When you live somewhere as cold and grey as Glasgow, you need some kind of way of keeping the elements at bay. Some choose Buckfast, others choose deep-fried Mars bars…but more sensible Glaswegians choose a more viable and healthy option.
Take Milton Jackson for example. He’s been making warm, life-affirming deep house for several years now, infusing it with the more soulful, melodic side of techno at times and his own love for sci-fi weirdness along the way. An impressive range of styles therein has seen him create anthemic, big-riffed tracks (Cycles), huge chunky grooves (Rhythm Track), minimal techno-influenced wiggling (Crash) and quirkier gems (Ghosts In The Machine), as well as straight up techy workouts – all with the same high degree of success and widespread acclaim.
His affair with Freerange Records continues this month as he releases his second album, Crash, on the globally-loved imprint – with plenty of tour dates and album launches along the way. If you don’t know already, you best get to know one of the UK’s most talented house music producers.
So Milton, the question on everyone's lips: Did you get to build a snowman last week?
Unfortunately not - there wasn't much snow where I am. It's usually the other way round though!
Talking about the cold, you're a native of Glasgow. While perhaps not containing the concentration of nights as London, it certainly has a reputation for quality nights out. How important has the city been in both shaping your early experiences in electronic music as well as continuing to be a creative place in which to make music?
Certainly there are some great clubs here. Sub Club, The Arches…newer nights such as Tronicsole at The Admiral and V Club. I think last week we had Stimming, Robert Hood, Solomun, Zomby and Martyn in Glasgow on the same weekend. So there's certainly a lot of inspiration music-wise out there. I used to go to Sub Club a lot in my early clubbing days so I suppose that influenced me a great deal.
What are your fondest memories of those early days? Was there a specific moment where you thought, 'I want to make this music for myself’?
I remember when I was about 19, I lived in Edinburgh then and I was in the old Honeycomb…the whole vibe of the club and music was really cool to me and I definitely knew I had to pursue that to some degree. By this point I had the necessary studio equipment to get started so I just went from there. I sent my first demo to Stevie Sole at Tronicsole and he put out my first couple of EPs. I learnt a great deal from him about production and the whole business side of things and that really set me up for the future.
Did you find the whole production process a difficult and frustrating learning curve to start with, or did you find yourself to be a 'quick learner'? How long was it until you felt truly happy with what you were producing?
Not really, I took to it quite quickly, I find as I get older it's more frustrating as it's harder to come up with ideas you haven't explored before. Listening back now, those old records sound pretty terrible, but they had some cool ideas.
Although your tunes have appeared on other labels, including your own imprint, many of us see Milton Jackson and Freerange Records as inextricably linked. How did this relationship first start?
I was speaking to Tom Middleton (Cosmos) on iChat and he introduced me to Tom Szirtes (Shur-i-kan). We got chatting and eventually we came up with 2 EPs which we collaborated on by swapping parts back and forth on the internet. We sent the finished tracks to Freerange as Tom had worked with them before. They loved the EPs and put them out. From there I had a good relationship with the Freerange guys so it just followed on from those initial Milton / Shur-i-kan EPs.
How important has Jamie and Freerange been to your career, both past and present? (He told us you were one of his 'babies' by the way!)
Incredibly important, both inspirationally as his music and production are top notch and also personally. I really enjoy working with the Freerange guys.
For us house music obsessives, Freerange has been one of the labels at the very centre of the resurgence of the deeper house sound over the last couple of years. What is it about the label that has attractive so much praise and respect both in the UK and abroad?
I think it's the quality control of what they release and they are also incredibly professional people to work with. Every EP is usually great, then they have great artwork etc. They approach it a lot more like German labels do (Buzzin' Fly are the same) where it's the whole package, artwork, club nights etc. The label becomes a synonym for the scene rather than just a collection of so-so digital releases. Labels should be more important the artists releasing on the label, I've always felt that. The label is what you buy into.
Your new album, Crash, is an absolute corker. What was your thinking about the timing of its release? How long has it been in the pipeline?
Cool thanks, glad you like it. It took about a year on and off. I started about Jan ‘08. There are certain times you can't really release underground music - the run-up to Christmas and New Year being a good example. So we put it back to Feb/March time.
Some dance music reviewers often criticise producers for releasing full-length albums when they're not ready, i.e. while having undoubted talent, some artists simply don't have enough material to justify a full length album, the EP format is perfectly sufficient. Did these criticisms ever concern you when you first conceived Crash?
No, I'm not really bothered about outside criticism. I'm more self-critical (to a ridiculous degree!) so it was more about clearing my own personal hurdles to finish it. Dance albums are always Catch 22 in respect of how you balance the output. Do you want 10 tracks for clubs that nobody would really listen to at home? So it's a tightrope to walk in that respect definitely.
There are some great highlights on this album, from the melodic Crash, the wiggly Backwards Disco, the chunky naughtiness of Rhythm Track and the floaty Orbit 3. Did you set out to make this album as broad as possible while keeping to a central theme?
Yeah I wanted to keep it all above 120BPM. I was messing about with downtempo stuff but in the end I couldn't be arsed with that. The whole Milton Jackson thing is meant to be wonky/weird sci-fi house. That's what I try to do so I didn't want to end up with an album with trip-hop fillers or whatever.
Despite the varied nature of many of the tunes, when I first heard Backwards Disco it screamed out a Milton Jackson production. Do you think there is something unique about your tunes that make them particularly recognisable?
Yeah most of them are crap! It's hard to answer that, I hear them differently from other people. I suppose they maybe have a definite feel to them. I still have all the MPC quantize settings imported into Logic, that's definitely a big factor. Sound-wise I always try to sample oddities from sci-fi and old records. So maybe that plays a part.
The video for Crash (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=lXuBHLorIzE) involves you getting slapped, punched, bottled and then beaten with various musical instruments. Explain.
Yeah that was a good laugh. To fit in with the Crash theme we decided lots of people should smash things over me. Actually I had a greater respect for actors after that, it was a bit of a mission just to get those 5 minutes filmed.
I can't not ask you about Sonar Festival in Barcelona last year. Both Jimpster's stunning DJ set and your live set, especially everyone going mental to Cycles, was one of the highlights of the entire festival. What was it like playing to such a large crowd? Why is it such a rarity that deep/tech house is given such a big platform in which to showcase the best producers and DJs the genre has to offer?
Yeah I can't say I've played to that many people at once before, it was certainly a great honour. I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous before-hand. A great experience though. I would say it's a rarity in that generally the deeper stuff works better in your 300/400/500 capacity clubs, intimate atmosphere etc. However it's great to get out of that every once in a while and do things like Sonar.
Do you think labels like Freerange, Cecille or Oslo should be given more platforms like Sonar or does their place truly belong in the smaller, 'underground' clubs?
Overall I think the smaller clubs are where we work best, but I definitely think these kind of labels should get bigger showcases at things like Sonar. All these labels are putting out great music and contributing to the happiness of a lot of people, so why not!
We loved your collaboration with Sei A on Urban Torque. You've also teamed up with the likes of Shur-I-Kan in the past, and we hear of a new label that you will be launching with him soon. How different do you find it working as a duo as supposed to alone? Are there any more collaborations in the pipeline?
I love working with other people, it's always an eye-opener to see how other people produce and what their techniques are; a great learning experience and I'm a learning computer like the T1000 :-) Funnily enough I generally don't work with them in the studio - we tend to do it over the internet (even though Sei A lives about 3 miles away.)
Finally, there have been some great recent remixes of some of your tracks – we love H.O.S.H.'s quirky and very cool play on Ghost in My Machines. Are there any producers you look up to, whether veterans or newcomers, who you'd love to see put there own twist on a Milton Jackson track?
I like Hiro, his stuff is nice on Tronicsole. For me though it would have to be Les Baxter doing an orchestral score of Ghosts In My Machines, that would be the ultimate! We would have to bring him back from the dead though, so that might pose a problem.
Thanks so much for your time Milton, and all the best for 2009!
Thanks for having me, it's been a pleasure.
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