Meet the next production whizz kid coming out of south London.
South London has been the centre of our attention since east fell out of fashion and the bright young things below the river came to the surface (think moody beats from Jamie Isaac, growling baritones of Archy Marshall and Klein’s own brand of minimal glitch rap), so we’re not entirely sure how Ross From Friends slipped under our radar for so long. The producer is set to release his EP, “You’ll Understand” officially on 19th August via Distant Hawaii (Lobster Theremin) and is raking in thousands of plays for every track he puts online, we’re ready to admit we might have been slow to the mark on this one, but we’re glad we stumbled onto him eventually.
Listening to his latest uploads, you see the full scope of Ross’ talents. Opening with a soft skitter that sounds like an old projector whirring into life, the percussion picks up before melting into a *gnarly AF* electric guitar solo on “Talk To Me You’ll Understand”. “Gettin’ It Done”, another track featured on the EP, has more warped bass-y R&B vocals than you could ever wish for and a beat you could shuffle your socks off to (if you’re of the shuffling persuasion).
Firstly, how did you end up with your name? Big Ross fan?
I ended up with the name after trawling through a long list of really stupid ideas for monikers that I had been accumulating. There was quite a lot of weird and probably quite offensive names in that bag. I ran them all by my pals and Ross From Friends, although receiving some pretty mixed reviews, is the one that really stuck.
What are you working on right now?
Right now I’m working on a whole host of music: a bunch of remixes, live tracks, and a hip-hop side project that I’m jazzed to launch. I’m focusing a lot on an EP that is set to drop in the new year with a record label that I’ve been dying to work with for a long while.
How would you describe your sound?
The sound I go for is really an attempt to just be quite original within the lo-fi soundscape, but that isn’t a fixed “sound” that I am really able to describe. I’m really into the whole 80s electronic thing at the moment—I borrowed a Yamaha DX7 from my friend and have pretty much been glued to the Electric Piano sound, so expect a lot of that in future releases! By extension, I’m always sticking a lot of gated reverb and chorus on pretty much anything, again to emulate the production style of 80s pop producers. As well as all of this, sampling
Talk to us about your video piece “This Guy’s Wearing A Wire”: the why, the who, the how?
That video, along with “Chief Rumbled The Perp”, was a bit of an experiment to try a different creative process: I produced the video first—filmed from various spots around my local area—then wrote the music to fit in time, and theme, with the video itself—kinda like a movie score. That whole project was wicked fun and I’m working on another piece that follows the same principals of these first two.
Why do you make music? What motivates you?
Everything about it is just really good fun. It’s super satisfying knowing that something that you’ve slaved for hours over is making people dance, have fun or have some kind of emotional reaction. It’s also just really exciting when I’ve come up with something that I really like, be it a sample, synth line or drum break, and I’m standing dancing in my bedroom thinking “this is it!!”
NEW NOISE: ROSS FROM FRIENDS
AUGUST 2ND, 2016
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Meet the next production whizz kid coming out of south London.
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South London has been the centre of our attention since east fell out of fashion and the bright young things below the river came to the surface (think moody beats from Jamie Isaac, growling baritones of Archy Marshall and Klein’s own brand of minimal glitch rap), so we’re not entirely sure how Ross From Friends slipped under our radar for so long. The producer is set to release his EP, “You’ll Understand” officially on 19th August via Distant Hawaii (Lobster Theremin) and is raking in thousands of plays for every track he puts online, we’re ready to admit we might have been slow to the mark on this one, but we’re glad we stumbled onto him eventually.
Listening to his latest uploads, you see the full scope of Ross’ talents. Opening with a soft skitter that sounds like an old projector whirring into life, the percussion picks up before melting into a *gnarly AF* electric guitar solo on “Talk To Me You’ll Understand”. “Gettin’ It Done”, another track featured on the EP, has more warped bass-y R&B vocals than you could ever wish for and a beat you could shuffle your socks off to (if you’re of the shuffling persuasion).
You can’t knock his video editing skills either, you can spy David Cameron performing a rather believable feature on “Talk To Me You’ll Understand” over on Ross’ YouTube channel. We caught up with Ross to talk about what’s coming next.
Firstly, how did you end up with your name? Big Ross fan?
I ended up with the name after trawling through a long list of really stupid ideas for monikers that I had been accumulating. There was quite a lot of weird and probably quite offensive names in that bag. I ran them all by my pals and Ross From Friends, although receiving some pretty mixed reviews, is the one that really stuck.
What are you working on right now?
Right now I’m working on a whole host of music: a bunch of remixes, live tracks, and a hip-hop side project that I’m jazzed to launch. I’m focusing a lot on an EP that is set to drop in the new year with a record label that I’ve been dying to work with for a long while.
How would you describe your sound?
The sound I go for is really an attempt to just be quite original within the lo-fi soundscape, but that isn’t a fixed “sound” that I am really able to describe. I’m really into the whole 80s electronic thing at the moment—I borrowed a Yamaha DX7 from my friend and have pretty much been glued to the Electric Piano sound, so expect a lot of that in future releases! By extension, I’m always sticking a lot of gated reverb and chorus on pretty much anything, again to emulate the production style of 80s pop producers. As well as all of this, sampling
Talk to us about your video piece “This Guy’s Wearing A Wire”: the why, the who, the how?
That video, along with “Chief Rumbled The Perp”, was a bit of an experiment to try a different creative process: I produced the video first—filmed from various spots around my local area—then wrote the music to fit in time, and theme, with the video itself—kinda like a movie score. That whole project was wicked fun and I’m working on another piece that follows the same principals of these first two.
Why do you make music? What motivates you?
Everything about it is just really good fun. It’s super satisfying knowing that something that you’ve slaved for hours over is making people dance, have fun or have some kind of emotional reaction. It’s also just really exciting when I’ve come up with something that I really like, be it a sample, synth line or drum break, and I’m standing dancing in my bedroom thinking “this is it!!”
Best gigging moment thus far?
The best gigging moment is actually a really tough one. Although we’ve only played live a few times, each one has had some really notable, crazy moments. Our first live show, at Brainchild Festival, was such a special moment; we were given the 8pm-9pm slot at this stage called “The Shack”, a stage made from pink scaffolding in an opening in the woods. All of our friends came out to see us and the sunset was coming through the trees as we were playing and the people were super open to the music we were playing—it was such a perfect vibe! Our gig at Dance Tunnel supporting Route 8, although an entirely different atmosphere, was also just a wild experience. The entire club was so packed and just weird hot, proper sweaty basement party, such great fun.
What can we expect from you next? EP? LP?
I’m always writing a ton of music. I’ve got another EP ready to go with Lobster Theremin, and in talks about another release with a label I’m really keen to work with.
Where do you hope to be five years from now?
The dream is to work towards a couple of LPs with some really strong themes running throughout. And not necessarily grounded within dance music. Also, I’d like to expand the live show, introduce new instruments and reduce the use of a laptop so people are able to interact with the music much more.
