Seven: deadly dins
In an ever-more changeable and uncertain dubstep landscape, Seven carves a nice groove out for himself in dancefloor DJ tools that move the body well without reverting to the adolescent loudness war that is the growing brostep phenomenon sweeping across the US.
Following hotly on the heavyweight DJ Distance gig last month, the DubCulture crew have him over for his Irish debut.
A lot of dubstep producers seem to come to dubstep from very different musical backgrounds, what was your journey into it?
I was a well-established DNB producer. But my close friends were deep in the dubstep game. I gradually got brainwashed by them to make some dubstep beats for their sets and I just fell in love with the music. I had more fun making it than I did the DNB tracks I was making and gradually it just took over my life.
The majority of your productions tend to be fast moving breakstep rhythms and dark, moody affairs, is this something you can see in music that has influenced you in the past?
I think so yes. I have always been into more darker-edged music and have a long history of listening to that style of music. So it defo shows in my dubstep productions. I am all about the beats. So I tried to bring the whole breaks thing to dubstep in a way that would compliment what the music is about, without detracting from it too much.
Black box has been one of the most solid dubstep labels in the past year in a dubstep scene currently experiencing an identity crisis, it must have been nice to get an EP out on it?
Yeah the guys at Blackbox are the future. They know their stuff. I am honoured to be a part of the crew and my album is due for release with them later in the year. We have been working closely together for the past year or so and i have seen them go from strength to strength. The future looks bright.
Your collaboration with N-type and Youngsta was one of my favourite releases last year, how did that come about?
We are all very close friends. Time was on our side in those days and we managed to get a lot of studio time together, of which those tracks were born.
What usually drags me towards Seven releases is the velocity of the tracks have and the dancefloor potential they enjoy without having to
resort to some of the cheaper tricks a lot of noise-merchants in the
genre employ these days to create the same impact. Do you think you sit down to write with these things in mind?
Yes, very much so. I purposely try to make tunes that have impact without noisy gimmicks. I wanna educate as well an innovate new producers with the music I make. Any kid with a PC and cracked software calls them self a producer now a days. But what make the professionals stand out from the sheep is the originality and continuity of the music they make. It’s easy to make mid range twat step with no soul. But I think its watered down the scene a lot and gave people a misguided impression of what dubstep should be. I think music should have a soul and identity to it.
What’s your opinion of where dubstep is going at the moment?
Tough question to answer. When I first got into it, I could drop any dubstep tune in my sets and cater for everybody. But now the scene is so split up and categorised, that people all wanna hear what they like and seem oblivious to the rest. I think that the deeper stuff holds more identity to what the music is and were it comes from, so I try and make more impact-based dubstep along that line of approach to cater for people looking to hear those kind of tunes.
Did you ever think it would get this big?
Yes, I have a keen ear for music and could see it becoming huge. I just hope it doesn’t filter out into too many sub genres and lose its identity.
The upcoming DubCulture gig is your Irish debut, you got anything new/special in your record bag for it?
Yeah, I have about 7 tracks I have completed for my album I have been playing out recently. Plus dubs by Skream, Benga, Benny Page and Emalkay. The set’s gonna be fire!!!
Seven plays The Pavilion on March 24th. Doors are at 10.30pm and admission is €5.
Support comes from DubCulture residents with special guest DROKKR.
