What a f*cked-up year, right? Last Spring, we published a series of edits to support artists we love and spread a bit of love. By this time, we would have never guessed that we’d be in lockdown again in November. As the situation for artists and music lovers has never been so tough, we are proud of starting this project again !
In this second volume, we'll post 3 tracks edited by artists we are supporting and who accepted to share their latest works with you. We'll provide the tracks and some small interviews so you'll also understand their artistic approach and background.
Natal'ya Vetlitskaya - Look In Your Eyes (Running Hot Edit)
In the “edit scene", Running Hot has become quite famous this year with their 3 noticed “Dance for Relief" compilations. To be very honest, this project was one of our inspirations that led us into launching our edits series and you will find some common names between both releases: DJ Duckcomb, Bongo Barns,… So, it seemed more than legit to invite Mark on our channel and let him introduce their amazing project !
Welcome Mark, what's up in London? Any exiting project ?
Not too much really. A lot of Zoom calls. We’ve just got out of our second lockdown of the year so things have been quiet for the past month or so (and for most of the year really) so we’ve only had a couple of gigs.
We’ve been fortunate to have had the radio show that we do on Balamii each month to do throughout which is nice as it’s a good outlet to play some music. Spending more time inside has meant we’ve finally found some time to focus on making some new music which we’ve been meaning to do for a while.
Talking about this Balamii show, can you tell us how you started deejaying?
I started DJing when I was 13 when I was introduced to it through a friend’s cousin who was a bit older than us and was DJ at the time. For the first few years of DJing I was playing Happy Hardcore which is obviously pretty different from what we play now. Since then my taste in music has just got progressively slower every year. Might have to do a Running Hot Hardcore special at some point.
I’ve been playing together with Paul as Running Hot for about three and half years. We met through work, discovered we were into a lot of the same music and then eventually started DJing together.
Our first ever “gig” together was playing at a friends party after we’d spent all day at Field Day festival in London and weren’t in the best shape. The guy who’s party it was had set up this sound system but the amp wasn’t powerful to run it, so we spent the whole night taking it in turns to fan the amp with a record sleeve so that it wouldn’t cut out whilst the other one attempted to DJ. We then followed that up with another memorable gig for a company summer party where we ended up getting fined and a City of London noise complaint. That was probably where we peaked and it’s been downhill ever since.
You've been yourself releasing 3 edits compilations this year, how did you get into this ? What do you think of the current scene and its evolution ?
I’ve been producing on and off for years. When I first started I was producing mostly hip-hop/DJ Shadow type stuff. Then as I started to produce more club based thingsI naturally gravitated towards working with samples and doing edits as that’s what I know. That and the fact that I pretty much lack any talent in being able to play a real instrument.
I think the fact that so many people are re-discovering old music and bringing it to new audiences is a positive thing. That you can go out these days and hear someone playing a Kwaito, Zouk, Reggae, House, Techno whatever in the same set and that people are open to it is amazing. We’ve also met loads of great people through music and have been really fortunate to have been able to visit and play gigs in different countries through those connections.
As a producer, how do you find the right track to work or a specific process to make it a dancefloor killer ?
We’re always looking for new music for DJing or for the radio show so we just stumble across stuff as part of that process. It’s probably the same for a lot of people, you find something you like but it has some questionable elements to it. We’ve all found those records that are killer and then a big key change comes in out of nowhere and ruins the vibe. Or maybe it’s a track that’s really short and needs extending or we just want to beef something up a bit so you can play it alongside more modern tracks.
Can you give us a big of background on that new Running Hot edit ?
I first found this track a couple of years ago at a time when I was listening to a lot of Russian music and started working on an edit of it around that time, but it didn’t really go anywhere. I was going back through some old project files over the summer and decided to have another go at it. The original is a super catchy, pop track really but it has some interesting elements that are reminiscent of disco and even proto-house, in particular I love the piano solo part. I wanted to strip out some of the cheese and focus on the groovier parts of the original and try, in my head I was aiming for that classic 80s disco dub sound in the style of Shep Pettibone or someone like that. It’s definitely nowhere near that quality but God loves a trier.
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