Y
ou ar
P W
e her
Leo might come in and tweak, and Michael will ∫ ∫
tone it up later.”
Cleveland

John Mur
e

◊
The three members of Blu Mar Ten evidently
76
share extremely high levels of trust to put
enough confidence in each other to edit their
Aar r
a
y Hill
individual work independently. “We’re so fucking on
lucky it’s unbelievable,” says Leo. “We’ve been
writing together for 12 years; four with Michael.
It’s ultimate trust.”
“If you write with someone for so long, the
chance of them doing something that you hate is
so remote, that they will probably do something
so similar to what you’d do anyway, but with their
own trademark,” says Michael.
“It’s like being happily married,” Leo says wryly.
Deaden silence fills the room. “Thanks for that
– fan the flames why don’t you,” jests Chris, to
which everyone cracks up with mirth.
How do the three hyper-creative individuals in
Blu Mar Ten begin making a track? “It usually
starts with a sample,” Chris explains. “Often
we’ll just go with the flow and make whatever
comes naturally, unless I’m harping on at them
to make D&B. We’re more inclined to start with
breaks and bass, which was always Leo’s and
my weak point until Michael came along. The
thing about starting at 174 is that it’s going to be
drum & bass whichever way you look at it, which
sometimes is great but other times can be quite
limiting.”
“That’s why we’ve always got about 20 things on
the go,” Leo adds. “I sometimes come in early on
a weekend and spend four hours on something
by myself, and they will all advance it gradually in
their own time.”
In Digital Nation, the most interesting interviews
don’t dwell on compression ratios and frequency
curves but on a social aspect of music making.
The pro-active producers out there know that
the psychology behind making music – creativity
and basic choices – are more important than all
the technical information in the world. “I wanted – do you go to clubs and meet people; do you do best piece of software I’ve encountered in my
to write a piece of DOA – I did,” says Chris. it at a distance, for example: via email and AIM? life. It’s a fucking joy because it makes me want
“People were saying ‘there’s no practical advice What impact does this have? How destructive a to write music.”
on how to make music’ so I wrote down how Blu language do you use when you talk to people?
Mar Ten begin making tunes. The text was just How do you want to appear to the outside “We did the album mostly with Reason but then
to get people off the starting block. I said, ‘right world? These are all completely non-technical we moved into Logic for the proper editing – but
– here are the boundaries – get going and see questions, but like it or not they are the things got so frustrated with it we switched to Cubase,”
what happens’. that will determine your success. Don’t get me Chris reveals.
wrong – you have to have a decent tune to
“We were having a conversation about this. The back you up but having a decent tune and not “Hmmmm,” Michael hums. “I don’t think I’d call
difference between a lot of people that ‘make understanding any of these things means you’ll Reason the best piece of software ever. It has
it’, whatever that means, and people that don’t is go nowhere. So, I think the philosophy behind a real strength but a lack of detail. Ideally you’d
much less about compression but knowing how the decision-making is much more important want something with the same structure and
to sound good. It’s more about sounding good as than the technical question.” workflow and ability to get things down, but with
opposed to being good at technical stuff.” better filters and stuff.”
And this leads us neatly onto the final and
One would assume that the top dogs in drum & most crucial topic in this interview – the hotly “We like this album,” Leo reiterates, making Chris
bass would bowl you over with their technical anticipated new album by Blu Mar Ten known as and Michael laugh. “We’ve got certain favourites
knowledge, but nine times out of ten they really ‘Black Water’. “It’s our second proper artist album on it like ‘Black Water’ – the lead and title track
don’t have a clue. They prefer to get creative and but it’s the first time we’ve properly worked with – the ‘Feeling’ remix that we did with Seth the
just know how to make something sound nice. vocals and a singer,” Leo says. “We’ve done vocalist.”
“It’s all about the philosophical decision,” Chris plenty of songs with vocals before – remixes
decides. “Every piece of it – from on what basis from Alicia Keys and Erykah Badu – but they For an artist to be happy with their own work
you decide to work with somebody; to ‘what do I used beautifully-recorded acappellas. That was is a milestone, because creative individuals are
want to get out of this?’ These are things that do the biggest difference this time around – we did stereotypically self-critical. “Mike is the most
not necessarily occur to a lot of people making the vocals at a studio called Fluidity near Harrow self-critical of all,” Leo concludes.
music who are faced with the technical wall, and Road. We’d then take the vocals back here and
all their concentration is sucked away by that but integrate them into ‘Black Water’. I’m happy with So what does Michael think of ‘Black Water’?
ironically it’s not the most important thing. what we did on the album. “I am sort of happy with it,” he says, making
everyone laugh again.
“On what basis do you decide to sample certain “On ‘Black Water’ we used Reason more than
things? How and why would you make a song ever before. Reason is the Bic pen of music for If someone as technically gifted as Michael is
at this sort of tempo? How do you communicate me – if you want to write something down – Bic verging on contentedness with his own work,
your music to people, for example: label bosses pens don’t go out of date. Reason is simply the then you just know it’s something special.
K74-76_BluMarTen.indd 76 8/6/07 19:13:22
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74