Dr Meaker Dirt & Soul feat. Laurent John & Celestine
Over the past decade Bristol-based breakbeat merchants Dr Meaker have become one of the UK’s biggest live Dance acts, winning crowds over with their big bass, slammin’ D’n’ B beats and soulful musical stylings. We caught up with Dr Meaker founder and producer Clive Meaker in his Easton studio to discover how he made the monumental title track from the band’s newly released second album Dirt & Soul.
“It was started in January 2014. I was just playing some piano chords,” begins Clive, who turns to his digital piano and casually bangs out an achingly soulful rendition of the track’s chord progression. “Originally I had an orchestral beat using EastWest Symphonic Orchestra, which was quite different for me. Later on I found it really difficult to mix; it wasn’t quite right. So I had this basic chord structure, then Lorna [King, Dr Meaker vocalist] wrote the bassline off of the chords. One day Laurent [John, featured vocalist] was over here working on something else, and I played it to him. He said he’d really like to do it, so he wrote a vocal and we put it down and recorded it all that day! It was really good, and I quickly did a mixdown and took that to band rehearsal that evening and played it on a big PA system, and we just knew it was good!”
But it took a while to become fully fleshed out?
“I was digesting it for quite a while as I do with most tracks: I’ll just put it on my phone and walk around Bristol, trying to work out what it needs, analysing it, completely overthinking it, and playing it to other people. I was playing it at house parties and things like that, but I wasn’t quite getting the reaction I was hoping for. It was quite ‘flat’ for quite a long time in terms of dynamics: it was great but it didn’t ever ‘get’ anywhere. I wanted it to go somewhere, I wanted there to be a payoff – all of what you’ve waited for the first two to three minutes for, an epic outro. “I’ve always wanted to record really distorted guitars inspired by
Mezzanine by Massive Attack and things like that. I quite often go INCLUDES VIDEO vault.futuremusic.co.uk
“It’s one of those things where if it sounds good just go with it, who cares if it’s clipping. That’s the whole approach I took to this album – it’s not the most sonically hi-fi album ever but it’s just got a grit and soul which is what I wanted to put into it.”
to the Left Bank jam session on Stokes Croft and get inspired, and there’s a guitarist down there who I really rated, Charlie Allen. I asked him if he’d come over and record, so he came over and we set up the guitar amp in here. He distorted it as much as he possibly could, then I did the same again in the computer with SoundToys Decapitator, and just smashed it.
“I was walking with it again in my headphones around Bristol just chewing over it thinking what I could do, and I just remembered this Rolling Stones song where it’s got this epic outro with this sort of female gospel singer who was just wailing over the top, adlibbing, and I thought something like that would be really cool. I thought of Celestine [Walcott-Gordon] as she’s one of Bristol’s best vocalists, and I asked if she’d do it, and she said yes! She came in, did four takes just absolutely screaming and I used the first take. I just went with it even though I realised after about 30 seconds that my preamp was clipping to hell, so I was turning it down on the fly and it drops by 5dB so I had to automate its level on the computer. And the distortion sounded good! So it’s one of those things where if it sounds good just go with it, who cares if it’s clipping. That’s the whole approach I took to this album – it’s not the most sonically hi-fi album ever but it’s just got a grit and soul which is what I wanted to put into it.”
But even then you weren’t happy and turned to Bristol muso legend and Massive Attack collaborator Neil Davidge…
“We’re friends on Facebook so I said, ‘Neil this is the first time I’ve spoken to you but I’m totally sinking here and it would really help if you could give your opinion to me,’ and he said yeah. So I sent it to him and he said, ‘I can just hear a one-two boom/clap… Change the bass to give it more rhythm so that the bass drives it.’ So I reprogrammed the bass and used the same break I was using to make the one-two beat and sent it back to him. He was like, ‘now we’re cooking!’. I knew he was right; he’s got that Midas touch, and I was really appreciative that he got involved, helping with that.”