ALEX ATTIAS IS MUSTANG. MUNDOVIBES CHATS WITH THE SWISS-BASED PRODUCER
 Alex Attias is in the bath warming up after a weekend in the beautiful mountains of his native Switzerland. It’s been seven years since he lived permanently in Lausanne and you can tell it’s nice being home. “Of course I was dying to go to London,” he says, looking back on his years in the Big Smoke crafting dancemusic’s most significant development since Goldie swallowed his first E in Stoke-on-Trent. “London was fantastic – hooking up with the musicians I like, DJing all over the world, making albums, producing stuff. But I can do all that here now, and I’m two miles from the lake, an hour away from the mountains if I want to ski…”
Maybe this craggy and glistening habitat is responsible for the thread that runs, production-wise at least, through Alex Attias presents Mustang – long awaited solo album from the artist formerly known as Beatless, Freedom Sounds, Bel Air Project, Funkanova, Catalyst, Plutonia and River Plate. Some tracks are for dancing; others are for listening. But all the way through the tom-toms and the timpanis, the layered choruses, classical samples and hints of blues reflect in your mind’s eye a night-time forest of huge, shiny leaves, hidden animals with big ears and insects rattling under a spherical moon. A soundtrack, perhaps, for Moomin-papa and all the little Moomins, frolicking in the silver dusk. “Mustang is more cinematic, more dark jazz, a little bit moodier,” Alex explains. “I wanted to do an album that made sense from A to Z. Every track is kind of different – one track is more bluesy, one track is more influenced by drum & bass, one track is more like Detroit house, one track more hip hop – but it’s not house and it’s not hip hop. You get the impression of that, but there’s a line in the sound – the soundscape – because I use the same kinds of classical string sounds and samples.”In a way, a soundtrack is exactly what this album is. “Cinematic breaks” is the name Alex gives to the Mustang sound, and some of the inspiration behind it came from his work last year on the soundtrack for Anomalies Passageres, a French TV film directed by Nadia Fares. “Working with images was an absolutely magical experience,” he says. “And in the film I used the same kinds of sounds; it gave me the idea of doing this album in the same vibe.”
This other virtual-visual dimension is partly what makes Mustang such an unexpected offering from the producer who, being Swiss, always made it difficult to substitute the term “West London sound” for “broken beat”. Alex, after all, was part of this scene before he even arrived in London. Early releases like “Dark Jazzor” and “Jazz with Altitude” from the Bel Air Project – his first, Switzerland-based production outfit – became cult classics when they crossed the Channel, championed by the founding fathers of the broken sound including Dego (4Hero), Phil Asher (Restless Soul) and IG Culture (Bugz in the Attic). “Once I came to London just to visit, and I went to [That’s How It Is at] Bar Rhumba and [Gilles] Peterson was playing my track, “Jazz with Altitude” and people were going nuts!” remembers Alex, laughing. “I was shocked! Because in Switzerland, nobody would play this track – nobody even knew it.”With the break-up of the Bel Air Project in 1997, Alex pitched up in London bang on time. Main Squeeze, 2000Black, Bugz and other groundbreaking labels and collectives were just hatching into the open thanks to clubs like Inspiration Information, That’s How It Is and, soon, Co-op. Visions Inc., Alex’s own label, wasn’t far behind. Soon he was collaborating left, right and centre, giving – in the true “broken” spirit – a new name to each project and leaving in his wake a trail of floorfillers which made mincemeat of generic terms like hip hop, house, soul, boogie and death metal. “I arrived just at the beginning of this kind of West London crew. I was just there at the right time so it was great for me, but it was great for everybody else as well because everyone was getting tired of what they were doing in their own separate scenes.”The rest is history, and curiosity – the reason the whole thing keeps getting stronger.
Curiosity about other techniques, styles and rhythms means something new is always being invented or discovered or learned. That’s why there’s no need to worry about whether New Sector Movements destroy Busted live on Top of the Pops or what. “I see the future as people doing a lot more production for other artists,” says Alex. “The state of music in general is quite poor, but I think the quality of the producers in this scene is better than in other scenes for one reason: because they’ve all touched and they know different styles of music. You can ask anybody in this scene about hip hop or house or techno and they know a little bit about it, they’re interested in it. I don’t know if you could ask a producer in the hip hop scene if he knows the Carl Craig mix of Beanfield, you know what I mean? There’s more knowledge because of the experience we all have. Phil Asher producing Nathan Haines, a jazz musician, for example, and then a soul singer and then doing some house music. After that you’re ready to do stuff for anybody. Even rock!”The cast of Mustang is studded with stars from the Hollywood of future soul, including the pianist-composer extraordinaire Jessica Lauren, singer-producer Bembe Segue and vocalists Colonel Red and Vanessa Freeman. “Everybody was really good to work with because I’ve known them for a long time and they almost all know each other,” says Alex. “It’s kind of a little family.”
And, whether it’s to be an ongoing project with a strong character of its own or the start of a whole new “cinematic” sub-genre, this first Mustang project is unlike anything that has come before. Continuing to outwit the genre-spotters whilst re-engaging with the name on his birth certificate, Alex has opened up a whole new avenue in a scene already bristling with ideas and energy. As with your first taste of toast and Marmite, this is a gamble that could change your life. So hand over the vouchers.
For the Alex Attias interview, read on… |
