Use Of Weapons (Mark Pritchard) - [Droppin' Science]
Kingsley Marshall caught up with Mark Pritchard to
talk about the label, the new direction through 1999
and the much-vaunted Vertigo project.
Mark Pritchard explains what he feels distinguishes
the sound of Droppin' Science. "Danny has always
strived to use new and different breaks, and dug for
those beats in the same way that hip-hop artists do.
Because he's into hip-hop, though its not obvious, his
material has always had that vibe of attitude and a
lo-fi funk."
Although Mark has been recording drum & bass for some
time, it has been a fairly recent move to focus on the
genre. As he explains: "I'd recorded some material for
Recoil records around 1992 with Dom Fripp who is now
at Good Looking. Although that material was well
received and had a lot of play I couldn't give it the
attention I would have like because of my commitments
to other projects, particularly when the whole Global
Communications project kicked off around 1993. My
material has often been quite sporadic as the way I
keep myself interested is through the challenge of
doing something new, but I decided last year that I
wanted to concentrate on drum & bass more."
Though a fervent supporter of drum & bass, it
frustrates Mark that few producers within the movement
are pushing the boundaries. He elaborates: "What I
used to really love about the scene a few years ago
was the sheer volume of twelves from talented
producers which came through each week, and those
releases worked to inspire others to push what they're
doing. Over the last couple of years its gone a lot
quieter and I've found that I really have to search
hard to find material that I really like. Looking at
the two step thing for example, although that techno
sounding percussion works well in clubs I feel that
people have become very lazy with there beats in that
there is so much more that can with those rhythms."
Continuing he says: "It's frustrating to me as there
is an endless supply of new beats, and though it may
take a lot of effort to use a new break in the right
way its worth putting in that extra time and detailed
programming as otherwise it becomes boring. While
there are people that I really rate like Dillinja and
Krust, a lot of stuff that comes out is short of new
ideas and could be a lot better in that the music is
becoming very stale. Because of that I feel a certain
pressure when I'm putting a drum & bass together in
that I want to make music that WILL be played by drum
& bass DJ's. Though I'm aware of that I still try to
ensure that I'm pushing the production, sound and
arrangement to be something a bit different while
continuing to use sounds and draw new inspiration. I
think these artists should be striving to make music
which can be played out a year later."
Mark first hooked up with Danny in the closing months
of 1996, "When drum & bass was getting the hype in the
press a few years ago, I used to point people to
Droppin' Science. It was through an interview that
someone had tracked him down and mentioned I'd checked
him and wrote a piece on him. Originally I was trying
to get hold of him to do a remix, I ended up speaking
to him we were into some similar things and got on
quite well and I asked him to do some material for my
Universal Language imprint."
After those releases came out, I'd sent him a DAT of
"Mojo Woman" purely to see if he wanted to cut it. He
called me and said he'd release it. "I wasn't sure, as
we stripped out a part of the track on the first mix
although couldn't take out to much of the music as it
was an integral part. I tried to make the beats as
hard as I could take them. I was quite chuffed, as a
few people weren't sure on the first listen though as
people started playing it out it grew on them a little
bit."
"The flip to Mojo brought three hip-hop grooves to
vinyl, Mark explains: "I played Danny some other
material that I was working on around the same time,
and we felt we could work these onto the flip. Though
it wasn't so well received in the UK, people are
starting to pick up on those tracks in America - which
is nice as that's something I'm trying develop.
Although I'm currently working instrumentals, I'm
looking at working at getting some vocalists together
at some point next year."
"I'd been working on producing Kirsty Hawkshaw's
album, and we worked a mix together of one of the
singles. Unfortunately Kirsty's label is unsure about
granting the track a full release it, though I'm
trying to convince them to license it over to me.
Despite that, and the fact that Danny had never really
worked with anyone before, he was really into the way
it worked out. I'd wanted to do some tracks with him
for some time as I felt it would be quite an
interesting meeting of minds as well as having a
certain amount of knowledge sharing going on, so we
both felt it would be cool to start a new project up."
The much-vaunted Vertigo project, whose reputation is
so far built on the 250-promo mail out of the Kirsty
Hawkshaw mix, was born. Mark elaborates: "Although we
are only in the opening stages we can both see this as
a long term project. We finished a track a couple of
weeks ago, which is on a similar vibe to what we did
for Kirsty, on that soundtrack sort of vibe. We've
done a slow track and we've started a piece using live
bass that has more of a funk flavour. We're looking at
putting the first few twelves through Droppin' Science
and see how it goes through the year, building up the
interest in an effort to get a deal on the album.
Although it is looking to be quite a moody project,
the album will be a mixture of drum & bass, hip-hop
and some weird jazz type of stuff as well as having a
few tracks which aren't so heavy so we can play them
out. We're fortunate in that we both have similar set
ups with the desk and sampler, so we are able to work
in each others studios."
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