By Anji Bee | July 14, 2000
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| King of the Nu-Skool Adam Freeland enjoys a rare moment of relaxation. |
Buy Adam Freeland's music
Visit Adam Freeland's labels
Ultra Records
Marine Parade
Read Choler's review of Tectonics
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Whether or not he's comfortable with his title, Adam Freeland has been crowned the king of Nu-Skool breaks, the subgenre of electronic music built around heavy use of jazz and funk breakbeats as opposed to the four-to-the-floor kick drum of house and trance. Though he may deny the validity of the genre's name (despite having coined it), he certainly won't deny the validity of the genre itself. In fact, he's on a mission to bring breakbeat to the masses, via extensive DJ commitments, his own record label and various musical projects and collaborations.
A mere 26 years old, Freeland already has quite an impressive bio. He owns Marine Parade, a 2-year-old home studio and label with a growing roster of bands -- among them, Freeland's group project Tsunami One, whose collaboration with trance king BT, "Hip-Hop Phenomenon," has been a hit both Stateside and back home in Europe. Also on the roster is the solo project of Tsunami One collaborator Beber (who made a splash with his singles "Juvenile Delinquent" and "Chief Rocker" and is busy at work on his debut full-length album for Marine Parade) plus a number of up-and-coming artists, Apex, Evil 9 and Hi-Fi Bugs.
Freeland also holds bimonthly DJ residency at New York City superclub Twilo and spins regularly at Nikita/Spundae in San Francisco, Buzz/Sting in Washington, D.C., and now at Giant in Los Angeles -- all of this in addition to a series of residencies in the U.K., including Friction, a club he began with Rennie Pilgrim and Tayo back in 1997. Additionally, Freeland makes regular radio appearances. He spins weekly in London for dance-music stronghold KISS 100 and monthly in New York for K-Rock as well as performing one-off sets here and there.
Somehow, this overly busy young man managed to find the time to sit on the Santa Monica beach with me for an hour of discussion about his DJ career, the growing breakbeat scene and his fantastic new mix CD, Tectonics, squeezing our conversation in between his blazing set at Giant the night before and shortly before storming off to Las Vegas for a live appearance that night.
Anji Bee: Let's start by talking about your chosen genre, Nu-Skool breaks.
Adam Freeland: Ah, that little chestnut! I try not to term what I'm doing as Nu-Skool breaks -- the media puts that little tag on it.
Who came up with the tag, then?
Well, actually, I did make it up. I was really influenced by the West Coast breaks scene here in the mid '90s. Rennie Pilgrim and I were into it together, and we started a club. In England, at that time, the house clubs were all cheesy big-beat clubs. Everyone in that scene was, like, old-school, you know? And everything was about old-school samples -- not just the old-school breaks, but the old hip-hop and funk samples as well. It was all, "Old-school, old-school, old-school!" So I was like, "Hang on! It's the 1990s! Why are we trying to be old-school?" All music is influenced by the music that's gone before it, you can't help that; that's where it comes from, its roots -- but don't try to recreate it! Just take it and move on. So, we were like, "Fuck old-school! We'll put on the flyer [for our club] 'New friction, Nu-Skool breaks and future electro.'" That's just what we put on the flyer, and it went from there, really. It wasn't supposed to be a tag for the scene. I just call it breakbeat. But there you go -- it is one!
I was surprised, actually, that the album cover and liner notes of Tectonics didn't make mention of the genre you're promoting, like "Adam Freeland spinning the best of … " or that sort of thing.
I think the music speaks for itself, you know? That album is not like a big trance album, where you've got your big name artists on there to sell records. It's just a selection of tunes I love. Some of those records just sold 700 copies.
How would you say breakbeat is different from drum 'n' bass and hip-hop?
Tempo is the main difference. It's right about 130 beats per minute. Hip-hop is about 90 bpm; breakbeat is about 130; and drum 'n' bass is about 160, 170. For me, 130 bpm -- which actually is also the tempo for house music, techno music, African tribal rhythms and Tibetan monks' rhythms -- that seems to be a natural tempo for the body to move. [Laughs] Whilst we are the size that we are, that's the tempo that we move well to.
I hadn't thought about body size in relation to how fast one moves.
Well, of course! It's physics, isn't it? If you were a big giant, you wouldn't be able to dance that fast. But obviously, it does have a strong influence from drum 'n' bass. It's also got a strong influence from house music, but I was fed up with those beats, myself.
Listening to Tectonics, there are various styles of breakbeat: electro, housey, jazzy, techno, etc. Though there's not really a "scene" in America yet, is breakbeat splintering into different factions, the way that house and jungle have?
[Long pause] Yeah. There is a scene here developing -- I mean, there's obviously the Florida thing, which I really don't feel I have anything to do with. I feel closer to the house and trance world than I do to that Florida breaks thing because that's very cheesy, all that stuff.
But do they like you there?
Yeah. Because they've been dancing to all these cheesy breaks, so [when they hear me] they think, "Shit! There's actually good breaks!" and they go mad. The thing is, there was a really good breaks scene in America four or five years ago, like the Metro L.A. Basics label, Hardkiss, Uberzone, early City of Angels.
What happened to all of that?
The thing that happened is that all the Florida shit came along and made breakbeat uncool. So all the DJs stopped playing it and started playing house. When I would come here in '96, '97, and people would ask, "Oh, what do you play?" and I answered, "Breakbeat," they were like, "Ew!" Then they'd hear me and were like, "Ah, I see now! It's not what I thought you meant. So there is good breakbeat." Now it's beginning to come through, I think. The reactions have been great, and I think it's going to blow up here.
People are saying good things about you, that's for sure.
Oh, really? I think that it's not just me; it's the whole scene that's coming through. Every town I've been to on this tour -- and I've been to some fairly remote towns -- everyone knows a lot of the records.
Who would you say would be the most well known of the breakbeat artists?
Ah, Tsunami One, which is our band -- me and Beber -- probably. The track on Tectonics is a collaboration with BT, as well. There's Rennie Pilgrim. Freq Nasty is beginning to come through. But the core of it is Beber -- he's a fucking wicked artist, and ILS, who used to do drum 'n' bass as ILS & Solo for [LTJ] Bukem's label [Good Looking Records], but then he got fed up with the formula, you know? I heard the new Earth album [LTJ Bukem Presents Earth, Vol. 4] by the way. Pretty mediocre stuff, man.
How do you feel about Bukem's recent album, Journey Inwards?
I think he's completely lost touch with his audience. He's obviously bored by drum 'n' bass -- that's why there's no more drum 'n' bass on there. I've got a lot of respect for Bukem; I'm certainly not dissing him. But I was really disappointed by his album. If you're gonna be jazzy, cool. I love jazz. But that stuff is so safe! It's very nice dinner music. Nothing wrong with being sophisticated, but most of Bukem's fans are not middle-class dinner-party havers. They're 19-year-old kids, and that music has absolutely no correlation to where their heads are at, especially in America, where there's a lot of anger and frustration. The music needs to have balls. You know, it's very easy as a musician to lose touch with your crowd because you're so into what you're doing; you're in your studio, you don't want to go clubbing, and you stop listening. before you know it, you've lost it. But Bukem is very talented. He could get it back.
I didn't hear much about your previous album.
I've done two others, actually, two Coastal Breaks albums. The first one was in '96, and the other in '98. They did well on import. [Tectonics] is my first domestic release in America.
How would you say Tectonics compares to the Coastal Breaks series?
I think it's more mature. Coastal Breaks was more of an eclectic mix of tunes that were doing it for me, from different influences and places, whereas Tectonics represents the fact that, over the past few years, I've been playing at a lot of big clubs -- so it's more dance-oriented. My whole mission with this music is that it's a major dance-floor force, and I can hold my own upside any of those big trance or techno DJs. This is the future of Clubland, really. If you're bored with 4/4 monotony, open your mind and listen!
I didn't realize until recently that you were a producer as well as a DJ. Tell us about your projects.
Tsunami One is the main project, but that's on hold whilst Kevin [Beber] works on his album and I work on my album. After this tour, I'm pretty much inside the studio. I think for a while I'll not DJ so much and keep a low profile so I can get on with it.
Any other remixes in the works?
I just did a remix for Pressure Drop, actually. They've just done a new album; it's sounding fucking good. That's coming out at the end of the year, I think. Great album. My remix will be on the first single, called "Warrior." It's sorta dubby, with a male vocal. I'm happy with that. But you can get caught up doing remixes. I want to put my energy into doing my own music now.
Is your solo music programming-based, or do you have live elements as well?
The track I was just working on has got trumpet in it. The remix I just did has live bass guitar. I'm working with various vocalists, bands and musicians but giving it that technological edge.
Is Marine Parade a vinyl-only label?
It's been mostly 12-inches thus far, but a couple of singles have been CDs as well. Tectonics is the first album we've put out. It has been a predominantly vinyl-based thing, but I'm not trying to do a DJ label; I'm trying to develop artists. It's still [in its] very early days, but I've got some really fucking cool artists, and they're all working on albums now. I'm not interested in just putting out 12-inches for DJs. I want to change the world with this music. Appealing to a few hundred people in their bedrooms doesn't excite me. What excites me is getting this music out there to be heard.
How do you feel about MP3s?
I don't think it's a very good format yet; the sound quality's not there. Once they've got new compression with MP4 or whatever, it'll happen. I think what people are missing about all this excitement on the Internet is that humans want a physical product. They don't just want files on their hard drive; they want something they can hold in their hands and say, "I've spent my $15 on this!" People need to get out more -- buy a CD, put it in the car, put it on headphones and go for a skate.
Anji Bee is a freelance writer and musician living in Long Beach, Calif.
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