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Layo & Bushwacka;
"We both believe in the same things, good people, good parties,
good music. Acid house, basically." Idealists, hedonists,
prophets, call them what you will, but Layo & Bushwacka!'s love
affair with music started as teenagers under 1988's strobe lights
and it's led the both of them through techno, breakbeat, electro,
dub and electronica, emerging blinking into the light a decade
later with a sound that fuses all their influences and
channelling them into 2002's most anticipated dance floor album.
It's the same outlaw spirit of eclecticism that still informs
their five hour DJs sets, whether at their spiritual home in
London's The End, or on a beach in Brazil or a state of the art
superclub in Ibiza or Argentina. Layo seamlessly segueing cutting
edge sounds, while Bushwacka! tears the arse out of the
crossfade, turning nondescript breakbeat battle weapons into a
compulsive collage of beats and breaks. The same spirit that took
the "for the fans" thousand-copy only 12" Untitled into a global
club anthem. It's now 'Love Story' - renamed with the title given
to it by the fans in Argentina who sit down rather than dance
through the track as a mark of respect for its majesty. "I
thought that track was a bit cheesy initially," muses the
ever-analytical Layo. "Of course now everyone loves it, I've
warmed up to it a bit." And you can't get much more acid house
than the legal minefield that is Bushwacka!'s much bootlegged
remix of Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean' - surely the biggest
bootleg mix in a year inundated with white label remixes of
dubious legality. If only, as Matthew shrugs, he'd done the
bootlegs himself, as everyone assumes.
Layo and Bushwhacka! have come a long way from the teenager who
frequented Clink Street's infamous acid parties and the kid who
dropped classical music to hang out on the hardcore scene: two
motor-mouthed refugees from the underground enjoying their
position as new leaders of clubland's cutting edge. Layo &
Bushwacka! have both served their time supporting British
underground music when no-one wanted to know. Layo opening The
End, a purpose-built club dedicated to breaking new music to the
right people. Matthew jacking in a lucrative career as a rave
circuit DJ when the moody music had gone too far for him, both
taking the emergent strains of techno, tech-house, electro and
breakbeat and forcing them together with the blues, classical and
film soundtracks of the last hundred years to create the dance
floor sound of the new century.
Matthew 'Bushwacka!' Benjamin has always been into music: as a
schoolboy in Ladbroke Grove, West London, he was playing
percussion in the London School Symphony Orchestra." I played the
Royal Festival Hall, the Barbican. We toured Italy when I was 13.
It was a magical time of my life." It was 1988, and hooked on
hip-hop and DJing, his life was about to take a sharp left turn.
"In August '88 I went to a Rat Pack warehouse party. I left there
at 11 o'clock the next morning and come home to an angry mum."
Handing out flyers by night and working in Harrods by day, he
began working for the Rat Pack. By 1989's summer of orbital rave
he was DJing for them, as well as on London's legendary 'Radio
Rental' pirate station Sunrise FM.
Graduating from a studio engineering course, Matthew - now widely
held in awe by other producers for his crisp beats and
heavyweight production techniques - went to work at Mr C's new
studio "making cups of tea 80 hours a week". The Shaman front man
had ploughed his pop earnings back into the studio, and he was
also planning on opening a club with another young protg of
his: "That's where I met Layo," Matthew remembers. "About the
same time as the End idea was coming about."
Layo Paskin had a different upbringing in a liberal North London
household: the son of an architect and a writer, he was putting
on funk parties at sixteen while working at weekends in Camden
Market. "When I was 17," he recalls, "I went to my first acid
house party, and straight away I was blown away by this thing."
From then on he too was immersed in underground dance and within
a couple of years he was throwing warehouse parties with Mr C.
"We found this site for a party," he explains, "and that became
The End." The End was designed by his father, and became Layo's
life... taking in nights from future superstars like Fatboy
Slim and Roni Size it quickly became the leading underground
music club in the capital and one of the most influential dance
clubs worldwide.
By the time Layo and Bushwacka! started working together it was
the mid-90s and dance music was changing. The hardcore scene that
Matthew had been such an integral part of was already shifting
into drum & bass, while new hybrids - that would later be termed
tech-house and breakbeat - were emerging out of clubs like The
End. Matthew had started his own Plank records, and was making
and playing what he terms "good quality music to go out and dance
to."
In 1998 Layo and Bushwacka! released their first album Low Life
on End Recordings, the label that had begun life the day The End
opened. A deceptively smooth collection that mashed together
electro, techno, underground house and old skool breakbeat, but
stretched into delta blues and dub reggae for inspiration, for a
trippy down-tempo atmospheric breakbeat sound. It was rather
brilliant.
They also started DJing together more often - first at the End's
Subterrain nights, later across the country and beyond. They make
a good combination: Matthew tearing his crossfade through
anonymous tech tunes and electro breaks Layo taking a more
considered approach to playing "proper" tunes. Now, a year since
they released the half-jokey 'Untitled' as a 1000 copy only
Christmas present to their fans, their DJing has gone supernova.
They can afford to play only clubs that allow them a five hour
slot, so they can play an hour each at a time, building the
intensity then dropping the tempo to play the odd vocal or
hip-hop track.
Now their second album - add title here - takes their blueprint
onto a bigger, broader canvas. All the elements we loved about
Low Life and singles like the breakbeat blues of 'Deep South'
are still there - there's still the adherence to low end theory
bass lines, but this time wrapped in a comfort blanket of
synapse-tweaking soft chords. Once again its edited and tweaked
into a non-stop collage that lulls you into a false sense of
security at home, where you can't feel the monster bass lines
these tracks unleash over a club sound system. Already planning
to take their live performance on the road, the garrulous odd
couple are keeping their hardcore fans happy by starting a
monthly club night (at the End, where else?) where they will be
the only DJs. Not to mention residencies at Space in Ibiza and
Sirena in Brazil, two more of the finest clubs in the world.
"The music industry is an industry where the best business people
do the best and the most creative people don't," reflects Layo,
"that's life I suppose. But I'm hungry for that creativity. I'd
like to be really good at what I do, rather than hugely
successful. You need to be able to look yourself in the eye and
say the route youre taking is a good route, be proud of what you
do, and on the other hand also enjoy it. I'd be much more happy
if this album had good reviews, rather than sell a million
copies. Something I can visit in a few years and be really proud
of."
layo and bushwacka - live at guerrino beach (roma) line - jun. 1, 2006 - Part 1
layo and bushwacka - live at guerrino beach (roma) line - jun. 1, 2006 - Part 2
N.joy
"We both believe in the same things, good people, good parties,
good music. Acid house, basically." Idealists, hedonists,
prophets, call them what you will, but Layo & Bushwacka!'s love
affair with music started as teenagers under 1988's strobe lights
and it's led the both of them through techno, breakbeat, electro,
dub and electronica, emerging blinking into the light a decade
later with a sound that fuses all their influences and
channelling them into 2002's most anticipated dance floor album.
It's the same outlaw spirit of eclecticism that still informs
their five hour DJs sets, whether at their spiritual home in
London's The End, or on a beach in Brazil or a state of the art
superclub in Ibiza or Argentina. Layo seamlessly segueing cutting
edge sounds, while Bushwacka! tears the arse out of the
crossfade, turning nondescript breakbeat battle weapons into a
compulsive collage of beats and breaks. The same spirit that took
the "for the fans" thousand-copy only 12" Untitled into a global
club anthem. It's now 'Love Story' - renamed with the title given
to it by the fans in Argentina who sit down rather than dance
through the track as a mark of respect for its majesty. "I
thought that track was a bit cheesy initially," muses the
ever-analytical Layo. "Of course now everyone loves it, I've
warmed up to it a bit." And you can't get much more acid house
than the legal minefield that is Bushwacka!'s much bootlegged
remix of Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean' - surely the biggest
bootleg mix in a year inundated with white label remixes of
dubious legality. If only, as Matthew shrugs, he'd done the
bootlegs himself, as everyone assumes.
Layo and Bushwhacka! have come a long way from the teenager who
frequented Clink Street's infamous acid parties and the kid who
dropped classical music to hang out on the hardcore scene: two
motor-mouthed refugees from the underground enjoying their
position as new leaders of clubland's cutting edge. Layo &
Bushwacka! have both served their time supporting British
underground music when no-one wanted to know. Layo opening The
End, a purpose-built club dedicated to breaking new music to the
right people. Matthew jacking in a lucrative career as a rave
circuit DJ when the moody music had gone too far for him, both
taking the emergent strains of techno, tech-house, electro and
breakbeat and forcing them together with the blues, classical and
film soundtracks of the last hundred years to create the dance
floor sound of the new century.
Matthew 'Bushwacka!' Benjamin has always been into music: as a
schoolboy in Ladbroke Grove, West London, he was playing
percussion in the London School Symphony Orchestra." I played the
Royal Festival Hall, the Barbican. We toured Italy when I was 13.
It was a magical time of my life." It was 1988, and hooked on
hip-hop and DJing, his life was about to take a sharp left turn.
"In August '88 I went to a Rat Pack warehouse party. I left there
at 11 o'clock the next morning and come home to an angry mum."
Handing out flyers by night and working in Harrods by day, he
began working for the Rat Pack. By 1989's summer of orbital rave
he was DJing for them, as well as on London's legendary 'Radio
Rental' pirate station Sunrise FM.
Graduating from a studio engineering course, Matthew - now widely
held in awe by other producers for his crisp beats and
heavyweight production techniques - went to work at Mr C's new
studio "making cups of tea 80 hours a week". The Shaman front man
had ploughed his pop earnings back into the studio, and he was
also planning on opening a club with another young protg of
his: "That's where I met Layo," Matthew remembers. "About the
same time as the End idea was coming about."
Layo Paskin had a different upbringing in a liberal North London
household: the son of an architect and a writer, he was putting
on funk parties at sixteen while working at weekends in Camden
Market. "When I was 17," he recalls, "I went to my first acid
house party, and straight away I was blown away by this thing."
From then on he too was immersed in underground dance and within
a couple of years he was throwing warehouse parties with Mr C.
"We found this site for a party," he explains, "and that became
The End." The End was designed by his father, and became Layo's
life... taking in nights from future superstars like Fatboy
Slim and Roni Size it quickly became the leading underground
music club in the capital and one of the most influential dance
clubs worldwide.
By the time Layo and Bushwacka! started working together it was
the mid-90s and dance music was changing. The hardcore scene that
Matthew had been such an integral part of was already shifting
into drum & bass, while new hybrids - that would later be termed
tech-house and breakbeat - were emerging out of clubs like The
End. Matthew had started his own Plank records, and was making
and playing what he terms "good quality music to go out and dance
to."
In 1998 Layo and Bushwacka! released their first album Low Life
on End Recordings, the label that had begun life the day The End
opened. A deceptively smooth collection that mashed together
electro, techno, underground house and old skool breakbeat, but
stretched into delta blues and dub reggae for inspiration, for a
trippy down-tempo atmospheric breakbeat sound. It was rather
brilliant.
They also started DJing together more often - first at the End's
Subterrain nights, later across the country and beyond. They make
a good combination: Matthew tearing his crossfade through
anonymous tech tunes and electro breaks Layo taking a more
considered approach to playing "proper" tunes. Now, a year since
they released the half-jokey 'Untitled' as a 1000 copy only
Christmas present to their fans, their DJing has gone supernova.
They can afford to play only clubs that allow them a five hour
slot, so they can play an hour each at a time, building the
intensity then dropping the tempo to play the odd vocal or
hip-hop track.
Now their second album - add title here - takes their blueprint
onto a bigger, broader canvas. All the elements we loved about
Low Life and singles like the breakbeat blues of 'Deep South'
are still there - there's still the adherence to low end theory
bass lines, but this time wrapped in a comfort blanket of
synapse-tweaking soft chords. Once again its edited and tweaked
into a non-stop collage that lulls you into a false sense of
security at home, where you can't feel the monster bass lines
these tracks unleash over a club sound system. Already planning
to take their live performance on the road, the garrulous odd
couple are keeping their hardcore fans happy by starting a
monthly club night (at the End, where else?) where they will be
the only DJs. Not to mention residencies at Space in Ibiza and
Sirena in Brazil, two more of the finest clubs in the world.
"The music industry is an industry where the best business people
do the best and the most creative people don't," reflects Layo,
"that's life I suppose. But I'm hungry for that creativity. I'd
like to be really good at what I do, rather than hugely
successful. You need to be able to look yourself in the eye and
say the route youre taking is a good route, be proud of what you
do, and on the other hand also enjoy it. I'd be much more happy
if this album had good reviews, rather than sell a million
copies. Something I can visit in a few years and be really proud
of."
layo and bushwacka - live at guerrino beach (roma) line - jun. 1, 2006 - Part 1
layo and bushwacka - live at guerrino beach (roma) line - jun. 1, 2006 - Part 2
N.joy
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