Riton & Kah-Lo Fake ID

Riton Time, 2017

Riton, AKA Henry Smithson, is what one might describe as a purveyor of ‘proper’ house music – his pedigree includes releases on renowned labels including Grand Central and Ed Banger – but despite keeping true to his classic roots he’s managed to score a number of crossover hits with tracks such as

Rinse & Repeat and Money with Nigerian vocalist Kah-Lo. FM took a trip to Riton’s North London studio to find out how Henry created the pair’s latest collab Fake ID, and learn more about his unique approach to production.

What inspired Fake ID?

“Watching the movie Superbad! That gave us the idea for the lyrics, so we just decided to make a fun track about going out drinking and what have you, which is Kah-Lo’s favorite subject: talking about going out with her mates around Lagos and stuff. It’s just a bit of a party track. I actually wrote a different beat to start with, then I messed around with it and ended up doing it like a jam one day with a drum machine and the Pearl Syncussion and made that the hooks. Then I spent a bit of time editing and putting drums on and stuff.”

Where did you create the original beat?

“I first wrote the track and recorded the vocals in New York when I was living over there. It was originally based on samples, a sampled beat with cut-up trumpet and stuff like that. I thought it sounded good but it never really got there. I was like ‘This is good but I don’t think I’d play it’. That’s always my golden rule: would I want to play this? So I just keep working at it until it’s something I’d play.”

You ended up making a new beat from scratch?

“Yeah, sometimes you’ve got to chuck the whole thing away and start completely fresh.”

Do you find it hard to bin tracks?

“Yeah it’s really hard sometimes. I mean, I’m getting better at it

now... actually what I’m getting better at is deciding that the first thing I do is probably right, because it normally is. Not in this case, but most of the time you’re right first time, and if it’s not, I’ll say, ‘Right, I’ll chuck it out and start again’. But don’t try and keep tweaking an idea – if you can’t get it to work, you’ll probably never be fully happy with it. So just bin it and do something you get excited about, and retain the excitement long enough to finish it.”

It seems as if creating and processing sounds in the analogue domain is something that you’re very keen on?

“I was always into analogue stuff, and I could really tell the difference between a synth that was analogue and a plugin. A lot of the stuff I make is monophonic rather than big chords and things. I do have a few polysynths, but most of my work is based on layering-up mono riffs and bits like that. To compete with plugins’ loudness, richness and cleanness you need to use a little bit of gear to make things sound good. I like to get the signal in the DAW as close to ‘good’ as possible, rather than processing it in the box.

“That’s what I learned from working with 2ManyDJs, because they’ve got a really good studio. I’d be like ‘Man, everything sounds mint’, and Dave was like ‘Well, the mixing desk we’ve got is incredible, that synth is fucking amazing, and it’s going through a preamp, and then it’s going through this Space Echo…’ To be fair,

you’ve got a massive advantage when you’ve got really good hardware. You can be confident about the sound and not have to fiddle around with it, and just focus on finishing a song. But my edits and things like that are always computer-based. I chop things up a lot and reprocess them in the box, but I like to get the source material as strong as possible beforehand. The key is to not have to worry about the track because it sounds good, so you can enjoy making it and then the end job is fairly easy.”

The track’s lyrics are highly critical of ‘wastemen’, is that a subject matter close to your heart?

“Well Kah-Lo is the lyric girl but I’m always encouraging her to talk about stuff that’s happened to her, and fun things that are easy to talk about and relatable. She has a connection to what young women think about more than I do! So I just pretty much let her have free reign. Sometimes I’ll say I’m not sure about something but she’s right more often than not! It’s good to have a partner who you’re on the same wavelength as.”