Adam Freeland: I'm Moving To Sydney To Seek Eternal Summer Sun
Author: Jonty Skrufff
Thursday, July 1, 2004
Chatting to Skrufff this week from his already ultra-luxurious pad in London's seaside resort town of Brighton, Marine Parade chief and breaks king Adam Freeland admitted his wandering gaze is increasingly settling down under.
I'll be focusing all my touring on Asia for that six month period, doing residencies in china and Japan then I'll do the UK, Europe and the rest of the world for the second six months of the year," he explains. "It means I'll be able to focus more on what I'm doing as well as living eternal summer."
10 years after he was the new kid on the block, pushing breaks to an already moribund house and trance scene, Adam Freeland finds himself as the biggest name of a genre that's both genuinely global and seemingly recession proof.
"Breaks is definitely getting bigger all the time, not just in the last 12 months though, it's been building gradually over the last 10 years," he concurs.
"Lots of scenes are hyped, such as speed garage then 2 step, for example, whereas we've just been getting on with what we've been doing. Breaks has never had any particular cool hype, whereas now it's reached the point of being a globally strong scene."
Though while Australia has become the country that's truly embraced and enhanced breaks in popularity terms, the music's production heart remains London, where clubs like Fabric continue to thrive through their music policy that's heavily geared towards the music and its players.
"Fabric's the only proper residency I've ever done, it's a great club, the people that run it are my friends and I always enjoy playing there," he agrees.
"It's the only London gig I'm doing at the moment and I've been doing it since the club opened, some five years ago now. I can always play whatever I want; they system's good and the crowd are receptive so you can experiment there. I can play all those tunes from the back of the box that you want to play but usually don't."
And more than a few of those tunes appear on his latest mix CD, conveniently released by the same East London club.
Skrufff (Jonty Skrufff): What approach did you take with your latest Fabric mix CD, was it any different from doing a Marine Parade one-
Adam Freeland: "You start with your wish list of tunes then you get all the dickhead major record labels telling you that you're not allowed to use your own remixes. The record companies make a big fuss about it and you have to accept you can't use them, their usual explanation being that the artist involved has a record coming out at the same time and giving you your remix is going to dent their sales. For this Fabric CD this the first time I've done a mix properly, fully in a computer. Because of that the first 30 minutes of the mix are all perfectly in key; perfectly pitch mixed, which is impossible in real life. Then I've done loads of other crazy shit, slowing down lots of tracks ridiculously such as LFO's Freak; I had loads of fun with it."
Skrufff: You're playing Global Gathering after missing Glastonbury, why did you choose that-
Adam Freeland: "I wasn't offered Glastonbury."
Skrufff: Do you find audiences differ much from country to country-
Adam Freeland: "It depends on the type of event you play at. A few years ago progressive house was the big thing and lots of progressive guys liked what I did so a lot of time I found myself playing alongside loads of big progressive names, though these days I'm not doing that. I'm either playin Tags