Introducing...T. Williams

The ever changing landscape of club music is pretty much a constant topic of analysis and debate. There’s music writer Simon Reynolds’ Hardcore Continuum to thank for giving us some level of explanation in the rise and fall in prominence of certain styles but there’s other stuff to factor in, and it’s something that’s hit a bit closer to home. In the last couple of years, along with general trends drifting more towards 4x4 based music, something new has been occurring in Farringdon and there’s been a strange kind of duality with certain artists finding themselves fitting equally into our FABRICLIVE and fabric lineups and straddling the divide between our weekend’s nights. The London based, former grime producer, T.Williams is about to undertake this transition himself this Saturday when he joins Eats Everything for his Edible tour in Room Two, so we took some time to chat to him about how he’s personally made this stylistic progression as an artist and why he thinks his bass music roots are just the right element for success in today’s ever strengthening UK house scene. Hey Tesfa, Thanks for speaking to us, what’s your day been like I understand you’ve been out and about? Yeah it’s been busy, really, really busy. Just meetings and stuff the whole day. Literally just boring stuff really in terms of that, management meeting. Not your typical day then? So what do you normally do, how much do you get to actually be in the studio rather than do this life admin stuff? The mass majority of time I'm in the studio. Monday to Friday I'm in the studio I don't really do much of this, this is why it's all in one day because I don't really want to leave the studio, so one day in the month I'll have a big blow out where I get in all the meeting sand all the catch ups and all that stuff. So your studio where's that? What's your set up at the moment? My studio’ s in North Wembley which is away from my house; there's not loads of gear it's quite simple to be honest with you, we've got a Micro Korg in there and in terms of synths and outboard gear that's about it. I've got a soundcard, monitors I've got Yamaha MS10 classics and Mackies. That's really about it I've got a few bits of percussion, got a fender acoustic guitar in there as well. I can play a few chords. So do you like to jam it out when you're going through your production process, or do you already have what you’re going to make thought out before you go into the studio? It depends, sometimes because I don't live that close to the studio I have a 45 min journey in, so usually I'll have an idea before i get to there and then when i get there that's me I get creative and get involved. So sometimes I start thinking about it on the journey or sometimes I'm just in there listening to sounds, jamming away and something comes out. There's two sides to the creativity about how i go about that process. Going back to your roots, you came up really influenced by drum n bass jungle and grime, when was it you first got exposed to more the house music side of things? It was probably about 6 or 7 years ago something like that got exposed to it and just basically via me going to an old school garage party that finished, then there was a house after party that used to go on at the same club and as I was leaving the club I'd hear a couple of tunes and think this was wicked and each time I'd stay for a little bit longer, and longer until my mates were like why don't we just go the after party! So we ended up going to that party and I got into buying records, house records and just dived into really got stuck in. I'd always dabbled into making 4/4 dance music and it was house but it wasn't my main thing and it just became less grime and more house. Was that something your peers shared too, like was it something that was a change in the scene in general? All my mates that I was in the grime scene with and close friends I was in the collective with they were all with me at the time we were getting into house. So it's safe to say all the guys I was doing grime with in the Black Ops days Johnny Cash and those guys they're all into house music now, completely. When you're playing here next you're going to be playing with Eats Everything for his Edible Tour how do you know him do you roll with him a lot? No, basically we first hooked up around the time of Entrance Song, the first track that got him attention. I got it through on a promo from Cats and Dogs. I'd never heard anything before or anything like that and I played it on Rinse.fm. He hit me up to say thanks for playing it and sent me more stuff, a whole load of tracks a lot of them got signed and some was exclusive stuff that's never come out so we got talking from there that's about it. I think I’ve played on a line up with him only once I think and that was in Bristol in his home town. It was a massive party he was playing in the second room, with the half pipe. Yeah it was so big, me him and Mosca and Huxley. We’ve got Mosca playing here soon actually on a Saturday for the first time and that's like what you're doing, you've really been more of a Friday artist and now you're coming over to Saturday. It's happening with more and more artists all the time. What's your take on that? Yeah I've played Friday a couple of times now and it's like there's a lot of crossover with the Hessle boys, I really find that they could play Saturdays, I think it's just the way that some people really it's house but it's still got a lot of bass. I think the fact that some of us can play Friday and Saturday is showing where music is going and how the scene at the moment, the UK house scene is definitely taking influences from both sides of the spectrum. So, in terms of me thinking about the Saturday night I think my self personally, it'll be quite typical of what I play I think it'll still work with the crowd the Saturday night crowd and that Friday night crowd because there's that bleed of the house and bassey stuff as well. Obviously less 130bmp tempo stuff, but yeah I think it's a really good time for music where people can play both and be put on both line ups. We'll have Blawan on a Saturday then he was here just the other Friday it's interesting how he's adopted by different scenes - what have you seen about that elsewhere in London about how the house music scene's getting stronger do you see there's a different audience than there was 5 years ago? About five years ago yeah most of these people were still in primary school! Fair point! But, that's the thing, the kids that were maybe into dubstep at the time maybe five years ago are now into house music and techno but they still want that edge and they're leading the way because there's a lot of them. There's a massive crowd of people, so it is different. Similarly, you get the more heritage guys like Paul Woolford embracing the same thing with open arms and taking in that sound as well. So it's really like taking in different generations too. If you look at someone like Kink as well who's definitely house based, he's also definitely bass as well, there's a lot of cross over. Even people like Soul Clap who are definitely a Saturday night act who come from grime as well, he still drops a couple of grime tracks as well in his Soul Clap sets. It's just a time when there's no rules - you've got your house and if you can make a set that's interesting for a house crowd but encompasses a little bit more than just the generic house, or you can make a set that's bass or more bass focused that focused but I still housey then it's interesting for both crowds - who really now are the same crowd. And what about right now, what's influencing you at the moment is it being exposed to the new scene playing these new gigs and hearing the different records? No, what's really inspiring me right now is the freedom that I've got. When I first started making house music I was strict with myself and had a thinking of ‘oh you've got to make it sound correct, you've got to put it in this context, the house music will play it or this person will play it out'. Now it's more like you're opening the freedom to the full spectrum of sound. I've come through so many genres that are very UK based and UK focussed and I’m pooling that into what I do, that's definitely something that's inspiring me right now. What about you and your path at the moment, you're finishing off an album is that right? I'm working towards it, it’s coming together, tracks on the EP and the EP before will probably feature on my album as well maybe later down the year. But again, it's not set in stone when it comes it comes. It's going to come natrually and it’s going to be a progression from all the feelings and all the things I've been going through over the last year or two. But like was saying an EPs done which is going to be out on PRM there’s no date set as yet but will be dropping over the summer time. But for me, I'm kind of like connecting the dots and encompassing the house and the bass focussed stuff and my softer side as well, vocal stuff all of that it's got pretty much the full circumference of T. Williams. For more info and tickets go here.