PHILIP BYRNE and BRENDAN CROWE of SPLITLOOP share the secret to their creativity (a night on the tiles, and then to bed) with FRANCES STEPHENSON.

Splitloop is one of the breakbeat scene’s fastest-emerging acts. They’ve been nominated at the international breakbeat awards, released numerous records and remixes, had a five-star review in DJ Mag, and toured all over the world. It seems like everything is simmering along nicely for the duo.

Frances Stephenson: Do you feel vulnerable putting your music into the public domain?

Splitloop: When you really feel that is when someone rips it off. It’s soul-destroying when you’ve worked on a track for a year or two and the day after it’s released it’s up on the internet on some blog site available for download. You think, “I’ve put my heart and soul into this. That’s just not fair.” I saw someone put a promo copy of our album up on eBay three weeks before the release date. It was even still in the wrapper!

FS: What do you think is the way forward for breakbeat?

S: The only avenue for breaks is to just get over itself and start having a great time. We just think it’s okay to play the elements that get the party vibe going.

FS: How do you create your music?

S: Sometimes you have an idea, and sometimes you have a blank screen and just start messing around. Sometimes I’ll be walking down the street and have to record myself on my phone singing a bass line or a drum beat. And sometimes I wake up in the morning – in various states – and find that I made a tune during the night that I don’t remember making, and it’s great. One morning I woke up with a CD in my hand with a name written on it. I’d given my drunken self a present. I’d burnt a CD of a tune I’d written the night before that I couldn’t even remember.

FS: You manage to get a lot of different styles into your music. Do you think breaks is especially suited to that?

S: Breaks is a parasite, really. You can play house, grime, electro, anything. You can even play a bit of breakbeat. That’s good because you can take from whatever’s going on. Some of the splinter scenes have done just that – for example, bloke-beat. That’s the nasty, angry breakbeat with no happy bits that scares all the girls away. We’ve made a few tunes like that in the past and we still get booked for those gigs occasionally. Then we find ourselves playing electro breaks to prepubescent angry men. There are never any girls at those gigs. We’re too old for that now! We’re not angry any more. We haven’t got the energy to be angry. We just want to enjoy ourselves and then get to bed. ...I like to go to bed. Don’t judge me.

SPLITLOOP play at the Empire Saturday Aug 2. Their new album PLEASURE MACHINE is out Saturday Aug 2 on Against The Grain/Shock.

Be first to comment on this article

Write Comment
Comments are submitted for possible publication on the condition that they may be edited. Poster's IP addresses are logged.
Name:
Comment:
Code:*