With more twists and sounds than you can shake a stick at, Baobinga & ID’s debut album, Big Monster, might come with a breaks tag, but it’s got the balls to crash any techno, dubstep or house party…
It’s been stuck in distribution limbo for a while, but that really doesn’t matter. Some albums might lose their edge over the space of a few months, but Baobinga & ID’s debut long player, Big Monster, will still be packing a mighty punch years down the line. Why? Because Sam Simpson (aka Baobinga) and Ed Bayling (or ID) have crafted an album that has all the hallmark of a classic. They cite the likes of My Bloody Valentine and The Pixies as inspirations, and talk about being influenced by the likes of Orbital and Leftfield. No wonder then that Big Monster combines a tonne of sounds with slick and sexy production values to create a record that flies high above the breaks tag the duo have been landed with. EQ reckons Fat! Records are onto a winner with this one, so we tracked the boys down for a chat…
Tell us a bit about Big Monster.
Well, initially the album was intended to be an introduction to – or a compendium of – the Big Monster sound. We’d started the project with the release Rite Of Passage on Fat! in early 2006, and the album was to be a collection of the singles and remixes we had done under that guise. But as we spent more time on it, it became obvious that it would make much more sense – and be much more satisfying – to develop it into more of a proper album in its own right. So we found ourselves writing tracks specifically for the album, and thinking of it as a cohesive work rather than a compilation.
What sort of reaction has it had so far?
It's been great reaction so far – magazine reviews have all been exceptionally positive, and the overall vibe seems to be that people really appreciate it. It's hard to say whether people have been really surprised by the variety of sounds, because we've spent the last couple of years trying to push as wide a variety of styles as we can – although there is still a lingering perception that we are mainly 'tear-out' breaks producers. We should finally put that to rest with this album though.
Do people still tend to see Baobinga & ID as a breaks act then?
Interestingly enough, we are starting to get people at gigs saying things like: “You're not really breaks DJs are you? What would you call your sound?” We consider ourselves dance music DJs, with most of our sets based around stuff that we find interesting and exciting – from house and techno, to Baltimore, grime, breaks and garage, and it's been this way since we started DJing together in 2002. It seems like the breaks scene has drastically narrowed its focus over the last couple of years, to such an extent that for a lot of promoters and shop owners its become a byword for obvious sounds and played-out bootlegs. When Adam Freeland was releasing Coastal Breaks 2, it included artists from Coldcut to Fila Brazilia and Tipper, but was still considered breakbeat – the thread that held it all together was interesting beats and rhythms.
So how far is this album a reaction against your breaks tag?
It isn't necessarily a reaction against anything, except possibly narrow-mindedness and limited horizons. It’s more of an expression of what interests and influences us.
The album does take in a lot of genres, but it all works together really well. Was it difficult combining all the sounds on Big Monster into one coherent whole?
We spent a lot of time working on the programming of the album, to ensure that the tracks flowed together well, and we also reworked all the singles that had previously been released so they worked properly in an album format. It was important to us that the album worked as a 'listening' album, rather than a bunch of six-minute dancefloor tracks with long drum intros and outros. We found ourselves looking back to some classic dance albums to see how they varied the tempos and energy levels. If you look at albums by Leftfield, Orbital and so on, they range from chilled, ambient sounds to full on angry techno, but everything sits together really well as a whole. So as much as it's important to make the tracks sit together cohesively, it's also essential to have enough variety in the sounds to keep it interesting – without resorting to generic 'dance producer does wiffling trip-hop'.
It is pretty hard to sum up how Big Monster sounds. How have you been describing it to people?
We generally say that it comes from breaks but has a strong techno influence – and then go on to mention classic Detroit techno and the Italian scene circa 2002 if the person looks like they have a clue what we're talking about. It's difficult because there are some slower tunes which don't really bear much of a resemblance to what people think of as techno, but they are still quite inspired by it. A lot of what we try and do with the Big Monster sound is bring some emotion to our productions, which I guess is quite a techno angle to take. While dance music has an element of the throwaway to it – which is in many ways a great and positive thing – it’s also nice to take something from the other side of the spectrum and put some feeling into shit. And stuff.
It's a bit unusual to hear DJs and producers citing the likes of My Bloody Valentine and The Pixies as influences. How important have these bands been in shaping your sound? Are they still as important to you today?
They have been, and still are, pretty important influences really – not so much in terms of taking direct inspiration from their tunes, but more in showing how you can make music that sounds like a sludge of distortion but is still very emotionally powerful. Or you can use production that is not technically ‘clean’ but that still sounds great, and can even be used as a compositional element itself. Likewise, a fat American yelping frantically in Spanish over scratchy guitars and tinny drums should, in theory, be terrible, but actually it's brilliant – and full of energy, which is important. Electronic music can tend towards the clinical but that's not always necessarily a good thing.
I think the worst thing anyone can do when they are trying to create something is to focus on what has already been done in a similar area, or look at what is popular in the same genre. The only way you stand a chance of bringing something new to the table is if you look beyond the obvious reference points. So yeah, bands like The Pixies, or Husker Du, or whoever, are still very important to us.
Is your DJing as wide-ranging as the album?
It’s a lot more wide ranging than the album. As well as breaks we normally play Baltimore, garage, techno, house, jungle, dubstep, and whatever else we can get away with. There’s plenty of music out there that excites us, but it's sad to say that most of it is not coming from the breaks scene. As far as breaks is concerned we've been playing a lot of stuff by the likes of 30Hz, Bassbin Twins and Blende this year, but we look outside the scene a lot too.
What's next from you?
We'll be doing a few tours to support the album, so we're really looking forward to those. Once that's out of the way, it's probably going to be time to write the next album, although we'd quite like to do a mix CD at some point. Maybe we can add an extra hour to the day or something. Baobinga is also pretty busy at the moment, working with 30Hz on their project The Body Snatchers, which should hit shops next year. He's also in the early days of a ragga-influenced project with Tayo, which has been signed to Soul Jazz, so hopefully you'll start hearing about that fairly soon. ID has been working on some solo stuff which will should result in a few single releases next year – and there's talk of a collaboration between him and Chris Carter, which should be of interest to anyone who likes good drum sounds.
Big Monster is out on March 10 on Fat! Records. Visit www.baobinga-id.com, www.thefatclub.com and www.myspace.com/fatrecordsuk
