Pearsall in Berlin
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Mixed in Berlin, March 2015
(44:34, 102 MB, 320 kbps MP3)
Cover image: Tempelhofer Feld, Berlin, March 2015
Zip file (split into separate tracks)
Big cover
Cue file
Style: A tribute to Mala from DMZ/Digital Mystikz/Deep Medi Musik and all-around dubstep legend
Direct link to the mix:
http://sonicrampage.org/mixes/mala/PearsallInBerlin.mp3
Tracklisting:
01. King Midas Sound – Earth A Kill Ya (Mala Remix) (Hyperdub)
02. Digital Mystikz – Restructure 2 Rebuild (Honest Jon’s)
03. Digital Mystikz – I Wait (Part II) (Artone)
04. Digital Mystikz – Livin’ Different (DMZ)
05. Mala – Tribal (Brownswood)
06. Mala – Cuba Electronic (Brownswood)
07. Mala – Noches Sueno (Mala & Simbad Super Dub Mix) (Brownswood)
08. Mala – City Cycle (Tectonic)
09. Mala – Level 9 (Hyperdub)
10. Skream – Midnight Request Line (Digital Mystikz Remix) (Tempa)
11. Mala – Learn (DMZ)
12. Digital Mystikz – Education (DMZ)
13. Digital Mystikz – 2 Much Chat (DMZ)
14. Mala – The Tunnel (Brownswood)
15. Mala – Explorer (Monkeytown)
16. Mala – Expected (Level 10) (Hyperdub)
Mix #4 of the year is here, and it’s a tribute to the mighty Mala, dubstep legend!
If there is anyone who has played a definitive role in the evolution of dubstep from weird Croydon offshoot of UK Garage to planet-straddling colossus, then it is definitely Martin Lawrence. As half of Digital Mystikz and one-third of the DMZ label and clubnight, as well as Deep Medi Musik supremo, he’s been there, done that, and more. Over the years he has stayed true to his original sound even while so much of the dubstep scene moved on to stadium-friendly mid-range antics (look, I’m no one to talk on this point, as I did do a Wobble City series of mixes). He may not have the profile of a Skrillex or a Rusko, but as far as the true heads are concerned, no one in the scene has done more than Mala.
Want evidence? Just look at the crazy prices his early releases now command.
Perhaps the reason that he is so beloved is that he has never compromised on his basic vision even as his sound has matured and developed over the years. This doesn’t mean that he has stood still musically – indeed, his awesome Mala in Cuba album, three tracks from which are on this mix, showcases his immersion in Cuban music and culture. What it does mean is that he hasn’t taken the easy route of compromising his music to appeal to the global EDM audience. His music is the pure vision of dubstep – deep, meditative, rhythmically compelling and, of course, incredibly bass heavy.
For me personally, he’s always been one of my favorite dubstep producers, along with Matty G and Skream, and as someone who has a big stack of his releases on vinyl I thought it was high time for me to make my own tribute.
As you would expect from such a cult figure, the world is not exactly short of Mala tributes – here a good one from Benjy Bars, and Fat Kid On Fire’s 30 Minutes of Mala.
So why make my own?
Well, the obvious answer is because I always like to make my own mixes, if I can help it. After all, without sounding big-headed or whatever, I am my own favorite dj – no other dj picks out tracks that I like as consistently as I do, right?
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But the other reason is that these Mala tributes generally have the same tunes (and they are good ones, don’t get me wrong), but they tend to miss out on some other great tunes from the man.
And this is a situation that I thought needed to be rectified. Hence this mix.
As per usual, this is a one-shot mix, all done and dusted in one take using nothing but that sweet, sweet black crack. There are one or two slightly crispy moments, but basically it hangs together very nicely, in my opinion.
And I hope you enjoy it too!
So there are a few of your tunes, even ones that have been real favourites on dubplate, that you think will never get released under any circumstances now?
âYeah [laughs]â
Quite a few?
âYeah, quite a few [laughs again] In a strange sort of way itâs not my choice. Iâm a strong believer in moments in time and space, and sometimes you just get a vibe or a feeling for things where you could put something out and a hundred people would buy it or whatever, but sometimes itâs nice that pieces of music are just left resonating in certain walls of certain venues, rattling around from time to time in peopleâs memories when theyâre reminded of the time they heard a certain piece of music. It happens to me in this day and age still, but itâs the same thing as in the past when you would go and listen to Grooverider and youâd know that you very likely werenât going to hear it again, you didnât know what the name of it was and if you wanted to hear it youâd just have to go and check for âRider again and hope that he played it â but if you donât go and hear him the next week, if you wait six months, the chances are you werenât going to hear it again.â
And even then youâre not going to have the exact same experience when you hear it, same as you canât live the exact same day over again …
âThere you go. So we have to start really looking at time and space and how important it is to really start looking at moment. Iâm not trying to sound cheesy or hippie or clichĂ©, but I do think that in life we go through things that make you understand thing a little bit differently and you do see time in a really different way â in that itâs not days or weeks, it really is moments, thatâs how it is sometimes.â
So youâre saying that by not duplicating the music â the experience â you make that experience and the sound sharper in peopleâs minds than if they were able to copy it and listen to it at will?
âYeah I think so⊠I think⊠well, itâs weird because moments just happen because theyâre happening all the time, but thereâs certain circumstances and situations where we happen to remember a moment with more clarity. And for me â obviously I can only talk from my own experience â over the years, Iâve just had that etched-in-the-memory moment so many times going out and listening to music. So this brings us to the reason that I always cut dubplates â you know, people know this stuff, Iâve told this story so many times, but I genuinely value these moments, I genuinely value these things and I donât want to abuse them just because you can make extra money out of it or extra fame or whatever. Itâs fine if thatâs other peopleâs intentions but itâs not mine, so the way I do my thing is just being true to myself and true to my love of these particular moments in time.â
âI like the fact that you just go and play live and play your music and people hear it, and they can go home and remember it, and if it pops into their mind ten years later thatâs great and if it doesnât it was a moment they experienced there and then anyway. For me, releasing music isnât the most important thing; itâs the process, itâs about being there in the studio building tunes, itâs not the end product but how you get there, and even if you donât get there it doesnât really matter because⊠well itâs just about doing, isnât it? For me itâs just about doing.â
Mala and Loefah interview, 2007
Mala: Itâs down to you as an individual to be as expressive and creative as an individual with your influences and your ideas. Just because youâre from somewhere or you do a certain thing doesnât mean thatâs how youâre always going to sound or stick to. Itâs important to always try and do what comes natural, not box or limit yourself. You talk about that theory [that environment influences music] but then that should happen in every home because everyoneâs home is different. Everyoneâs quite individual …
B: People probably donât realise, but wasnât your first ever DJ set was at The End Mala?
Mala: It was.
B: Thatâs a pretty amazing place to have your first DJ set.
Mala: When they asked me, I looked at it like an opportunity. I was like: Iâve always loved DJing but Iâve never really wanted to be a DJ, but the reason why is because Iâm totally deaf in my left ear. So Iâve always thought that if Iâve got to DJ in a big place Iâm not going to be able to do it, even if I could mix in a bedroom. But I had decks when I was younger, Iâve been buying records for years but I wasnât looking to DJ. So when Rephlex asked, I thought even if it only happens once, itâs an experience, so Iâll do it. Later I thought to myself, âshit what am I going to play?â And then I thought, I might as well cut loads of dubs, because I had music so I might as well cut it. And that for me was when the step was made where itâs like not just like a couple of my beats in peopleâs sets but now youâre gonna hear my sound. This is my sound. We both played that night and so this was the first night that the DMZ sound got showcased. I remember it not being that busy compared to the first party, which Iâm actually quite glad about, because I was shitting myself.
How did you get into making music?
It was something I naturally progressed into. I have always been listening to music, but it was about 1992 when I heard jungle music on the pirate radio stations that I thought about making music myself for the first time. I was really taken by hardcore jungle and I started doing music in my head every day. It all stems from there, really! Then I started writing music probably about 2000 or 2001 and began taking it seriously about a year later than that.
So hardcore and jungle are your main musical influences then?
Not really, no. I donât think I could say that they are the main musical influences in what I do now. I think the influences stem from all aspects of life, not just from music. Thereâs been so much music thatâs influenced me over the years, so many different styles, so many different artists, different sounds and instruments, environmental sounds â everything, man! So, itâs just a mash-up of styles all the way from jungle to dub to jazzy stuff to world music. I canât say that one particular musical style has influenced me more than another.
But maybe saying that, it was jungle music I listened to, which I scrutinized every little bit of, every beat, for years and years and years. So maybe the foundation of what I do is jungle. Nevertheless, all the tracks I do are just different. I enjoy experimenting with sounds. I always like to start off with new drum sounds and new samples when Iâm doing a new beat. It just keeps things fresh for me that way, because at the end of the day itâs about enjoying writing music, its not about anything else! …There are a lot of references to spirituality in the world of DMZ â just think about the subtitle of the DMZ rave (âCome meditate on bass weightâ) for example. Are you a spiritual person? Is it something youâre really into?
I think itâs part of everything in life. Whether people choose to see certain things or not comes down to the individual. And thatâs another reason why I wonât describe my sound – as you have asked me before in your email. For me itâs not about how I perceive my sound, itâs about how you or the person next to you receives it. I donât really feel comfortable describing it, because how it hits me and you might be in a totally different way. I would like to have it left undescribed.
Coming back to the spirituality question: To me writing music is like a form of meditating, itâs a way that Iâm able to release certain things from inside out – whether you had a good day or a bad day or something is troubling you. Thatâs why I write music. Itâs almost as necessary for me as water, itâs something I have to do. I donât have to write music and put music out in a shop for people to buy it, thatâs not what I need. I just need to write music. People buying it and people enjoying it â I give thanks for that!
I suppose I could go further into the spirituality thing, but I think people should take what they want from the music. If people – whatever they may believe in or not believe in – feel about it in a certain way â as long as itâs positive, thatâs what itâs about for me! Thatâs why I say meditate, because when it comes to our dance, thatâs what I want people to do. I want it to be a positive meditation. Iâm not into no madness, man!
Obviously, in the music itself you have certain dark sounds. They are not dark in the sense of âevilâ or âmenacingâ, but they are serious. I think thatâs where you find the meditation, because â although itâs obviously designed for a big sound system, itâs one of the types of music you can listen to on different levels. But I think you can take it or leave it.