Stabalizer

Myagi: Every artist has a release which, regardless of public response, means more to them for some reason than another. Which release of yours, in your mind, signalled the creation of your sound?

Stef Stabilizer: I've never really tried to get "a sound" as such. In fact I've always tried to do new things. Break the template every time and try to create something new. In that respect I suppose the What It Takes release was a big one for that. The Funk side is a personal favorite because it had such a great response beyond the traditional breaks crowd.

Myagi: Breakbeat, as a genre, and your music in particular, has managed to eschew pigeonholing...the funky vs. nuskool debate seems to have wheezed to a long overdue halt and people are now just concentrating on making good tunes. What is your view of the current state of breaks in this regard...are you happy with how things have come along in the past year or so? What do you feel is the sound of yesterday, today, and tomorrow? (So to speak)

Stef Stabilizer: I'm glad that the whole genre as a whole has embraced a wider sound than in earlier years. We where in danger of fragmenting beyond rescue for a while! As for what's hot and not now and in the future.. Who knows... I'm just writing tunes I want to hear and if someone else likes them then all the better!

Myagi: Whats your opinion of the innundation of bootlegs that seem to have lined shelves for the last year? Is this a good thing overall, or is it big beat's ghost back to haunt us?

Stef Stabilizer: I was into a few of them but it's got silly now. I went to Vinyl Addiction's site to buy some tunes and all they had listed was bootlegs pretty much. It's all very well and it can get some cash into producers pockets but how can we complain about mp3 piracy if we are bootlegging copyright material ourselves?

Myagi: Give me a taste of the album! What can we look forward to? Are there any tracks - particularly non-dancefloor tunes, that, in your opinion, are the focal points?

Stef Stabilizer: The whole album was written to be non-dancefloor from the start. I didn't want to release 12 dancefloor tunes on a CD, I wanted something that flowed and that was interesting to listen to at home with a smoke on.

So in terms of style there's everything on there really from nasty old school hip hop, downtempo, electro-dancehall, weird detroit techno mashed up with breaks and all sorts of other odd mixes. It's a glimpse into my head really, all the music I've absorbed over the years.

Standout tracks for me are the three vocal tracks I did. Working with all three vocalists was a great experience and in fact I enjoyed working with Figure Of Speech and Boba Phat - the scratch DJ - on Low Slung so much that we are working on some more Hip Hop tracks together as a new crew called the Sin Happy Vacationists.. Hopefully we'll have some stuff ready for later this year so keep an eye out!

The track 'Bounce' - with Chickaboo - has worked out really well, with some real strong responses to the promos that have gone out and that should be around soon and also the track with Rachel Roberts - Unbreakable - sounds really good with the finished vocals and that'll be the third single from the album with an amazing dancefloor remix by Superstyle Delux.

Myagi: What kind of touring are you doing to support the album? Any plans to do live work at all?

Stef Stabilizer: Ahh, the fabled Stabilizer Live Thang... Been in my mind for about three years now but can't think how I'd want to do it. Part of me wants to go it alone with a nice projection system and a few laptops and part of me want the full on rock'n'roll band a la Freeland but both require far more money than I can lay my hands on so the idea has remained firmly entrenched in my mind as a "maybe one day."

Myagi: The vocal tracks on the album...what was it like producing them? Were they collaborative efforts in the songwriting sense?

Stef Stabilizer: Producing them was a challenge as I'd not worked with a vocalist before. And each vocalist required different approaches but mainly I let them get on with it without interfering too much. Most of the vocals where one or two takes and I avoided cut'n'pasting the vocals too much even if it meant leaving in a little fluff or mistake as the whole point of the vocalists was to include some human input to the music.

As far as the songwriting goes it was 100% me doing the music and 100% the vocalist doing the topline melody and lyrics to my essentially finished track. In some cases I tweaked the structure after the vocal was recorded to fit a particular vocal flourish but they tended to write to the finished track and lay down the vocal in one day.

Myagi: You've remixed some great producers, including your recent jobs on Melting Man and DJ Love, as while as having done mixes for Scissorkicks, Phantom Beats and Peter Gabriel. Are there any artists whose tracks you'd particularly love to sink your teeth into? Anybody you'd really love to collaborate with?

Stef Stabilizer: To be honest, much as I like remixing breaks artists I've kinda done what I can do so in terms of remixes so it'd be great to get the chance to go further afield genre wise and start remixing other genres into breaks, I think it'd create some interesting mixes and sounds. All the great remixes from the Plumps and Ils etc have all been of non-breaks tracks.

As for collaborations, me and Scissorkicks have been threatening to collaborate for for ages but never got round to it and Stisch from Sound Of Habib and I nearly did but again time got in the way so I've yet to do one!

I think collaborations only work if you have conflicting styles... I reckon me and Stisch would do something pretty nice because his smooth progressive production would clash (either horribly or wonderfully!) with my rougher more funky sound. It'd be interesting.

Myagi: Which producers are you keeping your eye on? Anybody in particular who's really on form?

Stef Stabilizer: As far as breaks goes have to join in the chorus of shouting about Splitloop. Liked them before when they where Dusk and still like them now. The new Precision Cuts 12" - Royal Flush - Is lovely and Chris Carter is coming on from strength to strength. His stuff was always musical but not always 100% floor friendly but now he's getting the hang of dancefloor stuff and it's very exciting as he has a very particular sound that doesn't rely on the distorted bass cliche and his breaks are never straight up, always a bit of swing in there. As for the old guard I've always been a fan of Freq Nasty's sound, always out of control but in a tight box sonically. Hard to pull off and he does it with aplomb and predictably have at least two Plump DJ tunes in my bag at any one time.

Myagi: Internet forums are full of new producers trying to learn the game...any points you'd particularly like to share with people who want to get into the game?

Stef Stabilizer: Right now my advice would be don't spend thousands on gear and stuff. Buy a OK laptop (I use an white G3 iBook for writing), a nice pair of headphones and a copy of Reason and get writing. The write some more, then some more and then some more... Don't try and copy anyone and don't give up unless it stops being fun. For me it's an addiction though, if I don't open my iBook for a few days and do something music related I get in a really bad mood!

Spend the money you would spend on outboard gear and all that on hiring a decent engineer to mix and master your tracks in his posh expensive studio and use his expertise and ears.

I can do a decent mix and pre-master myself but that fresh pair of ears are priceless to me now. I can also dedicate the day I'd spend on a mix down writing new tunes or spending time with my family!

Myagi: Whats your opinion of your work as of late? How does it fit in with the evolution of your sound, and where are you heading next?

Stef Stabilizer: Like most producers I suppose - what I did three years ago is surprisingly OK, what I did 6 months ago is awful and could be improved on in every way and what I'm doing next is going to make me a rich man because it'll be so amazingly good. If I didn't believe that I would've given up long ago.

I've just done a remix for a spanish producer called DJ Kultur which I'm really pleased with, it should be out in a few months and heralds the welcome, if slightly cheesey, return of the classic "funky drummer" breakbeat in - erm- breakbeat.