Native Mix #076: Bidl

The Native Mix

Native

05 Jun 2018

Mix #076 is provided by Brighton-based beat maker, Bidl

Our latest mix has landed. Sending off-kilter jazzy sounds and trip-hop beats your way, #076 of our Native Mix series comes direct from DJ, producer and founder of Gorilla Sounds and Vibe Library, Bidl

We caught up with the Brightonian musician to discuss sound-systems, stolen decks and celebrity dinner guests: 

 

So to begin, you're a founding member of both Gorilla Sounds and Vibe Library - tell us about those?

Gorilla Sounds was started with Sam and Alex when moving to Brighton, after botching together a dual-loaded 18" sub and piecing together the Gorilla Sound System. We then very quickly got ourselves a show on TrickstarFM and were playing two hours of DnB every week, which began to define GS.

Our tastes then developed a bit more and we started including music that was sampled to create famous jungle tracks (eg. Lonnie Liston Smith - Shadows) and tracks from artists that differed to what they would usually make (eg. Frits Wentink - Words to Fit). Now we're on the lovely 1BTN playing loads of jazz and hip hop!

Vibe Library started off as a radio show on KaneFM in Guildford, which I joined at a later stage once I moved down there. The premise of the show was that we played anything we wanted, but it had to be good.

Obviously quite a loose term but we managed to piece together a hugely eclectic 2-hour show every week, which in turn gave me an appreciation for such a wider spread of music. When all moved out of Guildford, things fizzled a bit 'cos we were all in different cities.

Around this time, I started developing Gorilla Sounds and Harry (Soulcheeba) began putting together Nice Recordings (who are doing really well at the moment). After a while though, there was an opportunity to turn Vibe Library into an event upstairs at Patterns, which is now VL's main outlet.

We love playing there - always a good crowd and the venue treats us really well but more importantly it's an opportunity for us all to meet up again and do what we do best. 

But this guest mix a different project, right? Tell us about what you do as 'Bidl'.

Yeah, Bidl is my own personal project which I guess has been developing ever since I started trying to make music. Production-wise, I'm yet to define an absolute sound for myself but I'm trying to find a middle ground between the different styles of music that I love, being 140, hip hop, jazz, and DNB. I've got a few tunes in the pipeline, which I've included in this mix so you can get a feel for where I'm at at the moment.

How did you get into music? What's your earliest music memory?

My first real love of music was definitely metal and emo style bands - early Linkin Park, Bullet for my Valentine, Slipknot, Avenged Sevenfold and System of a Down was my life and I had the hair to match. I still love it now and occasionally I'll listen to an album or two from my old collection when I need a switch up.

Which producers/musicians do you take inspiration from?

Stray, Om Unit, Flying Lotus, Machinedrum, DJRUM

And you recently ran into some DJ related misfortune, right?

Hah, well basically we (Gorilla Sounds) rented out our Pioneer XDJ-RX to a Sussex Uni society, who were putting on an event at a particular hotel. After being assured that they'd be safe, some guy forced their doors open with the intention of sleeping in the building.

Turns out he used to be a DJ, so when he saw our equipment he recognised the value and so ran off down the road with his sleeping bag wrapped around the flight case! Luckily, the police caught the guy so just waiting on further developments as to where the equipment could be. Absolute madness. To be honest, I feel really sad for the guy who did it - he must be in a pretty desperate place in his life to do that. 

You can have dinner with one DJ, one rapper, and one pop singer - who's coming round for tacos and why?

Haha! That's a good question... DJ-wise I reckon I'd invite Skream cos although he's hugely talented and I'd have a bunch of questions to ask about his career, I feel like he's a normal enough guy to just have a laugh with.

Rapper - Tyler the Creator. He'd definitely have some funny chat.

Pop Singer would probably be Yukimi Nagano. Although, it would be a terrible dinner for her because she would just have to just give me the life-story of Little Dragon and I would probably just forget to cook her anything.

Where do you plan to take Bidl/Gorilla/VL next?

I would love to see Bidl become a live performance, but that's gonna take a lot of work first. I have plenty of projects that haven't materialised into finished tunes and I'd see this as a way of utilising them so that good projects don't just disappear into nothing, which I think is common for a lot of producers.

Currently, the direction for Gorilla Sounds is making more of a deal out of the sound system. We do a really good price considering how nice it sounds and it really does help take a party to the next level so we really wanna encourage people to inquire about house-parties or beach-parties. 

There's stuff in the works for Vibe Library, which I won't go into too much detail about at the moment as we only recently had a conversation about it. But ideally, we wanna start going down more of a live route as Brighton has a pool of hugely talented musicians that we would love to collaborate with. 

Finally, what are you listening to right now?   

Right now I'm listening to Ivy Lab's new album Death Don't Always Taste Good (cos it's great) and going through old tracks of Eskmo - up until recently I'd only really listened to his Language EP, which I adore. I then had the thought to check out his discography and I'm so glad I did, which is why his track 'Siblings' had to be in the mix.

Also, I'm loving 30/70 at the moment - their album on Rhythm Section is so good. Very much looking forward to seeing them at Brainchild Festival this year! 

Listen to more of Bidl via Soundcloud here