Track By Track: Aquasky - Raise The Devil

Track By Track: Aquasky - Raise The Devil

28 October, 2011 | 1.02PM

• Written by: BeatportSean
• Filed under: Music News: aquasky, passenger, track by track

Aquasky have been crossing boundaries and genres throughout the majority of a career lasting over 15 years. The trio has championed sounds ranging through drum ‘n’ bass, breakbeat, electro house, and dubstep, amongst others. Their latest album, Raise The Devil, is their first full-length appearance since 2006’s Teamplayers. As the album explores new territory and collaborations with new artists, Aquasky offered an exclusive, behind-the-scenes look into how they constructed the album.

Take a peek below as Aquasky take us on a track-by-track look behind the curtain at Raise the Devil.

TAKEN OVER ME

This sets the stage for what is to come… We made this track because we wanted a good Amen track on the album. Dave made a name for himself back in 91-94 as a bit of a demon at chopping up the Amen break as Fugative/Mad Dog on Underdog Recordings. That’s when Cubase had a paintbrush feature, and you could drag that across the page and create crazy triggers. This is an ode to the old school and to Moving Shadow… our place of birth.

RAISE THE DEVIL

Lead track from the album, which is released globally on 11.11.11. Then a friend of mine, Platinum Nick, noticed it was track 11 on the album. Too weird, as we hadn’t noticed! So looks like it’s all about Legs Eleven for us! We are all about numerology and understanding the stranger things in life, so we felt compelled to drop the album on that date. This was our first ever dubstep track and we are pretty happy with it… again, deep music and mental bass… perfect match!

SUPERBAD

This was the last track we wrote for the album. We wanted a Ragga Twins track in the style of previous tunes they had done with us, and we also needed a fun tune on the album, as it was quite dark and serious. So we gave them the loop and got them into the studio. Anyway, they had only written two verses BUT they had Pedro and MTEK with them… they always come down when the guys are doing a session. I dint know they rapped till recently when they jumped on the mics at some live gigs we had done… and I liked what they did. So they did the last verse between them. I wanted the track to sound like an old-school UK rap tune from ‘88/89. Upbeat, fun and classic-sounding. Mr. Thing is an old friend and was part of the Scratch Perverts and a DMC World Champion. He actually appeared on our Orange Dust album back in 97. The tune “Raw Skillz” was the first time the Scratch Perverts had done anything on a tune before… another Aquasky first. I asked Mr. Thing to just rock the old classic styles and he did it to perfection. Watch out for the video!!!

STARDUST

Roisin Brophy! She came down, she did a couple of takes, and the job was done! As usual, when we write a backing track for a vocalist, we will change it completely before we release it, and we did the same again here. This sounds nothing like the original we got her to write to… but we wanted a real tearing breaks tune, and this is it! The beat was a big thing for us here. We like to call this beat “The Waxxy” because Wax Doctor always caned it back in the day. Bukem also used it on Horizons. We had never heard a breaks tune with it before, and it just had to be done… It took a while to EQ so it sat tight, but it was worth the effort. Old-school vibez.

STREETS OF RAGE

Deja is a new vocal talent, and we met him at Jake Gosling’s studio. He has a wicked, deep-thinking vocal going on and it felt right to get him onto our first DnB tune for quite some time. The whole album has lots of nods to Aquasky from days of old, and we just felt vibed enough to make a DnB tune and are happy with how it turned out, it’s 16 years since we did our first together… RUN RUN RUN!!!

SMALL WORLD

I heard “Didjerium” on my old mate’s DJ DSK’s recent mixtape. DSK lives in China now, but he was an old school B-boy from Southampton back in the ‘80s, and we always hung out at jams together back then, along with DJ Format. Anyway, I asked DSK who the vocalist was, and he said a chap in China. I was blown away, but later found out he was actually French and was part of the Sunshine Soundsystem. He laid the vocals down in China and sent them back to us. We wanted some old-school reggae singing type t’ing for the hook, and some mental “Warlord” (BountyKilla) type vocal for the verses. He delivered and he is wicked. Then we decided the tune needed an old-school feel… The Prodigy from back in the day vibes. It was the perfect outro tune for the album, and again, it’s all about being respectful to others… it’s a small world and we all have to live together. It’s about time some positive messages came out of the dance music scene, but with some devilish backing tracks!!!

PHANTOM

I did a guest interview for Bobby Friction as Black Noise, and we did him a mix for his Asian Network show. After our mix, he played the Engine-EarZ remix of Basement Jaxx. I was blown away, as I wasn’t into dubstep at this time, in 2008, and to hear his music was a breath of fresh air for me, a dubstep novice! From there I heard Chasing Shadows and realized there was some damn filthy dubstep being made, and this was totally up my street. We tracked down Prash, found out we had lots in common regarding our outlook on the world and the how corrupt the system is… so it was inevitable we would work together. We nearly didn’t get this on the album, but so happy we did, musical perfection!

AND THE BEAT GOES

Let me back up and say, Rosin Brophy came to our attention when she guested on a Deckscar record on our Passenger label. We were blown away at how incredible she sounded and had to get her in the studio straight away… and in the studio she was über-professional and just banged it out like a pro. For a young girl, she has skillz that will take her far. What can I say about PYRAMID??? If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t have come back to breaks again. Their track ”Trouble” really inspired us, and we realized that our main love was for breaks that were as hard as nails… and to get our love back we had to make tracks that were proper nuts like back in the day. It was a given that those boys would do a tune with us… nuff propz to they boyz.

PRESS PLAY

Acafool… he is wicked. Really funny guy and a professional. We have worked with many US rappers, and they can be a real nightmare to deal with. Acafool is a true gent and a guy who works hard… and wicked harmonies as well. We met him when we played in Tampa and he came down with his CD to see us. We checked it and realized he was dope, and then we wrote “Have a Good Time” for him, which came out back in 2007. This album means a lot to us, and Acafool means a lot to us… so bang, he was on the project quick smart!

COLD CRUSH

We like a bit of drumstep. I first got addicted when Distorted Minds did their drumstep remix of “T Minus 10.” Sick tune… then I heard more from Drumsound and Bassline Smith’s Technique label. Eventually I did a gig with Kanji Kinetic and he turned out some right murk… with our love of bass and anything mental, we knew this album needed a drumstep tune, and again we turned to Bex Riley to deliver her killer vocal. We spent quite some time editing this track and making it as nuts as possible… it had to be nuts...

GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS

As Black Noise, we had made lots of 4/4 collab tracks with Lee for his Wearhouse label. As a joke in the studio, we used to ramp up the tracks to 140 BPM to freak him out. We joked that one day we would make him do a 140 tune, and when we started work on the album we decided we would force him by blackmail to do it! And we succeeded! Daddy Freddy, the first man to do raggamuffin hip-hop and also a 2 times Guinness Book Of Records holder for fastest, rapper was essential for this album. He appeared on our Stayfresh album back in ‘03 and we wanted to make an album that sounded like the older Masterblaster days… it was natural Freddy would be a part of things!

FRONTLINE

Tenor Fly… A legend, and someone we had wanted to work with for ages. Spyda put a good word in for us and Ragga Twins made it happen and brought him down for the session. The actual tune he wrote to was a reggae track, but we mashed it up and turned it into a proper bassline breaks ripper! The lyrics are about being stuck in a system forced upon us by the elite cartels and the bankers with their ponzi schemes. It’s about being stuck on the frontline and staying strong, fighting for survival. We wrote this back in March as we knew this year riots would erupt.

HUMBLE

It’s been nearly 30 years since Ragga Twins did a tune with Tenor Fly… they were all big on the soundsystems back in the ‘80s, but because they went off to different soundsystems, Ragga Twins were on Unity and Tenor was on Sir Coxsone Sound, their paths have never crossed again on vinyl. Until now… and we are very proud to have brought them together again. They both made their own inroads into the jungle scenes and we have a lot of love for those guys. “Humble” is all about looking after your own and not getting wrapped up in that whole “Look at me, I am a DJ/MC” mentality. It’s about being, well, humble. There are too many twats in the music business, too many people who have been about for a few years and think they should be getting props from everyone. We don’t look for props, we don’t care if we are loved or hated… we are all about our music, and if ya like it cool, if not, no worries. At the end of the day, we are all on this planet together and we should respect people for who they are and not what they do.

GET ME OUT

This one is quite a mega, epic lead-line tune. We got Bex Riley, who used to work with Baitercell & Schumacher on Passenger, to come and guest on this project. Again, we wanted lots of old friends on this project and Bex, who lives in New Zealand, laid down the vocal in her powerful way… in context with the running order of the album, we needed something a little chilled at this point, a little rest before we kicked things off again…

CHANGE IS COMING

We wanted to make a tune that started off quite deep, low-slung and moody. But ended up proper 4/4 banging. Again, the lyrics are on a positive tip and our brother Deja does an awesome job here. I love the feel, sound and mood of his delivery on this track. Again, this is an epic-melody, big-room track… a bit poppy perhaps… But we needed something that was a bit smoother than the rest of the filth we created on this release… Ying and yang action!

TAKE ME THERE (CUTLINE REMIX)

We have known Jeryl from Cutline for many years, since the Dogs On Acid days when we use to make DnB. He was always open to musical styles and we kept in contact after we left the DnB scene with him, and he always gave our breaks support. Then he teamed up with Dan and they started to churn out some epic tunes as Cutline. Everyone knows Aquasky loves strings, pads and basslines, and these guys tick every box for us when it comes to musical production. We were honored they did us a remix, and the remix seemed to fit the running order of the album better than the original, so BANG, it was on there!

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