Interview: Leftroom’s Matt Tolfrey Part 2

Interview: Leftroom’s Matt Tolfrey Part 2

6 June, 2008 | 11.08AM

• Written by: Lee Smith
• Filed under: Music News: leftroom records, marc ashken, matt tolfrey

In the second part of our extensive feature on Leftroom Records’ main man Matt Tolfrey, we ask the London-based DJ about his own forays into production, his friendship with label hotshot MarcAshken, and his passion for the UK scene.

You can read his replies after the jump.

How do you think the UK scene compares with that of other countries?

I think I’ve got my head round the industry a bit by being in the UK and working out how music moves around, how trends come out of things, and how things follow.

But my big thing is, the whole spotlight is on Germany, which is because everyone in Germany supports the scene, so there are lots of parties, all of which go off, so there’s a lot of attention there.

Whereas in the UK, it’s very – well, there are a lot of bitter people about.

It’s like some message boards, everyone just constantly moans about stuff.

The funny thing is, the reason they’re moaning is about so-called ‘trendy’ music from other places.

What they haven’t realised is that if they’d actually been supporting stuff here, that wouldn’t have happened.

You know, if you support what’s going on around you in the UK, we can put the UK back on the map, we can have more parties going off everywhere, then the spotlight won’t be on Berlin so much.

People elsewhere are much more open – there’s a sense of trust.

I can only talk for myself, and assumed that’s what everyone else did.

So I was into trance, then prog, then tech-house when I moved to Nottingham, and then minimal, now I forged my own thing with the label.

When Fabric started and it was still the big prog things, and the London and tech-house scene, that was like our thing.

I was speaking to Craig [Richards] last Sunday and he was saying how the Wiggle parties were the shit, massive basslines, grooves, wallop.

Maybe people got a bit bored, things changed, and were like, “What’s that music over there? That sounds cool!”

And all the attention is channeled over there, and for us, it’s just like wallop, we’ve suddenly got noting left, attention-wise.

There are some other really good labels in the UK, like Hypercolour, Fear of Flying, Glimpse recordings…often some of them come to me for help, or advice or whatever,

Not that I’m some mastermind, but I have theories on how to sell records, and I’m willing to share them.

I’m not one of these people who are like, “We’re the biggest label in the world.”

Well actually, I’d love to be the biggest label in the world, but it’s important that all of us are selling a lot of records, as opposed to just me selling loads of records or something.

How do you see Leftroom developing?

This year, the next thing is a Glimpse EP with a Jay Haze and a Johnny D mix, what I determine to be very now.

It’s well housey, but it’s organic, not just bleeps – there’s actually a drum in it.

Then Ashken and I have started a project, Tash, and we’re gonna go to town with some funny records.

We got a load of old Dancemania records and Chicago shit, we listened through them, and we thought, “Let’s try and revive some of this stuff”.

Marc and I are old Derrick Carter fans, from back at The Bomb.

So we’re gonna come out with the Tash project, and every track’s gonna have a bit of story or meaning behind it.

The first one’s ‘Baby Girl’ with remixes from Seth Troxler, Ryan Crosson, Peace Divison.

The track is about us meeting Seth in Miami last year, and him telling us this story about Detroit, and about certain girls, and the way you do things with certain girls – it’s like, “Baby girrrl, gonna get me some”, you know.

It’s just about meeting people and actually translating that into a track, so you can go back and say: “I made a track about that thing you told me”.

So it’s not just about making a track and thinking: “What am I gonna call it?”

What about your own production career?

I’ve always said I’m a DJ, a record label owner.

I prefer getting, well, not so much getting the best out of people, but getting them to do something different.

Like when I work with Inxec, his stuff his very detailed, a little dark, but funky.

But I like bringing him out of his bubble and seeing where that goes.

Whenever you make a track with someone, like if I were to go and make a track with Radioslave, it would just sound like a Radioslave record.

Knowing these people and being friends with them, I can pull them out of the comfort zone, make ‘em sweat.

They’ll be like, “I don’t know how to do this”, and then hopefully we’ll come out with something interesting.

Luckily, that’s what we’ve managed to do.

Inxec Records and I have made a bit of a name for ourselves as remixers in a lot of different scenes, because Inxec is bloody good at engineering, and I can throw in some ideas and we can work some stuff.

Our alias is ‘Swings and Roundabouts’, and that’s what we’re doing from now on.

I’m looking to put stuff out on my own at some point, but my heart is with the label and people around me, it’s never been about ‘me, me, me’ – I don’t know if other people are like that.

If I put something out as just ‘Matt Tolfrey’, I think there’d be a bit too much pressure…I did a while ago, which Chris Inxec engineered.

There’s bits and bobs.

You know, I’ve got a girlfriend, I’ve got a life outside music.

When things started happening, when the ball started rolling, I was sometimes sitting at home and thinking, “Should I not have started the label, should I have learned how to make tracks properly instead?

“Would I be a bigger DJ?”

But it always dawns on me that that’s not the important thing at all. What you’ve actually built is something in the UK that people are turning to.

We get people sending stuff to our MySpace saying, “You’re the sound of the future”, and that’s so inspiring to me.

I wonder why it is, but I think it’s because it’s just funky, it’s not too dark, everything’s got a bit more zest to it, a bit more energy.

It was the right time, the right moment, it just went ‘bang’ and it happened.

If we keep going like we’re going, at some point in the future people will be like, “How did you do it?” and I’ll be honest – it was loads of fucking hard work.

I just took my break, I saw it, and you know, it was probably the right time.

It wasn’t anything else.

We were often just referred to as minimal label, but we’re not that at all.

Well, maybe some releases.

But it’s mainly just stuff I really like, that’s it really.

Both as a label and personally, you clearly have a close relationship with Marc Ashken. How did you two first meet?

Marc sent me some stuff ages ago.

When I was more like just a clubber, I used to go on lots of message boards and stuff, and Marc sent me some tracks that I quite liked, and when I was getting it together – actually, wait, I remember what happened:

A bunch of friends when down to London and saw Magda, and came back and were going crazy, saying “Matt, you’ve gotta check this chick.”

When I asked why they were like, “She’s basically you, but a bird.”

So I was like, “I have to see this.”

I started searching for Magda stuff, passed it on to Marc, and I was like, “This is amazing.”

It all kind of sprung from there.

The thing with Marc, he often gets this banter on message boards saying he’s like a Marc Houle rip-off or something, and Marc isn’t a rip-off thing at all.

He’s very much inspired by everything around him – people, his environment, everything.

It’s like, he’ll be working on a track and it’ll be really dark, and then I’ll walk in the room, and without saying anything suddenly he changes it to something really funky.

He’s an artist that’s what he is – he writes poetry, he does everything.

Some people go, “You trendy bastard”.

But it’s just like, get over yourselves. He’s lucky he’s gotten to this stage.

And he can do that stuff, whereas I’m a bit more logical – I get numbers, a bit of maths.

I can’t open up as much as Marc, I can’t get as deep as someone like him, because he’s an artist.

Which of your three areas – DJ, producer, label owner – is most important to you?

If I had to kick everything to the side I’d like to say I’d keep the label first, but….my job is running the labels during the week, and over the weekend it’s to DJ in the club, having loads of people dancing and having fun.

Plus, I have like a billion records keeping up my house, so probably, probably, the DJing I’d have to keep.

If I went deaf for example, I’d probably be pretty upset.

Maybe you could be like Beethoven, using your autistic building block skills to make your linear maths music.

Yeah, maybe I could use those building block skills, pull ‘em out of somewhere.

Actually, I did get some of those earplugs recently.

I do have a bit of tinnitus.

I have this annoying bird that whistles in my ear at night.

Not my girlfriend, but a little bird going, “errrrgnh” all night.

I don’t know if you can actually get rid of it, I’ve heard a lot of theories on how to sort it out, but that’s why I put these things in.

I take them out to DJ, because I need to hear everything, feel the force of the music properly.

It’s quite scary really.

In the end, would you say you’re happy with the way everything is going at the moment, for yourself and for the scene?

Moving down form Nottingham to London, it was really important.

Just the fact there’s a buzz in London, there’s lots of good parties and venues, Mulletover’s heaving.

But everyone here needs to stop moaning about all these ‘trendy buggers’ from other places, and realise that all they’re doing is inspiring others to do their own thing.

The scene in London is so important.

Back in the day, there were a lot of big DJs, then they moved away from the UK to fulfill their goals.

Craig and Terry [Francis] have been at Fabric holding the fort for the UK sound kinda on their own, so people need to remember where they’re from.

The reason I am who I am is because I went clubbing in the UK, because of the clubs I went to and the DJs I heard.

And now I meet those DJs, and look up to them.

People like Craig, Dave [Congereve] – they forged what I consider to be good music, so it’s important.

It’s the trust thing that the Brits aren’t too hot on.

So if you have a mission, what would you say that was it? To reignite that passion in the British scene?

I would love to play all over the world, I’d love for my girlfriend and me to see the world, but I’ll always come home.

I won’t go away for four months, I’ll always wanna know what’s going on at home, with my friends, at Fabric.

I’m lucky – hopefully one day the money will come.

That would be cool, that would be fun.

If in 10 years I’ve got loads of money I’ll buy a villa in Ibiza or somewhere, and bring out everyone who’s helped me get where I am, and have massive party.

I’m just really grateful to all those people who’ve supported me – they’re who it’s all about, really.

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