Illum Sphere

Just in case you London beatmakers were starting to get cocky, Manchester based producer and promoter Ryan Hunn a.k.a Illum Sphere has recently fired a shot across the bows in the form of his new EP, 'Long Live The Plan'.

It's refreshing to hear a producer who isn't afraid to eschew the trappings of making club music and spend his time building music that draws you in and infects you. This is taut, subtle, intelligent stuff to walk around to and get lost in. And don't be doing that thing where you skip through the mp3 (I know you do it) to hear the 'drop'- you'll miss the point. No doubt by now you'll have heard the Samiyam remix of 'Psycho', but our favourite track is 'Never Lie Twice', where furious percussion and sinister, climbing chords give way to soaring strings and horns, before dissolving into a cloud of reverb.

We decided we need to know a little more about Illum Sphere so we dropped him a line and asked him some getting-to-know-you questions.

Tell me about your musical background?

I was born in London and listened to music from a really early age: my mum grew up in 1970s London, so was a big soul and disco fan. When I was little I was introduced to the more commercial side of disco, boogie etc. We moved to Manchester in 1995, when I was 11, and I properly got into music and started learning how to play guitar. Stuff like The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Radiohead etc.I started teaching myself to play piano and drums and started gradually venturing into other forms of music. When I was 18, I started uni in Manchester, got my first set of decks, and started buying records. I started by raiding my mum's old collection, full of mint condition Motown records and some killer disco stuff on labels like RCA (Players Association, Evelyn King etc). In 2004 I got a job in a second hand shop in Manchester called Voxpop which was an incredible education into jazz, funk, soul, reggae, psych, disco, African, South American and Easter European etc. I was also working for Mr Scruff and local labels Subtub Players and Estate Recordings at the time, so I was getting exposed to a lot of rare and underground music, old and new.

I started DJing round the city at bars first, but then at nights like Friends & Family and Electric Chair, which have both now ended, but were the biggest underground nights in the city at the time. After playing on the Sketch City stage at D-Percussion in 2006, Jonny Dub asked me to come on board, and we started running Sketch City together. It was a wicked monthly Sunday open age event with loadsa live art going on around the venue and people like Domu, Scruff, Gaslamp Killer, Ras G and Samiyam playing. We then started Hoya:Hoya in Feb 2008, taking over the Electric Chair slot at the Music Box. We moved to the Roadhouse in September 2008 and since then it's gone from strength to strength. Guests like GLK, Ras G, Rustie, Dabrye, Dam Funk, Ikonika, Danny Breaks, Daedelus, Mark Pritchard, Brackles, Alex Nut, Tokimonsta, Kidkanevil, Eliphino, Todd Osborn, Bullion, Paul White and Benji B have all played, and the response has been dope. We just wanted to do a night in a club cos we weren't getting booked in clubs, y'know? And just to put people on who we wanted to see, that was it. It's been wicked linking with people like that though, and off the back of it I got to play nights like Dam-Funk's 'Funkmosphere' and Low End Theory, in LA, before I'd even stuck a record out.

I released my first record, 'The Incoming EP' in April 2009 on Fat City, and since that I've done a split Producer 7" with Mono/Poly and a remix for Kidkanevil, and the next record is about to drop. I reckon that brings things up to date, haha.

How did you hook up with Fat City?

I actually started working in the Fat City shop, and when I properly started making tunes a couple of years ago, I was sending them to Aaron, who worked at the label. He put together the first Producer compilation on the label and was responsible for a lot of the A&Ring going on at that time. He moved to London, so after sending Matt (label owner) a few beats he offered to put out an EP, and that eventually became The Incoming EP.

Where does the name Illum Sphere come from?

I had a 'mare picking an alias, as it was weird making the transition of being known as Ryan, to whatever the alias would be. I also wanted something that wasn't common, or stupid, or that sounded genre specific, y'know? Like, DJ Swizzlestick sounds like a hard house DJ or some shit like that, and I wanted to be free to make whatever the fuck I wanted. So, Illum Sphere is kinda odd, but people ask me about it all the time, which must be a good thing. Oh yeah, also, Illum Sphere means 'shining ball of light'.

Tell me about this 1xtra music award? when/why/what?

The BBC have a charity called the Performing Arts Fund, which has various forms, but it supports people in the arts. It's made up from a tiny margin of the money that's generated by people calling up voting for those shows like Strictly Come Dancing and Fame Academy. So they stick it in a big pot and use it for something good. The one I got was the 1xtra Urban Music Fund. You basically apply, then I think 60 people got invited for interviews at 1xtra, then 30 of us were accepted. You go to a two day workshop/seminar at the BBC Television Centre, which had panels of industry people [running the workshop]. Then, 15 of us were awarded a grant to use for music stuff over the next year, as well as some mentoring and stuff like that. It's a wicked scheme, meeting people like Laura Lukanz, who runs 1xtra, various producers of the shows, artist managers, lawyors, PRS people etc etc. The thing is they don't promote it, which is cool because you have to do your research in order to know when to apply. People like Andreya Triana, Kidkanevil and Yungun have won it in the past too. I recommend people checking http://www.bbc.co.uk/performingartsfund/ for more info.

The dreaded question....how would you describe your sound?

Haha, OK, ummm... well... in fact....! Me, Blue Daisy and Joe Muggs (Journalist-Wire/Guardian) kinda accidentally came up with the term 'Mutant Funk' the other day on twitter, so it's MUTANT FUNK FOR 2010! But... in all seriousness, I don't think that I make beats, neither does Ka (Blue Daisy), but I think we get lumped in that wonky beats thing. I try to make songs, not beats, and I like to make stuff that takes people on a bit of a journey, or tells a story. The stories/ journeys may differ, depending on who the listener is, but I remember the feeling I got when I first listened to "Two/Three" by Dabrye. No modern music album has ever made me feel like 'that'. I can't even describe what 'that' is, but it was something that no other album released this millenium has made me feel, as a whole album. Basically, I want the listener to have 'that' feeling too, y'know? I don't force it though, I don't really think about what I make anymore, I just kinda let it happen and I feel more comfortable doing that than thinking "shit, I gotta make a big club friendly dubstep tune" or whatever. So... I dunno really how to describe it... but part of the Boomkat review for 'Long Live The Plan' said that I was "carving out my own brand of murky dystopia", which I think sums up my sound better than I could.

Where does the title 'Long Live The Plan' come from?

Well, it's the first part of the album, which is 'Long Live The Plan, The Plan Is Dead'. It just comes from the thinking that whatever plan is being followed in order to run things globally isn't really working and that we need a new one.

What else can we expect from you in 2010?

'Long Live The Plan' goes on worldwide release in the first week of 2010, then digi two weeks later. The 12" with my remix of Martyn's 'Brilliant Orange' and Ben Klock's remix of 'Is This Insanity?' is released at the end of January on 3024, and my remix of Om Unit's 'Lightgrids' is released on the digital release on All City around the same time. Then, 'The Plan Is Dead' should drop in March along with the full CD album 'Long Live The Plan, The Plan Is Dead' on Fat City and them I'm gonna release some stuff on other labels. I go to the Red Bull Music Academy as a participant in March and am trying to sort a US tour for April/May time. There's some European dates coming up too, Berlin in February and others to be confirmed. We're also gonna be launching the Hoya:Hoya label soon, which will only release music from the artists who have played at the night, so, yeah, first half of 2010 is set to be pretty busy...

'Long Live The Plan' by Illum Sphere is out now.

You can catch up with him here: www.myspace.com/theillumsphere

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