INTERV IEW: Bola

Few people know this, but it was Bola’s self-titled EP that propelled Manchester’s Skam label to underground notoriety. Now after a ten-year absence, Darrell Fitton is back with a new album. Danny Turner tracks him down to find out what’s taken him so lon

After a ten year absence, long-time Skam Records man Darrell Fitton returns to the music industry with a bold new album

The work of electronic musician Darrell Fitton is likely to be categorised as one of your record collection’s best-kept secrets. Initial Fitton tracks, described as “chrome-dipped melodic techno”, began appearing in 1995 on Warp Records’ Artificial Intelligence compilations, while subsequent material, recorded as Bola, had a more ambient, post-techno feel.

Fitton’s debut album release, Soup, found its home on Andy Maddock’s underground label, Skam. In fact, it was one of the Manchester label’s first releases, alongside Boards of Canada’s Music

Has the Right to Children. Around the same time, Fitton loaned his studio to Rob Brown and Sean Booth, two kids who would later become one of electronic music’s foremost innovators, Autechre.

Fitton continued to release expansive soulful electronica under the name Bola, and occasionally Jello, throughout the 2000s. However, after the release of Kroungrine in 2007, he was rumoured to have left the music industry. Although Fitton subsequently returned to play live dates, ten years of relative inactivity have now been broken by the sudden release of his sixth Bola album, D.E.G.

I understand you loaned Autechre some equipment prior to them making their debut album?

“Many years ago I had a studio with an old AMEK desk and an Atari 8-track. These two kids came and started talking to me about synths because they knew I was into them. Those guys were Autechre, but it was before they became Autechre. I think Sean [Booth] was about 15 at the time. They played me some of their cassette tracks and I thought they were really good, so I said they could use my studio when I’m not in it. They did a few overnighters [laughs]. Basically, that was the beginning of Lego Feet, as they were called at the time. You could see that something good was going to happen – they were really intense.”

After the last Bola album, it was rumoured you’d left the industry. Had you? And what brings you back?

“I had two really young children, so we decided to evacuate the city, move into the countryside, and concentrate on bringing the kids up. I hadn’t fallen out with music, but I’d become jaded and needed some time to think about whether I wanted to do this anymore. I’ve kept all the gear and over the years added to it… and I’ve become interested again. I guess I’ve got my mojo back a bit!”

When you say jaded, do you mean by the direction the industry went in?

“That had something to do with it, but I was also jaded with the sound I was making. At the time, when I went into the studio I didn’t feel like I was moving forward. I’ve always been driven by that and never been particularly concerned about being rich or famous. I’m more interested in personal musical fulfilment, and at that point it definitely felt a little bit grey.”

Technology’s changed enormously over that time – what was it like waking back up and discovering the frills of the modern studio?

“Gear-wise, things have definitely changed dramatically. When I did the last album, VSTs were… not in their infancy but… they weren’t that well developed. Nowadays they’re incredible, and the audio processing is through the roof really. I use a lot of physical equipment rather than software, and I feel that’s moved on too. Sonically, there’s more precision now. I remember having an original Nord G1, but I’ve got a Wave now and it’s much more precise, which makes me more interested in making music.”

In what way is it much more precise? In the way that it has a wider range of parameters?

“Yeah, and it’s much quicker – you’re not having to think of workarounds so much, and you can do what you’ve got in your head more directly. I think that’s a lot to do with the fact that a lot of synths now have control panels again. You can put your hands on them without menu surfing, which can drive you crazy. Some of my favourite synths of all time have been quite menu-driven, I remember having a Kurzweil K2000, and I really liked it, but it took a lot of learning.”

You recently managed to get your hands on the new Roland System-8…

“I only got it a few weeks ago. Previous to that I had the System-1, which was fantastic. An awful lot of sounds from D.E.G. are from the System-1 because it’s so quick to get to the things I had in mind. So when the System-8 was announced, I thought, ‘I’ll have one of them’. It has Plug-Outs, which are like plugins but you can upload them to the System-8. They do an SH-101, which is absolutely exact because I used to have one, and an SH-2. You just press a button and it’s that synth. For playing live, that’s exactly the kind of thing I need to duplicate things exactly as they are in the studio.”

We touched on Autechre, whose sound is quite cold and clinical, whereas you’ve always had a warmer, more atmospheric sound, which is typified on this new album.

“I guess that’s just me. I don’t listen to electronic music at all really, I listen to rubbish like Ravel and Debussy and loads of Jazz, so that influences me melodically and makes the sound more atmospheric. Autechre are city boys, so they’re driven by that urban mentality, whereas I’ve always been a bit rural [laughs].”

What’s the significance of the abbreviated title D.E.G?

“I always do these crazy puns. My name’s Darrell Earnest Fitton, so when we originally said we were