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Charlie May steps out of Sasha Beatport News
“In terms of giving him options to choose from, and in terms of writing raw material, that’s what the rest of us did. It’s like making a film – you have a director, but you’ve also got an art director, a set designer, a producer, and a team of people who all work together. I do like to work with Sasha though because he’s a musician as well as a DJ.”
Charlie May steps out of Sasha’s shadow
For years Charlie May
lurked in the wings, watching, as Sasha shone in the spotlight. As the architect behind the British DJ’s most poignant singles ‘Xpander’, ‘Scorchio’, and ‘Belfunk’, and co-engineer of the albums ‘Airdrawndagger’, ‘Involver’, and ‘Invol2ver’, May’s contribution was confined to dusty sleeve notes read only by those who cared: Programmed by Charlie May.
In recent years however, the demand for an encore has been so strong, that May himself has been forced to the stage. With cries on message boards for his long overdue recognition, and dance music embracing live performances by producers, May will finally step out from behind the curtain later this year with a debut solo album.
For Charlie May, the geek who spends much of his time in studio solitude, the laser limelight of dance music has never really appealed to him. “I’m just a bit of a geek really,” he says. “I always want to know how people make certain sounds and I just geek out trying to figure out what they did. In a way the anonymity side of being a DJ really appealed to me. When DJs became rock stars it kind of got a bit weird for me.”
Originally from Devon, a move to London kick started May’s career on the indie circuit where he supplied sound engineering services and live PAs for bands. He also played keyboards for the group Ultramarine.
When acid house blew up in the UK, May heard his calling. “The whole ecstasy and acid house scene blowing up in the UK didn’t make it a difficult choice for me to go with electronic music,” he says.
“You could get a little Atari computer, a sampler, a mixing desk and not have to fight with a guitarist in rehearsals. You could just be a one man army.”
The ideals that acid house culture was based on, where ravers rejected the mainstream and the conformity of society, by embracing a new rationale of mutual respect and unity, appealed to May. “Originally, it was an ideal that was outside of normal life. A place to go where all the normal rules we were having to live by were suspended. It was a place to escape, where the music was the central point, and the DJ had a certain amount of anonymity.
“The idea of being a collective and a collective consciousness that was greater then the sum of its parts: that couldn’t survive on dreams. It needed to become a commercial entity. Then the people driving it lost their vision. But it’s swinging back the other way now with genres like dubstep where it’s not about the money, and only about the music and the people.”
Spooky performing live in Bucharest
As one half of progressive outfit Spooky, May spent his early career playing high profile slots at festivals such as Roskilde and Glastonbury. As pioneers of darker and more experimental house music, Spooky are credited as pioneers of progressive house.
Despite this, the duo never received the kind of recognition that other UK electronic music outfits like Orbital or Leftfield enjoyed in the 1990s, as the group’s professional development was hindered by the number of record labels they passed through after the Guerilla imprint went out of business.
At their peak Spooky separated to pursue independent projects. May and Sasha began their professional relationship with a soundtrack for the hit Playstation game Wipeout 3, which quickly led to the ‘Xpander’ EP.
The EP that started it all: ‘Xpander’
On the origins behind the classic progressive house cut, May says, “I had this little part that sat on a DAT tape for about five years. Then I met Sasha and I asked him, ‘What do you think of this,’ and he said ‘That’s great. let’s finish it’.
“We [Spooky] had approached it from a producer’s point of view, but Sasha made it into more of a DJ record. He brought his perspective to bear on it to make it all happen, and when you have two different perspectives it can often sort out a problem and something great can happen.”
‘Xpander’ was the first building block of a long and successful collaborative relationship that led to such hallmarks as Sasha and Emerson ‘Scorchio’, ‘Airdrawndagger’,‘Involver’, and ‘Involv2r’. Those records helped define Sasha, but not Charlie May. He bears no grudge however. “Take Sasha’s album ‘Involv2r’,” he says. “There were five of us on that record, but ultimately it was is his name on it and he had the last say as to how he wanted certain things to be.”
As long as dance music producers have used engineers to assist them in the studio, a debate over where the real talent is has existed. How much work does May really do, compared with the artists who put their name on the albums he works on?
“In the past I’ve worked with some DJs who sit at the back of the room, roll a fat joint, and say ‘make it a bit more purple’. But it’s a natural progression, and nowadays there are two types of DJs. One that is really technical and wants to create an amazing mix, a great sound, and go back into the studio and redefine what they do.
“There’s also the second type that just wants to go on stage, turn one knob in front of the crowd, put their arms up in the air, and say ‘look at me, I just rolled off all the bass for two bars’, and pretend they’re Jesus.”
Since the beginning of dance music culture, the one man show that is the ‘DJ’ has been emphasised. Many fans still do not realise that there is a whole sub layer of electronic music producers out there, hiding in studios, creating the music that DJs play. Knowing this, May still chose to remain in the shadows. He took 10 years to release his first solo material.
“I did everything back to front, I just like making music and writing it, and I was not a big DJ before I was a producer,” he says. “I wanted to make records first and then go and play them.
“I like guys like Jeff Mills and Ricardo Villalobos who can play sets of their own music without it sounding boring.
“But I also lacked the confidence. It’s very easy when you’re in a band like Spooky or Sasha, and it’s not your name on the front. Your much more exposed when it’s just you on a record, and when you’re caught up doing a big project like the Sasha thing that runs on and on, you kind of ride the wave.
“Playing my own stuff out now takes me out of my comfort zone and it gives me a new perspective when I go back to the studio. I’m up for anything that does that.”
For a number of young producers and DJs, the superstars keep the scene alive and represent all that they aspire to become a part of. For others, they represent a scene far removed from dance music’s first rousings of ’88, transformed along the way into an impenetrable dictatorship. But identity is important, even for a spotlight dodger like Charlie May. “Yes I count on my name to be able to make sure it gets on Beatport and maybe just have a little banner up there to let people know I have something out.
“The flipside of that is everyone expects more of you so you can’t put out a duff track. You’ve got to be really careful about what you do, but at the same time you’ve got to put lots of it out just to make an earning.” May has four singles and two remixes out over the next three months, with two singles on Sasha’s EmFire label.
If there is one thing Charlie May has accumulated from all of his experiences, it’s the inner workings of beat and function. He will spends days just crafting “50 drum sounds and 50 bass sounds”, instead of making tracks. “As a rule I just love to make my own sounds,” he says.
Occasionally he will use presets. “I might use the odd loop off a drum machine, and I do the odd cheeky thing. For a remix I’ll make a lot of sounds out of the sound that I’m given.”
May’s studio has changed dramatically since the early days. “My studio is a different beast in many ways now,” he says. “When we started we had an Atari computer, there was no hard disc recording, an Akai sampler and a mixing desk.
“You could record through a 24 track analog tape but then you had to sync it to your Atari and you couldn’t edit the way you can now.
“In Ableton you can make anything for anything – it’s like rubberband music, a massive blank sheet and you can go anywhere you want which is a fantastic thing.
“When I meet younger producers some of them tell me they’ve never used a raw compressor or never used a real mixing desk because they’ve all got virtual ones in their computer.
“There’s nothing wrong with that but that would just bore me. I want to get up and physically touch something but the technology advances are amazing.
“I listen back to records I used to make and how I used to make them. Sometimes I’m amazed I had the patience because the equipment then was so different.
“When we were doing The Chameleon Project track ‘Feel’ 16 years ago we had to write it and finish it in one go.”
The Chameleon Project ‘Feel’
May explains, “We’d hire out a studio and work day and night without sleeping for two or three days just to get stuff done because you couldn’t recall it.
“There was no hard disc recording so you had to do it there and then. If you wanted to get it up again and mix it, you’d have to recall every setting on the mixing desk and every setting in the studio. That was more of a ball-ache then it was worth.
“Nowadays, you just turn your laptop off and when you open it, it’s exactly as you left it.
“The great thing about that is that you can have four or five tracks on the go at any one time.
“Another thing that’s changed in a big way is that nowhere had a good soundsystem 20 years ago, as it was all rock music PAs. Now you can go into a club and play an MP3 off a laptop, out of a headphone socket. That’s amazing.”
Over the last 10 years digital has evolved from a contentious debate about new formats into a battle of formats. Initially, digital was criticised for not being able to encapsulate analog’s warmth’, and May and Sasha leaned towards the techniques some German producers applied, by using analog circuitry to filter the dry digital sound for the ‘Involver’ album.
“Now you can get soft synths that sound just as good as the analog equivalent. It’s more fun to use analog equipment for that process though.
“You’ve got 2 hands, can move knobs and sliders at once on an analog synth which you can’t do with a mouse, you can set up a midi controller which is cool but it’s not the same.
“To actually move a knob that isn’t a controller but actually hard wired to the parameter your changing, it’s a nice feeling. It makes me feel more engaged with the whole process, like I’m a musician and not working in an office.”
There are some DJs out there who embrace the business and marketing side of being a dance music artist, but May isn’t into Myspace, Twitter, or any of the other online marketing channels.
His priority is the same as it ever was. “I’m really lazy when it comes to all the hands on work with PRs and websites. It doesn’t interest me at all. I just want to be in the studio,” he says, like a true engineer and dedicated architect of sound.
Charlie May steps out of Sasha Beatport News
“In terms of giving him options to choose from, and in terms of writing raw material, that’s what the rest of us did. It’s like making a film – you have a director, but you’ve also got an art director, a set designer, a producer, and a team of people who all work together. I do like to work with Sasha though because he’s a musician as well as a DJ.”
Charlie May steps out of Sasha’s shadow
For years Charlie May
lurked in the wings, watching, as Sasha shone in the spotlight. As the architect behind the British DJ’s most poignant singles ‘Xpander’, ‘Scorchio’, and ‘Belfunk’, and co-engineer of the albums ‘Airdrawndagger’, ‘Involver’, and ‘Invol2ver’, May’s contribution was confined to dusty sleeve notes read only by those who cared: Programmed by Charlie May.In recent years however, the demand for an encore has been so strong, that May himself has been forced to the stage. With cries on message boards for his long overdue recognition, and dance music embracing live performances by producers, May will finally step out from behind the curtain later this year with a debut solo album.
For Charlie May, the geek who spends much of his time in studio solitude, the laser limelight of dance music has never really appealed to him. “I’m just a bit of a geek really,” he says. “I always want to know how people make certain sounds and I just geek out trying to figure out what they did. In a way the anonymity side of being a DJ really appealed to me. When DJs became rock stars it kind of got a bit weird for me.”
Originally from Devon, a move to London kick started May’s career on the indie circuit where he supplied sound engineering services and live PAs for bands. He also played keyboards for the group Ultramarine.
When acid house blew up in the UK, May heard his calling. “The whole ecstasy and acid house scene blowing up in the UK didn’t make it a difficult choice for me to go with electronic music,” he says.
“You could get a little Atari computer, a sampler, a mixing desk and not have to fight with a guitarist in rehearsals. You could just be a one man army.”
The ideals that acid house culture was based on, where ravers rejected the mainstream and the conformity of society, by embracing a new rationale of mutual respect and unity, appealed to May. “Originally, it was an ideal that was outside of normal life. A place to go where all the normal rules we were having to live by were suspended. It was a place to escape, where the music was the central point, and the DJ had a certain amount of anonymity.
“The idea of being a collective and a collective consciousness that was greater then the sum of its parts: that couldn’t survive on dreams. It needed to become a commercial entity. Then the people driving it lost their vision. But it’s swinging back the other way now with genres like dubstep where it’s not about the money, and only about the music and the people.”
Spooky performing live in Bucharest
As one half of progressive outfit Spooky
, May spent his early career playing high profile slots at festivals such as Roskilde and Glastonbury. As pioneers of darker and more experimental house music, Spooky are credited as pioneers of progressive house.Despite this, the duo never received the kind of recognition that other UK electronic music outfits like Orbital or Leftfield enjoyed in the 1990s, as the group’s professional development was hindered by the number of record labels they passed through after the Guerilla imprint went out of business.
At their peak Spooky separated to pursue independent projects. May and Sasha began their professional relationship with a soundtrack for the hit Playstation game Wipeout 3, which quickly led to the ‘Xpander’ EP.
The EP that started it all: ‘Xpander’
On the origins behind the classic progressive house cut, May says, “I had this little part that sat on a DAT tape for about five years. Then I met Sasha and I asked him, ‘What do you think of this,’ and he said ‘That’s great. let’s finish it’.
“We [Spooky] had approached it from a producer’s point of view, but Sasha made it into more of a DJ record. He brought his perspective to bear on it to make it all happen, and when you have two different perspectives it can often sort out a problem and something great can happen.”
‘Xpander’ was the first building block of a long and successful collaborative relationship that led to such hallmarks as Sasha and Emerson ‘Scorchio’, ‘Airdrawndagger’,‘Involver’, and ‘Involv2r’. Those records helped define Sasha, but not Charlie May. He bears no grudge however. “Take Sasha’s album ‘Involv2r’,” he says. “There were five of us on that record, but ultimately it was is his name on it and he had the last say as to how he wanted certain things to be.”
In the past I’ve worked with some DJs who sit at the back of the room, roll a fat joint, and say ‘make it a bit more purple’.
“In terms of giving him options to choose from, and in terms of writing raw material, that’s what the rest of us did. It’s like making a film – you have a director, but you’ve also got an art director, a set designer, a producer, and a team of people who all work together. I do like to work with Sasha though because he’s a musician as well as a DJ.”As long as dance music producers have used engineers to assist them in the studio, a debate over where the real talent is has existed. How much work does May really do, compared with the artists who put their name on the albums he works on?
“In the past I’ve worked with some DJs who sit at the back of the room, roll a fat joint, and say ‘make it a bit more purple’. But it’s a natural progression, and nowadays there are two types of DJs. One that is really technical and wants to create an amazing mix, a great sound, and go back into the studio and redefine what they do.
“There’s also the second type that just wants to go on stage, turn one knob in front of the crowd, put their arms up in the air, and say ‘look at me, I just rolled off all the bass for two bars’, and pretend they’re Jesus.”
Since the beginning of dance music culture, the one man show that is the ‘DJ’ has been emphasised. Many fans still do not realise that there is a whole sub layer of electronic music producers out there, hiding in studios, creating the music that DJs play. Knowing this, May still chose to remain in the shadows. He took 10 years to release his first solo material.
“I did everything back to front, I just like making music and writing it, and I was not a big DJ before I was a producer,” he says. “I wanted to make records first and then go and play them.
“I like guys like Jeff Mills and Ricardo Villalobos who can play sets of their own music without it sounding boring.
“But I also lacked the confidence. It’s very easy when you’re in a band like Spooky or Sasha, and it’s not your name on the front. Your much more exposed when it’s just you on a record, and when you’re caught up doing a big project like the Sasha thing that runs on and on, you kind of ride the wave.
“Playing my own stuff out now takes me out of my comfort zone and it gives me a new perspective when I go back to the studio. I’m up for anything that does that.”
For a number of young producers and DJs, the superstars keep the scene alive and represent all that they aspire to become a part of. For others, they represent a scene far removed from dance music’s first rousings of ’88, transformed along the way into an impenetrable dictatorship. But identity is important, even for a spotlight dodger like Charlie May. “Yes I count on my name to be able to make sure it gets on Beatport and maybe just have a little banner up there to let people know I have something out.
“The flipside of that is everyone expects more of you so you can’t put out a duff track. You’ve got to be really careful about what you do, but at the same time you’ve got to put lots of it out just to make an earning.” May has four singles and two remixes out over the next three months, with two singles on Sasha’s EmFire label.
If there is one thing Charlie May has accumulated from all of his experiences, it’s the inner workings of beat and function. He will spends days just crafting “50 drum sounds and 50 bass sounds”, instead of making tracks. “As a rule I just love to make my own sounds,” he says.
Occasionally he will use presets. “I might use the odd loop off a drum machine, and I do the odd cheeky thing. For a remix I’ll make a lot of sounds out of the sound that I’m given.”
May’s studio has changed dramatically since the early days. “My studio is a different beast in many ways now,” he says. “When we started we had an Atari computer, there was no hard disc recording, an Akai sampler and a mixing desk.
“You could record through a 24 track analog tape but then you had to sync it to your Atari and you couldn’t edit the way you can now.
“In Ableton you can make anything for anything – it’s like rubberband music, a massive blank sheet and you can go anywhere you want which is a fantastic thing.
“When I meet younger producers some of them tell me they’ve never used a raw compressor or never used a real mixing desk because they’ve all got virtual ones in their computer.
“There’s nothing wrong with that but that would just bore me. I want to get up and physically touch something but the technology advances are amazing.
“I listen back to records I used to make and how I used to make them. Sometimes I’m amazed I had the patience because the equipment then was so different.
“When we were doing The Chameleon Project track ‘Feel’ 16 years ago we had to write it and finish it in one go.”
The Chameleon Project ‘Feel’
May explains, “We’d hire out a studio and work day and night without sleeping for two or three days just to get stuff done because you couldn’t recall it.
“There was no hard disc recording so you had to do it there and then. If you wanted to get it up again and mix it, you’d have to recall every setting on the mixing desk and every setting in the studio. That was more of a ball-ache then it was worth.
“Nowadays, you just turn your laptop off and when you open it, it’s exactly as you left it.
“The great thing about that is that you can have four or five tracks on the go at any one time.
“Another thing that’s changed in a big way is that nowhere had a good soundsystem 20 years ago, as it was all rock music PAs. Now you can go into a club and play an MP3 off a laptop, out of a headphone socket. That’s amazing.”
Over the last 10 years digital has evolved from a contentious debate about new formats into a battle of formats. Initially, digital was criticised for not being able to encapsulate analog’s warmth’, and May and Sasha leaned towards the techniques some German producers applied, by using analog circuitry to filter the dry digital sound for the ‘Involver’ album.
I’m really lazy when it comes to all the hands on work with PRs and websites. It doesn’t interest me at all. I just want to be in the studio
Things have changed somewhat. “I think digital can do it now,” says May. “It definitely went through a dark period though. 10 years ago hard disc recording was not a friendly beast.“Now you can get soft synths that sound just as good as the analog equivalent. It’s more fun to use analog equipment for that process though.
“You’ve got 2 hands, can move knobs and sliders at once on an analog synth which you can’t do with a mouse, you can set up a midi controller which is cool but it’s not the same.
“To actually move a knob that isn’t a controller but actually hard wired to the parameter your changing, it’s a nice feeling. It makes me feel more engaged with the whole process, like I’m a musician and not working in an office.”
There are some DJs out there who embrace the business and marketing side of being a dance music artist, but May isn’t into Myspace, Twitter, or any of the other online marketing channels.
His priority is the same as it ever was. “I’m really lazy when it comes to all the hands on work with PRs and websites. It doesn’t interest me at all. I just want to be in the studio,” he says, like a true engineer and dedicated architect of sound.
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