Introducing Fybe:One

Introducing Fybe:One

27 January, 2012 | 12.57PM

• Written by: mferry
• Filed under: Music News: fybe:one, introducing

No one can deny that visuals and audio are intrinsically linked, and Fybe:one (aka Greg Haynes) is a brilliant, nay, blinding example of exactly that. Weaving his contemporary tapestry of graphic design and dreamtronic leftfield bass on his debut Harp EP, Fybe:one is turning the heads of both future-music fans and hip young professionals looking to spruce up their surroundings. Lucky for us, Fybe:one had a few minutes to answer some questions on where he is, how he got there, and where he plans to go! Read on, and while you’re at it, check out his picks for January here.

Hey there Greg, between the graphic designing, the illustrating and dropping your first release, it seems it’s been a busy past few months!

Yeah, the last six months or so have been pretty hectic! I launched the Shades of Grey label and monthly night at Plan B Brixton (alongside Duct, Owen Howells and Trinomic), completed and released my debut EP, plus the Jono McCleery album (which I co-produced) got released, and I also kept up my graphic design day job, got married and turned 30! Was thinking I’d do absolutely nothing this year to make up for it, but I’ve actually already got loads planned!

Good lord. BUSY MAN! Tell us a little about your musical upbringing. Were you entirely self taught? What kind of music did you listen to when you were growing up? What instruments do you play?

I grew up listening to what my parents were listening to: Michael Jackson, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, The The, and old Motown and soul stuff… a whole range of stuff, really. Then got into rock in the ‘90s, like Pearl Jam, Faith No More, went a bit industrial with Nine Inch Nails… then got into hip hop, first with Rage Against the Machine and Cypress Hill, then Gang Starr and Wu Tang. About that time I played bass in a band that was some kind of mix of hip-hop and rock, which was probably the first time I took making music seriously.

Trip-hop was pretty big back then, so Portishead, Massive Attack, AIM and DJ Shadow were pretty high on my playlists too. They inspired me to start making sampled-based hip-hop beats, first on Fruity Loops, then on Logic—to this day I’ve never had any “proper” training. A lot of my mates were (and are) MCs, singers and DJs, and I collaborated with them to make tracks and mixtapes. Yet after some time I found making “beats” was a bit restricting and wanted to put more detail and structure into it; go a bit more experimental with the production.

I loved doing remixes of live musicians and singers, and after a few I got to know Jono and made a few remixes of his tracks. That led to the album on Ninja Tune, There Is. So that pretty much brings us to the present, with the label being set up and the EP launch, both of which I’m very excited about. We’ve already signed some really talented people, so I can’t wait to see where it goes next.

Your Harp EP has a very organic yet digital sound; do you take inspiration from the similar auditory climate in electronic music right now?

I think there is a lot of great music around at the moment, and most of it is unsigned, so I definitely take inspiration from it—I basically listen to everything I can! Though having said that, I also try to find sounds that are a long way from what I’m eventually aiming to produce; things get samey in scenes when you can tell everyone is copying each other.

When you were producing Harp, what kind of software/hardware were you using?  Was there any live instrumentation? There’s lots of vocal snippets scattered throughout the album’s entirety; where did those come from?

The majority of sounds on the Harp EP are Logic MIDI sounds. Some samples come from old vinyls. I also use a little dictaphone to record atmosphere, background texture sounds. The vocals come from a friend of mine called Frankie Riley, who I will be making a more song-based EP with in the near future.

Where do you record/produce?

I do it all in my little box-room studio…

Have you performed live?

At the moment I’m doing DJ sets with Serato—usually just mixing stuff I like, though for my EP launch I did a one-hour set of entirely my tracks and remixes. I’m also in the early stages of putting together a live show with the singer and another producer/DJ friend of mine, which will hopefully be ready soon!

Some artists feel a distinct connection between their visual art and musical work, do you feel the same can be said about your Fybe:One projects?

Yeah, definitely. I have been wanting to connect the two elements more closely by learning After Effects and getting into music videos and animation; unfortunately it is a pretty complex program to learn and there’s not enough hours in a day! When I designed the cover for my Harp EP, I thought about what the music “looked” like and the images that popped up were of water/liquid (from the harp sounds) contrasting the rough textures created by the ink splats (links to the rough background textures in the music). I did do some live art for my EP launch party, and we are sorting out visuals for our next club events too, which will link the two things nicely.

Harp is the debut release on Shades of Grey Recordings. Perhaps you could divulge some top-secret info regarding the label’s plans for 2012? Or would you have to kill us…

Haha! No it’s ok, we’ve publicly announced our next few releases: Royce Wood Jnr and Stac are releasing their Second Lens EP with us, which is a beautiful piece of work, out on February 13, followed closely by Warsnare’s debut EP. We’ve got his EP launch February 3 alongside Lando Kal and Blacksmif. After that, label co-owner Duct is gonna release his EP, which is banging! There’s also a Harp remixes EP, which I already have too many remixes for! It’s gonna feature Troy Gunner, Deft, Blacksmif, Soosh, Owen Howells, Duct, Jamie Wilder, Mute Speaker, Aether… too many to mention!

Check out these links for more info on Shades of Grey and Fybe:one:
www.soundcloud.com/shadesofgreyrecordings
www.facebook.com/shadesofgreyrecs
www.fybeone.co.uk
www.soundcloud.com/fybeone
www.behance.net/fybeone
www.facebook.com/fybe.one

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