When it came time for Deadboy to move from London to Montreal last year, the UK bass producer (whose real name is Allen Wootton) had to decide what to do with his records. While he kept his reggae 45s, most of the collection ended up either being sold or stayed behind at his parents' house, an experience that wasn't nearly as traumatic as one might expect."There comes a point where you have so many records that it becomes pointless to have so many, because whatever you're looking for is buried under another record," says Wootton.
Unencumbered in a new city, the producer was free to start anew, and he set up a bare bones home studio with a "couple of synths and a microphone on the kitchen table." The resulting LP, Earth Body, is a near drum-less experience which features Wootton on vocals for the first time. Compared to his more raucous two-step and UK garage work—including last year's DBM project with frequent collaborator Murlo—he describes the meditative debut album as "a painting of a beach on a dreary day in pastel colours," with the nine tracks demonstrating his love for new age and "adult pop."
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THUMP recently caught up with the producer at his plant-filled Mile End apartment to find out which ten albums helped shape Earth Body, and what we can expect from him in the future.
Two albums that inspired my vocals. Sade's is from the 90s and Scott Walker's is the mid-80s. Everyone's parents had the Sade record in the 90s. Sade's vocal is just very cool and cold, and Scott Walker is quite dramatic. Clear and crooning. I'm not saying I sound like either of them, but they're two examples of the adult pop influences on the record. Then there's something like Pet Sounds, with 10-track vocal harmonies. I really wanted to have harmonies in a big way.It influenced "Tide" on the album. The way Rihanna does a lot of repetition—like "Work," "Rude Boy," and "Umbrella"—it's simple and not a lot of people do it. But it really works, especially when you're changing the note and doing harmonies. It's a really good trick, it's easy to sing and catchy. You hear something like "Work" and you're going to be singing it afterwards. Her choruses are very clever and I like a lot of her minimal, dancehall-y tracks too. I try to do that, only with no drums.This is a great album. He's a jazz trumpet player. This album is from the mid-to-late 80s, when he was doing a lot more keyboard stuff. Now he's doing film soundtracks, I think he even did Blade. He's one of those guys who does everything. This was definitely an influential album in terms of the sounds I use—very 80s FM synthesizer and bell piano sounds. Very floaty stuff with rhythms. It also has cover art that looks like how the record sounds, and it's part of the whole vibe.Even before I planned to move out here, CFCF made a mix for my radio show in London, so I met him out here a few times. CFCF's records are very Wally Badarou, which is something I really vibe with. He's got that vibe down. I saw the thing he did with the pianist, and that was really cool.
1. Sade – Love Deluxe (1992)
2. Scott Walker – Climate of Hunter (1984)
3. Rihanna – ANTI (2016)
4. Mark Isham – Vapor Drawings (1983)
5. CFCF & Jean-Michel Blais – Cascades (2017)
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6. Midori Takada – Through the Looking Glass (1983)
7. Transformation Of A Water-Lily - A Cosmic Meditation (1988)
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