future conversations with littlefoot

Ok whilst on the interview vibe and until i can gain the hours to write something wholly new here is another short question and answer session i conducted last year. Littlefoot is an exciting 2-step producer from Nottingham who combines a plethora of sounds to make you dance. Mix in detroit techno, garage, woozy electronica, skwee and dubstep; bake for 30 mins and hey presto - www.myspace.com/littlefootgarage

Littlefoot gets tagged as a truly new and original take on dance-floor electronica, where would you say your musical influences stem from? Surely they are massively wide-ranging?
Well, my musical background is actually not electronic, I was brought up on rock music and since the age of 14 was heavily into Punk and Hardcore, something I am still into today, but has faded into the background slightly as my fascination with the history of dance music gets bigger. Dubstep was the first electronic music I was into, it just seemed like the answer to my prayers as someone who wanted something new to be geeky about and could also have a heavy social factor. With my material I like to think I make something with contrasting "warm" and "cold" elements. I like to take the cold digital sounds and create warm melodys and thick basslines, I think most music I like has contradiction in terms, which is what a lot of people say about UK Garage: it's success was it's contrast of male and female musical elements, and the right combination makes a beautiful child!

Some of my biggest influences are Wookie, Sticky, the early Grime pioneers, those are the guys I actually take musical ideas from. I'm also really into the use and abuse of 80s FM synths, so I try to add a bit of the Detroit futurism into the mix.

What with the disillusionment towards a certain Dubstep nowadays and its super generic structure, how important is it for you that your music seems so much more de-constructed and visceral?
Ironically, I think all the stuff being made now that I am into is way more true to Dubstep than "Dubstep" is today. When I first got into the scene, it was not so much a sound, but a template people were saying "take me, do your thing, and throw it back at us" with. All good things come to an end now, for all your terrible macho robo fart music, you still have your Silkies and Jokers doing that naturual progression of the sound. I think it kinda needs to die and be reborn, no point hanging on.

Is the sound of Littlefoot one which can be liked nationwide? Or is the culture of Nottingham’s electronic music scene different from other cities, like Birmingham’s or London’s for instance?
Not yet, I don't know really, Nottingham has always had an aesthetic, but it has only recently got a sound. I used to go to nights like Wigflex and Futureproof religiously and the music would vary greatly, but the vibe would stay fresh. I think thats Nottinghams strong point, it's just hard to sell that outside of the city.

I think it is different, people hark on about it being the "3rd/4th/5th/whatever city of Dubstep", I think they are missing the point... we got that stuff early, but only because people in Nottingham are quick to adapt, not because it's really rooted in our culture, like say it is in Bristol.

There's a kinda second generation of "dubstep guys" in Nottingham, and we've talked about the hole left in the scene and it's difficult because we all have contrasting visions. Some of them are like "we must take dubstep back", but we're more "let em have it, we've got our own thing".. UK dance music is an evolution, not a scene, I don't want to be a footnote, I'd rather be an influence in the evolution.

London is like an unbreakable barrier. I don't think they realise how wierd it looks to outsiders sometines, but that's the London state of mind. I got a dub cut in London once and met a popular and very good Dubstep producer and he said "why would I go outside of London though?", kinda sums it up for me. They seem to get thru genres, names and phases quicker than they have even reached the midlands..

Just how much solidarity is there between different producers and artists?
A lot, we kind of need to be that way. You'll find everyones in bed with eachother, which is a blessing and a curse. But it's great because most of the promoters are really good friends, and they have just kinda taken different niche markets to work on, which crosses over into eachother, it makes us strong and easy to network with. A lot of it is musically quite different, for example look at the Wigflex EPs... that's Nottingham all over, some people don't "get it", but they like the combination.. some people might think it's messy, but it's not, it's just what we know here.

There is a heavy need for collaboration too, so we can join these disperate sounds. I made a tune with Spam Chop (from Wigflex) called "mansfield road", the infamous road which we both used to live on, where a lot of the record shops are/were, the 24 hour off licence and where a lot of really really insane bastards live/inhabit. I am also working on some bits with Geiom at the minute, who is kind of a godfather to our little scene, a mentor figure to my generation. I also produce with the guys in my little collective Reprogression: Casual P, Dawntreader, Spare and Erra.. just a bunch of guys who got chatting online, to begin with, because we saw eachother at raves like Futureproof often.

Besides yourself, who is producing the most exciting stuff out there?
Right now I'm kinda following three main strains of music:

Firstly there is the "post dubstep" 140 bpm kinda stuff, some of it is called Wonky, Future Garage, Bass Music whatever... a lot of these guys are taking influenced from the early Dubstep stuff and taking it in a direction I like a lot more, chaps like Brackles, Ikonika, Shorstuff, Greena..

I'm also into the underground side of UK Funky too, this is a wierd one though, as it's kinda changed from what I had in my head when I first checked it out about a year and a bit ago, certain guys are really whoring themselves out hard, I liked it when it felt distant and exotic, some of the guys became forumlaic quickly. There is some really good stuff which crosses over the fall out from Dubstep though. I'm really looking forward to Rinse FM boss Geeneus' second EP.

I've recently started pushing the sounds of Skweee also, a kinda awkward digital funk made by geeks in Scandinavia, they use a lot of the same sounds as me and I'm moving closer towards this sound by the day. I am looking at collaborating and remixing with some of these guys at the moment. I've recently been hooking with guys from the Dodpop label in Norway.

What with amazing producers coming out with tired, boring DJ sets and quite frankly average artists playing awesome and intelligent DJ sets – how important is DJing to you, does as much time and care go into the construction of a set than it does your actual music?
I agree a lot of guys have forgotten that DJing is an art. When you have the tunes people wanna hear, a lot of people just get booked on this alone. The best artists out there are good at both, those are the guys who will leave a legacy. I don't think it's intelligence that is required, I don't wanna stroke my beard, I wanna dance, but you can be hype and innovative and take care with your mix all at once, there are a few DJs mixing Grime into Dubstep into UKG into Funky into Techno seamlessly and making people jump about like loons, not many people, but the ones doing it are smacking it.

Maybe you will even come do a set for me sometime? How hard is it for new producers to get sets around the country? Especially ones forwarding a fresh, future sound?
I'm definately looking at playing more around the country, and I have a lot of stuff I wanna show people! so of course!