Nick Douwma, the man behind Sub Focus chats to John Goodridge about his recent album Torus and his upcoming tour with Future Music Festival.
Hi Nick, thanks for taking the time today to talk to the AU Review. Your new album, Torus is a great album, which has just been released in Australia. The opening track talks about UFOs, sets the scene for the whole album.
Yeah, basically I wanted to have something in the album that refers to the disc shape on the cover. The word “Torus” is the geometric name for that kind of disc. I found a sample, which is from a tape called the Halt Tape, which is a famous recording of these guys in the army who think they are seeing a UFO and they go out and make a field recording. It’s just this sense of wonder in their voices, which I really liked. I reedited the sample to make it sound like they’d discovered this shape, this monolith, in the vein of 2001, A Space Odyssey. I really like the tone it set for the rest of the record.
I like the whole concept of how Torus works and how the whole packaging goes together.
I’m a huge fan of groups who have added thought into the concept behind things; the artwork and design concepts and stuff.
That comes across and obviously, you think it’s important.
Yeah it has to be. When we started off coming up with the design campaign of this album with the designers, we started brainstorming and we wanted to take the disc shape I used on the cover of my first album and put it into three dimensions in landscapes. We made a website in conjunction with Google maps where we basically hid three-dimensional discs in Google maps where you can find previews of the album by searching. We’ve given people clues to find each one and with each one is a preview to a track on the album.
http://www.subfocus.com/torus
It’s a way for people to discover tracks from the album. You can put the disc anywhere in the world. You can put it outside your house and share pictures of it and stuff. I’m really involved in the design concept. I really like groups where it sounds like a lot of thought has gone into that, like Justice or Nero.
I watched the doco of the behind the scenes of making of your show and was blown away by how much goes into your shows. I’m pretty excited to see the show when it comes to Future Music.
Yeah I’m looking forward to getting it out.
Will we get the full show here?
Yeah, I’m pretty sure it will be the full version. I try not to do cut down versions. It’s great to be doing the Future Music tour because it’s a logistical nightmare bringing the show half way around the world because of the size of it. A show like Future is perfect because it allows you to do it multiple times to make it cost effective. I’m really excited to be bringing it out.
Have you been to Australia before?
Yeah I’ve been many times. Pretty much on a tour of some kind. We’ve had a bit of extra time each trip to see the place. I first went back in 2005 – I think on a DJ tour – and I come back every few years, but I haven’t been since 2011 and I’ve never done this show there so it’s gonna be good. I’m very happy with the tech side of the show. Some of the things have been custom made for the show, which I talk a little bit about in the documentary. So the lights respond to certain things I do during the set. The motion sensors are custom made for the show, which I think, are really cool. I’m basically able to control sound by moving my hands in the air. I wanted to come up with these new slightly futuristic ways of performing. I’m very much into electronics and I wanted to keep the show electronic rather than using a band to play my songs. Some groups get a live drummer, for example but I wanted to go against that because I love the electronic sound and my songs are all made like that.
You collaborated with a number of artists on the album. So do you choose the artist and write the song or have the song and chose the artist?
It’s so different from track to track really. Mostly I’m thinking about the artist before the song is written and we get together in my studio or remotely. I mean, sometimes the songs evolve in weird ways. The track “Turn it Around” with Kele that I wrote for example, he was living in New York and he was sending me vocals and stuff and I was writing tracks and I ended up completely redoing the backing track around it. So I kinda started from scratch with a vocal from him, which is a weird way of working. I mean the song with Alex Clare that I did was pretty much ready before he came in and it was more just having him sing the song. Yeah every track was different really. So some were remote collaborations and some we got together.
That’s the advantage of the Internet these days that artists can collaborate remotely.
Yeah. It’s pretty mad thinking about it actually. There are singers on the album that I never actually met. One guy I never actually spoke to who did the vocals on a backing track and another who I spoke to on Skype but it’s pretty mad what you can do now. I think where possible I wanted to get in the studio with people but the tracks where I couldn’t meet people, one of the guys was based in Sydenham and the other guy was based in LA so timing wise it didn’t really work so we had to get together after the songs were finished. I think it’s cool all the possibilities that throws up these days. You can write a song with people in different continents.
The only two strong drum and bass tracks are “Falling Down” and “You Make it Better”. There’s been a little bit of criticism that you’ve moved away from drum and bass. Was this a conscious move or evolution?
Yeah I’m not trying to move away from it, but I definitely decided with this album to make it more of a listening journey, in terms of tempo and more up and down. It’s not been a conscious decision to move away from drum and bass, but in the last four or five years I’ve been putting out quite a mixed variety of dance music. It makes a lot of sense when I’m doing things like live shows where I need to have multiple tempos to make it interesting. Again, when doing an album, it doesn’t make sense for every song on an album to have the same tempo. I definitely come into contact with people who are purists, but if you think about it in the context of an album, it is kinda ridiculous to have a collection of music all at one tempo. It seems rather restrictive. During my set I want to have different colours and aspects to it during the show. You need to have things at different tempos for that to work.
The album definitely has a journey feel to it. You sit back you go up there come back down. It’s been described as like a film.
Yeah I definitely wanted that feel with the last track. I think I wanted to react against the purist. I was motivated to produce music to a high standard to react against that purism. I just like people who are able to do diverse styles really.
Passion Pit are cited as an influence. What other artists are you influenced by?
I used the same sample as they did on one of my songs on the album. It’s actually an obscure Irish folk song. I am a big fan of theirs. I’m generally a fan of bands that combine guitars, synthesizers like Friendly Fires would generally be an influence.
So what other artists are you listening too now?
There’s so much good stuff that I like. Some of the stuff I’ve been enjoying recently is by a guy called Special Request and a UK House artist called Paul Woolford and it’s very much going back to underground UK 90’s music so it’s got a very strong jungle influence. The new Chase and Status album is good. Again it’s got a very nineties feel to it, with a kind of Massive Attack vibe. And I’m into some of the new US hip-hop like A$AP Rocky and French producer Gessafelstein who will be playing Future Music as well. I try to listen to a lot of different stuff but those are the people who spring to mind.
Do you get much of a chance on a festival tour to catch other acts?
Yeah there are definitely a few people I’d like to catch on the tour. When I get a chance at festivals I try to go out and check different people. On this tour I’m looking forward to seeing the before mentioned people and also Baauer and Gorgon City, who are actually friends of mine. I’m also good friends with Chase and Status and I’m very much looking forward to the tour.
Thanks for talking to the AU Review and looking forward to seeing you at the Future Music Festival.
