Introducing...Rhythm Plate

A friendship formed in Matlock, a small out of the way village in the Peak District, between two youngsters, Matt Rhythm and Ant Plate, gave birth to two surnames destined to combine and form and electronic music duo. Rhythm Plate may have been separated early on in their formative years but they found refuge in Plate's parent’s caravan in Bridlington where they started creating their own beats and working on their own sounds. Fast forward to today and they’ve never been truly reunited in their home locales but they’ve continued with their own disco driven house style which is bringing them down to Farringdon this Saturday to join Lost My Dog in Room Three. Read on to get to learn more about the creative duo and download one of their classic edits hosted below. DOWNLOAD: Mark Ronson – Somebody to Love Me (Rhythm Plate’s Jack Mix ’87) For those who don’t know already, can you please introduce yourselves to our readers? Matt: I’m Matt Rhythm... Ant: and I’m Ant Plate, Matt: Together, Ant: We, Matt: Make, Ant: Rhythm, Matt: Plate. And on an audio tip – which of your tracks would you suggest we check out to get the best representation of your sound? Matt: Difficult one this as we have been releasing stuff since 1999 and (we like to think) our sound is constantly evolving and also quite varied. Favourites over the years have included 'Rush on Me', 'Prospect Drive', 'Lean' and the entire 'Masters at Wirksworth EP' on DIY, which now changes hands for a lot of money on eBay/discogs. This in itself proves that some people are either a.) deaf or b.) have too much money. Ant: Of the recent(ish) stuff I would personally say the Rhythm Plate remixes of Bang Bang's global club hit 'Susan Cries', possibly our remixes of Mark Ronson. And of course OUR NEW ALBUM which is coming out very, very, very soon on Lost My Dog recordings. Honest. How did you guys start making tracks together? Matt: Ironically at another super club. The after-school Golfing club we both used to go; we quite literally hit it off. Musically speaking I had an amazingly modern Yamaha SY22 which we would split into playing drums one end (Ant) and Piano & Strings up the other, meaning I could play the music. We then employed a rapper who nicked all of Young MC's lyrics and a bar worker who sounded a spit for George Michael to sing for us; for a time we were pure Derbyshire Gold. Ant: A C-60 demo tape in the post to Normski's Dance Energy show on BBC 2 at the time and the rest is history. Can you tell us about your progression of studio locales? I’ve heard they’re quite ingenuitive... Ant: Thanks. Well, we always have and always will use old hardware gear, like actual rack-mount samplers, analogue mixing desks, real vocalists and stuff... pretty rare in todays laptop performance land surely, but hardly that clever. We do like lots of random percussion instruments, toys and gadgets that create sounds we can mangle in the studio though. Matt: Interesting Rhythm Plate fact *231: For about 12 years we've never lived in the same county, hence the reason our creative output has been hardly prolific *(we once released TWO EPs in one year!)*... At present though it's working out quite well as we've geographically moved a lot closer. Where are you currently based – have you moved to the big smoke or are you still true to your northern coastal roots? Ant: We're both currently East Midlands based; Me in Leicester and Matt in Nottingham, but over the years we have dabbled in the whole London thing. Matt: …mainly on school day trips I might add: one time we even went to Camden Market. I like the style you're rocking...who are your biggest fashion inspirations? Ant: Anyone from Derbyshire.. er.. John Smedley, Vivienne Westwood,.. er.. Matt: that young man who swam around the world single-handedly Ant: Ellen McArthur? Matt: Yeah, him. He’s a right trendy. Ant: Mustn't forget the Matlock Massive crew. Matt: On a similar but unrelated note: Ant looks like Clerk Kent. Ant: And Matt looks like Kenny Everett. Matt: Make of that what you will. You’re playing live can you hint at what we can expect from your show? Matt: Deffo some miming combined with virtuoso left hand synth bass solos - where and when is top secret though. In related news, we played a gig recently and Plate DJed the latter part of his set using his mobile phone. It worked a treat. Ant: On a serious note we are very proud have accompanying us on our live excursion a trio of very special singers: Frank Carter III, Clyde and Astral T, who's talents you'll all get to hear on the night!