GORGON CITY

Get the production dons’ advice and wisdom

It’s been a couple of years since North London duo Gorgon City took Ready For

Your Love into the UK Top Five, but Matt Robson-Scott is still struggling to come to terms with just how far their distinctly British house/garage-hybrid has taken them.

“If you’d told me in 2012 – the year we started Gorgon City – that we’d be touring the US with Rudimental and playing shows in Central Park, I would have laughed you out of the studio,” he says, shaking his head in disbelief. Along with fellow Gorgon, Kye Gibbon, Robson-Scott is enjoying a mid-morning coffee in a downtown New York deli at the start of the aforementioned US tour.

“We had no plans,” adds Robson-Scott, who’s taken over interview duties for the day. “Kye was working as Foamo, I was working as RackNRuin; we were both fans of each other’s music and just decided to make a couple of tracks together.”

Black Butter Records had already issued a few RackNRuin tunes – including Soundclash, the Jessie Ware collaboration – and almost immediately signed a deal with the newly named Gorgon City. The next two years were a bit of blur; collaborations with Katy B, Maverick Sabre, Clean Bandit, Jess Glynne, hit singles and a Top Ten debut album, Sirens. As Robson-Scott says… “It’s been a mad journey!”

Computer Music: Following the success of Disclosure, America has really embraced that British house/garage sound. Ironic, considering that both house and garage came from the US.

Matt Robson-Scott: “I know; it’s a bit weird to be in a city like New York or Chicago – the birthplace of this music – and to hear people talking about a British sound. But I think that’s one of the strengths of the British music scene: we can take something and look at it in a completely different way. We’ll put things together when they’re not meant to be together; we’ll start chopping up breaks and taking the groove off into uncharted territory.

“It’s almost as if British producers aren’t satisfied with anything that’s… normal. We want to take it out of the box, take it apart and put it back together with all the parts in the ‘wrong’ place. I’m pretty sure that’s how jungle and drum ‘n’ bass started; let’s break the rules and see what happens.”

cm: You’ve both acknowledge the influence of jungle/drum ‘n’ bass on your sound.

MR: “A massive influence on both of us. That’s what we grew up with… Goldie, Adam F, labels like Virus and RAM, Ed Rush and Optical. I was just about old enough to start going to clubs

“It’s almost as if British producers aren’t satisfied with anything that’s… normal”