My journey working with Skunk Anasie started after meeting Cass (the band’s bass player) outside the Premesis studios in Hackney. I had loved their albums ever since I had discovered them as a 12 year old, and after hearing they were reforming after their 10 year hiatus I had to let him know that I would love to do a remix for them.
That led to me remixing ‘Because of you’:
I had a lot of fun with this remix. Inspired by the emerging dubstep scene (this was 2009) I played around with the feel of half time drum patterns and layered modulated bass sounds. Skunk Anansie are an incredible live band, and i wanted to capture some live energy in my remix but with a futuristic electronic sound. This was achieved by collaborating with old friend and drummer Sam Garner, playing a midi drum kit and then used those midi patterns to layer up more layers of synths and percussion.
The overall effect is complex and varied, and it still sounds fresh to my ears after 15 years
Following this, lead singer Skin asked if I would be interested in remixing their following single ‘Squander’:
Thankfully, the band loved what I did with it, and it became the final track on their greatest hits album alongside a host of huge producers such as D.Ramirez, Skream, Armand Van Helden, Paul Woodford and more.
Following this, I had a meeting with the band which led to me reworking elements from their entire back catalog to create an introduction to their sold out european tour. I was handed a hard drive with stems to all their previous recordings, and told I could have fun with it, just make something that says ‘we’re back!’
This was all a bit mad, considering I haden’t released anything as an artist up to this point!
After this, I then wrote then introduction to their next sold out tour – for the following album Wonderluster. The banking crises of 2008 was still fresh to everyone, so it felt right (and the band were onboard with the idea) to include news clips and references to the event that had shaken the financial world. Its a hard edged and noisy piece of electro-punk, aimed to set the stage as the band then played over the end of the track:
During this time I began working on what became my debut album under the alias iLL AUDiO, collaborating with Skin on ‘Never be the same’, and signing to distictive records.