- Jun 27, 2020
- 4,292 Posts
- 3,224 Thanked
If you’ve ever gone down a YouTube rabbit hole of early ’90s trance — clicking through random uploads — or, better yet, wandered into a record shop back in the day and played a few mystery vinyls, you’ll know what it’s like to drop the needle on a Super-Frog Saves Tokyo track. You never quite know what you’re going to get.
That was the beauty of the ’90s: a time before formulas and conventions, when producers were still discovering what electronic music could be. It was about curiosity, not boundaries.
Fast forward to the 2020s, and that spirit can be hard to find — which is part of what makes David Harrison AKA Super-Frog Saves Tokyo stand out. He’s a producer who follows his own instincts, unhurried by trends and confident in what he likes.
His new album, Beams, captures that same spirit. Here, Harrison reflects on the record, his process, and the steady evolution of his sound.
We last (officially) heard from your before the release of StrawMan so its a pleasure to catch up again before your next album drops. How do you reflect back on that album and its reception?
Hello.
I’m great, thanks. All is great here. Kids are getting older, I’m getting older, more focused on the music side of things; more productive etc. etc. I’ve also just completed a Masters Degree in Electronic Music Production which was something I’d always considered doing, but never really been brave enough to do, so I’m proud of myself for finally taking the plunge. There’ve been sacrifices, but it was worth every minute of effort.
I’ve found it great for the soul to get back into education, not only for the skills and perspectives it taught me, but for dragging me back into research and the further development of critical thinking skills, and objectively assessing things from a pedagogical approach.
The world could do with more focused critical thinking right now.
I haven’t listened to Straw Man for some time, apart from when adapting the tracks for live use, but I do find it absolutely fascinating how randomly - three years after release - the occasional under-appreciated album track seems to find new life on a playlist and suddenly get attention with no input from me or the label.
Looking back on the album, it seems like a very strange time. Rich (Solarstone) supported me in producing it at his house over a period of a couple of weeks and we seemed to have this eternal mini-holiday where we went on walks, ate nice food, dicked around like teenagers (the time we actually met), and then next thing we know, the pandemic happened, and the album remained unfinished with three or so tracks short.
So that was March 2020, and the album came out in 2022. In between them, taking the lessons I learned from being in the studio with him, I eventually plucked up the courage and ended up finishing it at home in my own studio.
When reflecting upon that time - bearing in mind I’d been making music for twenty years but not releasing or finishing it consistently - the main lessons I learned from Rich were process and workflow focused; When is enough enough? Leave it at 80% instead of striving for 100%. Focus on the overall energy, not individual details and so forth.
I remember I made Ark from scratch at home and for some reason, the sound of it I preferred to anything beforehand because it was completely my own doing, and I’d suddenly learned to channel what’s in my head to the final product, and to a degree I was almost regretful I’d not done more of it on my own.
Rich was absolutely essential to unlocking that confidence and to help me let go and finish work which I’d previously just not really got round to nor had the confidence to do.
We came from a time of tape or ADAT, and changing those thought processes from the absolute effort of recording music back then, to being able to open a project in a DAW, add some shit, then come out afterwards with a wholly completed track without any other input was a mindset I just didn’t seem to believe was so easy.
Another issue I had was I genuinely had so many ideas and tracks going on at any one stage, I wasn’t confident they were any good: I just felt it shouldn’t be quite so easy to generate ideas, so the whole Straw Man album and Rich helped me reframe my approach and understand this generally was how it was done and maybe I should just trust my instincts.
Before Straw Man I felt like a visitor to the electronic scene, but in reality, I’d had my first drum machine when I was 14, I’d been buying dance music since the eighties, reading every piece of music related literature I could find, going to gigs starting at the age of 16 when I had a three night run watching Depeche Mode on their Violator tour in 1990 at the NEC, going clubbing, and touring in bands… when stepping back and viewing this objectively, it was clear I was more than qualified, but just needed to reassess my approach.
So yeh, the album which was sat around for a couple of years before release helped the above. The reception then cemented it. People seemed to be really complimentary. So I’m very proud of it overall.
And some of those tracks live take on new meanings, but never fail to somehow connect which is extremely humbling.
(This is actually not Dave.)
Your singles since that release have continued pushing that more experimental and often ‘wonky’ style. Is that a sound you intentionally set out to do, or do you just make whatever your mind feels like on a certain day? Where does the inspiration come from?
When I make a track, I have no one way of approaching it. I think my ears are generally constantly open to inspiration, but not only in terms of sound, but in terms of approach and what’s around me. I’ve got a close mate here in Bristol who makes sample packs for a living.
He is literally bringing over new bits of equipment weekly, and the more access I have to these tools, the less interested I am in them. We plug them in, I often mess around for twenty minutes, record it, and then make a track out of it. For him, that’s alien, and he often can’t believe what it becomes.
I’ve been on holiday with Rich many a time, and we’ve heard an exotic bird, or a wonky car alarm, have whipped the phones out and recorded it for later sampling…
My new single Mondrago is named after a beach we’ve been going to for years and years. I was sat on the rocks watching the kids swimming in this beautiful turquoise water when I just had a chord sequence pop up so I played it into an app on my phone, and then turned it into a track when I got home.
I guess you’ve just got to have the receptors open so when the universe speaks you’re ready to receive and channel it… that and putting a fucking massive overdrive on a random kick and just turning it into some brutal techno.
So overall, I never set out to make an intentionally wonky sound, but I just don’t restrict myself to one genre or style. Personally, I find that absolutely pointless. To have ten modern trance tracks on one album would immediately make me reach for the ‘off’ switch as there’s just not enough variation, originality, or wide palette in a lot of modern stuff in my opinion.
If you’re listening to one genre, then attempting to make music in that genre, what on earth can you aim to bring to it that hasn’t been done before. When I get sent demos or new tracks for feedback, my main overall sentiment is usually: go listen to a Can record and understand how the music breathes, and how the individual instruments contribute to the overall feel.
I think new producers starting out are far better off trying to emulate a drum sound from a random seventies record, and understand what a well-recorded performance adds to a track, rather than reaching for the usual template with the same plucky supersaws, and emotional pad in the breakdown, and so forth.
Now that’s not to say I don’t often fall back to convention, as clearly there’s a shitload of 303, 909, 808 and Juno 106 in my records, and especially on the new album, but that’s because I know those beasts inside out, and if I feel something needs a little something more, I can immediately go to them and find something that fits. On this album, the 106 is the particular standout. It’s everywhere: bass, FX, pads… I think every single track has it. Why? Because I’ve owned it for thirty years, it is versatile in its simplicity, and it just never lets me down.
It’s like a warm familiar cuddle after a shitty day.
Moving onto your new and upcoming album, Beams - What can you tell us about this album and what we should look forward to?
Beams was part of my final research project at Uni. I could’ve easily have made an album sooner, but I knew I was going to tie this in with my research: namely into barriers people face when producing music.
As part of a massive genre-hopping Bristol music scene, a lot of producers, DJs, and up and coming producers often reveal they love producing, love synths, but struggle beating the 16 bar loop issue. I’d say a lot of budding producers never get off the ground - and I count myself in this statistic until I had the support of friends - and never finish tracks.
As someone who struggles to focus, and spends ten minutes producing then an hour pissing around, I set myself strict guidelines for this album, and kept a journal looking at not just my studio routine, but everything surrounding this including environment, mental fatigue, mood, exercise, sleep, what I’d eaten etc. etc. and looked for patterns when issues arose. I then went out to a massive sample of people in the community to survey them, and then compiled all the data in order to find patterns and help develop techniques for people to try to overcome these issues.
The results were incredible, and I was shocked at how many simple things there were to potentially overcome these issues. The problem was, we talk about synths, we talked about our favourite music, we dance, we provide feedback on each others’ tunes etc. etc. but we never talk about barriers, nor workflow, or techniques we all have to help us produce tangible results consistently, so this work focused on that.
At the end of it, I had the album, and a very specific way of working that really worked for me, and given the findings of my research paper, the issues I thought personal to me were clearly prevalent among a much wider community, so it enabled me to disseminate them into the top ten findings and ways of overcoming them in order to finish music.
So Beams was born of that process.
By early March 2025, I had a set of demos and ideas I’d put together, so everything I’d done over a few months went into a folder and I plucked out ideas I wanted to develop into full tracks. Half the album was born this way. The other half came from messing around during time I’d specifically allocated myself to jam during the album recording process (one of my findings was in order to avoid distraction when mixing, I gave myself an hour each day to just jam and mess with my synths helping me to stay focused - this gave fruit to half the record in the end).
I recorded the first four tracks in order: Drench, Scream, Mondrago, Clarion. The first three were written in 2024 as part of various different methods I used. Clarion was insane: I literally made the Clarion sound using my Pro 2 and a lot of FX on the morning, and I think a day later the tracks was absolutely finished and nailed on and hasn’t changed since then. So in the process of finishing three demos into full tracks, while I was on that high of productivity, I made the first single from the album in about 24 hours.
Drench was an interesting one. For years, I loved putting strings and pads into reverbs, and then putting that reverb into a hardware reverb (I use a Strymon Big Sky pedal), and then putting it back into a project and shoving it through even more reverbs. Eventually, you’re just left with a massive swell of noise and if you remove the original sound, it’s just an incredibly eerie effect which - if used effectively - can be so incredibly musical, but provide a massive bed of sound.
However, this process defied the norms and wasn’t really something I heard of that often, so I thought it may be a little too much. Then I read an interview with Daniel Avery who explained how he liked to use Valhalla Vintage Verb and put it through external pedals. His stuff sounds incredible, and this gave me the confidence to try and use this technique, which I employed when I finally made the first track.
The first four tracks were made in order. I started beginning of March, and within a week or so, I had the first four tracks complete. It just seemed too easy. I remember the first time I sat and listened (mainly in headphones), and I had forty minutes of complete music nobody else had heard. And in a rare moment of self-confidence, I listened a couple of times and immediately thought - these are the best four tracks I’ve ever made both idea wise and sonically - how the fuck am I going to carry that into the rest of the album???
So then I was denting my own confidence, you start asking yourself ‘are these actually shit, as nobody else has heard them…’ So I did the usual - had some nights out, had mates pop round and sneaked them on, played them to my partner, shared them with my dad: it was horrible as I literally had no objective ability to judge if they were any good. The imposter syndrome is an evil being always lurking: if they were that good, then I’d never be able to follow them; if they weren’t any good, I was right, my music isn’t any good…
Documenting these feelings and then reflecting on them made me realise this is something everyone goes through, and it always appeared at such times. And that’s the nature of it.
Anyway, the response across family and friends - whose opinions I’ve grown up with and respect - was universally positive. There were a lot of nodding heads and smiles. When I first listened to what I’d done, I felt like I’d stepped up a level and for the first time there was no compromise between what I wanted to make and what I’d made: I seemed to have nailed the process. And the new approach wasn’t technical, but completely developed through psychologically refining my process and understanding where things weren’t working and immediately steering back on course using different techniques.
I did stumble across a couple of issues - the track I started after Clarion I simply couldn’t get right and I loved the idea so I wasted a couple of weeks on it, got pissed off, then decided to abandon it at this stage and move on. The last four tracks then came very easy again.
In terms of the album overall, my main focus was melody. Melody and minimalism. My mixing and production skills I felt were a lot better on this one, and the mixing process simply became an exercise in removing elements. As a result, you’ll probably notice a whole host of tiny details throughout, but try and find more than five elements playing at the same time!
Rather than choose one melody, I wanted multiple and whenever I came up with an additional one for certain tracks, I’d just throw it in there somewhere.
So I wanted to make something I enjoyed playing live, filled with melody, banging beats, yet something not too fatiguing that someone couldn’t sit and enjoy it all in one go at home, as you would a normal album.
In terms of genre, that’s not for me to decide. I just made what I wanted. If that was four to the floor, loop based, or an absolute wash of distortion, whatever suited the track went.
Drench, the opener, for instance, was a wash of reverberating synths originally, and it’s all still in there buried. Very unnerving. I knew it wasn’t going to be a standard beat, as I was really intent on putting a bit of swing and soul in there. On top of that, I started adding the Pro 2 in massive layers panned, distorted, EQ’d in different ways, and playing a non-looping arpeggio in the style of Second Toughest In The Infants-era Underworld. Then a massively melodic bell pattern leading up to another new melodic arp which dances around the headphones leading up to the more familiar ending.
Talking about just this track alone now, it sounds batshit and unconventional, but that’s just how I like it. If it was all these things and didn’t work cohesively, I’d have toned it down, as I don’t do these things just to be different: it’s just my preferred way. Why stick to a type when you’ve got infinite sound shaping possibilities in every DAW?
The next track, Scream, was similar. There are a lot more samples on this album, and this track is filled with them. They’re unrecognisable of course, but they’re there alongside some of the most horrendously filthy modular sounds including that wobbly bassline which is just the unpredictability of analog combined with zero automation. I made one take of it for about ten minutes then cut it into what you hear in the finished track. This one has been so well received live, and by trance fans at a couple of events, it just seems to work everywhere.
The rest of the album is just my interpretation of electronic music. It varies in tone and speed, even touching on ambient for one track, and then has a couple of more ‘challenging’ parts before slipping back into my own personal take on a balearic kind of melodic track which I really hope people will love.
I will say my favourite track I’ve ever committed to recording is on this one. It sounds closer to my idols, and closer to the music I love than anything I’ve done previously.
Has your way of working changed since the first album? Any new pieces of gear that influenced the process?
Yes. I focus more on process and making effective and quick decisions to finish music. I’ve also had the benefit of playing some ideas out live to see which ones stick, so a couple of those have made it to the album.
In terms of equipment, I’ve actually slimmed down a lot prior to this record. I’ve been lucky that my friend Robbie has loaned me a lot of bits and always been keen to invite me round to mess with his expansive studio and then sent me the stems immediately after for me to mess with, but if anything, access to so much gear has probably made me shy away from it. He’s had so many bits of gear I’ve been lusting after, but when I play them, I generally get bored after ten minutes, and feel kinda relieved I’ve not just wasted a grand on something for the wrong purposes, so gear has been far, far less important on this record.
Having said that, the Erica Perkons drum machine, and his OXI One hardware sequencer are two pieces that I absolutely loved and they’re both on this album courtesy of his generosity.
Aside from that, my Dave Smith Pro 2, Roland Juno 106, 303, TR-8s and Intellijel Atlantis are used extensively throughout. Pretty much every track in one shape or another. I’ve owned them all for years, so find them very intuitive.
How do you feel about your development as a producer, ever since Kyoto? Is there something new your would love to try?
I think I’m now more than happy beavering away at music on my own and know what parts I enjoy, what parts I find a challenge, and adjust accordingly.
I find it a lot easier to imagine a sound and then make it, and I have a pretty rigid workflow for producing, which has been a fantastic development for getting stuff out there.
The stuff I release isn’t alone in any way shape or form: the album was originally a few tracks longer, but when I finished Clarion and reviewed it two things stood out: the quality was so high it terrified me I may not be able to replicate it for the duration; and secondly the first four tracks alone came to over 30 minutes, and I didn’t want to fatigue people so I left a lot of them out.
In addition to this, I originally had a couple of extremely heavy jungle-influenced Aphex-style tunes which I had played out in clubs here and people seemed to love them. However, the album is very melodic throughout with a lot of hooks and melodies, so melting peoples’ faces wasn’t part of the plan, and I worked hard to ensure it all works as an album. That’s not to say there aren’t a couple of harsher tracks.
Let’s just say we plan to release a few singles from this album, and I’m keen to explore B-Sides and EPs.
It seem like you've been playing more events recently. How are you enjoying that? Are there any plans for more?
I love it. I come from a band background. A bunch of mates going around the country in a van, and playing for strangers, so this is what I’m used to.
Because I’m not a DJ (I probably could at a push and I do like introducing people to new music), I’m trapped in between worlds, really. I can’t play little guitar based venues as I’d stand out too much, and I’m not really on the DJ circuit as I’m a live performer, so I’m currently in discussions to explore booking opportunities and touring potential.
I’ve played a fair few gigs recently, and generally steer my sets depending on what crowd it is, so I’ve had gigs around Bath, Bristol, Leeds, etc etc and I have to say I’ve universally been well received. But then I guess I’ve been performing live for decades, so I know how express myself.
Simply put, I absolutely love it, and I can’t hide that, so that really affects the audience in a positive way.
It’s also permitted me to test stuff out in terms of reaction, and also just jam. I’m literally up there programming beats and stuff live, and it could go completely wrong at any given moment. If it can’t, then what’s the point? Each set is seventy percent pre-determined, and the rest is just random depending on my mood.
Before I started on this album, I tested the album track Scream live, extended it, added bits etc. etc. The reaction was so vibrant it was instantly going to go on the album, whereas I wasn’t so sure about it myself. Once again, one of my favourite tracks.
So yeh, live is going to be my focus for 2026, and I’m currently looking at flight-friendly set ups, so watch this space.
You're based in Bristol, known for its long and glorious relationship with UK music. What's the scene like there today and how does your music or Trance in general fit in?
Bristol is a great city. I can stroll into town on any day, and there’s always something going on. The electronic scene here is insane: there are several different groups covering everything. Live techno, there’s a fantastic shop called Elevator Sounds which run a night called Escher where I can finish a rough mix, then take it down and have it played in a club on a night designed just for that. Obviously, you get to know everyone, and step in and out of all these different little groups at will, and it’s just warmth, support and some fantastic like minded people. I’m very lucky to be here, and also to be part of this scene. There’s just no downside and we all support each other massively.
We’ve also got the Sonic State crew just over in Bath, and I played my first gig for them last year and it was streamed online live, so my family and mates all over the world could watch it (ironic really, as it was my first gig as SFST, so I kept it quiet, but then realised there would be thousands in the audience online). That was amusing, but also gratifying as I came out of the traps on fire, and everyone absolutely loved it. That night alone I made many friends from the local scene, and Bristol just has that community I remember from the nineties when you’d get together with a bunch of mates to go clubbing.
Saturday, for instance, there was a massive music festival and gear convention in Document, and it was just all day chats, catchups and watching live music. Then on the evening, I got to see Luke Slater/Planetary Assault Systems live for the first time, and he was sensational… all this among a backdrop of friends and various members of very famous bands wandering around us Muggles being friendly and chatting freely. It’s very inspiring, and very real in a way online just isn’t, any more.
In terms of trance, we’re through the looking glass now, and I hear a lot of people saying ‘oh, my dad plays these CD compilations from the 90s’ and such, so younger generations seem to have this familiarity and love of 90s trance. Now if cycles go as they generally do, this means we should see an influx of great modern trance directly influenced by new producers’ love of the originators very, very soon, and trance needs it.
What music from the trance scene (and beyond) have you been enjoying lately?
Ha ha, well to be honest, I don’t listen to trance. Occasionally, there are artists I like to listen out for: Coredata for instance, always does great stuff, and some of the newer stuff coming out of China seems to be a modern slightly different interpretation of the genre, so I’m really keen to hear diverse underrepresented voices making trance music, or it’ll just stagnate further as it has. If people just listen to trance, then make trance what can they possibly bring new to the table? It’s a very odd genre, especially considering the fact we have tools and stuff available to experiment to our hearts’ content, but you flick through any modern trance playlist and it immediately begins with a hit of white side chained noise and a click kick for sixteen bars.
I have genuinely enjoyed Solarstone’s new stuff, despite being pretty much there throughout it’s making. Last summer on holiday, he played me everything he had and we chatted about a couple of tracks he wasn’t sure what to do with, as well as the sequence of Innermost, and when he sent me over an early version of Dream Sequence, I bloody loved it. Such a great track, and so nice to know he still surprises me with his productions.
That was one of the greatest parts of Beams: Rich had no involvement, and he’s a fan, so I got to send him a complete album he’d not heard before, and to watch his reaction was just wonderful. We’ve got similar music tastes and seeing him enjoy it so much was almost like a gift.
In terms of other stuff, I’ve been listening to pretty much everything. I love Skee Mask, really enjoying old classics like Meat Beat Manifesto and Ken Ishii. Also really been enjoying Fat White Family again, after seeing them live last year and being blown away by it because they just stand out; they’re not safe, they don’t play by the book.
Electronic wise, just sporadic tracks, really: Monoblok, Jon Dixon, Maceo Plex, Enrico Sangiulano and other more techno leaning tracks, but what the fuck is techno or trance any more? There’s a weird convergence, so hopefully we can move away from these stupid labels people are so keen to categorise us by.
Past year or so, I’ve also found myself listening to Saint Etienne and Soft Cell over and over again.
I’m definitely a creature of habit.
When are you going to start sending demo's to us here at Trancefix Recordings?
If I ever make a track I’d deem trance, I’ll fire it over
Beams releases October 10th. Preorder now at Bandcamp:
Preorder also available on:
That was the beauty of the ’90s: a time before formulas and conventions, when producers were still discovering what electronic music could be. It was about curiosity, not boundaries.
Fast forward to the 2020s, and that spirit can be hard to find — which is part of what makes David Harrison AKA Super-Frog Saves Tokyo stand out. He’s a producer who follows his own instincts, unhurried by trends and confident in what he likes.
His new album, Beams, captures that same spirit. Here, Harrison reflects on the record, his process, and the steady evolution of his sound.
We last (officially) heard from your before the release of StrawMan so its a pleasure to catch up again before your next album drops. How do you reflect back on that album and its reception?
Hello.
I’m great, thanks. All is great here. Kids are getting older, I’m getting older, more focused on the music side of things; more productive etc. etc. I’ve also just completed a Masters Degree in Electronic Music Production which was something I’d always considered doing, but never really been brave enough to do, so I’m proud of myself for finally taking the plunge. There’ve been sacrifices, but it was worth every minute of effort.
I’ve found it great for the soul to get back into education, not only for the skills and perspectives it taught me, but for dragging me back into research and the further development of critical thinking skills, and objectively assessing things from a pedagogical approach.
The world could do with more focused critical thinking right now.
I haven’t listened to Straw Man for some time, apart from when adapting the tracks for live use, but I do find it absolutely fascinating how randomly - three years after release - the occasional under-appreciated album track seems to find new life on a playlist and suddenly get attention with no input from me or the label.
Looking back on the album, it seems like a very strange time. Rich (Solarstone) supported me in producing it at his house over a period of a couple of weeks and we seemed to have this eternal mini-holiday where we went on walks, ate nice food, dicked around like teenagers (the time we actually met), and then next thing we know, the pandemic happened, and the album remained unfinished with three or so tracks short.
So that was March 2020, and the album came out in 2022. In between them, taking the lessons I learned from being in the studio with him, I eventually plucked up the courage and ended up finishing it at home in my own studio.
When reflecting upon that time - bearing in mind I’d been making music for twenty years but not releasing or finishing it consistently - the main lessons I learned from Rich were process and workflow focused; When is enough enough? Leave it at 80% instead of striving for 100%. Focus on the overall energy, not individual details and so forth.
I remember I made Ark from scratch at home and for some reason, the sound of it I preferred to anything beforehand because it was completely my own doing, and I’d suddenly learned to channel what’s in my head to the final product, and to a degree I was almost regretful I’d not done more of it on my own.
Rich was absolutely essential to unlocking that confidence and to help me let go and finish work which I’d previously just not really got round to nor had the confidence to do.
We came from a time of tape or ADAT, and changing those thought processes from the absolute effort of recording music back then, to being able to open a project in a DAW, add some shit, then come out afterwards with a wholly completed track without any other input was a mindset I just didn’t seem to believe was so easy.
Another issue I had was I genuinely had so many ideas and tracks going on at any one stage, I wasn’t confident they were any good: I just felt it shouldn’t be quite so easy to generate ideas, so the whole Straw Man album and Rich helped me reframe my approach and understand this generally was how it was done and maybe I should just trust my instincts.
Before Straw Man I felt like a visitor to the electronic scene, but in reality, I’d had my first drum machine when I was 14, I’d been buying dance music since the eighties, reading every piece of music related literature I could find, going to gigs starting at the age of 16 when I had a three night run watching Depeche Mode on their Violator tour in 1990 at the NEC, going clubbing, and touring in bands… when stepping back and viewing this objectively, it was clear I was more than qualified, but just needed to reassess my approach.
So yeh, the album which was sat around for a couple of years before release helped the above. The reception then cemented it. People seemed to be really complimentary. So I’m very proud of it overall.
And some of those tracks live take on new meanings, but never fail to somehow connect which is extremely humbling.
(This is actually not Dave.)
Your singles since that release have continued pushing that more experimental and often ‘wonky’ style. Is that a sound you intentionally set out to do, or do you just make whatever your mind feels like on a certain day? Where does the inspiration come from?
When I make a track, I have no one way of approaching it. I think my ears are generally constantly open to inspiration, but not only in terms of sound, but in terms of approach and what’s around me. I’ve got a close mate here in Bristol who makes sample packs for a living.
He is literally bringing over new bits of equipment weekly, and the more access I have to these tools, the less interested I am in them. We plug them in, I often mess around for twenty minutes, record it, and then make a track out of it. For him, that’s alien, and he often can’t believe what it becomes.
I’ve been on holiday with Rich many a time, and we’ve heard an exotic bird, or a wonky car alarm, have whipped the phones out and recorded it for later sampling…
My new single Mondrago is named after a beach we’ve been going to for years and years. I was sat on the rocks watching the kids swimming in this beautiful turquoise water when I just had a chord sequence pop up so I played it into an app on my phone, and then turned it into a track when I got home.
I guess you’ve just got to have the receptors open so when the universe speaks you’re ready to receive and channel it… that and putting a fucking massive overdrive on a random kick and just turning it into some brutal techno.
So overall, I never set out to make an intentionally wonky sound, but I just don’t restrict myself to one genre or style. Personally, I find that absolutely pointless. To have ten modern trance tracks on one album would immediately make me reach for the ‘off’ switch as there’s just not enough variation, originality, or wide palette in a lot of modern stuff in my opinion.
If you’re listening to one genre, then attempting to make music in that genre, what on earth can you aim to bring to it that hasn’t been done before. When I get sent demos or new tracks for feedback, my main overall sentiment is usually: go listen to a Can record and understand how the music breathes, and how the individual instruments contribute to the overall feel.
I think new producers starting out are far better off trying to emulate a drum sound from a random seventies record, and understand what a well-recorded performance adds to a track, rather than reaching for the usual template with the same plucky supersaws, and emotional pad in the breakdown, and so forth.
Now that’s not to say I don’t often fall back to convention, as clearly there’s a shitload of 303, 909, 808 and Juno 106 in my records, and especially on the new album, but that’s because I know those beasts inside out, and if I feel something needs a little something more, I can immediately go to them and find something that fits. On this album, the 106 is the particular standout. It’s everywhere: bass, FX, pads… I think every single track has it. Why? Because I’ve owned it for thirty years, it is versatile in its simplicity, and it just never lets me down.
It’s like a warm familiar cuddle after a shitty day.
Moving onto your new and upcoming album, Beams - What can you tell us about this album and what we should look forward to?
Beams was part of my final research project at Uni. I could’ve easily have made an album sooner, but I knew I was going to tie this in with my research: namely into barriers people face when producing music.
As part of a massive genre-hopping Bristol music scene, a lot of producers, DJs, and up and coming producers often reveal they love producing, love synths, but struggle beating the 16 bar loop issue. I’d say a lot of budding producers never get off the ground - and I count myself in this statistic until I had the support of friends - and never finish tracks.
As someone who struggles to focus, and spends ten minutes producing then an hour pissing around, I set myself strict guidelines for this album, and kept a journal looking at not just my studio routine, but everything surrounding this including environment, mental fatigue, mood, exercise, sleep, what I’d eaten etc. etc. and looked for patterns when issues arose. I then went out to a massive sample of people in the community to survey them, and then compiled all the data in order to find patterns and help develop techniques for people to try to overcome these issues.
The results were incredible, and I was shocked at how many simple things there were to potentially overcome these issues. The problem was, we talk about synths, we talked about our favourite music, we dance, we provide feedback on each others’ tunes etc. etc. but we never talk about barriers, nor workflow, or techniques we all have to help us produce tangible results consistently, so this work focused on that.
At the end of it, I had the album, and a very specific way of working that really worked for me, and given the findings of my research paper, the issues I thought personal to me were clearly prevalent among a much wider community, so it enabled me to disseminate them into the top ten findings and ways of overcoming them in order to finish music.
So Beams was born of that process.
By early March 2025, I had a set of demos and ideas I’d put together, so everything I’d done over a few months went into a folder and I plucked out ideas I wanted to develop into full tracks. Half the album was born this way. The other half came from messing around during time I’d specifically allocated myself to jam during the album recording process (one of my findings was in order to avoid distraction when mixing, I gave myself an hour each day to just jam and mess with my synths helping me to stay focused - this gave fruit to half the record in the end).
I recorded the first four tracks in order: Drench, Scream, Mondrago, Clarion. The first three were written in 2024 as part of various different methods I used. Clarion was insane: I literally made the Clarion sound using my Pro 2 and a lot of FX on the morning, and I think a day later the tracks was absolutely finished and nailed on and hasn’t changed since then. So in the process of finishing three demos into full tracks, while I was on that high of productivity, I made the first single from the album in about 24 hours.
Drench was an interesting one. For years, I loved putting strings and pads into reverbs, and then putting that reverb into a hardware reverb (I use a Strymon Big Sky pedal), and then putting it back into a project and shoving it through even more reverbs. Eventually, you’re just left with a massive swell of noise and if you remove the original sound, it’s just an incredibly eerie effect which - if used effectively - can be so incredibly musical, but provide a massive bed of sound.
However, this process defied the norms and wasn’t really something I heard of that often, so I thought it may be a little too much. Then I read an interview with Daniel Avery who explained how he liked to use Valhalla Vintage Verb and put it through external pedals. His stuff sounds incredible, and this gave me the confidence to try and use this technique, which I employed when I finally made the first track.
The first four tracks were made in order. I started beginning of March, and within a week or so, I had the first four tracks complete. It just seemed too easy. I remember the first time I sat and listened (mainly in headphones), and I had forty minutes of complete music nobody else had heard. And in a rare moment of self-confidence, I listened a couple of times and immediately thought - these are the best four tracks I’ve ever made both idea wise and sonically - how the fuck am I going to carry that into the rest of the album???
So then I was denting my own confidence, you start asking yourself ‘are these actually shit, as nobody else has heard them…’ So I did the usual - had some nights out, had mates pop round and sneaked them on, played them to my partner, shared them with my dad: it was horrible as I literally had no objective ability to judge if they were any good. The imposter syndrome is an evil being always lurking: if they were that good, then I’d never be able to follow them; if they weren’t any good, I was right, my music isn’t any good…
Documenting these feelings and then reflecting on them made me realise this is something everyone goes through, and it always appeared at such times. And that’s the nature of it.
Anyway, the response across family and friends - whose opinions I’ve grown up with and respect - was universally positive. There were a lot of nodding heads and smiles. When I first listened to what I’d done, I felt like I’d stepped up a level and for the first time there was no compromise between what I wanted to make and what I’d made: I seemed to have nailed the process. And the new approach wasn’t technical, but completely developed through psychologically refining my process and understanding where things weren’t working and immediately steering back on course using different techniques.
I did stumble across a couple of issues - the track I started after Clarion I simply couldn’t get right and I loved the idea so I wasted a couple of weeks on it, got pissed off, then decided to abandon it at this stage and move on. The last four tracks then came very easy again.
In terms of the album overall, my main focus was melody. Melody and minimalism. My mixing and production skills I felt were a lot better on this one, and the mixing process simply became an exercise in removing elements. As a result, you’ll probably notice a whole host of tiny details throughout, but try and find more than five elements playing at the same time!
Rather than choose one melody, I wanted multiple and whenever I came up with an additional one for certain tracks, I’d just throw it in there somewhere.
So I wanted to make something I enjoyed playing live, filled with melody, banging beats, yet something not too fatiguing that someone couldn’t sit and enjoy it all in one go at home, as you would a normal album.
In terms of genre, that’s not for me to decide. I just made what I wanted. If that was four to the floor, loop based, or an absolute wash of distortion, whatever suited the track went.
Drench, the opener, for instance, was a wash of reverberating synths originally, and it’s all still in there buried. Very unnerving. I knew it wasn’t going to be a standard beat, as I was really intent on putting a bit of swing and soul in there. On top of that, I started adding the Pro 2 in massive layers panned, distorted, EQ’d in different ways, and playing a non-looping arpeggio in the style of Second Toughest In The Infants-era Underworld. Then a massively melodic bell pattern leading up to another new melodic arp which dances around the headphones leading up to the more familiar ending.
Talking about just this track alone now, it sounds batshit and unconventional, but that’s just how I like it. If it was all these things and didn’t work cohesively, I’d have toned it down, as I don’t do these things just to be different: it’s just my preferred way. Why stick to a type when you’ve got infinite sound shaping possibilities in every DAW?
The next track, Scream, was similar. There are a lot more samples on this album, and this track is filled with them. They’re unrecognisable of course, but they’re there alongside some of the most horrendously filthy modular sounds including that wobbly bassline which is just the unpredictability of analog combined with zero automation. I made one take of it for about ten minutes then cut it into what you hear in the finished track. This one has been so well received live, and by trance fans at a couple of events, it just seems to work everywhere.
The rest of the album is just my interpretation of electronic music. It varies in tone and speed, even touching on ambient for one track, and then has a couple of more ‘challenging’ parts before slipping back into my own personal take on a balearic kind of melodic track which I really hope people will love.
I will say my favourite track I’ve ever committed to recording is on this one. It sounds closer to my idols, and closer to the music I love than anything I’ve done previously.
Has your way of working changed since the first album? Any new pieces of gear that influenced the process?
Yes. I focus more on process and making effective and quick decisions to finish music. I’ve also had the benefit of playing some ideas out live to see which ones stick, so a couple of those have made it to the album.
In terms of equipment, I’ve actually slimmed down a lot prior to this record. I’ve been lucky that my friend Robbie has loaned me a lot of bits and always been keen to invite me round to mess with his expansive studio and then sent me the stems immediately after for me to mess with, but if anything, access to so much gear has probably made me shy away from it. He’s had so many bits of gear I’ve been lusting after, but when I play them, I generally get bored after ten minutes, and feel kinda relieved I’ve not just wasted a grand on something for the wrong purposes, so gear has been far, far less important on this record.
Having said that, the Erica Perkons drum machine, and his OXI One hardware sequencer are two pieces that I absolutely loved and they’re both on this album courtesy of his generosity.
Aside from that, my Dave Smith Pro 2, Roland Juno 106, 303, TR-8s and Intellijel Atlantis are used extensively throughout. Pretty much every track in one shape or another. I’ve owned them all for years, so find them very intuitive.
How do you feel about your development as a producer, ever since Kyoto? Is there something new your would love to try?
I think I’m now more than happy beavering away at music on my own and know what parts I enjoy, what parts I find a challenge, and adjust accordingly.
I find it a lot easier to imagine a sound and then make it, and I have a pretty rigid workflow for producing, which has been a fantastic development for getting stuff out there.
The stuff I release isn’t alone in any way shape or form: the album was originally a few tracks longer, but when I finished Clarion and reviewed it two things stood out: the quality was so high it terrified me I may not be able to replicate it for the duration; and secondly the first four tracks alone came to over 30 minutes, and I didn’t want to fatigue people so I left a lot of them out.
In addition to this, I originally had a couple of extremely heavy jungle-influenced Aphex-style tunes which I had played out in clubs here and people seemed to love them. However, the album is very melodic throughout with a lot of hooks and melodies, so melting peoples’ faces wasn’t part of the plan, and I worked hard to ensure it all works as an album. That’s not to say there aren’t a couple of harsher tracks.
Let’s just say we plan to release a few singles from this album, and I’m keen to explore B-Sides and EPs.
It seem like you've been playing more events recently. How are you enjoying that? Are there any plans for more?
I love it. I come from a band background. A bunch of mates going around the country in a van, and playing for strangers, so this is what I’m used to.
Because I’m not a DJ (I probably could at a push and I do like introducing people to new music), I’m trapped in between worlds, really. I can’t play little guitar based venues as I’d stand out too much, and I’m not really on the DJ circuit as I’m a live performer, so I’m currently in discussions to explore booking opportunities and touring potential.
I’ve played a fair few gigs recently, and generally steer my sets depending on what crowd it is, so I’ve had gigs around Bath, Bristol, Leeds, etc etc and I have to say I’ve universally been well received. But then I guess I’ve been performing live for decades, so I know how express myself.
Simply put, I absolutely love it, and I can’t hide that, so that really affects the audience in a positive way.
It’s also permitted me to test stuff out in terms of reaction, and also just jam. I’m literally up there programming beats and stuff live, and it could go completely wrong at any given moment. If it can’t, then what’s the point? Each set is seventy percent pre-determined, and the rest is just random depending on my mood.
Before I started on this album, I tested the album track Scream live, extended it, added bits etc. etc. The reaction was so vibrant it was instantly going to go on the album, whereas I wasn’t so sure about it myself. Once again, one of my favourite tracks.
So yeh, live is going to be my focus for 2026, and I’m currently looking at flight-friendly set ups, so watch this space.
You're based in Bristol, known for its long and glorious relationship with UK music. What's the scene like there today and how does your music or Trance in general fit in?
Bristol is a great city. I can stroll into town on any day, and there’s always something going on. The electronic scene here is insane: there are several different groups covering everything. Live techno, there’s a fantastic shop called Elevator Sounds which run a night called Escher where I can finish a rough mix, then take it down and have it played in a club on a night designed just for that. Obviously, you get to know everyone, and step in and out of all these different little groups at will, and it’s just warmth, support and some fantastic like minded people. I’m very lucky to be here, and also to be part of this scene. There’s just no downside and we all support each other massively.
We’ve also got the Sonic State crew just over in Bath, and I played my first gig for them last year and it was streamed online live, so my family and mates all over the world could watch it (ironic really, as it was my first gig as SFST, so I kept it quiet, but then realised there would be thousands in the audience online). That was amusing, but also gratifying as I came out of the traps on fire, and everyone absolutely loved it. That night alone I made many friends from the local scene, and Bristol just has that community I remember from the nineties when you’d get together with a bunch of mates to go clubbing.
Saturday, for instance, there was a massive music festival and gear convention in Document, and it was just all day chats, catchups and watching live music. Then on the evening, I got to see Luke Slater/Planetary Assault Systems live for the first time, and he was sensational… all this among a backdrop of friends and various members of very famous bands wandering around us Muggles being friendly and chatting freely. It’s very inspiring, and very real in a way online just isn’t, any more.
In terms of trance, we’re through the looking glass now, and I hear a lot of people saying ‘oh, my dad plays these CD compilations from the 90s’ and such, so younger generations seem to have this familiarity and love of 90s trance. Now if cycles go as they generally do, this means we should see an influx of great modern trance directly influenced by new producers’ love of the originators very, very soon, and trance needs it.
What music from the trance scene (and beyond) have you been enjoying lately?
Ha ha, well to be honest, I don’t listen to trance. Occasionally, there are artists I like to listen out for: Coredata for instance, always does great stuff, and some of the newer stuff coming out of China seems to be a modern slightly different interpretation of the genre, so I’m really keen to hear diverse underrepresented voices making trance music, or it’ll just stagnate further as it has. If people just listen to trance, then make trance what can they possibly bring new to the table? It’s a very odd genre, especially considering the fact we have tools and stuff available to experiment to our hearts’ content, but you flick through any modern trance playlist and it immediately begins with a hit of white side chained noise and a click kick for sixteen bars.
I have genuinely enjoyed Solarstone’s new stuff, despite being pretty much there throughout it’s making. Last summer on holiday, he played me everything he had and we chatted about a couple of tracks he wasn’t sure what to do with, as well as the sequence of Innermost, and when he sent me over an early version of Dream Sequence, I bloody loved it. Such a great track, and so nice to know he still surprises me with his productions.
That was one of the greatest parts of Beams: Rich had no involvement, and he’s a fan, so I got to send him a complete album he’d not heard before, and to watch his reaction was just wonderful. We’ve got similar music tastes and seeing him enjoy it so much was almost like a gift.
In terms of other stuff, I’ve been listening to pretty much everything. I love Skee Mask, really enjoying old classics like Meat Beat Manifesto and Ken Ishii. Also really been enjoying Fat White Family again, after seeing them live last year and being blown away by it because they just stand out; they’re not safe, they don’t play by the book.
Electronic wise, just sporadic tracks, really: Monoblok, Jon Dixon, Maceo Plex, Enrico Sangiulano and other more techno leaning tracks, but what the fuck is techno or trance any more? There’s a weird convergence, so hopefully we can move away from these stupid labels people are so keen to categorise us by.
Past year or so, I’ve also found myself listening to Saint Etienne and Soft Cell over and over again.
I’m definitely a creature of habit.
When are you going to start sending demo's to us here at Trancefix Recordings?
If I ever make a track I’d deem trance, I’ll fire it over
Beams releases October 10th. Preorder now at Bandcamp:
Preorder also available on:
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