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/942843
For new listeners, how would you describe your sound? We're influenced primarily by what we've occasionally and tentatively called 'pre- digital' dance music, meaning the post- disco/pre-house period between the late 1970s and mid-1980s. It's a much-forgotten yet exciting and experimental period which featured sub-genres like boogie, garage, and proto-house, which came out of disco having to go back underground after its peak in the mainstream. How did the Galaxians come about? I've lived in Leeds for around 20 years and have played in bands ever since moving here in 1998. Jed and I met in 2011 just after a band I was in (Cissy) broke up and we decided to get together and jam. We didn't know each other but we really enjoyed playing together and found that we had a shared passion for a particular sound. Em and I have been friends and neighbours on the same street for over ten years. Jed and I always talked about working with a singer and we never envisaged the band as always being a duo forever. We approached Em initially about a collaboration but we worked really well together so it made perfect sense for Em to be a permanent member of the band. What attracted you and Jed to Emma? Well musically it was a no-brainer. Em's style is a perfect fit. She has a style people often compare to Gwen Guthrie or Jocelyn Brown, two of our favourite singers. Em has an ear and an understanding of where our music comes from. She understands the feeling and in many respects comes from the same place as Jed and I. Em's voice is a force of nature but she also adds other positive things to the band too. Musically we're all curious and inquisitive and keen to experiment and suggest things to each other. That's important in a band, I think. Em is also forward-thinking and positive when it comes to the evolution of the band. We share the same excitement about discovery. So what has been your favourite gig and if you could perform anywhere in the world, where would it be? We're not very demanding when it comes to the criteria for a gig being good. If people are dancing and the sound is good we're happy. If there's 30 people and everyone is really into it that's a fun experience for us. Obviously we feel fulfilled if we play really well, and less so if there's technical difficulties or distractions or whatever. We do love to play club nights because people come to dance and so they start dancing as soon as you start playing, rather than standing there with their arms folded or whatever. It's just good when a room feels lively, y'know. In terms of places we'd like to play that could mean more touring abroad, particularly in New York where the label we have worked with a lot (Dither Down) is based. Personally, I love being on tour so in an ideal world I'd like to be able to do that for about seven months a year. What edge do you think you're bringing to the disco scene? It's probably up to other people to comment on. Firstly, we're not aware of a disco scene, in the sense of people writing and performing disco live in a band format. I think it's sometimes difficult because modern dance music culture is often centered around deejays. Sometimes we get offered gigs by people who, when they find out we're a live band, change their mind, and sometimes it's probably hard for promoters to fit us into a bill simply because there aren't any other bands as far as we know that play the kind of music we play live. The disco scene in Leeds is very much about club nights and deejays but that's a very tight-knit community which we're outside of in many respects. Personally I'd love to see more events here where deejays play alongside live acts as I think different communities should embrace each other more. Obviously there are lots of UK artists playing electronic music but there isn't a scene or a community of live disco, boogie, r&b bands. Not as far as we know anyway. We are something of an anomally, maybe. Are there other artists that inspired and shaped Galaxians? One of the interesting things about dance music is that arguably it's more about being influenced by song-writers, producers, and deejays than it is about the influence of bands and artists. Disco was heavily populated by studio projects which meant that a lot of records that came out weren't by actual bands who went out on the road and played that music live. There were some of course, but there are a lot of hugely influential records that were created in a studio and committed to vinyl, but were never actually performed in a live setting. And then there are the deejays, some of whom didn't just play records in clubs but whose work in a studio environment went on to be really influential and sometimes revolutionary in a music sense - Larry Levan, Tom Moulton, Walter Gibbons, John Morales etc. Do you have any more cool ideas for music videos in the future? We'd like to work with a group of dancers, one of whom is a pal of Em's. They're voguers and we have talked about doing a video project with them, which is an idea we're excited about. Where do you see yourselves as a band in one year's time? We just want to carry on making music and hope we get the chance to travel more, to meet new people and make new friends. We're going to start work on our second album in the new year, our first one Let The Rhythm In came out in October on Dither Down, so we'll be working on that for a good part of the year. 2018 / ISSUE 106 29 Emma Mason, Matt Woodward and Jed Skinner have been making music together since 2016. Though a relatively new name on the scene, together they have formed a confident and refined sound as the Galaxians. We caught up with Matt to talk the group's new music, the disco scene in Leeds and voguers. follow @GLXNS HOUSE Rose Mason | Guestlist " WE ARE SOMETHING OF AN ANOMALLY "