Back to the old-school
Since his debut as one half of broken beat act Da Lunartiktz in the late 90s, Alex Arnout has made a name for himself in the dance scene as part of Cermaix with Leiam Sullivan, and solo with releases on One Records, Hot Waves and Fear Of Flying. In 2007 he set up his own label, Dogmatik, which has put out tracks from big names such as Maya Jane Coles and Dusky. We travelled to Alex’s East London studio so he could make us an exclusive track from scratch using his bewildering array of classic music gear, and share a few of his music production secrets along the way. Computer Music: How did you discover your love of house music? Alex Arnout: “Our generation was the first wave to receive house music. I was leaving school in 1989, and this music was being played on all the pirate radio stations. I’m from Sheffield, so I was listening to Sheffield Community Radio – it featured all the local DJs at the time, and Warp Records had just opened up and was shipping in stuff from Detroit and Chicago. With Sheffield being quite industrial, there was a link with Detroit – bleepy and clonky music and things like that. You couldn’t help but be influenced by this new music – it was a totally new experience and a new movement.”
: Who were your favourite artists at the time?? AA: “There was a lot of Vincent Floyd being played… Derrick May… from a Sheffield point of view there was LFO and Tricky Disco, Dextrous – Sheffield-based artists that were into this Detroit sound. ”
: Where do you draw the line between house and techno? AA: “To me it’s all house music. When we first started going out we went to this little place in our local town and it wasn’t a house or techno night – there was stuff like Strings of Life thrown in with A Homeboy, A Hippie & A Funki Dredd, Young MC… Your Love thrown in at the end. It was quite varied; it was more about the music and how the music made you feel.”
: How did you take the step into actually making the music? AA: “I went on the path of wanting to DJ, so I started collecting records and moved abroad because things were quite sewn up at the time in the UK. I went on this little path of trying to learn my art and making people want to dance – working in that club environment.
“Between the ages of 19 and 24, I worked as a DJ in Tenerife. The music at the end of the 90s was just bootlegs that majors were signing up – they owned both the songs that were being bootlegged, and it was getting pretty cheesy. I was thinking, ‘I’m sure I can do better than this,’ So I decided to come home and learn sound engineering.
“I was so naïve about the whole thing! I thought everybody had their own studio and made their own records, and knew about samplers and things… so I did a proper sound engineering course – recording bands, doing radio shows, mixdowns and remixes, and involving musicians with tracks that I was doing. I went the whole hog because I thought that’s what everyone else did!”
“You couldn’t help but be influenced – it was a totally new experience”