AIMING FOR THE STARS: Matt Robson-Scott and Kye Gibbon, known as Gorgon City, are delighted with the number four position reached on UK charts by their latest single, Ready For Your Love.
By Geoffrey Rowlands
The work of dance music DJs/producers is obviously becoming increasingly popular with UK singles buyers. There was a time when these tracks were mainly appreciated by clubbers and struggled to find a place among the lower reaches of the mainstream chart. Things have now changed dramatically. The UK Top 10 is regularly populated by a succession of floor filling dance tracks many of which find their way to number one.
This ultimate achievement has so far eluded Matt Robson-Scott and Kye Gibbon, better known as Gorgon City. But the north London DJ/production duo are delighted with the number four position reached by their latest single, Ready For Your Love. “We don’t create tracks with the specific intention to have hits,” Kye stated. “We just make what we feel is the best tune we can at that particular time and hope people will enjoy it.”
“Getting the big hit with Ready For Your Love is great,” Matt remarked. “Some people in dance and other musical genres have a downer on the mainstream charts. They think having a widely popular song somehow represents a sell-out. We don’t see things like that. We want people to enjoy our music so if the popularity spreads beyond hardcore dance fans then that’s fine by us.”
The boys began DJ and production work in their mid-teens. Initially known individually, Matt as RackNRuin and Kye as Foamo, they decided to join forces in 2012. “We really just got together for a bit of fun,” Matt laughed. “We had the same agent so we’d often be DJing at the same raves on the same nights. We were having a chat one night and came up with the idea of doing a track together.”
“It was intended to be a one-off,” Kye added. “But we enjoyed working together so much that our solo careers were effectively put on hold. We’ve concentrated on creating tracks and performing DJ sets as Gorgon City.”
“We haven’t completely given up our solo work,” Matt clarified. “I don’t think we’ll ever kill off RackNRuin and Foamo but we love working together so we don’t have any plans for more solo work at the moment.”
Like almost every other DJ/producer, Matt and Kye use guest vocalists on their songs. But their working method involves the singer as a collaborator rather than just a featured artist.
“We like to create the basic track and then have the vocalist work with us on the melody and lyrics,” Kye explained. “We want the people we work with to feel like they are making a genuine contribution to each song rather than just providing their voices.”
After originally creating underground dance tracks, Gorgon City’s first mainstream collaboration was with DJ/singer Yasmin on their 2013 single, Real. “We’d heard Yasmin on tracks by artists like Devlin and Lewi White as well as her own songs,” Matt remarked. “She is a brilliant singer and songwriter so we thought she would be the perfect person to work with on ‘Real’.”
A collaboration with current UK chart-toppers Clean Bandit on Intentions drew enormous critical acclaim. But it is their work with London-born singer, songwriter and producer MNEK on Ready For Your Love which has seen Gorgon City storm the mainstream singles chart.
“We’d wanted to work with MNEK for ages,” Kye stated. “He’s been doing vocals for loads of artists such as Rudimental, Duke Dumont and DEVolution and we just thought he was brilliantly talented. He was a joy to work with and contributed so much to the quality of ‘Ready For Your Love.’”
Gorgon City’s debut album will be released later this year. “We’ve been privileged to work with some amazing vocalists,” Matt commented. “Most of them are not established artists but definitely should be. If our album is successful, we hope it will allow these great singers to become known by a much wider audience.”
Katy B
Fresh from enjoying the UK chart-topping success of her sophomore album, Little Red, singer Katy B performed a session for London radio station Rinse FM. Her version of Beyonce’s Drunk In Love blended with Tinashe’s Vulnerable can be seen at www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKIf5C5xshU.
Also taken from her session performance is Katy’s rendition of her album track, Tumbling Down. This can be accessed from www.youtube.com/user/rinsefm/videos.
Each song on Little Red has been posted on YouTube. Links to all of them can be found at www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLaYkykbootFFEhj7z3nSztA0GF0MsRn5Z&v=wPbygRZVvgA.
Katy’s first album, On A Mission, can be heard at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik5VPM7t7Ck&list=PLYryU-cGI-lV-qDS1Ocixo43nvxRdg59l
Angel Haze
Emerging American rapper Angel Haze is another artist who has performed a Rinse FM session. Three of her songs can be found by scrolling down the page at www.youtube.com/user/rinsefm/videos.
One of these is her latest single, Battle Cry. The original song sees Angel, real name Raykeea Angel Wilson, collaborate with Australian singer Sia who also co-wrote the track. The newly released official video is posted at www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvvRNPOJPH0
Angel’s debut album, Dirty Gold, was officially released last December. It had previously been deliberately leaked online by Angel herself in frustration at her record company delaying the release on numerous occasions. Although the full album has since been removed, many of Angel’s songs can still be found on the Internet. Four tracks from Dirty Gold are among the 18 posted at www.youtube.com/watch?v=zriJACIjx-M&list=PL_SdyPci3Mu1IiGf0Dn62GnTWrvbzoBPp
More songs can be heard at (no www.) soundcloud.com/angelhazeym. Most of these are available to download for free.
A free download of Angel’s Reservation mixtape is offered to those who join her mailing list. Interested parties should visit www.angelhazemusic.com and scroll down to the link near the foot of the webpage.
Phebe Starr
Australian electro-pop artist Phebe Starr describes herself as being influenced by Kraftwerk, Bjork, The Cure and beats from the 1990s.
Her four-track debut EP, Zero, has just been released to critical acclaim. It includes Phebe’s first single, Alone With You, and the follow-up, Jurassic. As ‘Single of the Week’ on Australian iTunes, Jurassic amassed nearly 50,000 downloads.
The Zero EP is posted at (no www.) soundcloud.com/phebestarr. Also here is a new song, Tonight. A remix of the track by Icelandic trio Steed Lord is also available to hear. The official video for Tonight can be viewed at www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cQ0tL6Nz9w
Tiffany Houghton
Tiffany Houghton has a very clear intended career path. “I was on the back seat in my dad’s car,” she recalled. “We were listening to Shania Twain on the radio. I knew one day I wanted it to be my song coming through the speakers.”
The Texas-born pop-country singer/songwriter is attempting to achieve her ambition in an unusual manner. Rather than create an album or EP, she is concentrating exclusively on the singles market. “I want each of my songs and the accompanying videos to have their own identity. Maybe one day they will be gathered together on an album but not before they’ve had a life of their own.”
The video for her debut single, High, is at www.youtube.com/watch?v=83VLT5RHejs. Links to the follow-up, Phone Call, and the newly released Love Like That, are posted on this webpage.
