Monthly newspaper and online publication targeting 18 to 35 year olds. The ultimate guide to the hottest parties, going out and having fun. Music, fashion, film, travel, festivals, technology, comedy, and parties! London, Barcelona, Miami and Ibiza.
Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/163500
HOUSE / TECHNO 23 7 www.guestlist.net Issue 54 / 2013 IEW RV TE IN Shadow Child Ahead of playing at the legendary Creamfields festival in Liverpool over the August Bank Holiday, we caught up with Shadow Child. With his iconic reputation in the house scene, Shadow child is smashing up the summer lineups with appearances at Eastern Electrics and the upcoming Bestival, as well as working hard on brand new projects this year. Natalie Blow | guestlist.net You are playing at the legendary Creamfields festival bank holiday weekend, are you looking forward to it? Yeah I've never done the silent disco before. I have seen it and have been into the arena whilst its been going on, but have never partaken in it. I'm really intrigued as to how it's going to pan out, but we will see! Creamfields is always a wicked festival and it is obviously one of the main big festivals here in the UK, so it's great to be involved. I'm sure many people always ask you this, but what exactly is it that made you scrap your artist name as Dave Spoon and start releasing tunes as Shadow Child? I felt like I had taken the Spoon thing to a point where I was quite happy to leave it and do something else. Where electrohouse went, like the EDM Swedes, was not for me. Those guys are friends of me and are fantastic at what they do, but I wasn't into that sound, so it was just time for me to creatively move on. I'm much more of a studio person than a DJ - I was in the studio trying to make music and not trying to make that kind of sound. It was time to kind of come at it again from a different angle and here we are. One of my favourite tunes of yours is '23' which is obviously such a different sound than 'At Night'. I guess you can see where it came from though. It's such a different sound, yet if you listen to my earlier Spoon stuff its just decent house music too. My roots are early dnb and early rave, so tunes like '23' are basically the way I make my house music: quite simple with not a lot to it. Tracks like '23' and 'String Thing' are the kind of tracks that are very simple and have helped made music into the way that it is now. So you feel that your project as Shadow Child is going really well Holland where I did a little festival in Amsterdam and that was brilliant, I didn't know what to expect there because it wasn't a mainstream festival. At Eastern Electrics I didn't know what to expect but I could tell by the quality of everything they did on the lead up to it that it was going to be brilliant. The arena we were in was built out of shipping containers. I just got back from a Festival in Portugal, there wasn't just a bunch of ravers in the middle getting on with it, but also families with children in which people good bits coming including an album project. The release is to be announced in a few weeks time. It's not an artist album but its also not a compilation, its sort of somewhere in the middle, so you will have to wait until we announce that properly and that will be released in October. There is a single which got its first play last Friday on Radio 1. It's called'Friday' and was recorded with vocalist Takura, who has done a lot of stuff with Chase and Status, Sub Focus and Plan B. There is also a big record " This sounds corny, but I just followed my heart on it as I just knew I couldn't sit here and be worried about what record I was going to do next as Spoon." then? Yeah absolutely, this sounds very corny but I just followed my heart on it as I just knew I couldn't sit here and be worried about what record I was going to do next as Spoon. I needed to remove some boundaries so I took a drastic decision in doing what I've done, but its worked. I would never had said that it was a secret that I was Spoon, but I just wanted people to know the music first than know that it was me and fortunately that's what's happened. So you have just played at Eastern Electrics and you have Creamfields and Bestival lined up. What would you say has been the wildest festival crowd you have played in front of? Every festival. I just came back from were experiencing new music when they may not of known house or knew who I was beforehand. So what's the plan next for Shadow Child? I know that Disclosure recently asked you to go on tour with them. Disclosure are absolutely smashing the game right now, so it must have felt great to have heard that? It was great for them to ask; in fact it was a big seal of approval on what I'm doing for them to have asked me. But moving forward it's all about the label now. I'd like to release more with Dirtybird but they have got a lot going on at the moment with Claude Von Stroke's album coming out. It will probably be next year if that happens. I've got my own label that I run with Kry Wolf and we've got some really coming out in the middle of October. There is so much to shout about! I feel very lucky to be in a good place with it right now! Sick! I'm very excited to see what you're going to let out the bag in October! So who within the house genre has been your main inspiration to get this far? Don't tell anyone but I'm a bit old! I'm actually 37 in January so I remember everything first time around even though I was a kid. In 1988 I was 11 so anything that has happened from then till now I have just been absolutely on it! I was very lucky to get so engrossed in it from a young age. There are lots of people, from early Todd Terry to MK, who were big influences from the early 90's for me. Like I said earlier, early dnb and early rave influenced me. I left school in '93 when I was 16 and there was so much brand new music that no one had ever heard about. Its not like now where its been knocking about for a few years, it was completely fresh and a great time to start developing my music. There are so many names I could mention but it's really those genres in particular. That is where I draw my sounds from and people say they can recognise it in my music, so I must be doing something right! Are there any releases in particular that have been your soundtrack to this summer? I mean I listen to all sorts of stuff: in the car I've been listening to Bonobo's album, also there is a guy call Pedestrian who I've been doing a bit of work with and that will be coming around soon. I love his track called 'Hoyle Road' - its amazing! As far as artists go that I like to play in my sets it will be people like Swindle and all the Dirtybird guys as they're always doing great things. As far as my summer soundtrack goes it's not just about house music for me, it's about all the great things that are going down in music at the moment. Thanks so much Shadow Child. And good luck with everything! Follow @Shadow_Child theshadowchild.com