Alphonse ‘See Me in 3D’ Ransom Note mix

His latest, ‘Spirit of the Night’ with Seraphina Simone, is the kind of record that took its time. Written in a single session at Glastonbury in 2017, it sat through lockdown, a new baby and a handful of other projects before it finally clicked as a late-night acid house record, built around a snaking 303 line and Seraphina’s vocal, and spun out into four mixes pulling in four different directions. It’s out now on our our very own Ransom Note Recs.

We locked him in for a mix and a chat. Check it out below.

Where are you right now, and how did you end up there today? I’m in a shed in my garden surrounded by ancient electronic artefacts from Japan. I guess I can’t stop making tunes, it’s a strange affliction. I blame my mum for putting me as a sleeping baby in a crib next to a chugging canal boat engine, and also for me being 18 in 1991.

What’s your first memory of music actually doing something to you, not just liking a song, but feeling it? That’s easy. It was very powerful, around 11 years old hearing Cybotron’s “Clear.”

Walk us through a day when Toby Tobias isn’t thinking about music at all. What does that day look like? Looking after my four-year-old boy. So football, cycling, Spiderman, gymnastics, you know.

What job did you think you’d end up doing before music took over? I’ve always juggled the music with technical support in audio and visual operations, but more recently I’ve phased it out a touch and put the focus on running the studio, DJing and selling second-hand records.

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had, and did it teach you anything useful? Maybe being a gardener when I suffered from chronic hayfever. Know your weaknesses, make your life easy. Or working in a gas mask factory and learning absolutely nothing.

You’ve operated under a few different names and aliases over the years, and put records out across Klasse Wrecks, Hypercolour, Emotional Especial and Kalahari Oyster Cult. Does “Alphonse” feel like a distinct project, or just an extension of how you make music anyway? Alphonse was always meant to be me going right back to my roots, when I started in 1992 with a sampler, some amen breaks and some horror film samples, and zero knowledge apart from what we heard in the raves and on Kiss FM. I loved the naivety of it, and it’s about trying to bottle that feeling. The mood is generally in the same ballpark.

First record you ever bought with your own money versus the last one you bought, what does that say about who you’ve become? Interesting question, I think about this kind of thing a lot. My music taste hasn’t really changed much at all, as you can probably tell. Cybotron is still my favourite track. First cassette was probably a double cassette – “Now That’s What I Call Music 8” with Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel’s “Don’t Give Up,” formative shit – then around the same time the cassette of the Thompson Twins album, “Into the Gap,” beautiful stuff. The first 12-inch I bought was “Fools Gold,” and the first CD album I personally went out and bought (and not handed down from the old man) was The Shamen’s “Entact,” which had a huge impact, 1991 I believe. Obviously I’ve done a lot of research between then and now, but deep, bassy, emotional music will always do it for me. The last record I bought was Cabaret Voltaire’s “Eight Crepuscule Tracks.” I rest my case.

Talk us through this mix, what headspace were you in when you put it together? I was very much in a “this pile of records I need to listen to is way too big” state of mind.

The EP itself goes back to 2017, a single session with Seraphina at Glastonbury. What’s your actual memory of that day, and how much of what came out of it made it into the final record? We just had a very productive and fun few hours in a classic bedroom-style studio. We actually recorded three lyrical tracks. One of the other ones is something I’ve been meaning to try and finish, though I’m a bit worried it might have got lost in a hard drive failure.

The track sat through lockdown, a baby, other projects, before you landed on what it actually was. What changed, in you or in the demo, that finally made it click as a late-night acid house record? I think I just had the feeling that the lyrics and the message suited that late-night mood, and I wanted to make a backing track that respected that.

Four mixes built from the same vocal and the same 303 line, each pulling somewhere different. Why give the idea four lives instead of finishing one version? Hahaha, the age-old question. But unfortunately that is me. If a good thing is flowing then I don’t like to stop the idea, never let a thing like time get in the way of a good idea, something like that. But I definitely wanted to let the main mix remain as close as possible to the original 2017 idea. Plus I really came up with a weird flex on the acid line on the Stutter Dub.

The Stutter Dub is the one you’ve called the “dark crystal in the pack,” and it nods hardest back to Swag records in Croydon. What does that place actually sound like to you, and why does it come through strongest there? It was a very important place in my biological music make-up. Propping up the counter, being fed tunes by Paul or Liz (RIP) mainly, becoming known as that bloke with the “leftfield breaky” sound. That sound has never left me, and when that particular mix went down that dark route and the conga rhythm lifted the track somewhere else, I knew what was happening.

Is there a record of yours, under any name, that you think never got the recognition it deserved? Maybe an early remix I did of Extra production on Brontosaurus Records, 2006 (Philip Lauer and friends), always felt that was quite cool, dubby and very much flew under the radar. There’s also a track I did with Damon from Disco Bloodbath, used his battered old 909 too I think from memory, on my old label London Housing Trust, called “Mind Games.” Always had a nice feeling that one, think that was a bit slept on, though a couple of DJs in the know 😉 picked up on it.

Got a working time machine right now, where or when are you going, and what are you hoping to find there? Let’s go and see the dinosaurs. Be a laugh. I know there should be a smart and sensible answer like watching the pyramids being built, which now I come to think of it would be decent, but no. There’s a void in my musical life – for one reason or another I was out of the picture around 94-96 ish. One party I feel gutted to have missed out totally was AWOL at the Paradise, think magic was behind those walls. I get a lot of joy listening to recordings of Randall, Mickey, Dr S Gachet and GQ at AWOL. Magic times. So yes, plonk me in the time machine right in the middle of that dancefloor in 94.

What’s coming up for you that you’re genuinely excited about? A new album, my first in about ten years. Can’t believe it’s taken so long, but the next one definitely won’t be such a long wait. Loads of cool Voice Notes label stuff, as always from myself and other artists. A few lovely collaborations in the pipeline, one with a rather amazing harpist. A remix for some good friends over the pond. I’m also DJing at a lovely little festival in September, Kestrel Heights in Suffolk, run by some friends from Norwich. These kind of things are so much fun, done for the right reasons. Seek it out, tickets are almost gone, if they’re not gone already.

What’s something you wish more people understood about what you actually do? I’m back into doing remixes, for the right project. I’ve also got the label, Voice Notes, which is fairly active, so keep an eye on the Bandcamp for the good stuff. And I’m doing mixdowns and extra production, again for the right kind of projects, which I’ve been really enjoying, and it helps keep the meter running in the studio. There’s also a lot of music coming out over the next year or two, so there’s that too.

What question were you hoping we’d ask that we didn’t? Honestly, you got most of it. Ask me about the shed next time.

“Spirit of the Night” by Alphonse and Seraphina Simone is out now on yes, you’ve guessed it, our very own Ransom Note.