INTERVIEW: Future Self feat Jamie Jamal presents The One

Future Self teams up with Bristol vocalist Jamie Jamal and Waifs & Strays for the fifth release from Self Control Records. It represents a collaboration that brings together like-minded creatives who share the same passion and have something they need to share after a year of lockdown. The result of this collaboration is titled: The One.

We have had the pleasure of interviewing Future Self about his current work and future projects. Enjoy!

Hi how are things? Can you tell us a bit about your background? I grew up in Sweden in the 80s in a fairly quiet suburb, exposed to music from a young age. My first influences was 80s pop and my dad's jazz collection, but soon got exposed to J.M.Jarre, The Prodigy, Goldie and then the world of electronic music opened up the further into the 90s I got. From around 2000 I started producing drum'n'bass and had a decent career DJing and releasing as Materia, before I started diversifying - which eventually got one of my tracks to be featured by Carl Cox on his 10 Years of Space Ibiza album and culminated in a cross-genre album called Atlas in 2013. After that I took a long break with kids and only really got back into music production about two years ago.

What can you tell us about your new EP? How was it born? The story of 'The One' is quite long and started in the summer of 2019 when I was getting really productive as Future Self - this particular track went into a deeper and slightly heavier direction but I didn't really know what to do with it so left it for a few months until I started speaking to Jamie Jamal on a BBC Introducing discussion thread on Twitter. He was happy to add vocals to the track and that really really brought it to life. It's nice to see Waifs & Strays on the remix, how did that come about? At the start of 2021 I got talking to Amos from Waifs & Strays, another Bristolian, and we discussed making some music together. He was up for doing the remix of the track and made something really stripped back and totally different to the original - a really effective club record which I am super pleased with. How do you produce in the studio? Any particular gear? Many years ago I had a big hardware studio with a vocal booth and lots of synths, but these days I keep it very much in the box - every track that has been released as Future Self has been made 100% in FL Studio on a MacBook Pro with VSTs and synths. This gives me the ability to work in short bursts with almost no friction, so that I can do 10 or 20 iterations of a track, tweaking details as I go. The mastering is done by Robert Macciochi who has done everything for me since before my album.

How has your sound evolved since you started? Given that I started making music around 1988 on an Amiga 500, it has evolved a lot! Going from trackers to very early generation DAWs to what is possible these days, using a variety of outboard gear or not, and producing in fairly different genres, I think it's fair to say my sound is diverse but some might say they can still see a similar strand of style in all the music I have made over the years. :) Are there any people whos sound particular inspired your latest record? I have to admit, I listened a fair bit to the drop in Artbat & Camelphat - For a Feeling, but this was only after I had made the core of the track. I wanted to have a similar tension and release with the pre-drop vocal, and given we were stuck in lockdown I could only imagine in my mind a moment when the track could be dropped on a big system with synchronised lights really blowing people away. Time will tell if I achieved this. :) Could you tell us some last words of wisdom? The only way to become a good producer is to produce a lot of music. This is the same with anything in life. Anyone can do anything as long as they apply themselves, iterate and learn from their experience. But you should do it because you want to, because you have to, because it makes you happy.