Influences – Dark Sky

For the first two minutes or so Chick Corea (piano) and Walter Booker (bass) construct a very eerie and melancholic mood which is sustained by the repetitiveness of Chick Corea’s playing. But then all is suddenly changed, the mood becomes subtly uplifting and the repetition is broken by the introduction of Pete Laroca’s drums. The ambience created within this track, the melancholy and repetitiveness are key elements within the music that interest me.

This track was a really early influence for me as was the rest of the tracks off of “Music for the Jilted Generation” my dad dubbed it to tape for me when I was 8 and I used to fall asleep listening to it on my Walkman.
I don’t know what it is about “Three Kilos” but 19 years later I still find myself coming back to it.

Martyn’s “great lengths” album was the first album I had heard during the 140 movement that had a really coherent and visceral feel but could still stand up to other tracks when played out.
Almost all the tracks on the album had this sound where you could listen to it at home or in a club but for me “Far away” embodied this the most.

A modern day classic. Having a pop at re-definng house music can be a daunting task as it has been around for quite some time but Kenny Dixon Jr makes light work of this. Everything from the vocal production to the half time groove that drives the whole track sounds like nothing i’ve heard before. Even though it may have been unintentional It feels like KDj designed the track with a view to soundtracking a particular part of the night and wasn’t fussed about anything else which is an idea that i really love.

A more recent release that’s been an influence on me is “motion the dance” by untold. I’ve always been a massive fan of his outside the box approach to music, his early tracks like “anaconda” and “sweat” still sound unique and hold their own today.
“Motion the dance” only has 3 elements that slowly change and intertwine to make the track but they are so detailed and ever evolving that every time I listen to it I hear a new subtle layer in each sound that changes the way I listen to it.

I remember hearing this track at fwd when it first came out and being stopped in my tracks. Like much of Joes output, it sounds like nothing i’ve heard before. It totally changed my perception of what dance music could be. I really love how one element, in this case the percussion becomes the focus of the track and the
narrative is basically about how far this one element can be pushed. Creatively this limited approach to working is something that i find very inspiring.

Out of his vast output, the one track i wish i made would be this one. It’s not my favourite one by Four Tet but this track along with Pepe Bradock’s 12Turns13 are perfect examples of interesting and forward thinking house music which are incredibly influential for me.

This track had a direct influence on the title track of our last album ‘imagin’ – a long introduction that keeps gradually building until the moment the drums come in, completely altering the character of the song and creating a sense of euphoria. We hope people felt that with ‘imagin’.

It was very tough to chose my favourite track from René Pawlowitz’s vast back catalogue but this one i feel encompasses lots of the Shed elements i know and love. His signature sound is all over this, and you can instantly hear it just from the drums in the intro. Establishing a signature sound as an artist can be one of the hardest things sometimes but Shed makes it seem effortless, this production ethos is one of the things I’m always striving for whilst writing my own material.