Welcome to our Advent Calendar series where we will be spreading the festive joy with a free download every day leading up to Christmas. Kicking things off is a brand new track from long-standing STW favourite, Typesun.
‘Little While’ is an astutely put together piece; an ultra-relaxed drum and bass sounding riff is commanded by smooth vocals from Blackelie producing a soulful groove with added edge and urgency. Like his absorbing and laudable style as a DJ, Typesun joins the dots between genres, taking you on his journey along the blurred lines which separate them. Check out the entrancing visuals from the video below.
Download ‘Little While’ from Typesun’s Facebook.
We also had a quick catch-up with Luke…
Have you been working on anything interesting recently – within music or not?
I’ve been writing a lot. Finishing up two very different EPs (7 Arrows and Typesun) and working on a 12″ release. I’m a details man so basically grinding through the final touches on all of those has been the mission for the last couple of months. As well as that I’m always doing vocal sessions with new people and those have generated a lot of good material. That’s how it is with me, work gets done, seeds get sown and then it gets left until the time is right. I heard Theo Parrish say: ‘It’s a farm not a factory’.
Can you tell us a bit about the making of ‘Little While’?
‘Little While’ is the result of writing sessions a few years back with Jonatan Backelie who I met the through Felix Hines at Westbury Music (an amazingly talented A&R man and really good guy who sadly passed away over the summer). I hooked up with Felix at a Co-op in London and got talking because he’d heard a 7″ I’d put out through Goya called ‘Let Me Know’. Sometimes you meet people who have a kind of musical ESP but just in a completely different way to people who make music and he was one of those guys. On his recommendation Jonatan came over to Bristol to write and record for a weekend and we couldn’t have got on better. Turns out he’s one day older than me to the year. We stayed in contact since and there are another two tunes from those sessions that are waiting for their time too.
The lyrics developed out of an element of chorus melody that Jonatan had written and although there was already a very clear idea about the overall theme of the track, the specific story grew out from there. I think meaning is pretty obvious, but a big part of my interest in writing it was to find a way to address those themes in a bold way but without the track becoming trite. Jonatan has been easy to work with in that respect because he’s always really happy to go back and forth and rework things till they’re sitting correctly.
Excuse the pun, but you made ‘Little While’ a little while ago. How has your impression of it changed over that time?
It’s a track that we’ve played a lot in the live and I’ve definitely not got tired of it. It might seem strange that it’s taken such a long time to surface but, as I say, it’s just the way things work with me. There were plans to release it last year and right at the last minute some important elements fell through and it was just clear it wasn’t the right time. I don’t like the feeling of putting music out for the sake of it. I’m really happy to be able to put it out with you guys now – hopefully it’s fitting as a tribute to Felix too.
Looking back over the last year, what have been some of your favourite tracks or albums of 2014?
I listened to Lewis Taylor a lot this year. Andy and Pev’s thing on Triolgy Tapes is great and I also got obsessed with this.
What’s on the horizon for you in 2015? Any plans for releases, tours, remixes or collaborations you can tell us about?
Been writing with Alex from Okapii, Zara McFarland (2014 Mobo Award Winner), this amazing guy called Thabo, Fini Bearman and Secaina Hudson amongst others.
This year was a quiet one in terms of releases, but 2015 should be a more constant flow. Next Typesun EP has a release date set for April then a string of singles for the rest of the year some on my own label some on other peoples. There are also a bunch of 7 Arrows tracks ready to roll which is where the dark out sound system part of me lives. The band is sounding tougher than ever and we’re looking forward to getting out and about even more over the next year.
Catch Typesun in Bristol on Thurs 4th December. More info on Facebook.
