Plant43 Q&A Part Two - Background, Influences and Ideas behind The Unfading Spark
Last day of half-price too x
Hi friends - hope all good :)
Really happy to share the second part of our Q&A with Plant43 today - Emile’s such a wonderful example of someone that lives and breathes music so it’s fascinating to hear more about his background and influences that have lead to him evolving into such an incredible musician.
Before we start, today’s the last day to buy the qd20 digital half-price and some CDs left too if you want - message me if you bought the physical for the download of the beautiful long-form edition.
Now here’s Part Two of our chat:
What’s your musical background?
I grew up in a very musical family. My great grandfather was a professional clarinet player and I played recorder, then clarinet, piano and sang in school and church choirs at a young age. I started getting interested in electronic music around the age of 10 and the first time I remember hearing synths was in the early 80s. TV theme tunes like Knight Rider and Street Hawk were big inspirations to me, the latter of which used a track called ‘Le Parc’ by Tangerine Dream. John Williams’ Star Wars soundtrack also had a huge impact on me.
In 1984 I saw the movie Breakin' and I heard ‘Tour De France’ by Kraftwerk for the first time. The arrival of the first wave of electro in the UK was mind blowing and I was totally hooked. About the same time my parents gave me my first computer and I started programming music on it. Shortly afterwards I persuaded them to buy me my first keyboard.
Following this I started collecting and fell in love with many different types of music. Early on the Street Sounds Electro compilations were really important as well as Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley’s ‘Jack Your Body’ and Harold Faltermeyer’s ‘Axel F’. I explored hip hop, thrash and death metal, grindcore, techno and industrial all while attending lots of gigs and festivals. Early Drum & Bass was also a huge influence and Underground Resistance, Warp and Tresor also played a big part. I was a regular at the Lost techno parties from the mid to late 90s where I saw Jeff Mills, Robert Hood and Juan Atkins among many others.
After studying illustration and graphic design at art college I jumped straight back into the music world, creating artwork for electronic music events, helping promote electro and drum and bass nights and started DJing and collecting vinyl. In the late 90s I bought my first groovebox from a friend and built a home studio around it. I played my first live set in 2002 and my first release as Plant43 came in 2005.
In 2020 I launched my record label, Plant43 Recordings and since then I’ve released 14 EPs and albums of Plant43 material on the label. Running the label allows me the freedom to crate all of the art and music which is what I’ve always wanted to do.
The Unfading Spark is very cinematic, tell us more about that
I’ve always been a fan of cinema and being a designer, illustrator and photographer it’s always felt very natural for the visual and musical mediums to come together. I’ve always loved the way that albums and soundtracks could take you on a journey.
When I was studying at art college I used to enjoy listening to full albums while I was rendering artwork. Those journeys can really help me get into a creative flow state.
One of the most challenging yet rewarding parts of the project was making the full length mix which appears on the CD edition of the album. While I’ve made lots of ambient DJ mixes it was a very different challenge to take 14 tracks and keep in the chronological order of writing while joining them them together into one long piece.
I’m really happy with how it came out in the end.
Photo credit: Jo Johnson
So huge thanks again to Emile for being part of the series and delivering such a brilliant album - and huge thanks you all for showing so much love and support 💙
Couple of shout-outs:
qd20 Plant43
Bepi Crespan playing a track over on CITR
qd19 Loula Yorke
Space Is the Place including a track on their latest mix
Have an awesome weekend friends, more soon!
Alex
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