A session with HUXLEY

Photo credited to: Katie Palmer

 With his tantalizing debut Australian tour coming up this week we thought it was time to have a chat with one of the freshest faces in house music land, Huxley. Although he has been producing for a while now, Michael Dodman only got the attention he deserves in the past couple of years with releases on labels such as Tsuba, Morris Audio and 20:20 Vision. UK based Dodman also keeps busy running his own new label Saints On Sonnets, responsible for that hot Detroit Swindle EP!
Catch Huxley playing Melbourne Friday 29th June @ The Mercat and Sydndey Saturday 30th June at One22.

This will be your first time playing in both Melbourne and Sydney! What are you expecting from the tour and what shall the punters expect?

Well as I've never been to Australia, i'm not really sure. I've got a few mates over there/traveled there and they have nothing but good works to say about the place. I can't wait to get there and experience it myself. I guess the punters should expect a little bit of London in Australia. deep grooves with a lot of bass and some cool bits thrown around. I'm hoping it should be a lot of fun.

 "I'm not so fussed about sitting directly in line with what a label normally puts out, I think you should just work on your own sound"

We have been following your productions for a few years now and noticed the move from "tech house" to more classic "garage house" as you also mentioned in your RA article. Do you think your sound will keep shifting in the future?

Almost definitely. Not because I'll want to jump on a bandwagon, but i think it's natural that everyone's sound progresses over time. I think if you just make the same shit time and again people, and more importantly yourself will get bored and start to stagnate. I have no idea what the changes might be though, but i suppose they happen every time i sit down to make a track

As your productions have become more in demand, do you feel you have had more freedom with your style or do you feel like you have to achieve a certain sound for a label?

I think it's fair to say it's a bit of both. I don't think it's about achieving a certain sound for a label though, more for the audience really. I'm not so fussed about sitting directly in line with what a label normally puts out, i think you should just work on your own sound, and if they don't like it, they're probably not the right label for you. I have to say though i think now i can make a lot more of a diverse and experimental sound, and because people know me a little bit, they'll give it a bit more time of day. More so than maybe a year or two ago, anyway.

We read that you started producing on what now seems to be a primitive sequencer called Impulse Tracker. How has your studio changed since the early days and what would we find in there today?

Well it's changed quite a lot to be fair. i mean a lot of it is still software based, but now i'm using logic on a mac, which is a fairly big change from I.T on dos. Also i use to use hi-fi speakers, and obviously they've been gone for a while now. My studio is still fairly modest to be honest. I've just got a new iMac and then just Genelec monitors and Focusrite sound card. I also have a few outboard bits that rarely get used; Alpha Juno, Microkorg and a Dave Smith tetra. I'd love a lot more hardware, but i don't have the space and plus in all honesty, i'm not sure how much I'd use it as i'm so use to working inside the box, so to speak.

The past 12 months have been huge for both Huxley and your label Saints & Sonnets. What do you have lined up for these projects for 2012 and beyond?

Lots of exciting things. Working on a whole bunch of new original material, which I can't wait to finish up. Also a lot of music with vocalists and I might start to think about my album soon. The thing that's most imminent though is my debut compilation for 1trax that's due out in august. It's the first thing I've done like it, so i'm hoping it goes down well!

Finally, a couple of tunes/ artists your digging at the moment?

There's loads of tunes. But artist wise, Jason Groove, George Fitzgerald, Disclosure, Dusky, Shenoda and i absolutely love the new Joy O & Boddika collaborations.Huxley Soundcloud
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