Piracy Funds Terrorism

We continue our ramble through the bass'ed out environs of the LDN by stopping by the Pirate Soundsystem boys and getting the gen. Donnison Laing and Josh Grigg make up the Buccaneer Suvvener duo responsible for some heavy remix work for the likes of Hadouken, Drop the Lime and Si Begg amongst others.

Electrique Boutique -How did you get started?

Donnison - Me and Josh met via the mash-up/diy scene in about 2003 and were fans of each others work. out of that we started helping each other out with beats and bass lines, and then in 2005 decided to make it a formal partnership.

Josh - We decided that there wasn't enough of 'this' kind of music in the world and we should probably do our duty to help remedy that.

EB - Ok So I'm going bananas over "Scream if you wanna go Rasta." In it I'm hearing elements of what I'm tentatively calling Rave-Step...it's a term Neil Landstrumm coined to describe his own particular sound but I'm increasingly finding it useful in curating like mind producers. How do you feel about this term - I notice from your listed influences a number of old skool heroes.

D - Well, we definitely drew heavily from Rave & Dubstep influences in that track - we sampled the vocal from an old Tek9 track - so Rave-Step is probably about right I love Neil Landstrumm's work... he gets so many ideas into his tracks it's incredible.

J - Terms are annnnnything. Rave-Step is a nice term... It hints at Rave and Dubstep and all the loose genres between those two... but if people hear the name for the genre before the music their cognitive space will only relate to Rave & Dubstep, so what happens when people start throwing in guitars or techno drums... then we have to start all over again. Making up genres is fun though, lets just keep doing it.

EB - Yeah I wanted to touch on the volume of ideas that are in your work so it's handy you've kind of brought that up. I almost wanted to call what you were doing rave-break-mash-step-core but then I decided I needed to slap myself in the face and turn off the pitchfork stream... I think it's a shame so much dance music is so po-faced. I'm not gonna be dancing to Shitmat for example but I admire what he does over, say... Lethal Bizzel

D - Haha.. Yeah I know what you mean - a lot people are scared of hooks. Really great music completely overwhelms you. Drop The Lime's remix of Mathhead's 'drop it' is a perfect example – it’s immediately in your face, and gets more and more intense, and then after the drop when you can't believe it could keep up that intensity, it kicks back in twice as hard – breathless and completely dance-floor. I think that's what we're aiming for... taking all these ideas and influences and making it work on the floor.

EB - Seems that if last year was about Dubstep breaking through to the international mainstream the past 6 months in the UK have been about bassline/niche/4x4 gaining momentum. Now with Bok Bok & Manara (Faggatronix) and Zomby each doing a niche mix on the recent Mad Decent podcast we can perhaps expect to see more exposure for producers of your ilk.

D - Yeah the music coming out at the moment is just fantastic. I think it's the right direction for UKG right now… too much grime was starting to sound like hip-hop. Bassline is a real UK sound. It's such an exciting time to be making and listening to music! It's definitely spreading internationally, we did a gig in Denmark last month @ 'ghetto rave' , and they just love anything bass. The local djs were incredible, and playing some amazing dubstep & bassline.

J - "Niche" is a funny beast though... It likes to stick to it's own turf... So, expect to see a million "basstep", "housebass", "nichecrunk" genres appearing in London...



EB - They look like they really know how to have a party - I was speaking to a friend about the bass scene internationally and he rated the Ukraine as having a really sound scene and the guys there know their history - Do you think enough folk here know their roots - does this even matter?

D - It's not too important. Finding out about the history and context of music can only be a good thing, but at the same time, you don't *need* it to enjoy a track. There's something to be said for feeling like you're hearing music that's come out of nowhere.

J - Yeah.. Of course it's good to do some digging! If you like something then find out about it! There are too many people just getting given a music taste by blogs and pop media. But obviously everyone has to start somewhere, people shouldn't get mad because someone doesn't know where some genre all began or whatever..."

EB - How did that Si Begg remix come about - is he some kind of mentor?

J - "When I was about 17 the music I was listening to didn't sound right. I liked the drum fills and attention to detail in Breakbeat and the shuffle of garage and the bass in hard house and bits of loads of other 'genres' but none of them put them all together in a way that really satisfied me. When I found Si Begg's tracks I felt like this was an amalgamation of everything that I wanted to listen to. A few years later and we get an email from him asking us if we'd like to do a remix. I'm really happy we were asked, a nerdy dream becomes reality.

EB - What's on the cards for the next 6 months?

D- Well we've spent the last couple of months putting together a load of new original material, so the plan is to shortly start approaching remixers and putting out 6 or 7 whitelabels. We'll see how it goes from there!

EB - So what labels are you into at the moment? How do you feel about the current remix culture as seen on say Dubstep forum or Hollerboard? Blogging itself has something to answer for... wait this is getting post-modern...

J - From where i'm sitting mp3 blogging seems to be getting more of a conscience regarding shoving everyones music up in high quality form. Also, the artists being increasingly blogged about are ones who dont have record deals and give the tracks to the bloggers willingly, which is great, there's nothing illegal about gving away your own music.

D - Haha.. There's just so much out there now innit? It's really positive that you can just make music and get it out there now. There's plenty of weak tracks that are just a load of loops chucked in Ableton, but you know, I'm constantly hearing great and original new music made by some kid in his bedroom that more than makes up for the glut of lazy re-edits. The best stuff is always gonna float to the top - witness the success of the Trouble & Bass guys, Dubsided etc etc.

EB - I have a lot of time for both those crews - we've been tracking a lot of the artist's affiliated to those labels but if they had a straight up street fight - like DTL decided to roll deep - which crew would be left standing? No weapons, no biting, no gauging.

D - Hahaha! My money would be on Luca (DTL)... he's pretty tall and he's got so much energy… like the energizer bunny!

J - Switch is like a bear though, he'd snap Luca like a twig. Also, no one would hit Herve because he's too pretty.

Scream if you wanna go Rasta - Pirate Soundsystem zshare

Your Love - Pirate Soundsystem zshare

Non Stop Cut Paste (Pirate Soundsystem rmx) - Si Begg zshare

Romp And Play - Reverberate (Pirate Soundsystem Vocal Mix) exclusive to Electrique Boutique