066 – Medlar

Medlar made his debut back in 2011 with the unshakeably catchy Terrel, and has since been a reliable source for respectable house and disco. The London producer expanded his selection of deep but functional tracks with last year’s Sleep, a mesmerising album that used house as a base to draw on elements of jazz, soul and classical music and came complete with film noir dreamscape visuals. Ahead of his appearance at boutique dance music festival Gottwood, read an interview with Medlar below and check out our latest crackcast; a hazy selection of heads down grooves from the WOLF Music mainstay.

 

[haiku url=”http://crackmagazine.net/wp-content/uploads/mp3/Crackcast066.mp3″ title=”Crackcast 066 Medlar”] Download Mix

Can you tell us a bit about the mix you made for us? Where was it recorded and what was the idea behind the mix?

It was recorded in my living room where I keep my records. I wanted to put a lot of tracks that I draw for in good weather together in a mix, there’s a lot of slower tempos compared to the other mixes I’ve recorded. I hope it would make a good soundtrack to a BBQ or relaxing outside in the sun.

You’ve said previously that you started Medlar as an output for house and disco, what is it about the culture that drew you in at that time?

I think I found it very refreshing compared to the UK club scene which was what I was used to at the time. I felt house was very free in terms of how you could approach things, and put more emphasis on interesting ideas than engineering and production. Disco appeals to me more and more all the time as I find more amazing music, so as it stands I have no plans to make any other music outside house and disco, and I can feel things going more and more into disco.

What approach did you take to your album last year?

I think just to make a house referencing record that flowed more like a hiphop record, I would feel guilty releasing a record of 8 club tracks in a row and expecting people to listen to it in the context of an album so I put most of the work into the structural side of it. Also I wanted to do a sample-based record, which for a lot of reasons you can’t do as much with, but I just really wanted to do it and Wolf Music and my management were nice enough to go along with it! I’m really happy I put it out and it’s now a part of my catalog, I just want to move on now and do something different, I’d love to try another more electronic LP in the future too.

What was the inspiration behind the video accompaniment for ‘Sleep’ and do you think it affects how people relate to the album?

As Letty had done a video for me previously I really wanted to get her involved, and at some point we decided to try a video for the whole length of the LP which meant she was doing little else for about 9 months! As for the inspiration for the video itself, that was all Letty, she spent a long time collating source material and then gradually chopping it together, then going back over the top with more layers. So in the end the video was made in pretty much an identical way to the audio, which is a nice touch. It would be great if some people have only heard the record via the video, we’ve had some really nice comments on it so far, so I hope it’s had an effect on how people have perceived it.

What have you got coming up?

I’m busy writing tunes and starting to think about DJ sets for the summer, I’m very much looking forward to Garden Festival and getting back to Ibiza shortly, amongst lots of exciting shows. I have a remix which will be announced very shortly so I’ll let the original artist do that.