Image: Shawn FowlerForget all that malarkey about the Scots being mean scrooges, Aberdonian producer Lockah recently flipped the THUMP crew a tight unreleased track and today he shares with us a new cut from his forthcoming EP And Blue Brindle Too.Now based in Brighton, the versatile Scot, real name Tom Banks, produces some synth heavy sunshine and on the new EP fleshes it out with some live drums and guitar for a more throwback take on electronic pop.Though he’s released material on Mad Decent sub label Jeffrees as well as remix duties for Fools Gold and OWSLA, his current home is the amazing Donky Pitch whose roster includes Mount Bank, Tokyo Hands and Slugabed.We had a chat to Tom about the new record and Prince’s perversions.Noisey: Your music is bright and bouncy. Not words I think of when Aberdeen is mentioned. Was there much adjustment from moving to Brighton?
Tom Banks: My music doesn't often reflect my surroundings too literally. If it did, all my earlier stuff would be pretty gloomy and grey. Brighton's not too far removed from Aberdeen in a lot of ways, but a bigger change was quitting my office job after nine years and living day to day from music. It can be quite difficult to adjust to when you suddenly lose that monotonous daily structure and have to manage your time. If you don't keep on top of it, you can lose your mind a bit.Are you a Dons fan?
Truthfully I don't really care about sports of any kind, but when I was younger I used to enjoy Aberdeen matches. I did watch the League Cup final last year, so it was pretty cool to see them win some silverware for the first time in 20 years or something. There were tens of thousands of people welcoming the team back through the middle of the city after they returned home, that was some #aberdeentruth, son.Why the decision to add live drums and guitars?
It's something I had in mind from the first album onwards, but never really had a studio space that I could use for such a thing. Down in Brighton, I had linked up with engineer Joe Caple a few times via mutual friends and we got chatting about the possibility of laying down some live stuff to add an extra dimension to the sound and give the feel of a real studio recording instead of a solely electronic record. Joe mixed the whole thing too, through a big studio desk and loads of gnarly vintage gear. You’ve said that the album was to conjure the image of Prince’s Vanity 6. Did you know that Prince originally wanted to give Vanity the stage name Vagina to be pronounced /vaginɑ/?
Right, the concept of additional studio personnel behind the recording first popped into my head as an imaginary band called Blue Brindle. Sort of like Vanity 6, or one of the various other little 'protégées' or side projects of different artists of the era too. The funny thing is, a lot of the time there are some pretty weird stories behind them. Mary-Jane Girls, (a group of Rick James') was such a loosely put-together project without even a functioning lineup of singers, so there weren't enough of them to be able to actually perform the songs live. How could Rick James in the late 70s fail to find a handful of competent female vocalists? I had read that Vanity was supposed to be called Vagina. If that's not a testament to cocaine's utter dominance of the music industry of the 80s I'm not sure what is. The title of the track we are premiering is kind of odd.
I'm just obsessed with dumb names and phrases, punnery, word-play and all that sort. It's a riff on that amazing Viper art for "You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack".
April 23 - Melbourne at the Lounge (Donky Pitch showcase)
Arpril 26 - Perth at the Good Shepherd
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Tom Banks: My music doesn't often reflect my surroundings too literally. If it did, all my earlier stuff would be pretty gloomy and grey. Brighton's not too far removed from Aberdeen in a lot of ways, but a bigger change was quitting my office job after nine years and living day to day from music. It can be quite difficult to adjust to when you suddenly lose that monotonous daily structure and have to manage your time. If you don't keep on top of it, you can lose your mind a bit.Are you a Dons fan?
Truthfully I don't really care about sports of any kind, but when I was younger I used to enjoy Aberdeen matches. I did watch the League Cup final last year, so it was pretty cool to see them win some silverware for the first time in 20 years or something. There were tens of thousands of people welcoming the team back through the middle of the city after they returned home, that was some #aberdeentruth, son.Why the decision to add live drums and guitars?
It's something I had in mind from the first album onwards, but never really had a studio space that I could use for such a thing. Down in Brighton, I had linked up with engineer Joe Caple a few times via mutual friends and we got chatting about the possibility of laying down some live stuff to add an extra dimension to the sound and give the feel of a real studio recording instead of a solely electronic record. Joe mixed the whole thing too, through a big studio desk and loads of gnarly vintage gear. You’ve said that the album was to conjure the image of Prince’s Vanity 6. Did you know that Prince originally wanted to give Vanity the stage name Vagina to be pronounced /vaginɑ/?
Right, the concept of additional studio personnel behind the recording first popped into my head as an imaginary band called Blue Brindle. Sort of like Vanity 6, or one of the various other little 'protégées' or side projects of different artists of the era too. The funny thing is, a lot of the time there are some pretty weird stories behind them. Mary-Jane Girls, (a group of Rick James') was such a loosely put-together project without even a functioning lineup of singers, so there weren't enough of them to be able to actually perform the songs live. How could Rick James in the late 70s fail to find a handful of competent female vocalists? I had read that Vanity was supposed to be called Vagina. If that's not a testament to cocaine's utter dominance of the music industry of the 80s I'm not sure what is. The title of the track we are premiering is kind of odd.
I'm just obsessed with dumb names and phrases, punnery, word-play and all that sort. It's a riff on that amazing Viper art for "You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack".
Catch Lockah here:
April 23 - Melbourne at the Lounge (Donky Pitch showcase)
Arpril 26 - Perth at the Good Shepherd