Vince Watson - The story so far

Only one word can be used here. Legendary. Over twenty years on most of the most influential labels in the genre, Vince Watson has continued to put out some of the most musical and emotive techno (in the loosest sense of the word, in the best possible way). With his sixth LP just out, we thought  it would be a good time to get Vince to look back over his vast collection of work. And so what follows is 2.5 hours across 30 tracks, story so far mix. Strap yourselves in.

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Who are you? Versatile producer originally from Glasgow, now living in Amsterdam. Made my first record in 1992 at the age of 17. Finally made my first big release in 1996 on Dave Angel's Rotation label and steadily grew a discography which now includes labels like Planet E, Rekids, Tresor, Ibadan, Fcom, Delsin, Tronic amongst many others including my own 2 labels, Bio and Everysoul. Ive now released 125 records, including 7 albums with an 8th due in September and over 30 remixes.

Where have you come from?: My earliest influence was The Police at a very early age, followed by Jean Michel Jarre and electronic pop music from the UK, slowly being joined by Hiphop until the moment of discovery of House music. I wasn't into the whole Kraftwerk thing until later on, was a bit simple for me, I was more used to complexed arrangements and musical design rather than bleeps and casio drums. Everything changed when I left college and Music Acadamy, I started buying synths. My grandmother bought my 303 for £60 and my mother bought my 101 for £50. I was on that journey and I always will be.

Where are you now? Now that I've settled nicely in Amsterdam, my smaller but useable studio is serving me well. It's a good feeling to have a nice setup again. When I left my massive studio in Glasgow behind it was difficult at first, but in the end at lot of the older machines were not really being used so much anymore so the space wasn't needed. I still have my trustworthy synths setup though. Right now im very happy with my creative output. The labels are kicking on nicely now and weve got some great releases lined up, with Alexander Kowalski and Ian O'Donovan next up on Bio. I recently changed my agent so we have a new gig schedule so I'm excited right now. The new album 'Every Soul Needs A Guide' is just out last week, and so far im delighted with the response. Five years is a long time to wait for an album from an artist, so It needed to live up to the waiting time. I think I made the best project so far.

Where are you going? I've got so much music thats still unreleased after having crazy creative sessions and using stuff from liveshows that works well and incorporating that into new tracks. I've got an album coming out on Rekids sub label Triangle on Mars called 'Serene' later this year, which again will further back up my claim on being versatile with its cinematic classical pieces and ambient soundscapes. That is one aspect of my career which is just beginning to start, and thats film/tv music and classical music. Ive been steadily building up my portfolio of classical pieces over the last 12 months and saving them for what will be my first classical album sometime in the next couple of years. The plan will be to have these completely re-created by an orchestra and not only released as a classical CD on a classical label but also as a concert. I'm sure you will hear more news on that in the next few years. As far as my dance music career goes, I've got so many ideas its hard to keep still at times, which is great. I love coming up with new concepts and getting the projects completed. Its also a brilliant feeling to see the new album being so well recieved by fans around the world and these are the moments that make it all worthwhile.

Can you talk us through five of the tracks that stand out for you in the mix?

My Desire.

Carl Craig's 69 'Desire' was one classic that was always in the back of my mind to try and remake one day, as I wanted it without the pitch bent strings [Laughs] As I started to work on it, I realised that there was music coming out of me that wasnt so much of a remake, it was more of my interpretation.
It wasnt long before I had something very beautiful and anxiously trying to fine tune it to send to Carl. After the first Planet E single, they were waiting for the follow up, so this seemed like the perfect time to do it.I had no idea how it would be received..'Desire' was one of those special tracks that no-one dare remix, whats the point? I did know that I had written something really strong, so I was delighted that the single got the OK. Until my new album was released last week, 'My Desire' was probably my most musical composition to date.

Mystical Rhythm.

Many said this was the track that defined me as an artist, but with some of the music I am making now, and still in production, that view needs to be looked at! For sure, Mystical Rhythm has been a real source of pleasure and joy over the 13 or so years since it was first released. There has been a few different mixes of it as well, with the most recent being last year. Even today its still being licensed to many compilations and only last month it was released as part of the Ministry of Sound '20 years Body & Soul' compilation. Still going strong then, timeless perhaps and even when I play it live now it still gets that same reaction it did when I first started playing it years ago. Being part of my first album as well gives it sentimental value for me so its a track that will live forever in my playlists and music career going forward. It was also used as the music for Sky One's Mad Dogs Series 2 recently which was really great.

A Very Different World

I took a musical sabbatical in 2008, things were changing fast and I felt I needed a break. I took around nine months and did other things, started planning a move to Amsterdam and keeping out the studio as much as possible. This was very refreshing for my creative process, and while it took me a good five to six weeks to get back into some kind of groove, 'A Very Different World' was the first track I wrote after that break. Aptly titled, things had evolved even further than I had imagined . It was such a strong emotional track for me, it was my message to fans of my music that I was back. I wasted no time in getting some opinions on it, one of which was from my trusted Scottish brother in rhythm Funk D Void, who was pretty much blown away with it. A remix plan was born. The single did very well, and completely restored my faith in where I was going.

Solitude

I always like to end my albums with a downtempo thoughtful moment, so when my Transmat Album was finished I wanted something a bit different from the rest of the album but in keeping with that chilled out ending of a story. 'Solitude' was the one. It was my first foray into the Jazzy Lounge and Broken-beat genre, a genre that I was always going to get involved with at some point. Transmat sadly stopped and I needed a new home for the album, that's when Delsin came along and I changed the tracks to make it fit the Delsin sound a little better. Solitude stayed. It was written in the middle of autumn locked inside on the wettest Glasgow afternoon. I felt trapped and needed a release and there is nothing more relaxing or soothing that sitting in front of your trusty keyboards and jamming to something and hitting record. This was sequenced using an MPC, well before the days of Ableton [Laughs]

Interference

The jump from Solitude to Interference might look extreme, but there is reasons for this. Ive always said and maintained my opinion that I love music, not genre's. Genre's only serve to stop you hearing other music, which isnt healthy if you want to take influences from many different areas. Ive always regarded myself as being a very versatile producer. Ive made DnB, Ambient, Electro whatever you want to call it...some released, some not. It was suggested to me recently that I wasnt very versatile. After my new album coming out within weeks of 'Interference', im not sure that can be anything but versatile. 'Interference' is my current vision of the harder end of the spectrum. Some people are surprised when I release music like this, but as I say its just music to me. You either like it or you dont based on what it sounds like, not because your into Jazzy stuff and dont like Techno. Tresor needed a follow up to my 'Atom' single and Interference seemed like the best way to go. Im very pleased to hear it being played everywhere.

 
This is most definitely one of the most ambitious podcasts anyone has undertaken. Where do you start, what was the process like and were there any points that you thought you might ave bitten off more than you could chew. This was also the hardest mix I've ever tried to put together, way harder than the Detroit Classics mixes I did a few years ago. I wanted to tell the story of Vince Watson so far without fear of genres or trends, so it's in three stages mixed together, but you can quite clearly hear the changes. I think it's important to understand the three phases, and hear the story from start to finish to appreciate where I was going with it. I realised after 20mins putting a list of tracks together that I was in trouble [Laughs]. I ended up with 47 tracks to choose from which I regarded as my best work pre the new album, as that story needs to be heard in its own story in full for a time yet. I went round and round figuring the best way to do it, finding a tempo that was useable and making new parts from older tracks, which was quite a challenge.

Were there any tracks that this helped you rediscover. Yes absolutely. I even had too buy two of my tracks online!! I realised that the Dats from these old masters was in storage back in scotland, so it was slightly easier to buy the wavs, surreal but there you go.[Laughs]  I think what it made me realise was just the scale of the volume of work I've released since 1995, I didn't go quite as far back as that in this mix, as it wasn't going to work as well. Maybe someday I'll do a greatest hits 10cd album platinum release, [Laughs]  but not yet. I think it's important to point out that this mix is a Story So Far, rather than a look back at a career. For sure though im going to try and feed a few of these back into some of the liveshows and see how they sound, quite a lot of the music on this is timeles to me personally anyway. I think you get that intuitive result when you make music from the heart rather than tailoring it for a certain market.

We were originally looking for this to be a 60 minute mix. At what point did you realise that was a tad optimistic? Jesus, I can't believe I was saying 60mins [Laughs]. That would be possible but having one minute parts of tracks isn't worth the energy making it other than for a specific concept based on quick loops, but my music is too dynamic sounding to fit in all the elements. I wasn't expected over two hours though, and truth be told I didn't even look at the time length, I just started mixing and recording. So when I checked the length afterwards I was astonished,it took me on both an emotionally charged trip down memory lane and a place that's hard to describe.

Anything you'd like to add? Yes, the first 40mins are mostly from my electronica albums around 2004 & 2005, i thought it was important to tell that message as it was a large part of my releases around seven eight years ago, then i head into the more deep genres before heading into more recent material. I know I'm going to get emails saying "how could you leave ___ out the mix, it's your best track" [Laughs] But this was one of the hardest things ive ever tried to do, so i had to balance the best tracks with tracks that simply worked better for the end result of the mix, at the end of the day though, im delighted at the end result and proud to have made all this music. I guess some people will be wondering how I put this together. I used Ableton and separated them by key, style and told the story using three stages. Thanks for allowing me the chance to tell the story so far, the next stages are going to be really exciting, starting of course with my album, which could well be the starting point for the next Story So Far podcast [Laughs]

Pulse.069 - Vince Watson

1. Floating Chamber (eMotion Sequence LP, Delsin)
2. Fragment 4 (Fragments EP, Native)
3. Sublimina (Sublimina LP, Headspace)
4. Fragment 5 (Fragments EP, Native)
5. Refract Sublimina LP, Headspace)
6. Long Way From Home (eMotion Sequence LP, Delsin)
7. Maya (Sublimina LP, Headspace)
8. The eMotion Sequence (The eMotion Sequence LP, Delsin)
9. My Desire (Qualia EP, Planet E)
10. Signals (Sublimina LP, Headspace)
11. Mystical Rhythm (Biologique LP, Alola)
12. Come With Me (Love in F Minor EP, Everysoul)
13. Moments in Time (Moments in Time LP, Ibadan)
14. Rendezvous (Renaissance EP, Planet E)
15. Rephlexions (Moments in Time LP, Ibadan)
16. Eternal (Echoes from the Future : View to the Past LP, Bio)
17. Intrisync (Sublimina LP, Headspace)
18. Meaning of Life (Pure Innersense EP, Fcom)
19. A Very Different World (A Very Different World EP, Bio)
20. Everything Changes (Echelon EP, Fcom)
21. Aurelon (Fracturtythms EP, Bio)
22. The Secret - Melody (Interference EP, Tresor)
23. Kaleidoscope (Atom EP, Tresor)
24. Qualia (Qualia EP, Planet E)
25. Pure Innersense (Pure Innersense EP, Fcom)
26. Renaissance (Renaissance EP, Planet E)
27. Pressure - Club Dub (Pressure EP, Bio)
28. Sequential (Sequential EP, Bio)
29. Interference (Interference EP, Tresor)
30. Solitude (The eMotion Sequence LP, Delsin)
 
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