Shades Of Gray - Making the Soul Machine

With the release of the ambitios project of releasing not only their debut album, but also a complete package of remixes, we asked Beef label boss and one half of Shades Of Gray, DJ Schwa, along with some of the remix artists involved to tell us a little bit about the project.

Dj Schwa - Shades Of Gray (Beef Records)



Nick always wanted to do the full-length album. After so many single records, EP and remixes there wasn’t any excuse for not doing it. I am glad that Nick was the driving engine behind the idea. We started working on the album at the end of 2010. We wrote quite a few tracks since then so it wasn't easy to choose the right ones for the album. The whole project took quite a long time, especially because we are dealing with physical products. Both CDs and vinyl records take quite a long time to produce. It would be much easier to do just digital album, but we didn't want to do that.
It's a great feeling to see the album out (came out last week) and already charting on Traxsource, Decks, Juno etc. To be honest I can't wait to be back in Australia and present the album live on stage with Nick West as Shades Of Gray live. Also we will be celebrating 5 years of Beef records.

Eric Volta aka Kid Dub (Four:Twenty, Dirtybird, Nervous)

I have wanted to work with the BEEF guys since I came across them playing at a great after hours in Sydney while I was on tour sometime back. The vibe was great and reminded me of summer Sundays in London & after being away on tour for sometime - it was very much needed. And of course, bumping into friends from London at the party only made it a little more special. So when Schwa asked for a remix I was more than happy to come in on it. There were some elements in the original that really reminded me of some great old french house records I used to collect and I decided to pay respect to some of my inspirations with the remix I did. I hope everyone enjoys the remix as much as i enjoyed producing it.

Steve Ward (Chameleon, Bush, Trapez)



I'm a big fan of the Shades of Gray boys, not only for their music and their super professional record label, but the fact that they are genuinely great guys.  When they asked me to be involved in the project i was really pleased. We had regularly spoken about me remixing one of their tunes on beef and them remixing something for chameleon, but nothing had come up that was appropriate. So not only am I happy that we will be finally working together but I am stoked that they asked me to be involved in their first album as well! When they told me that First Kontakt was the one they wanted me to remix, I was really into the idea as there were several elements of the track which resonated with my style of music, like the vocal, stabs and percussion.
I knew i'd really be able to do my thing with great parts like these, so I ended up stripping the track back to only several of the underlying elements and resampled their held EP chord into an epic melody in the breakdown, not to mention giving it more of a darker driving vibe to it.
My remix ended up being very different to the original however we were all happy with what eventuated as the finished product. I really hope that Shades Of Gray get the attention they deserve with this album, it is definitely something special!

Soul Minority (Kolour, Stratospheric)

I've been following and enjoying their work for a long time (I released one of their EP on my label Stratospherik back in 2010), so I was really excited when they asked me to remix one of their debut album trackxs.
They sent me 2 or 3 tracks, and I immediately chose "Lost in The Past", because of the piano line and the disco strings. This track has an irresistible old school feeling that made me think of Armando's work on Radikal Fear, so I worked in that direction for my remix by adding some old school vocals on a straighter 4/4 groove."

Shades of Gray: Soul Machine is available now through Beef Records with the second remix package featuring additional work from Jef K & Gwen Maze, The Timewriter, Peter Horrevorts and more.

Listen on Shades of Gray on Pulse Radio