own once you put it in the public domain, because you never know where it’s going to go or how people are going to react to it. This track brought me a few interesting and crazy memories.

Benji B

And it’s been an appropriate week for you to be here. Obviously we heard from Maurizio on Tuesday, you had the absolute dons in yesterday. In terms of the lower end of frequencies in music, we have definitely been spoiled this week. Can you talk to me about the influence of dub itself on you as a human and also as a musician?

Mala

Yeah, I think my first experience of dub was listening to jungle.

Benji B

Yeah.

Mala

Because I think jungle was really like a London dub in a sense. The techniques… a lot of the guys using the delays and reverbs and stuff, and certain space in certain tracks – it wasn’t gnarly bass, a lot of it was that space between the higher frequencies. There’s this gap, and then you have the sub-low frequencies. So when I was growing up listening to jungle and hardcore, ‘94 was the year really that jungle made certain tunes that no one is going to be able to recreate. Just listening to those frequencies day in and day out, that definitely was the music that changed my way of thinking about sound. Because before then you’re listening to Shabba Ranks or whatever, you know, but when I listened to jungle it was coming from a different place, I felt. And it totally related to the environment I was surrounded by. For a youngster that was a really big thing.

So I guess the jungle frequencies, listening to it every day, listening to it on my headphones and stuff – when I got to making music, that’s just how I thought a song should be. I thought all things had this weighty low frequency, because of a lot of the music I listened to, which was jungle. And in listening to jungle, because the sound was so diverse and it was influenced by so many different styles of music, from that you start listening to rare groove or acid or you’re listening to jazz, hip-hop or whatever. I think a lot of my mind expansion came from listening to jungle.

Benji B

For me, I see a lot of similarities in the excitement and evolution and what’s been going on in dubstep now is reminiscent of that exciting time in jungle. Do you think it’s fair to say both jungle and dubstep are music genres that could only have come from the town that you live in?

Mala

I guess so, because that’s kind of what’s happened. But I can definitely understand why… you know, I listen to certain tunes, maybe something by Coki or whatever, and I can totally understand where he’s coming from because London is what it is. It’s a melting pot for many, many different things around the world. So growing up I was always around different cultures, which was a blessing, really, because I think it allowed me to be quite open-minded about all kinds of people. As well as it’s a constant struggle in London, everything seems to be quite complicated for some strange reason. And everything is expensive, the food is not too good but you have got to pay a lot of money for it, and when you want a really good something to eat you have to pay ridiculous amounts of money for it. So I think for me, growing up in London, I didn’t come from a wealthy background or anything. My dad’s a painter and decorator and my mum’s a hairdresser, so they worked hard to look after me and my brothers. I always saw that life, as much as it’s beautiful, it’s a real struggle. So I guess that’s why the sound I write is like that, because I think there’s a bit of a combination between that kind of struggle, and a freedom, a hope, as well. Even though it’s kind of dark, it’s not like evil or menacing, it’s more just like, life is quite dark in certain places. Not necessarily outwardly, but inwardly, you know what I mean?

Benji B

So, when you first started making music did you have loads of jungle that you just needed to get out of your system?

Mala

Yeah, we spoke yesterday – when I started writing music on FruityLoops with me and my friend Mandeep. My friends Mandeep and Gary, there like ‘94 junglists basically, and when we started writing music we thought that we could rejuvenate that ‘94 jungle, so you know we’d chop up breaks and use them in FruityLoops. I needed to get that out of my system. But I think when I look at the music that I was writing, in the early stages before anybody heard what I was doing, it’s definitely in a similar vein. The frequencies, the kind of the moods, the melancholy kind of vibe.

Benji B

Have you got any music of that era that first blew your mind, from ‘94?

Mala

Yeah, I've got an old Tom & Jerry record.

(music: Tom & Jerry – “Maximum Style Vol 2 (Marky & S.P.Y. Remix)”)

As far as I was concerned, in London, all my circle of people that I grew up with, this is what we used to do, and get told off at school for – you’d have your Walkman in your blazer and your headphones going up your sleeve while you’re doing your work, then you’d get a clap on the back of the head by the teacher. Yeah, it’s was jungle, man. [Laughter]

Benji B

Obviously jungle was very much about the dubplate, and very much about cutting and always having tunes that no one else had and all that kind of stuff. About the physical thing of needing to get records that were being made on DAT onto a plate. But I think your scene now, or the scene that you’re associated with, is pretty much the only scene that I know of that is so serious about cutting still, in the age when you can get CDJs, CD-Rs and Serato and everything. Why is that so important to you still?

Mala

It’s important to me because I really learn a lot from the whole process.

Benji B

Actually, we should just say, does everyone in the room know what an acetate is? A dubplate ? It’s totally cool, I just want to show you. Is there anyone that doesn’t know what that is? OK, great. Well, basically half the records down here are acetates, which is not vinyl, it’s... well, you can explain.

Mala

It’s made from acetate. Basically what we do is when we’ve finished making music we take it to Transition, which is the mastering studio where a massive percentage of the people that I know doing this sound get their stuff not only cut on to dubplate but also mastered. It gets put on a cutting lathe and I think the needle used is made from a diamond. Basically, while the CD is playing, or the DAT is playing, it cuts the groove into an acetate, which I’ll give you to like pass around. And from that I’m able to play what I made in my studio on turntables, which is how I prefer to play music to people, and play music for myself. So, I’ll give you a copy of that, both a record and a dubplate and you can kind of see the difference in the two.

Participant

Can I ask how much does it cost cutting a dubplate, like in one of the big cutting houses in London right now?

Mala

I think it varies. I’ve only ever used one cutting house in London, I’ve never inquired about prices of any others so I’m probably not the best person to ask. But on a 10” dub – which is like this, you can pass it around – I think you’re looking probably about 30. You’re probably looking at about £30. And the 12” dubs you’re looking at about £50 a dub.

Benji B

So when a blank CD costs about two pence, and to cut two tunes on one 12” dub costs £50, you’ve got to really want to do that.

Mala

Yeah.

Benji B

You’ve got to really want to cut that record.

Mala

Cutting things onto dubplate, for me, always made me have a kind of real objective mind about what it was I was doing. Not having the fantasy that, “Oh, I’ve just made the best tune in the world,” but really listening to what it is that you’ve done, sonically. I have to be 100% comfortable with it, because even now, it’s expensive to cut dubplates, man. So you have to be 100% certain that this is what you want to cut unless you’re a millionaire and then you can cut all day long.

Participant

How many times can you play it before it wears out?

Mala

There’s always this myth that you can only play a dub like ten times before it wears out, but I’ve got some tracks in here I’ve been playing on dub. This one, I was playing this tune in 2005 and it’s still on dub. And if I play it now, you hear it still sounds fine. It’s maybe a bit crackly. What seems to happen first is that you start losing some of the clarity in the higher frequencies. But yeah, here, I’ll pass these around. I’m sure you’ll be careful with them.

Benji B

Smells pretty good, too.

Mala

What, the acetate? Yeah man, I love going in Transition on a Friday night. Smell the dubplates. I don’t know, do any of them smell? Gonna think I’m a bit weird just sniffing dubplates. There’s a smell to them, man. When you just cut a big batch of dubs fresh… it’s kind of nice, because once you cut one dubplate, once you get your first batch, that’s you set, really, because you keep adding to your collection. So, I know it maybe sounds expensive but if you can make that initial jump, and cut yourself ten tunes, or even 20 tunes, then you’re gonna be nice. But yeah, the smell when you open your bag when you’ve got fresh dubs in there man, yeah.

Benji B

Is it all to do with less is more, forcing yourself to make decisions about things that you really want to hear in this age where I can have 20,000 songs on my Serato and at my fingertips, or whatever? Is it more about streamlining and taking it back to that? Or is it a sound thing? Is it about the mastering and how a dub sounds? Or is it a cultural thing that you’re following the lineage all the way through?

Mala

I think it’s everything, to be honest with you. I do prefer the sound of records or dubplates. Obviously it’s debatable depending on your opinion. Growing up listening and reading about soundsystem culture, seeing people like Jah Shaka play, seeing people like Grooverider play, Ray Keith, Kenny Ken, all these guys back in the day, Micky Finn. They were all playing dubplates, so when it come to me to do my thing, I thought that’s kinda how it should be done. There was nothing wrong with what those people seemed to be doing back then. For me as well, it goes back to that community thing in a sense because by me going to cut a dubplate, or people cutting dubplates, it gives the person who’s the mastering and the cutting engineer, it gives them a bit of food on their plate. And I’d rather everybody in this room eat, than me just sit here and eat big myself. So I think it’s important to keep them circles going, because that’s how we can all survive and coexist in this world, you know? I mean, everybody’s like their individual own island, and you feel like you don’t need anybody else. I think you can cause problems. But, yeah, definitely cutting dubplates, I always come back to the sound because I think it generally sounds warmer than a CD. I thought it was always something that’d been done, so.

Benji B

One thing that’s definitely noticeable about you is how extreme you are in terms of controlling your music and where it ends up. Talking of the dubplate, for most of your music, until it makes it onto wax, the only place that you can hear it is from you, in a club. And these days the trend is actually, “No, no, I’ve just made a tune, it’s just been mixed, or maybe it hasn’t even been mixed, I want to put it out there to as many people as possible to get my name known to as many people as possible, to make as much noise on the internet as possible and maybe something will come of it.” Your approach is the exact opposite. It’s like, you don’t give it to anyone, and don’t speak about it. The only way to hear it is to come to the source.

Mala

It always felt comfortable for me not to really give out too much of our music. It really started because when we started making this music we didn’t really expect anybody to like it, because that wasn’t the reason why we was making it. You’re just making it for personal reasons. So when people started to listen to it it was great, because we would go down to FWD>>, the soundsystem in FWD>> at Plastic People in London, is a phenomenal soundsystem. So we’d go and hear our stuff on there. But then I didn’t want to give somebody a CD for them to go and listen to it on their iPod or on their laptop speakers, because a big percentage of what I do is lower frequencies. That kind of gels all of the rest of the stuff going on together. It was really about people listening to the music how I thought it should be heard, and not being misrepresented, because again, everything has to be put in a box. But I didn’t want to be put in a box, so that’s why we set up our own record label, we started our own dance. I used to run around all the record shops in London and up and down the country to distribute our records, because at this time when nobody had a name for it, people were saying, “What is it? I don’t know where to put it.” Distributors wanted to put it in with garage or they wanted to put it in with house, or is it a bit of drum & bass? It wasn’t right to do that. It’s just about being really seen for what it actually is, rather than being misinterpreted.

Benji B

And has it worked for you, that approach?

Mala

Well, everything in life has benefits and things that can kind of stall your progression or whatever at the same time. So it works for me, because that’s how I feel comfortable. It works for me.

Benji B

But in terms of building up a scene and a club night, and a label, that’s definitely a pretty strong approach to creating an identity.

Mala

Again, it was about people coming out to the dance, people coming together to experience and feel that kind of energy, which you can’t feel when you’re chatting to somebody on AIM or Skype. When you’re having a real conversation with people, that’s what’s going on. For me to play the music that I play, I think it was always about people coming to hear it rather than it being recorded. We record the DMZ sets, I’ve got all the DMZ nights recorded from 2005.

Benji B

Let’s go back to FWD>>. Please explain what FWD>> is, and then the influence that that had on you as a producer.

Mala

Yeah, FWD>> was heavy for anybody that used to go down to Plastic People, which used to be on a...

Benji B

Was it at Velvet Rooms first?

Mala

I never went when it was at Velvet Rooms. I only went when it was at Plastic People. I think that was February 2004. I went to one of their things in Fabric because I did a couple of things in Fabric years and years and years ago in room three. But I think it was more like, the dark garage [sound] then. When I went in 2004, in February, I remember it. I’d known Hatcha for a long time. Hatcha is another guy, in my opinion, that has been instrumental in the development of this dubstep scene, because at a time when there was nothing really going on, he was the guy that was cutting dubplates from Skream and Benga. And them guys were like 15.

He was the first one to play all of our stuff – mine, Coki, Loefah. He used to work for a record label called Big Apple Records, which was based inside Big Apple record shop, which has a whole heap of history with the jungle scene as well as other musics. Hatcha started playing the sound at FWD>>, and it was that thing – it was dubplates, dark room, big soundsystem. None of these fancy lights, none of the unnecessary nonsense that we see in a lot of venues today where they spend a million pounds on making it look nice, and then when you put a record on the turntable the sound system is almost too embarrassing to actually ask people to come in and pay to listen to it. At Plastic People, Eddie’s got it perfect in that spot.

And that was where obviously myself, Skream, Benga and Kode9 would listen to what we were making. On a system that is that big in that kind of space, you really are exposed to your production. You’d go in there and you’d listen to it and you could tell instantly what was wrong with it. Then you’d go back over it and you tweak it and then you wait for next month for Hatcha to play dubs again and see if you have made any improvement. At that time as well there was a lot of breakbeat garage getting played. That really wasn’t my thing, the breakbeat kind of stuff. I guess that’s one of the reasons why we started DMZ, the night, because we were making all this music.

We wanted to hear our music out on a big sound system, and luckily for us an opportunity came up in a venue which is quite close to where we live – because we all in South London – which was Third Base. Literally, we got told about the venue space on the Monday, we went to see it on the Wednesday. This was me and Loefah. On Friday we went back with Coki to see the venue. We listened to the sound system, we knew it was perfect. There was just a small room, big sound system, no fancy lights or nothing. Then Friday night we went home after paying the deposit. Designed the flyer, put the flyer on the internet and that was pretty much it. Three weeks later the first DMZ night happened, which was in March of 2005.

Benji B

At this point we should introduce Loefah and Coki and how you came to work with them.

Mala

Well, I’ve known Coki since I was about 11, and [Sgt.] Pokes as well. We used to go to the same school, so we was always listening to music together, as well playing football and other things like that. Loefah, I met when I was 15 going on 16, through some other friends. But we just had a kind of, like I guess a lot of people do with their friends, that your common thing is that you all love this music, and from there you might find that you may be like-minded in other ways. Really, what we have done, to me, feels like an extension of our bedrooms, because we used to meet up and jam jungle tapes together. It’s just an extension of that.

Benji B

DMZ was started by the three of you?

Mala

Yeah, that’s right.

Benji B

It was almost a reaction to hearing stuff that you didn’t like and wanting to put on a dance where you could hear only the music that was right for you.

Mala

Yeah, at that time, because – you might remember yourself – there was a certain time in London where you could go out every night and there was good stuff happening. It got to a point, I think, where I couldn’t go out in London because everything just seemed to be stale. I guess that was us reacting to our circumstances in life.

Benji B

Does this coincide with the first Digital Mystikz release?

Mala

Yeah, our first Digital Mystikz release was in 2003 on Big Apple Records after Hatcha started playing the track called “Pathways,” that I made.

Benji B

Have you got something from that era?

Mala

Yeah, it’s kind of terrible though, man. I can play something early.

Benji B

DMZ is the label and a club night.

Mala

Yeah.

Mala

And Digital Mystikz is...

Mala

Me and Coki.

Benji B

...you and Coki producing together.

Mala

Yeah, it’s kind of mad, because only really in the early stages did we produce together. Then I guess as you get older your life and your circumstances change. People have families and people have other work commitments and things like that as well, so we’ve both always had our own studios. But yeah, when we listen to our music together we always felt that the sound was like Digital Mystikz. That’s really what we thought our style of music was, digital and it had the kind of mystical tones going with it as well. That’s why we call ourselves Digital Mystikz. But we were called something else before.

Benji B

What was that?

Mala

We called ourselves Mawo, because I’m Mala and Coki’s name, which people don’t call him but we call him, is Wobbler. This goes back to a long story involving drinking quite a bit of Guinness. Yeah, we called him Wobbler. It was Mala and Wobbler and so Mawo. I looked on the internet to see if the name had been taken, and this was just before we signed our Big Apple record because we didn’t know what to put on the title of the record. I think it was some sort of trance producer was called Mawo so we thought, “Nah, we’ll forget that.”

Then we were listening to Rinse FM, we used to sit at the end of a road and drink a Guinness and maybe smoke a spliff or whatever and listen to Hatcha or Youngsta on Rinse FM. I remember us talking about what our style of music is and what it is that we are doing. That’s when we said that we kind of do like digital mystic style, so that’s how that came about. I’ve got some early stuff in there somewhere. This was on the first DMZ release. This was probably first made in 2003. It’s a track called “Chainba Music.”

(music: Digital Mystikz – “Chainba”)

(music: Coki – “Jah Fire”)

(music: Loefah – “Horror Show”)

Making people faint by the speakers. Seen it a couple of times up in Leeds, a couple of people pass out by the speakers.

Benji B

What's the dance you do in Leeds?

Mala

I was really lucky, in 2005 I played at a night called Sub Dub, it’s been running for 11 years now in Leeds, run by a guy called Simon Scott, and Iration Steppas have their own sound system, which Mark Iration has built, I think the system has been around for about 15 years, maybe longer. In my opinion it’s one of the best places to play in the world. Every time you go there you never have to worry about the sound, it’s not a fancy kind of place, it’s just a big room, it’s always dark, and the vibe’s always good up there. I played up there in 2005, not really with any intention or expectation, just kind of interested to see how things were going on in the north of England, because no one had been up there yet.

Benji B

What they play is straight-up steppers now, right?

Mala

Yeah, it’s roots and rockers and a little dub.

Benji B

How does the more conservative steppers dub crowd take to what you do?

Mala

It was an interesting transition, really, because at first I don’t think they were necessarily too [into] it. I think they seem to be more into the ones that are more dub-oriented, because now dubstep is... some things are more electronic and electro feeling, some things are more techno feeling, but they are definitely feeling the dubbier side of things. But it’s been really nice because we’ve been putting on dances up there with Simon for almost two years now. Over that time though, Mark has constantly EQed the sound system to finally get it to sound perfect for when we go up there and play. It has been a blessing to play up in Leeds. Anyone who goes up there and experiences the night, I think it kind of changes you when you hear music played on a system of that caliber.

Benji B

Talking of tweaking sound systems and EQs and people passing out in front of the speaker, I’m sure some people in this room will want me to talk technical stuff for a minute. What do you use? Or what do you start to use if you want to get somewhere close to the kind of bass we are hearing on those records?

Mala

I used to use Reason to make my basslines and I used to use a subtractor, start off with just a straight sine wave, you know? I know some people like a little bit of a square wave into a second oscillator or whatever. I always use just a straight sine and then with a bit of EQing and filtering, maybe a little bit of reverb. Sometimes I feel like with basslines it’s bit like when you drive a car and you’ve got that biting point – just finding that point there where the sound’s ready to come out. That’s almost the spot that I look for, like what note of bass you are going to play.

Benji B

I overheard Loefah having a conversation with someone for about half an hour about when you low cut, which was kind of over my head.

Mala

About 40 hertz or something?

Benji B

How crucial is that about where you low cut your bass?

Mala

I guess it depends to a degree what frequencies are happening at the lower end.

Benji B

What does that mean exactly?

Mala

When you low cut, you’re cutting off all the lower frequencies. Even though to your ear you may be able to hear certain frequencies, there are other frequencies that may be coming out of the speakers that you can’t actually hear but are still creating vibration. I guess if some of these loose frequencies are still in there they can make the bassline sound flabby with not much tightness or control. I guess to a degree it’s all about controlling the scope and the dynamic of frequencies. I think when you go into it, it’s ridiculous. We heard the stuff that Ross was doing yesterday and there’s levels man, really. There’s levels, you can go in as deep as you want to go, and it’s just if you are going to take time to really study sound, you know?

Benji B

Do you feel like you’ve never really heard your record until you’ve played it on a proper set? Is it hard to really get the full frequency spectrum when you are making your stuff in your studio?

Mala

No, I don’t think so. I bought some nice monitors back in 2002, and I just recently upgraded them about a year ago. I think generally I’ve got a really nice sound in my studio to reference music.

Mala

It seems that in this area of music you definitely represent the deeper side. I think that would be safe to say. What’s the name of your own label?

Mala

I set up another label called Deep Medi. I was getting sent so much music from people around the world and I found myself in a position where you can go into a record shop and people will be waiting to hear the records that you are bringing in. It’s kind of related to the youth work that I used to do. I think a lot of record labels, maybe not around the world but definitely what I saw in England, don’t really seem to concentrate too much on developing somebody. They just seem like a lot of the time it’s a quick turnaround. But certain things in life take time. I thought I’d help try and bring other people’s music that I was feeling forward for people to listen to. That’s why I started up that label Deep Medi. I had some guys from London that just signed to the label, a guy called Goth Trad from Japan. I just signed some guys from New Zealand. Again, it’s about people from different parts of the world coming together to create something that’s positive.

Benji B

How do you run the label? Do you run it in a traditional way–

Mala

I run it a little bit sloppy, maybe to some people who think a traditional way is a bit more organized than I am. I am quite spontaneous in that way. I don’t have a rota of this track is going to come out this month. I don’t do mailouts. I don’t do promos. I’m not trying to sell anybody anything. I just put the music in the shop it when it is ready. I don’t feel I need to tell everybody about it because I don’t think it’s necessarily something that anybody wants to hear. I don’t want to force it on anybody. If somebody wants it then I think often enough it’s kind of fun to go on an adventure and discover something for yourself. It kind of gives something more meaning.

Benji B

What does Deep Medi mean anyway?

Mala

I suppose it could mean whatever you want it to mean for yourself, really. I don’t really think I make dance music as such. For me, music was always like a meditation to take me away from the stresses of my daily life, when I first started writing music. That’s why the slogan on the DMZ flyer – we don’t put dubstep on our flyer or on our records, it was just “meditate on bassweight", because that’s really what we used to do. I guess Deep Medi is just Deep Medi.

(music: Silkie – “Poltergeist”)

Benji B

The correlation with the music you make and straight-up reggae and dub is so evident. It’s interesting to me that you said that you got into reggae and dub retrospectively, through listening to jungle. You didn’t have reggae and dub around you growing up?

Mala

I think I had a lot of different musics growing up around me, so I was always open to everything. You know, your local cornershop is run by your Indian guy and he’d be playing something off a film or one of his tapes. Then you might get in a taxi and it’s an African taxi driver and he’s playing a tape from Africa or something. I remember growing up always listening and hearing lots of different palettes of sound. Listening to dub and reggae is definitely something that… obviously you listen to that Bob Marley, or whatever, growing up. Because that’s in most people’s households. But I didn’t start really learning and hearing about people like Burning Spear and Augustus Pablo until a little bit later. Maybe around ‘97, ‘98, I really started listening to a lot of Sizzla. One thing I love about music, a lot of people say, “What music inspired you?” or “How are you influenced?” It’s not always the actual sound itself that is doing the influencing. Sometimes it’s somebody’s attitude or way of thinking that might make you start perceiving things differently from how you have been. I think at that time, listening to a lot of Sizzla definitely made me stand up a bit straighter as a person moving myself.

Benji B

Why?

Mala

Just, I think, a lot of things that he was talking about. Rasta seems to have a very clear vision of what it is they’re speaking about and what they believe in. Part of that, at that time in my life, when I was 17, I definitely could relate to the whole thing – against the system and Babylon. You can look at it in many different ways, but when you do actually start looking at the world, certain things in my opinion are clearly obvious. There’s problems, serious problems. I guess it made me look at things in the world with a different eye, in the sense that I’m not just happy to accept what’s going on, but I’m going to question and inquire into what’s going on. Rather than just ignoring it.

Benji B

Yeah. Apart from jungle and therefore reggae, were you into house or techno?

Mala

Yeah, definitely house. Larry Heard, obviously Masters at Work, the main guys in house. Even now, there’s so much music that I like, half of it I don’t even know who made it or what the names of the producers or the tracks are. I was never really like that. I’m more of a feeling kind of person. If I’m feeling it, then that’s enough. I don’t need to know the name of everything or be a human encyclopedia for music genres. I don’t really care about that.

Benji B

I was interested to find out what you think about the noisier end of dubstep. There’s been a bit of a trend in the last couple of years, there’s been some – I don’t know how to describe it, you could probably describe it better – the only way I can say it is noisy, a more ravey type of dubstep that’s been coming out with some of the younger and newer producers.

Mala

Yeah, well maybe for the very fact that they are younger and newer. They have a different kind of energy. For me, when I started writing my music, I listened to this music that had ridiculous amounts of energy. You look at some of the breaks they were using in jungle, you used to go down Metalheadz and listen to what they were tearing out down there. For me, when I got to that point, it was about slowing things down, not build-ups, it was about stripping it down. I think everything goes around in circles. I think it was inevitable that part of this genre, dubstep, is going to go many different ways. It might not necessarily be a way that you like, or other people like. But it’s definitely part of what inevitably happens. I think there’s noise and there’s noise, innit. There’s something that’s done and it’s done well, and you can feel that it’s done well. Then there’s something that you can tell it’s an imitation. You got the replica kit instead of the full kit with the sponsor and all that. I think it’s quite distinguishable what’s going on, in my opinion.

Benji B

On the other extreme of it, there’s a record of yours that I actually heard someone else play, the one I was talking to you about earlier, the extra deep one.

Mala

You want the extra deep one.

Benji B

On the other end of the scale.

Mala

I don’t know if it’s extra deep, maybe that’s just your mind.

Benji B

Yeah, I think it was at the time. I’d like to hear that one anyway.

Mala

OK. Do you want to hear some more “up” things first?

Benji B

Sure.

Mala

Because I want to play you something that apparently is noisy but it’s not. It’s serious, you know what I mean? It’s not the replica. Coki, man. I’ve known Coki for years and the guy fascinates me still after knowing him for so long a period of time. I’m going to play a track that he done called “Haunted,” and he done this track, I think it was in 2005. I remember him coming, sitting at my car at the end of the road. He was like, “Yeah, I done this tune. It ain’t finished yet, but have a quick listen to it. It will be finished next week.” And DMZ was next week. He played me this tune here. I just started cracking up laughing, because instantly I heard what it was going to do to people’s minds, just because of what it done to my mind. I think this track as well also was very influential on what was to later happen in this dubstep thing. I hate saying that word. It’s always awkward. Here’s a question, though. Why do you magazines and media all have to always put things in boxes? Can anyone... maybe we can talk about it, why it has to be.

Participant

People talk about it... [inaudible]

Benji B

Is there many benefits from it, really, when you check it?

Participant

Lazy journalists.

Participant

I think we’re all into music. It’s easier for them to understand. People are asked to understand music and the music is educating, but mainstream is [inaudible]. It’s just easier for them.

Mala

Easier in what sense? Easy in the sense that you can pick up the Sun newspaper and go, this is what’s going on in the world because I read this?

Participant

Yeah, exactly.

Mala

But then, that’s not actually what’s going on.

Participant

Most people just live on a really mainstream, live on the surface, they don’t look into anything and they just want to do their daily job and listen to whatever they’re told is cool. They don’t really care about where it came from or learning why it’s like that, or why it’s called that. They’re told it’s cool.

Mala

No, I don’t know an answer, I’m just quite interested to know why.

Participant

Yeah. I was just going to say this little thing that I know that in Israel, dubstep is really big. I’m from Israel. Dubstep is really big right now. All these DJs you’ve been talking about, they all came and there’s a huge trend following it. I know a lot of people are just spewing the word dubstep until you’re sick of it. Just because everyone’s saying dubstep this, dubstep that. Not because of the music. Just because of the word itself.

Mala

Because of the word, yeah?

Participant

Yeah, because of the word itself. Everyone’s saying, “Yeah, I’m into dubstep now and dubstep this and dubstep that.” When I think about it myself, why do people give names to all these genres? We were talking about the same thing about the word “wonky,” which turned up recently to define the style of hip-hop beat making. We’re talking about the style of music, and instead of saying “that kind of music”, people give it a name naturally.

Mala

Oh, yeah.

Participant

Instead of saying, “You know, the style with the bass thing.” People just say dubstep.

Mala

I just think it creates limitations for possibilities to happen.

Participant

Yeah, exactly.

Mala

That’s fundamentally what I’m getting at. That’s why, fundamentally, I think it’s a problem.

Participant

Yeah, it gets people like this music is supposed to have a set of rules, but it doesn’t.

Mala

Nothing really has to have rules.

Participant

Hey Mala, we met yesterday. Anyway, you run the label, and as far as I understood, you just press the plates – you don’t put much of this stuff on wax for people to buy?

Mala

Oh, no. There are records that you can buy in shops. We do have distribution that does cover worldwide, as far as I’m aware. But in terms of MP3 releases and CD releases and digital releases like that, it’s not an area that we really focus on. There’s a few things that are available, but that’s it.

Participant

Since you try to release everything on wax, or there’s things that you just don’t do, just do the plates so you can play in?

Mala

Yeah. There’s some things that were played that we made years ago that won’t come out.

Participant

How do you manage to keep the label running without putting out everything so you can make money?

Mala

Yeah, I’m not really trying to make money. How many records I put out in a year is really irrelevant because I’m not trying to make money.

Participant

Like I just said, you pay £50 for a dubplate. It’s not cheap.

Mala

It’s not cheap. Before, I guess I was playing shows and doing what I’m doing now, that’s the overtime that I used to work when I used to work at these debt recovery agencies, or Vodafone, or wherever I used to work. You’d have to put in the overtime so you could cut your dubplate to then go and play. I guess it just comes down to individual reasons to why you do something.

Participant

Yeah, sure.

Mala

For me, it was always about trying to share sound the way that I thought was best for people to hear sound.

Participant

Got it. You got a label, you want to release your music, and it must be a self-sustained business? You make your investment on it to make it grow – so you don’t have to have two jobs, one at your label, one at whatever, so you can support your label yourself.

Mala

Yeah, well, we’ve released a healthy number of records over the last few years. We’re still at a very early stage, I feel, in this kind of recording business. Yeah, we’ve just managed to get by.

Benji B

Well, this record is available to listen to.

Mala

Yeah.

Benji B

And to buy.

Mala

No, you can’t buy it anymore.

Benji B

Well...

Mala

Unless you find it on eBay, but this one is DMZ007 and we pressed, I think altogether, two or three thousand of them. We did one press then we did another repress. That’s kind of where it’s going to stop. This is Coki, “Haunted.”

(music: Coki – “Haunted”)

(music: Coki – “All of a Sudden”)

(music: Coki – “Spongebob”)

(music: Mala – “Livin’ Different”)

Benji B

For anyone that makes it to London and wants to come and check out DMZ, where are you currently?

Benji B

We’re still in Brixton at Mass. We do them always every other month. It’s nice to have that gap in between. The next one would be November now.

Mala

Always the first Saturday of the month. This one is actually the second Saturday of the month, but it’s generally the first Saturday of every other month.

Benji B

You’re traveling a great deal at the moment, right?

Mala

Yeah, for the past, I’ll say yeah, kind of like it’s a problem, but yeah, I am. For the last year and a half, really. I think I’ve probably had about six weeks, six weekends, where I haven’t had a gig in the last year and a half. Which is great, but like everything in life, there’s always two sides of it. When you’re doing something else, something else gets neglected. It always seems like a constant juggling act to keep everything balanced.

Benji B

When you play a tune as deep as that when you’re traveling, how does that go down?

Mala

When I was in New Zealand I played it and it really sounded different from a lot of the other things that I played in my set. Sometimes I like starting with it. Sometimes it’s nice to play it in the middle of my set, where maybe the set had been up for a little while and I just want to reset everything and bring things a bit more grounded. I sometimes play that over a couple of things that are a little bit similar on that low-key vibe.

Benji B

What’s the international scene like for you when you travel?

Mala

It’s really interesting to check out other people’s cultures and see how people get down to what you do in other countries. I don’t know whether it’s because, you know, wherever you live you have all the attachments, and you generally think people might be more narrow-minded where you live, but I definitely feel that when I play abroad people seem to be more open to just listening to sound. In London, people seem to want something a bit more specific. They’re a bit more picky. Maybe because they have more events, more labels and more things going on, so they’ve got more to choose from. I generally enjoy playing abroad a lot more. I only really like playing at DMZ in London and FWD>>. Everywhere else in London I don’t really like playing.

Benji B

Have you got "Lean Forward"?

Mala

Yeah.

Benji B

We’ve got to hear that. Hope you don’t mind listening to a lot of music today. I think that’s the best way.

Mala

This was a DMZ 12” that came out in 2007. Most of these tracks were just played on dubplate for a year before we released them. The dubplate thing was like an A&R, it did all the work out in the field, and after a period of time it made sense to put something out. It just feels right. And that’s what I’ve always done really, is do things that feel right rather than unnatural.

(music: Mala – “Lean Forward”)

Benji B

Time to open it out to the floor. Are there any questions? I’m sure there are.

Participant

Hi. You know when you said you’re not really trying to make money on music, don’t you feel like sometimes the more you’re actually not trying to make money is when you actually do start making money?

Mala

Yeah, life is kind of funny, isn’t it, sometimes? Yeah, maybe so.

Participant

It’s like, the more integrity you put into music and the less you let people get involved, and you just stick to what you believe in, then eventually people kind of come around to you. Then you end up making more money than if you’d gone with a big label in the beginning or let people get involved in the first place.

Mala

Yeah, maybe. I don’t really know the answer to that. I can only really speak from how I’ve done what I’ve done. I think that for myself it was more the right place, right time, right circumstances that led me to where I am now, not because I was consciously thinking, “I don’t want to make money.” Obviously we all need money in this world to put food on our table and stuff, but that definitely wasn’t my meditation on why I’ve ever done music, because music started way before I started making music for myself. It’s just really more of an extension of going deep into what I’m into, in regards to sound and the way I want sound to be played, that’s why I do what I do. I’m not trying to make money, you know.

Participant

Obviously dubstep is kind of the “in” thing at the moment, so do you have more commercial kind of people trying to get involved with what you’re doing just because it’s seen as like the cool thing going on at the moment?

Mala

I don’t think I have necessarily directly. I think over the years I’ve been quite open in my opinion of press and major record labels and stuff, so maybe they kind of got my vibe. Maybe that’s why I’m not approached by any major record label in that respect. But you know, through the music just being there, some things have happened. For example, I got in from work a few years ago, in 2006, and I found an email in my inbox from Universal Pictures. They wanted to use a couple of my tracks for a Hollywood film. So yeah, I guess it can happen, but things often can go many different places when you’re least expecting it. That definitely seems to have been what’s happened for me. Over the years, I’ve met people who I’ve really respected as musicians, and it’s just all been through sound, really. Like I said, when you put something that you do, which is personal to you, in a public domain, it almost has a life of its own, and where it takes you you can never know.

Benji B

Please join me in saying thank you, Mala.