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Review: Interview with Da Lata
Interviewer: Marcos Moret
Da Lata consists of London-based Patrick Forge and Chris Franck. Forge, best known as a highly respected leftfield DJ,
radio show presenter, and compiler of excellent compilations, acts here as co-producer. Franck is a prolific multi-instrumentalist. Their third
full-length release Serious is due in November, following on from their Brazilian-infused Songs from The Tin,
and Remixes, a collection of works they have done as a production unit. Serious sees them successfully move
away from that earlier Brazilian sound, and create an accomplished and multifarious work that incorporates sounds ranging
from afrobeat to broken beat, soul to nu-jazz. We caught up with them for a chat to find out more...
The album incorporates a lot of styles this time – from broken sounds to nu-jazz to afrobeat to some RnB influences.
What was the thinking behind that move away from more of a Brazilian sound?
Patrick: well the whole project of doing the album Songs From the Tin was just something Chris and I wanted to get out of
our systems since we first met really, to do a Brazilian album, to do our take on it. Having done that we felt free to
re-establish ourselves. Yeah, Brazilian music has been an influence on us, but it’s not the only influence - it’s not
defining. So this album’s more of a reflection of the different things we’re into. Hopefully we’ve done it in a way that
isn’t too much of a mish mash - in a reasonably cohesive way.
Chris: And I think also the fact is that we’re not Brazilian, and as much as we love Brazil, – we’ve got this mad affair
goin gon with it – you can’t keep making Brazilian records if you’re based in London and the influences you’re hearing in
London are harking from broken beat and all of those flavours. You hear so many things here that aren’t Brazilian.
Patrick: It’s also a big attempt to try and make out way out of the Brazilian section in HMV records and other stores you
know? Hopefully that can happen now but they’ll still probably want to stick us in ‘World’ - “oh look they’ve got Baaba
Maal on there so it must be a ‘World’ LP”.
Tell us about the influences that have framed your creative viewpoint on the making of Serious
Chris: Well the musical influences are very wide and they’re always there. We obviously listen to a lot of new music and
music from all over the world. I suppose with the album title being Serious people are wondering “is it because you
want to be taken seriously?” It’s not so much that but, what with making this album right about the time the whole war
thing was going on, it was a very serious time and if there was anything conscious about some of the songs it was about
trying to do something that was a little more serious in that way rather than something lyrically. It’s quite abstract but
at the same time it’s…you know when you’re in that environment, like you were, like we all were, and every day you wake
up and things are just really heavy and the whole build-up to going to war and then going through the war and then now…you
know what I mean…it’s just such a mess. Making this record you can’t deny that that was an influence on it. I mean, it’s
not like a political statement, like “listen to us we’re so political” but at the same time we wanted to do something that
was a bit more representative of the feeling aswell, not only the sound of now.
Patrick: Yes, I think we’re all very aware of the pitfalls of doing an overtly political record where you end up sounding
like you’re shoving a message down people’s throats. The songs are quite elliptical, or quite abstract, in the way that
they engage with the subjects, but at the same time there’s an underlying theme through the records which is very much
'engage with the world we live in' as opposed to some of the escapist music that some of our peers seem to make.
Musically, Chris, where are you coming from in your interests at the moment?
Chris: Really hard to say that I’m coming from anywhere because my approach to music is first and foremost from a player
and that’s where I’ve come into music - through playing instruments. And I suppose it’s through the open-mindedness of the
music that I listen to. I don’t have much time to play. But when I do have the time – which is my precious time – I end
up writing, because that’s obviously what my career is, and these things have got to pay the bills. So I’m not consciously
thinking “I’m not trying to do this style, I’m not trying to do that style. I try and relate everything back to me being a
musician, and being able to enjoy what I write an enjoy playing it. I like to travel and that’s a really important thing
because you get to open your mind a little bit more.
Were there places you’d been traveling to over the course of the making of this album or immediately prior to it?
Chris: We had the opportunity to go over and record some of the artists over in Brazil or even in Senegal - that was all
lined up. And as much as the concept of being able to do something like that was great, with this album we decided “well
let’s bring the musicians over here”, because at the end of the day we are making this album very much from London, that’s
where we are right now, that’s where we’re living. It’s just being true to where we’re from. So we brought the musicians
here, and getting them to interpret it, the music, by being here makes a difference to us going over there. It flavours
the way they play because it’s obviously great for them to come over and be like “oh wow we’re in London, what are these
guys doing, what’s that club about, what’s this about?”. And they have a little while to interpret that, and then play on
the music - that’s different to us going over there. We could be seen as like “oh here they come, some more Western
producers” - it’s difficult that sometimes, because there are so many people that travel to record people and then just
take it away, and those people don’t know anything about the lives, the conditions in which the musicians live. So I
though that was a nice thing for them, for them to see over here and see what we’re about rather than us going and seeing
what they’re about all the time.
Patrick, you coming into this project off the back of the last one and all your other activities, what were you aiming
to bring to this musically and how did you aim to influence the direction of this musically?
Patrick: Well it’s not something we have to labour over too much. Obviously I’m more like the conduit of a lot of the music
that’s coming out. You know Chris hears a lot of things through me. But Chris is very connected aswell to a lot of the
same people as I am. We’re all in a very big music community in London, so those influences aren’t something that we have
to say “oh right, we should really try an do something like this or something like that” about. I think most of the things
we do happen quite organically.
Okay, so how do you two get together and work, how does the going about making an album like this actually
happen?
Patrick: For this album Chris actually generated quite a lot of the demos, quite a few of the songs, even before I came
into it. My role is co-producer, so I haven’t written so much on this album and really it’s more of a matter of me saying,
“well that’s cool but can we change the drum sound”, and things like that - that’s where I end up making my mark. In my
head I’ve always got a sonic picture of what I think things should sound like, and we want to bring in whatever influences
to a record and still make it sound kind of contemporary.
Tell us about Tony Economides’ involvement.
Patrick: He’s not only a fantastic engineer and technical genius who can facilitate things on that level, he knows the system as
well as I’ve seen anybody working on Logic and [unintelligible words]. Also he has his wonderful creative moments as well:
we could be banging our heads against a brick wall and Tony will come up with something of quite sublime genius, and so
that’s why we want to big him up as much as we do. There are times where he’s kind of like the rescue man, who comes in
with the “well why don’t we do this?”, and we’re like “oh right, yeah!”. And he’s a great person to work with and we’ve
established, over a long time now, a great atmosphere to work in, so we all get along and have a great laugh when we’re
doing it.
Give us a bit of background about how on earth you got into being able to play so many different instruments
[laughter]…because I’m looking on the listings and I’m like, is there anything you don’t play?
Chris: Well the thing is…yeah I do play a lot of the instruments. I have a lot of instruments and I just…enjoy playing
them [laughter].
Pretty simple really!
Chris: When I got into Brazilian music…there are so many different instruments, so many different sounds in Brazil, the
percussion is such an exciting thing not only to hear to play aswell. And when you actually get your hands on some of
these instruments, you just get such a buzz, whether it’s a huge fat drum or a little sharp loud instrument. Brazil’s very
kinda hands-on like that, so much colour, so many flavours, so that meant I wasn’t scared to play those instruments. Coz
you know instruments can be kinda ominous sometimes. But at the end of the day, if you just relax and just play the
instrument without being scared of it…you know so many people could play. But I’m obviously lucky enough and thankful that
I’ve got enough rhythm that I can play them - you need the rhythm, you know what I mean?
Finally, each pick a song on the album and tell us about how it came together, what’s behind the lyrics, and the
feeling behind the song.
Patrick: I’ll pick Serious. We were doing the LP, and I was saying to Chris “We’ve got to do some more uptempo
stuff”, because we needed something that was a bit more full-on for the dancefloor. So Serious was formed from a couple
of ideas that we had and we started building this monster track in the studio. For a long time we were talking about it as
an instrumental, because all the accordion parts and the trombone parts that went down to were so great in themselves. But
I was playing it out as an instrumental, test-running it, and it was all cool, but I was coming back to the studio and
saying to Chris, “you know, it really does need some hooks, just to make it work for the floor aswell” At one time we were
talking about this mad idea that we were going to get Grace Jones to do something on it, but funnily enough that didn’t
come off. But I could have heard her on it, and it was quite an exciting prospect of Grace Jones shouting all over that
track! We were getting a bit nervous about putting the vocal on it, and we were thinking “what’s going to work?” And then
I went to see one of Bembe Segue’s live shows at the Jazz Café. And I’ve known Kate for a long time and I just thought
“Wow, wouldn’t it be great if she could do something on the track?” So she was supposed to come in on a Thursday to the
studio, just on a pure “Just come into and lets try a couple of vibes”, we didn’t want to make it too much pressure for her
. But in the end, as fate would have it, her house got broken into that day so she couldn’t come to the studio because she
was too busy with locksmiths etc. And the next day we could do was the following Tuesday, and there was the whole bank
holiday weekend in between, and she cam in on the Tuesday and she said “I’m really sorry, I’ve done what I said I wouldn’t
do - I’ve done a whole tune on your groove.” And she came in with a laptop and she’d recorded all the vocals at home. And
she had it there, and it was awesome. That was a great moment in the making of the record.
Chris: I choose Reeling. It features Jhelisa. It’s funny because I’ve known Jhelisa for 7 or 8 years now. Really digging
her music, and then getting to know her through different people, and I always wanted to do a track with her but, living
the kind of lives that we live and being the people that we are, it’s hard to just say “alright, lets sit down and do a
track”. So when it finally came together Jhelisa was like, “c’mon I’m here, let’s go, let’s do it now.” It was, “the moment
’s here, after 8 years, this is what really makes sense.” So it happened. Jhelisa’s a pretty amazing person, pretty much
‘out there’…an amazing talent, very unique. We sat down and we said, “what are we gonna write this tune about?” We started
chatting about the war, and she said, okay, let me jump in there and try something, and she just came out with a vocal
that was very apt for the time. And I remember feeling very excited that I’d made that connection with Jhelisa and it
making so much sense.
RELATED LINKS:
Serious - we review the new album
Serious - more info on the
Palm Beats site
Discography
Buy Serious at Amazon
UK
|
US
Buy Remixes at Amazon
UK
|
US
Buy Songs From The Tin at Amazon
UK
|
US
PUBLISHED: Tuesday 28 October 2003
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::: RELATED LINKS
Serious - we review the new album
Serious - more info on the
Palm Beats site
Discography
Buy Serious at Amazon
UK
|
US
Buy Remixes at Amazon
UK
|
US
Buy Songs From The Tin at Amazon
UK
|
US
|
