Tim Green and his lucky demo CD

Tim Green and his lucky demo CD

19 August, 2009 | 7.46AM

• Written by: Terry Church
• Filed under: Music News: dirtybird, four:twenty recordings, tg, trapez

How innocent he was, when he sent his CD four years ago to record labels hoping that they would listen. An amateur musician, too young to understand the rules of the music industry, too naive to realise the odds of success, Englishman Tim Green never even stood a chance.

And yet, it was a humble demo CD that set Tim Green on a fateful path destined for the upper echelons of the impenetrable techno world. First it landed him on the respected Bristol-based record label Four:Twenty Recordings at the tender age of 21, then famous German studio mastermind Martin Buttrich remixed his work, which soon appeared on high profile labels Trapez in Cologne, Britain’s Renaissance, Dubfire’s SCI+TEC Digital Audio, and October’s cutting-edge minimal label Caravan.

DJ Magazine then named Tim Green ‘Best Breakthrough Producer’ in its annual Best of British Awards, and in 2009 TG’s profile mushroomed with tracks on Cocoon, Dirtybird, and Cr2 Records.

Now 25-years-old, TG is respected internationally, and the UK’s brightest techno star, but he will always be the kid, who lucked out on a demo CD.

“I did some tracks and sent my CD off to a few labels; I didn’t expect to get any replies,” says Green, from his home in Greenwich, London - he moved to the capital two years ago from Maidstone, Kent.

“Luke Allen, the A&R guy at Four:Twenty said that they didn’t normally listen to demo CDs, but on that particular day they happened to listen to mine, and they called me up straight away after listening to it, so I was lucky,” he says, laughing.

Tim Green hated dance music, until one day a friend at college played him Daft Punk. “It changed my life,” he says. “I didn’t quite understand the music, but found myself digging deeper and deeper into the culture. I got into DJ Shadow, Ninja Tune and Warp Records, and then later got into drum & bass and Hospital Records. Breaks and progressive house came next.”

A musician from a young age, Green first played guitar and was interested in bands. But after falling in love with electronic music, he began to experiment with making dance tracks on his computer.

“All my friends in Kent were DJs and they used to play me loads of music,” he says. “It inspired me, so I started pissing about on the computer making beats myself.”

Those teenage experiments were influenced by London club Fabric, a bastion of cutting-edge electronic music. “I only ever went to Fabric in London, and never cared much about the other clubs,” says TG.

“They are very forward thinking at Fabric and always have great DJs. The club is so well programmed and they always strive to push boundaries. That in turn, influenced me to challenge myself.”

TG’s debut single ‘Little Flies’ / Rhythm Acupuncture’ broke the mould. Both tracks evolved in a fluid, yet unexpected way - a mature composition that disguised the producer’s lack of experience, and even led some to wonder if TG was in fact an older artist paying homage to Britian’s dark industrial pioneers Throbbing Gristle.

Green’s rich and viscerally enlightened melodies enticed Martin Buttrich, Konrad Black, and Jamie Jones to do remixes, but they were not unilateral in sound, and Green further proved his ability with the rocket-fueled funky tech house track ‘Revox’, which Claude VonStroke’s Dirtybird snapped up.

Still so young, Green already understood the role of diversification, and he never tied himself down to one label.

“I always wanted to breakthrough as a diverse talent,” he says. “I’d like to get to a point where I can write a track and no one has pre-conceived ideas about what it might sound like.

“I prefer to work with as many labels as possible. I meet lots of fun and interesting people out and about when doing gigs, and I think it’s important to take new opportunities when you’re given them. Plus a lot of people say I have my own sound, so I don’t need to remain on one label.”

With each release, and with each label jump, TG’s profile rose. Most recently, ‘Exercise’, a track he produced with a fellow up and comer from New Zealand, Emerson Todd, proved to be one of his biggest hits to date thanks to an inclusion on a Cocoon compilation.

“Musically it was a really nice challenge to work for Cocoon, and I like challenges,” says Green, who seems to relish any opportunity to push musical boundaries on the dancefloor. The most recent ‘Tim Green Ep’ for Dirtybird showcases where Green is currently happy to play, with the bizarre dub house vocal work out ‘Kitch In’ sitting alongside a off-kilter tech house B side ‘Beelaying’.

Tim Green has been producing electronic music for two years full time now. “Before that I was doing nothing really, just part-time jobs and mind-numbing work,” he says, without a hint of regret in his voice.

“Now thanks to last year’s successes I have lots of gigs. And my gigs in turn help me to make tracks - I meet people and collaborate on music, and financially I am more secure.

TG admits that’s he is a musician and a producer first, before a DJ, but he loves DJing.

“In the future, I would like to create a proper live show, but I don’t want it to just be a laptop and midi controller thing,” he says.

“It would have to be properly live, like a band, as I used to play guitar and I would want to incorporate live instruments somehow.

“For now though, my main plan is to write more tracks and put out more music. The goal is to get as much music out there as possible.

“The hype is slowly growing with every release, and I seem to be getting my name out there more and more. When I turn up to gigs now, people know who I am, and that makes for a nice change!”

The odds were against him, and cynics might have laughed at him for posting his demo CD, but for aspiring producers out there, Tim Green’s story represents a new hope.

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