Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Free Tune, Free Mix & Exclusive Interview - Mobius


The hour draws near my friends, the fat man is coming! If you are anywhere near as much a fan of Christmas as I am, make sure you tune in to The Shoe Skool Sessions w/ Sneaker & The Dryer this Thursday night from 1-3am GMT on NSB Radio for a special Christmas edition. We will have a bunch of exclusive X-mas edits being mixed 2x4 the S&D way and will also be doing a Live video feed of the show. Not to mention, Santa himself will be stopping by the Shoe Skool Studios to say hello to the NSB Listeners. We hope to see you in the chat room!

Today we are talking about Southampton natives Mobius and we have got a tasty bit of material for you. Having met back in 2000 while djing events together in the local club scene, Jon Moakes and Ali Rutt formed Mobius in January of 2007. The first production the two put together was "Thugs" which was released on Ape Recordings in 2008 and infused their diverse musical backgrounds, taking aspects from Hip Hop, House, D&B and more. Keeping themselves busy in the studio and at the clubs, Mobius have turned out a number of stormers in the following years including their recent remix of Prato's "No Way" out now on Yellowfinger Records. Keeping his djing skills finely honed, Ali has hosted a weekly show on the award winning NSB Radio for quite some time now. You can tune in to the "Mobius Trip" on Mondays from 7-9pm GMT. Today we have got a free tune and mix coming from Mobius up for grabs. Starting things of with the tunage we have "Champion Hounds" which kicks off with a Drum & Bass flavored break and chilling pads. Drawing on the original bassline and classic samples, they add a fresh feel to a well know track. On the darker side and a bit laid back, it still carries plenty of energy and has an killer groove. We've also got an excellent "off the cuff" mix from Mobius available as well. Just under an hour long it's packed with big tunas and the mixing is nice and clean keeping your ears interested throughout. We were also able to catch up with Mobius and have them answer the Kick It Twelve for us, you can find the Q&A below. Head on over to their SoundCloud page to hear some more of the tunes and show them support on Beatport.

The Kick It Tweleve - Mobius Edition

1. – At what age did you first find yourself gravitating towards electronic music and who were some of the artists outside of Electronic music that influenced that?
I started moving heavily towards Electronic music at about the age of 15, I'd been mostly into my heavy metal and rock up to this and I guess the main acts that influenced me moving over were really Leftfield and the Prodigy. (Who are clearly both electronic but I'm not sure Metallica had a direct influence!)

2. – What was your very first Album? How about CD?
My 1st album would have been on cassette and was Iron Maiden's - Live After Death. I think the 1st CD I ever bought was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles soundtrack, turtle power!

3. – How did you first get involved with the Electronic music culture and what was the first event that you attended?
The 1st ever club night I went to was a small house night in Southampton (England), I started going clubbing fairly regularly pretty much straight away and a couple of the guys I started to hang around with had decks. I soon decided this was a cool thing to do so got a set of (awful) Soundlab belt drive decks and a (even worse) 2 channel Soundlab mixer shortly after. It didn't take me long to decide I had to get 1210's saying that!

4. – Where was your favorite gig that you have had to date?
That's a toughy, been playing out for 14 or 15 years now so have plenty to pick from! I used to run a sizeable popular weekly event here in Southampton called Debauchery and playing the last ever night of that, to a sold out venue with 700 or so very emotional ravers was pretty special.

5. - Who have you been most proud to play alongside?
Again there's plenty to pick from, in the Breaks scene I guess it would probably be supporting Aquasky on a number of occasions as they are one of the acts that I picked up on very early on and were real pioneers in the scene in my opinion.

6. - Where would you most like to play that you have not yet?
If I was to pick one club it would have to be the main room of Fabric, such an amazing venue. I'd also love to play a big dance tent at one of the festivals, something I'm working on for 2011!

7. - What is your favorite tune you have released?
If I was to pick an original it would have to be "Thugs" on Ape Music. This was our 1st tune that was released (other than a bootleg) and whilst our production values have certainly moved on a long way it was very special to see something we'd done from scratch come out finally.
On the remix side it would probably be the Yellowfinger release of Prato - No way. I think the counterbalance of the trancey synths and the dirty bass worked really well and we've had plenty of support and great feedback on it as well.

8. - Who is your favorite EDM artist? How about outside of EDM?
I have a very eclectic taste in music, listening to stuff from almost every style. In the dance music world I guess I'd have to go for Leftfield. They are one of the acts that got me into dance music and having just seen them at Brixton Academy in London they still absolutely kill it 15 years later. Underworld would be right up there as well.
Moving outside the dance scene I'd say Metallica, I've loved their music for about 20 years now and still love turning it up really loud and rocking out when the mood takes me.

9. - Who are some artists you would like to collaborate with in the future?
There's a lot of producers and vocalists I'd love for us to work with, we're lucky enough to be doing a remix featuring Liz Melody at the moment which would have been one I'd have picked on the vox side. On the producer side of things I'd love to work with Pyramid, Elite Force and Mars to name a few. We hopefully have something on the cards for 2011 with Mars so you never know, maybe we'll get our wishes one day.

10. - What is your preferred software for producing? Hardware?
We don't really use hardware other than controllers, namely Native Instruments Kore controller, Novation keyboards and Akai drum pads. Software wise we use Cubase as our DAW and our main arsenal of synths, samplers and drum machines comes from Native Instruments amazing Kore package. I also highly rate a lot of the Audio Damage plugins for fx.

11. - What life lessons has the music industry taught you?
To do what you love and not to stop chasing your dreams even if they don't come as quickly as you hoped. I've had the pleasure of playing many big gigs over the years but this pretty much stopped when I changed to breaks in around 2001. Having spent the intervening years learning our trade in the studio I'm now lucky enough to be in a position where the good gigs are starting to roll in again, our tunes are starting to receive critical acclaim from people I've respected for years and things are looking bright.
You also need to decide if you are aiming to do it as a career or just because it's something you adore. I'd imagine we could make plenty more money if we changed to other styles but if we produce some other kinds of music (DnB may well be on the cards at some point) it will be beecause we want to and love that scene as well, not because we're chasing the money. If the opportunity came to give up the dayjob then I'd take it for sure but I decided a long time ago it was better to stay true to what I love than sell out simply for success.

12. – What does the future hold for Mobius?
We've got a new original tune done and due to hit Jan 2011 on Dusted Breaks which has already received some awesome feedback from the few who've heard it so far. Also 2 remixes done for V.I.M. Breaks and the one featuring Liz Melody well underway. We're at a stage now where I think after we've finished this remix we'll go back to concentrating on finishing some more original material over the coming months unless a really amazing remix opportunity comes our way.

Having taken a back seat from pushing for gigs over the last few years whilst we tried to push the studio work I'm making a real push for 2011 to get back out on the road heavily to promote the Mobius name. I love making tunes as well but DJ'ing to a crowd of up for it nutters is what it's all about at the end of the day! I've recently switched over to the Traktor S4 and whilst I'm still learning some of the more advanced features I'm already remixing tracks on the fly, dropping samples into the mix etc so it's really changing what I can do. I'm pleased to say I already have quite a few gigs in the diary over the next month or 2 so you'll be hearing plenty from Mobius in 2011. Jon will continue to do his amazing work on all the tunes with me in the studio and whilst he's not gigging with me as yet, if I start to get booked for really big shows we have discussed doing a live set of some sort, or maybe a Dex n FX show with another laptop running. I'll also be continuing to work closely with NSB Radio and doing my bi-weekly show on the station.

Hope your readers enjoy the mix and like what we're doing in the studio, come and join us over on www.facebook.com/mobius.uk.net and www.soundcloud.com/mobius to keep up to date on what we have going on.


Mobius Demo Mix

1. - Filter "Take A Picture" Hybrid Remix
2. - Curl & Dean "Bantha" Beta Remix
3. - B-Phreak & Liz Melody "Lost your Mind" BSD Remix
4. - Prato "No Way" Mobius Remix
5. - Kooqla "Mute" F-Word Remix
6. - Ways & Means "Daywalker"
7. - Slyde "Move Ya Body"
8. - The Loops Of Fury "Pump Up" Vandal Remix
9. - Access Denied Vs BSD "Mineral"
10. - That Girl DJ "Noise" Mobius Remix
11. - Quadrat Beat "Rockstar" Mars Remix
12. - BSD "Joe Jacks"
13. - The Gulf Gate Project "Illuminati" Ways & Means Remix
14. - Hironimus Bosch "M.A.D. Breakin"
15. - My Mom Said I Am A Freak "Freak Me" Breaking News Remix
16. - Mars "Make Me Hot"
17. - Coolbreakerz "Knight Rider" Mobius Remix



Champion Hounds - FREE DOWNLOAD by Mobius

Mobius on MySpace - http://www.myspace.com/mobiusbreaks

Mobius on SoundCloud - http://soundcloud.com/mobius

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