Introducing: Actress

Introducing: Actress

18 May, 2010 | 12.06AM

• Written by: Beatportal
• Filed under: Videos: honest jon's, werk discs

Actress is the artist alias of London’s Darren Cunningham, but he’s no diva: despite the praise the press has lavished on his music, he keeps his person out of the spotlight.

If you’re looking for clues to his music, you’re better off starting with ‘Hazyville’, the title of his debut album. The record presents a landscape as blurry as its title, with house and hip-hop beats dissolving into a spray of bits and tape hiss. When ‘Hazyville’ came out in 2008, it sounded unlike anything else out there—you could hear echoes of the familiar (Moodymann, Jan Jelinek, ‘80s R&B, wonky), but it was spun into an uncanny kind of dreamstate.

Cunningham also runs Werk Discs; the label had something of a hit in 2008 with Zomby’s ‘Where Were U in ‘92?‘, and its roster runs from the street-bass sounds of Philadelphia’s Starkey to the brilliant instrumental hip-hop of Lukid and Lone.

Actress, ‘Doggin’ [Werk Discs]

Much of Actress’ music is deliberately lo-fi, suffused with the slippery grit of encoding errors and low-bitrate YouTube videos, to the point that the distortion and compression become strangely beautiful in their own right. It’s the modern-day equivalent of boom-bap hip-hop’s preference for scratchy wax, which makes sense, since today’s crate-diggers are increasingly discovering the musical past not through thrift-store vinyl, but dubious VHS dubs uploaded to the web, grainy and flickering with errant pixels.

Actress, ‘Crushed’ [Prime Numbers]

Actress’ music has continued to evolve across singles for Prime Numbers, Nonplus, and Honest’ Jons, taking on even greater range and depth, but without losing its own particular character. His second album, ‘Splazsh’, comes out on Honest Jon’s at the end of this month, and it’s easily a candidate for the experimental techno record of the year. (Two of its tracks are available now on the ‘Paint, Straw and Bubbles’ EP.) In celebration, we asked Actress to step out from behind the curtains for a few questions.

Actress, ‘Paint, Straw and Bubbles’ [Honest Jon’s]

How long have you been making music, and how did you get started?

Been banging on objects, drawing, humming, and singing for as long as I can remember.

Do you DJ or play live (or both)? What are your sets like?

Both. DJ sets just tend to represent my environment and influences.

Where do you record?

Depends what the project is. For Actress material in a home studio, and elsewhere when called upon.

Preferred piece of gear/software? (And is there really a Fairlight on “Get Ohn (Fairlight Mix)”?

No comment.

You’ve got one of the most fully-formed styles I’ve heard in a long time. To my ears, it sounds like a mixture of samples and drum machines, run through a ton of heavy digital effects and compression, until it becomes… simply hazy, I guess. Without asking you to reveal any production secrets, how do you achieve your sound?

As you’ve described.

Actress, ‘Ivy May Gilpin’ [Werk Discs]

When do you work on music—are you a morning person or night owl?

At night working into the early morning, so both I guess.

What inspires you when you’re making music? I get a strongly nostalgic vibe from it—kind of uncanny, like a memory you can’t quite put your finger on…

I generally get inspired by reading books, I’m currently reading about Matisse. I get inspired by talking to my fellow peers and artists who I have released through Werk. YouTube research, going to art galleries, records, my living environment, etc.

Which record do you wish you had made?

‘Army Dreamers’ by Kate Bush.

If a tsunami were headed for your house, which *one* record would you rescue before the waves hit?

LOL Jesus. Erm....SOS Band, ‘Tell Me If You Still Care’.

What’s the philosophy behind Werk Discs, and how did you come to work with the other artists signed to it?

To release music by unheard of artists who show true signs of pushing the boundaries of electronic music. This really is the basic philosophy of what Werk is all about. There is some kind of gravitational pull between the label and kindred spirits in that sense.

Who does the Werk graphic design? And what’s up with the triangles?

The vast majority of the Werk design was realised by Davin Gormley who sadly passed away December 2009. The triangle motif for Actress was his idea of representation, but you should either read ‘Chocky’ written by John Wyndham or watch the Chocky’s Children series on YouTube for a better understanding on why we settled on triangles as the main signature.

As it happens there’s been an explosion of triangle designs, and therefore I’ve chosen the symbol to evolve what I try to describe in my music.

Actress, ‘Maze’ [Honest Jon’s]

Getting signed to Honest Jon’s is a huge honor – how did you hook up with them?

A gentle nudge from the powers that be at Honest Jon’s. I was floored.

When you’re not making or playing music, what’s your preferred pastime?

Reading.

Finally, what can we expect from you & from Werk in the coming months?

Just more music, really.

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