Words by Art Jefferson
Images courtesy of Wallwork & RZR
London’s East End has built a reputation of spawning limit-testing producers whose twisting and re-shaping of sound have at times, birthed an entire new genre on to itself. Maybe in a way it makes perfect sense for production duo Tommaso Wallwork and Ady Razor, known as Wallwork & RZR, to call East London their home. Based in Hackney Wick, the two who dub their sound as ‘forward thinking bass music’, actually made a name for themselves as ghost producers working on everything from Hip-Hop to rock. Eventually Wallwork & RZR decided to delve more into the edgier sounds of electronica, producing DnB, garage and experimental UK bass. With their EP “Mad Techno Invasion” released through the Canadian label Infinite Machine, the duo are expanding the possibilities of how far bass music can indeed stretch out sonically.
Art Jefferson – Going into a bit of history, when did each of you begin producing and DJing?
Wallwork – I grew up in Pisa, Italy. There you can go raving and DJing in clubs when you are under age, so I started DJing professionally when I was 15-16 in all the local parties and clubs. The music was mainly techno and house. The first person who taught me how to DJ though was my cousin Joe who bought a pair of decks at the age of 12, I was 13. It was in his bed room in Ilford, East London, that I learned to beat match.
Production wise, I had always played drums in bands from a very young age but I was very curious about learning electronic music production. When I was 16 I installed Sony Acid, which I found a bit limiting, then shortly after, an older friend I was DJing with at the time, Luper who now co-owns a the label Yuma Recordings, brought round to my house a PC with Reason, 100gigs of Reason samples and a midi keyboard and that was it. I’ve been producing every day of my life since then, hence why I’m struggling with really bad tinnitus at the moment. An advice to everyone: don’t produce for hours and hours in your headphones at night time because the consequences are horrible :-(. It was only when I moved to Manchester at the age of 18 and then London where I studied sound engineering at SAE, that I went off techno and house and fell in love with broken beats. I finally started using Logic then which has become the love of my life, the thing my girlfriend is most jealous of is definitely Logic Pro :-). I’ve gone full circle now though. I’ve rediscovered the beauty of house music after having been in the studio with house legends like DJ Sneak, Todd Terry and Basement Jaxx which I have learned so much from production wise.
Razor – I got into DJing first at around the age of 16 ( I am 22 now ) when my friend showed me Traktor and I thought it was super cool, so I started to learn how to mix sets and so on and have been using Traktor for a lot of DJing. Recently I have started DJing with CDJs but it was easy learning on CDJs, I literally had to learn an hour before one of our last gigs ha!
As far as producing goes, I got into production properly at the age of 18 after analysing many tracks I’d deejayed and working out how tracks are compiled of different elements and how the various structures work. I’ve been using logic throughout my whole producing years which has been good as it’s one of the industry standards.
Art Jefferson – When did you two decide to come together as a full-on production duo opposed to individually working on material?
Wallwork – We first met in 2008 through mutual friends but it wasn’t until 2010 that we decided to start a duo together. We were both big fans of each other’s stuff although we’d never tried approaching labels for our own project until this year because we were really obsessed with getting to outstanding levels of production first.
Art Jefferson – Talk about the process when you two work on a track together. Do you each work on the specifics of the song? For example, does one handle the drums and the other the keys, or it is an overall collaboration where you both have your hands in all parts of the production simultaneously?
Wallwork – Sometimes I start a tune and Ady finishes it or vice versa. We are both really good producers and very technical. It’s not like one of us is a DJ and the other produces. We both spend loads of hours everyday producing then when we have a good idea we send each other project files. Our Dropbox and Google drive is always packed with ideas. I always leave the finishing touches to Razor though, like the mixing because I think he has better ears than me and his mixing is impeccable! But yeah all of our productions are definitely 50-50.
Art Jefferson – Now you were also ghost producers. And while I won’t ask you to give the names of your past clients, give a little insight on the whole ghost production procedure. Do the clients ask you to contribute a large bulk to what they have started or is it literally them paying you to do 100% of the production?
Wallwork – Both, sometimes people come with loops and ideas or a half-finished track and we polish it off, add fresh beats and give it a nice mix, or other times we make 100% of the track and the client tries to give it the direction he or she wants.
It’s fun and easy to do tracks for somebody else because at least they tell you when it’s done and they are happy with it. It’s hard to know when one of our own tracks is done, you need to learn to commit to things. Sometimes it’s frustrating though when the person you produce the track for has given you a few hundred quid and they go off to Ibiza to make thousands.
Art Jefferson – How widespread is ghost production in electronic music?
Wallwork – It’s not super common. Most producers do deserve to be where they are, but it’s not even that rare and you would be surprised of how much help people actually get to make an album especially in the pop world. Before working in big pop studios I thought someone had to do the whole thing by themselves – writing, top lines, producing, mixing. Now I know that if I make it big time in the music industry I can pay someone to edit my drum recordings or vocal takes and do all the boring stuff 🙂
Art Jefferson – You describe your sound as forward thinking bass music, which I would completely agree with. There is definitely a futuristic aspect to your production. But you have also incorporated bits of jungle, house and garage in some of your tracks as well. In your opinion, does operating in the bass scene allow for more flexibility in terms of production, opposed to doing say, straight ahead house or what not? It seems as if you can present various styles without getting completely placed in a box. What are your thoughts?
Wallwork – Obviously the bass scene doesn’t really mean anything. The industry has gone from a few thousand people that could afford the equipment to millions of kids with a laptop making music so the natural Darwinian evolution of music has gone crazy. Every single genre is mixing into the other. It’s a brave new world for electronic music in which there are no rules and only the very best will win!
Art Jefferson – Your latest EP “Mad Techno Invasion” is dropping via Infinite Machine. It is definitely bass heavy and rave friendly. Have you already played some of the tracks in a set at the raves yet? If so, what have been the responses?
Wallwork – We’ve played at loads of parties this year with some of our favourite producers like Lone, Dark Sky, Mosca, Basement Jaxx, Pedestrian, Maribou State, Akkord (Indigo and Synkro), Djrum, Deft, Slick Shoota and Romare and all the tunes have gone down really well!
Art Jefferson – You’re also playing the Turn Off Festival with Mount Kimbie in September, which must be exciting. What have you got in store for that event?
Wallwork – Yeah we are super excited. It’s funny because one of them lives 100 yards from our warehouse in Hackney Wick, but we are going all the way to Tuscany to meet them.
We are going to prepare a massive set for that festival. It’s going to be on the main stage also with Romare who’s just been signed to Ninja Tune and Clap Clap who is signed to Black Acre!
https://www.facebook.com/wallwork.razor
https://soundcloud.com/wallwork-rzr
https://twitter.com/WallworkRZR
http://www.infinitemachine.ca/