Swindle Connecta feat. Ricardo China
Combining everything from Jazz and World music to Grime and Dubstep, Swindle, aka Cameron Palmer, has an enviable CV with releases on Planet Mu and Deep Medi, remixes for Roni Size and Joker, and collaborations with Ghetts and JME. We caught up with Cameron at Airmiles Studio, deep in the Kent countryside, to find out how he made the Brazilianinspired Connecta featuring the vocal talents of Ricardo China.
So, how did Connecta come about?
“It was recorded at the end of a world tour. At that point I’d never been to South America, and when the opportunity came up the first thing I wanted to do was get in a studio. I’ve always considered South America and Africa the birthplaces of all popular rhythm, the basis of everything, even a basic 4/4. You can hear it in modern American music, African American music, you can hear it in European Dance music, you can hear it in the West Indies. So the thought of going to Brazil and not recording any percussion just seemed crazy. We only had three days to record the whole EP and we just made it up as we went along. We reached out to musicians online as I got there, we just recorded it on the fly: let’s just jam, talk, feel music… the music just kind of wrote itself to be honest!”
There’s not a lot of MIDI in the track, but plenty of stunning live performances. That must have been fun to record?
“That’s what I enjoy about recording musicians, because no matter how much you try and tell them what you want it will always turn into something else! Or someone will have a suggestion you wouldn’t have, or teach you something about the instrument which forces you to approach things in a different way. There’s a massive difference between recording a 16-bar string part on a MIDI keyboard and a plug-in than recording 60 channels of strings. It opens me up to new ways of making music, and that becomes addictive, so I always find myself looking for new ways to approach creating music.”
How did recording Connecta broaden your musical horizons?
“I’d never done that amount of percussion before, that would have been the first time I recorded guitar on a track by mic’ing, without using a DI, and also learning about the vocal techniques. All these rhythms and techniques actually come from specific places, and it put me onto the fact that a lot of Brazilians will identify where something is from by the rhythm. Certain rhythms, even harmony structure, will come from certain parts of the country. This goes back sometimes hundreds of years, which is mental to me. One thing I found striking, especially with the vocalists, is how similar it is to what was happening in 2010 with Funky House. I could feel something similar between the vocalist and someone like Donae’o, and between what was going in the percussion and someone like Bugz in the Attic. It really highlights the things we have in common, whilst demonstrating the things that are different, which blows my mind, and that’s what I’m trying to discover everywhere I go.”
Much contemporary Dance music is focused on big frequency spectrum-filling synth sounds and monstrous drums. It must be challenging to compete using acoustic instruments?
“I’ve got a history of ‘bangers’, a couple of calling cards that people are expecting to hear when they come out, so I feel like I don’t have
to repeat the same thing. People also expect me to contribute something different and I get a great satisfaction from knowing I can still damage a dancefloor with Jazz or Latin music, or with a trumpet section… I feel like that’s something only I can do at this point.”
For up-and-coming producers there’s a big incentive to make formulaic music that will be more likely to get DJ support…
“The right DJs play what they like. The trap people fall into is trying to follow a formula of tracks that have worked. I hate it when I hear a mix and five tracks have the same snare. Everyone is an individual, they’re the best at being themselves. Every time you try to make a track like another track you heard you’re limiting your own creativity because it’s somebody else’s thing. Then when the trend changes either you have to change or you’re out of the game. If you’re the king of something that lasts for two years, once that two years is up you’ve got to change. I don’t want to start in room three every few years! I don’t want to be reliant on any kind of scene. As long as I can communicate with people via music, then I’m happy.”