FunktheFormula Magazine November Issue

independent at 90 years old and has good banter. My mum used to say I reminded her of her when I was growing up so I took the name from that. I only found out it has another meaning (especially in America) after the first record came out!

Haha… So, when did you start making music?

I started around 2002/3. I had already been Djing for a number of years and a few friends of mine used to dabble with Reason and other bits of software.

I was introduced to you at Boiler Room 93 in London back in May, tha t was a grea t introduction!

You and Esa Williams have great chemistry, how did you meet and decide to collabora te?

Thanks! We met around 2008 at a Glasgow MOBO awards thing. Esa was speaking on the panel and I was helping to organise it.. We asked him if he would be up for a collaboration but it took until 2010 before I found the time to make the music that was in my head at that time and until 2011 when I was ready to approach Esa to help me with the Auntie Flo live show and our Highlife nights.

There was a lot of equipment that you guys were using, wha t is your live set up?

So we have a lot of hardware which make a lot of drum sounds! Everything is powered from the MPC, then we have a Roland 505, Korg, FX, live congas / bongos / cowbells and my favourite toy Casio Keyboard.

In iTunes, your ‘Future Rhythm Machine’ is labeled as ‘World’ music, how would you describe it?

Everything has got to be labelled something or other. I have many issues with the term 'World music' but understand how hard it is to categorise any release. I purposefully made FRM as being hard to categorise – everything is at different tempos, moods and textures, some dancefloor tracks, others more experimental. I wanted it to be colourful and something that worked as an album.

It definitely does work! The video for ‘I Want to Blow Your Mind’ seems to embody the album title.

It’s kind of like it’s in touch with a rhythm from way back yet all futuristic and forward thinking, I’d love to go to a party like that!! Whose idea was the video?

Thanks! You should come to Highlife. The video was an idea between myself, Esa and our director Ling Lee. Esa had an amazing African mask and I guess the idea came from how we could use that in the video. We wanted to involve a lot of people and managed to get these amazing costumes from Dundee fashion designer straight from her grad show.

Speaking of music video’s you have a very global/ community vibe going on, for example with the Skype calls (Oh My Days) and the people in the street taking part (Highlife) how did you organise this?

Again, Ling was behind all these videos. All those tracks are designed for the dancefloor so makes sense to get a lot of people involved in the videos. The Highlife video was a last minute thing, Ling and her crew literally just turned up on Brick Lane and started filming folk. We had hired a live bongo drummer who was meant to be a major part of the shoot but he didn't show so they had to improvise -using an ipod with the track playing, which I think worked really well.

Your tour schedule has been pretty full on for the last few months. Do you enjoy this lifestyle?

It's pretty hectic as I still run my company Open Ear full time during the week so I'm pretty much flat out all the time. However, I do enjoy the travelling part and seeing new places, it's a privileged position to be able to travel around to play music. I've been lucky to make friends in a lot of places I've been so I can't complain.