In the music industry, May is always a big month when it comes to releases. Countless artists debut new mixes, singles, collaboration projects and albums in preparation for festival season, hoping to grab a few more fans before this beautiful time of year dawns upon us, as well as reaffi rming the loyalty of their existing fan base. In the drum and bass world there has been one album whose release has been eagerly awaited for over the past two years, this album is Loadstar’s debut on Ram Records, Future Perfect. The album title speaks for itself, because for this UK duo their future is looking like nothing less. Signing to Ram Records in 2010 after leading equally successful solo careers under the professional titles of Xample and Lomax, Gavin Harris and Nick Hill respectively, Loadstar was formed after the two Bristol based producers began creating a sound much different than each other’s preexisting solo projects. Producing some of the most popular dance fl oor drum and bass anthems over the past three years, from Link to the Past, to Passenger, to their more recent Black and White, the duo have been in talks of releasing an album since 2011.


Times have changed signifi cantly in those two years, and so has their sound. The timing could not be more perfect for the release of this album, as the growth in Loadstar’s sound has developed in ways that other producers need admire. This month’s release of Future Perfect brings us a genre-blending album that exhibits the diversity that these two embody. By staying true to their sound which has gained them dedicated fans world wide, while also embracing downtempo beats and electro sounds, Loadstar has brought us the drum and bass album that will set precedent for other artists’ future releases within the genre. While taking a break from their studio the duo took some time to discuss the making of Future Perfect and releasing an album in an ever-changing scene.


The two of you formed Loadstar in 2010 after both having successful solo careers under the names Xample and Lomax. What was it that initially brought the two of you together to begin releasing under the title ‘Loadstar?’


Around 2009 we were writing a lot of music together and getting a decent sound, so it felt like we were onto something good, so we decided that we would focus on a joint project together, the idea behind this was to always explore different styles of drum and bass and also delve into other genres. As the project developed we felt that we needed to sever ties to our original names as Xample and Lomax due to the music not really fi tting the sound originally associated to our solo careers. Although this was a really diffi cult decision at the time, and the transition took a while, it proved to be the right move as it gave us a fresh take on things and a lot more freedom creatively. Ram was really behind us and they helped bring the project together.


This has been one of the most anticipated drum and bass albums in years. How long have you been working on the album for?


It’s good to know people are looking forward to the album, we’re really excited about it and can’t wait for people to hear. In terms of writing the album we approached it in a bit of a round about way… over the course of the last 2-3 years we have been consistently writing tracks, always with an album in mind but without any sense of urgency as we didn’t want to put pressure on ourselves and we also wanted to establish a bit of a sound and direction for Loadstar. It’s probably in the last 12 months where we have really knuckled down and focused on bringing the album project together.


Approaching an album project is vastly different than releasing a single or an EP, what was the concept for this album?


We never really thought out a concept from the start of the writing process, its not like we locked ourselves in the studio for two months and wrote the whole thing start to fi nish (perhaps we should have). It’s been a case of experimenting, writing loads of tunes … a bit of trial and error trying to discover what our sound was. That said, when we began this project we always knew that we wanted the music to be heavily musical, a sophisticated, cred- ible sound and not just throw away stuff that sounds great now, but give it six months and it sounds dated. I think with Future Perfect we’ve achieved this, or at least we hope so. It’s essentially an artist album rather than just a selection of club tunes.


This album showcases your ability to produce music outside of solely the drum and bass sphere, with some electro-like tracks to some downtempo songs on there as well. Are you looking to continue exploring other genres in future releases?


Most defi nitely, whilst we are drum and bass producers and we will always stay true to our roots, we are consistently exploring other tempos and genres as it keeps things interesting and also inspires us when we go back to writing drum and bass. We are musicians essentially, we just write what we want, what we are feeling. The music scene is changing all the time, producers aren’t just sticking to one sound these days, and people are more receptive to different types of music. That is something we fully embrace. We never really set out to write a solely DnB album, we wanted to show a side to us that people haven’t heard before.


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