Coco Bryce interview – “It’s a culmination of everything I’ve done over the past 25 or so years”
I should Coco – and so should you
Accomplished, prolific and synonymous with a new generation of producers breathing new, different life into the drum & bass and jungle genres, Coco Bryce tell us why his latest offering City Pop was 25 years in the making. Well, sort of…
Hi and thanks for your time…. First of all, can you tell us where you are right now, and what kind of day you’re having… Been anywhere already or going anywhere interesting later?
Hiya, thx for having me. I’m at home right now, was sorting my quarterly taxes. Not much going on today, I’ll probably watch the match later, Netherlands vs Romania. Maybe work on some music.
You got into music through watching skate videos, we gather…
Kind of yeh. I was already making my own compilation tapes on a double deck cassette player before I started skating. But I definitely got a large portion of my music education through skate videos. Not so much the electronic stuff, but more so hip hop, funk, rock etc. I got more into electronic music through school mates and then later on by frequenting record shops.
Give us a quick precis of your musical activities/releases up to this point, for the uninitiated…
I started DJing, mainly hardcore, in 1995. Got into jungle/d&b around the same time and then spent half a decade at squat parties from 1998 onwards, at which I mostly played acid and tribe tekno. This is also when I started producing, with my first record coming out in 1999. The 2000s were a bit of a weird period for me, with very little focus on any specific genre. I got really into Skweee around 2009 and then switched to producing and playing mostly jungle in 2015. I’ve done 170 vinyl releases so far, been keeping a list on Discogs.
Your PR blurb says this album took nearly a quarter of a century to finish. Is that really true? What happened?!!– Haha, nah not really. It was more of a tongue in cheek reference to the total amount of time I’ve been producing. That being said, I’ve had the idea to do an album like this for quite a few years now, and it feels like my most personal one to date, by a stretch. So in a sense yeh, to me it’s a culmination of everything I’ve done over the past 25 or so years.
How differently do you approach making an album compared to 12”s? The tracks are noticeably shorter than the standard six to eight minute jungle/d&b offering, was that refreshing to undertake?
That depends. I usually strive for coherency a lot more when doing an album. I don’t want them to be just a bunch of random tunes. My previous album though, Phoenix, was different in that sense; it was a collection of tracks made on a tiny Pocket Operator sampler and it felt quite all over the gaff. But with City Pop I had a very clear view of how I wanted it to sound and look. It’s a home listening album more than anything, which is also why I purposely stuck to one disc, as opposed to a double or triple vinyl pack; so that you can actually put it on yer turntable and listen without having to flip the record after every two songs.
I’d kept a couple of tunes on layaway for a few years, with this album in mind specifically, and kept producing new material until I felt like I had the exact collection I was after. I made the cover art drawing and design more than a year prior to its release, which I purposely kept as sparse and toned down as the music.
You’ve been associated, along with some other producers, with the return of jungle sounds, but this album seems to have a more drum & bass feel to it… Fair?
I guess so yeh. There’s not much straight up jungle on there for sure. But in all fairness, neither jungle nor D&B were my main inspirations here. I did make a point of it to keep everything within the 155 to 170bpm range, and with highly syncopated drums, so it’s still jungle/d&b in that sense. But vibe and texture wise, I was way more influenced by mid 90s trip hop; the Mo Wax heydays, Portishead etc. With a hint of early Burial stuff, which obviously isn’t from the mid 90s, but his knack for stripping things down to the very essence has always intrigued and inspired me.
Why go for the title City Pop? Our reviewer suggested it might be something to do with the Japanese music genre, but equally it could be a more generic description of its beats and urban atmosphere. What’s the story?
Nothing too deep, I always just liked the name. I’m not even that big of a fan of the genre itself, although I do really rate the general aesthetic of it. But yeh, the second part of your question kinda answers it; the “city” part references the beats, which are rooted in innercity dance music. And the “pop” bit is because I feel like, however toned down, the tunes all do have an easily recognisable, slightly poppy vibe to them.
You’ve expressed amazement at producers who continue doing the same thing decade after decade… What’s the direction of travel musically for you at this specific moment in time, and where do you think you might be heading? Or is the fun not knowing?
Good question. And I actually have no idea. One of the things I’ve been into recently is trying to incorporate samples from more ‘traditional’ music from all over the map. I’ve been lifting a lot of bits from old Jewish, Bulgarian, Indonesian, Greek, Latin American, you name it, records. Which is good fun, but proves quite a challenge sometimes, as it easily comes off sounding like some sort of corny, ironic festival d&b rubbish.
I’m not sure what my main focus will be though, because it often comes out of nowhere, from a place I wouldn’t have been able to predict.
And what’s next for Coco Bryce? Any concrete plans in the pipeline?
Yeh I’ve got a couple of 12″s coming up; I did a tune for AKO Beatz, with a Decibella remix on the flip, which should be out soonish. Then also a two-tracker for Sweet Sensi out of Toronto, a split 10″ with Tim Reaper on Ill Behaviour and another two-tracker for the St. Klet crew out of Brussels. Should be good fun.
To buy your vinyl copy of Coco Bryce’s City Pop album, click here