#b-traits

*** Róisín Murphy, Little Dragon, Dutch Uncles, Talib Kweli, Todd Terje, Soul II Soul, Stealing Sheep, Craig Charles, Fatima & The Eglo Band, Galaxians, Lonelady, B. Traits Follow updates from The Garden Party here. Photos by Luke Hannaford | @marzipandelight

Certain things are a given during the summer season, around the world. A rise in barbeques, long days and late nights spent in beer gardens, and music festivals (just to name three of my favourites). Cardiff city centre played host to the inaugural X Music Festival over the weekend (June 12-13), bringing some of the biggest acts in the UK, and slightly further afield, to the Welsh capital. Set in…

Over the years, many DJs have turned their talents to producing, and others have started their very own labels. One stalwart who followed this trend is Shy FX, who started his career in the early '90s, at the very beginnings of the drum and bass scene.     Shy FX launched on to the British music scene and into the charts in 1994 with several releases on Sound of The Underground Records. ‘Original Nuttah’, ‘Gangsta Kid’ and ‘Sound of the Beast’ embodied Shy’s jungle-reggae sound, and set the tone for things to come. A few years later Shy FX started his own label, Ebony Records, concentrating more solely on the jungle sound and syncopated drum timbres. But it wasn’t until the early noughties until Shy’s career really hit the big time. His collaborations with fellow British DnB DJ and producer T-Power fused underground drum and bass with more dance-floor pop – creating chart sensationShake Ur Body in 2001, fuelled by cascading piano riffs and crisp drum hits. 

(Youngman) Throughout the next few years, Shy’s collaborations with T-Power continued to grow – releasing several collaborative singles under the name Ebony Dusters. Eventually in 2005, Shy founded Digital Soundboy Records, and released ‘Diary of a Digital Soundboy’ which showcased the best both Shy and T-Power had to offer as well as subsequent modern classics such as Benny Page's Turn Down The Lights and more. We probed Shy FX to give us a potted history of Digital Soundboy (DSB) and let us in on the eclectic flavours and carnival spirit of the new Fabriclive release…   Firstly, thanks for taking the time to talk to us. You must be really pleased with the FabricLive release, the growth of Digital Soundboy and the huge success you've been having. How busy has all this been keeping you?  Busy enough that I can't finish an album that I've been working on for about three years now. But it's a good busy; we've been working hard in what we're doing. And I'm glad to be caught up in everything. 

That pretty much answers the next question - how long have you been able to spend in the studio as an artist yourself? I'm always in the studio, but in terms of doing my own stuff… it’s only just the last few months I've been able to get back into my own stuff. A lot of the time I find with artists it’s a whole development thing. Breakage for example obviously he had his career before but he wasn't used to working with vocalists or the song arrangements, or just whatever it takes to get your production on to (adapt it). I'm fairly hands on with a lot of the projects we take on board. Even down to the singles we find. I never listen to mix-downs when we receive tunes or demos because what I find is that when we get a tune I always end up mixing it down myself anyway. That's basically it, just caught up in the studio doing other stuff.     When you formed Digital Soundboy what was your ethos? What was your aim for the label? Just to put out good music. I mean before that I had the Ebony drum and bass label and I just thought, (well it wasn’t holding me back or anything but...) My vibe is very UK, very eclectic, it’s always been that, and that's what made me fall in love with jungle in the first place - it was just a mixture of all different vibes and genres. A lot of us who started back then, we all came from different backgrounds - whether it be hip hop or reggae or rock or whatever - so we all had something different to contribute. But along the way a lot of the kids grew up listening to drum and bass and then they were making drum and bass. It’s just that they didn’t have anything else to add to it. It all became a bit (well not all of it)… but it didn’t have the same vibe that I love. But the jungle ethos is that anything goes – a mixture of everything. 

  (B-Traits)

But yeah, it’s just different vibes and trying to keep it moving. I also didn’t like that when I saw other labels, that they have their main label but then they have their sister label to put out a track and test it, or they might have a dubstep label and a drum and bass one – it’s just a negative…I mean, if it’s a good tune, then it will go on my label – it’s all good music. My vibe is ‘you know it could be a tune that might not break even or might be a tune that hits the top ten’. As long as I would actually feel comfortable going out and buying that track myself, and spend a lot of money, then the tune can go on there.  How do you think the label has evolved since it started seven years ago? I’ve never really thought about it to be honest with you. Once we started working with people like Skream and Donaeo and Redlight I think people really started to get the vision a lot more. I started off the label by putting out the Incognito mix of Feelings – which at that point was to send out the message that this isn’t just a drum and bass label, more like a good music label. And I think that slowly, it’s started to become even more eclectic to the point where no one else really knows where it’s going – not even myself. But it’s still keeping with the same type of ethos. What kind of thing do you look for in potential signings? Is there anything in particular you look for in an artist? What I hate, and what I’m not looking for, is another Breakage, or Redlight, or Shy FX, or Benny Page, or B-Traits. What happens is a lot of people check out the label and think ‘Oh they put this out, so they want a major tune like this’, but that’s not what I’m looking for. We have listening sessions every Monday where most of the artists get together, and we just play music. We all receive different music and we all buy different music. So just whatever takes us, whatever jumps out – again, I don’t really know what it is, but it’s just a certain something. A quality sound, and again I don’t care about the tempo or anything like that. If it jumps out, and all of us can agree that this is a DSB tune, then I will take it on board. It’s really important that the other artists on the label have a say as well. Because if I put something out that they don’t like… I want them to feel that this is all of our label. And they need to feel comfortable with what’s put out. We all pretty much have a say in what we put out.  You've been at the forefront of music for a while now and you’ve witnessed the progression of the music industry into a more digital era. How do you feel the music industry has changed and how do you think it has affected music and artists like yourself? I mean there’s good and the bad really. I’m sure we’ve all heard it before, but in terms of record sales, now it just isn’t anywhere near what it used to be. It’s very, very, very easy for people to get a crap piece of software and thrash out a tune and put it out there. You know the quality control has gone down a lot blah blah blah. But at the same time it’s made things a lot more accessible. I don’t know if what I’m doing now would have worked years ago. If I make a tune now and I put it out there, and if I flew to the States tomorrow, loads of people would be familiar with the track already. That’s the good side of it. I wouldn’t have received as many of the tunes that I receive now. 

For me, I think it’s all good to be fair. Now that record sales are affected, it means that people really have to stand out with their music. People really have to put the effort into it. I’m all for it. I had a conversation recently with someone who’s been in the industry for a while and they have the complete opposite view. They harp on about the good old days and all of that, but things move on and I’m glad that I’ve been there and I’ve got some of that flavour to see how we approach stuff now. I’m happy with how things are.    Coming back to Fabriclive, what can we expect from the guys at Digital Soundboy?

Party - carnival vibe. (We) worked really hard in making sure that we covered all bases, and also made it flow right. When you first hear the track listings some people are like ‘Oh my God, how can this work?’ but when you hear it, it really gels together well - mainly, because individually they’re so used to playing eclectic sets, that they just know how to make it work. But I mean we have everything - literally from funk, to dubstep, to house, to reggae – it’s all in there. 

We understand that you can’t single out favourites, but which five Soundboy artists should we be watching out for over the next year?

In terms of newbies, Dismantle. He’s definitely someone to watch. He fuses the whole Dutch-house stuff, with dubstep tempo… I’ve heard his next few releases and they’re bangin’. B-Traits, her next two singles are running. They capture what DSB is all about, all the vibes and stuff. Breakage’s album is nearly completed and that’s going to be sounding good. Myself – I’ve got a roots-reggae album coming, and I’m following it up with a full on dance project. And Youngman’s album is coming along really well, and I’m excited about that. And within the camp there are other artists, but these are the artists that have releases coming out soon. 

Finally, Is there anything else we should be looking out for over the coming months from Digital Soundboy – anything that fans can really get excited about?

Yeah we’ve got a few festivals coming up. We’ve got a stage at Lovebox – and that’s the first festival where we’ve actually got our own stage. And then we’ve got a stage at Global, Metropolis and a few others which just got confirmed recently. We are also going to start doing parties that represent DSB. We are trying to keep away from the Saturday night rave format and will definitely be doing different parties that will surprise people - ones that also keep in line with what we’re about.