Interview: Radio Slave

Matt Edwards goes by a lot of names, Matthew E, Rekid, Quiet Village, Sea Devil but its as Radio Slave he has produced some of the most recognisable white label remixes of recent times, re-editing artists from Kylie and The White Stripes to Paul McCartney. His track Grindhouse turned out to be one of the hits at the Miami Winter Music Conference last month, so before festival season kicks off we asked him what goes into the music he makes.

You’ve just been in Miami for the winter music conference, how was that?
It was another really good year, great to hear a lot of good new music and to catch up with people, this year we just chilled out most of the time, didn’t go too crazy.

Is it still an important event on the dance music calendar?
I think for the American market its a big event, but for anyone in Europe there’s so many more other events, you’ve got Sonar, Bennicassim, the Amsterdam dance week, so I don’t think it is that important these days really. The lack of UK labels was really noticeable this year; it’s a lot of money to spend just on parties really.

Is there anywhere you think the dance scene is really developing at the moment, or anywhere you’re really enjoying playing?
Well Berlin is really good at the moment, cutting edge musically and the clubs are really modern. They’re pretty much all owned by music lovers, so there’s a lot of time put into creating an environment where you’d want to listen to music, not just focusing on getting people in and out. The clubs are open for a lot longer, on a Friday night some are open for 13 hours. It’s more about having the right mix of people in, having a good party and you never see trouble there. Spanish clubs also tend to be really good, especially Madrid, they’re always really good party people, and people are always smiling.

Do you think moving to Berlin from Brighton last year has changed your sound at all?
I don’t really think my sounds has changed so much, I still listen to the same variety of music, the only thing I think I’ve been influenced by is actually playing a selection of older records. I think in England everyone wants to play the newest, freshest thing, but in Berlin they’ll play a lot more of a mixture of old and new, classic records from fifteen, twenty years ago, which makes you think about digging out much older records, which is good.

So what has influenced your music over the years? You used to work with Serge Santiago as Radio Slave, has becoming a solo producer had any effect you?
Before I actually started working with Serge I’d made music in the late 90s and I think I’ve pretty much always had a strong idea of how I wanted to make music. I’m really influenced by producers like Carl Craig, and also a lot of Detroit and Chicago producers. I still really love hip hop, I’m really attracted by that sort of down tempo sound as well, and I really love hypnotic music, anything really from new age artists to some of the more trippy weird American hip hop.

You’ve got a quite varied back catalogue, but what would you think the best thing you’ve done or produced?
Well for me, every track I do I always think that’s the best one! I’m really proud of the Grindhouse track I did last year, my friend Danton Eprom added vocals and then we gave that version to Ali Dubfire who mixed the original and the remix and has come up with a version which is amazing. I’m really proud to be able to get a Dubfire mix and that was one of the tunes of Miami. It’s really exciting because from my early work I’ve been a remixer, it’s great to see my work then be taken on by someone else, then another person. It’s quite an interesting process, the results have been amazing.

What have you got planned for the summer, any festivals coming up?
We’ll be doing Sonar, one of our first as a live band, and I’ll be playing Bennicassim in Spain as Radio Slave, then a few other festivals in Europe. Probably not so many in the UK, although I might be doing Creamfields. The restriction in the UK can make it really difficult, and you can get a cheap flight and make it into a holiday and the weather obviously is a major factor. But we are doing two gigs at Glastonbury this year, but then there’s no way I’m going to be staying after, I’ve done it before, you just can’t escape the mud, it ruined a whole box of records last time, someone walked over my open record box behind the decks, nightmare.

Finally if you could only do one out of DJing, remixing or producing which would it be?
It would probably just be producing at the moment, I’m looking forward to making the next Rekid album. I do like raving and going out and partying, but I really enjoy being creative and being at home and making music is probably the best thing I can do really. I mean it’s great to be able to do it with other people, but the actual creative processes is what I enjoy the most I guess.