By Geoffrey Rowlands


Things just keep getting better for DJs / producers Matrix & Futurebound. After spending 20 years working on Britain’s dance music scene, the last 18 months or so has seen their music progress beyond dance clubs into the mainstream charts.
“It’s been all about radio play,” smiled Londoner Jamie ‘Matrix’ Quinn. “I don’t think our more recent material is necessarily that much better than our earlier tracks but these were only heard by dance music fans. The difference now is our stuff receives airplay on mainstream shows.”
Jamie and Brendan ‘Futurebound’ Collins had known each other for quite some time before joining forces in 2005.
“I’d previously collaborated with other artists before getting together with Futurebound,” Jamie stated.
“I actually started in the business as one half of a drum and bass duo called Turbosound. But I also used the Matrix name for my solo work and released my first Matrix album, Sleepwalk, in 2000.”
His success with Futurebound was not the first time Jamie had featured in the mainstream chart.
“One of my collaborations was with Daniel Goldstein. We released a house cover of Jill Scott’s It’s Love (Trippin’) under the name Goldtrix. This track reached number six on the UK chart in 2002.”
Liverpool-born Brendan’s route to stardom began as a DJ and rave promoter.
“Attending raves fuelled my passion for dance music,” he smiled. “I started DJing and then promoted my ‘X’ events in Liverpool before recording my first tracks in 1993.
“I’d known Jamie for years and we’d often talked about making a track together. We were both so busy with our individual work and running our own record labels that we never found time to make it happen. But when we finally did get into the studio, the connection between us as people was incredible. So too were the songs we created. We knew we had something very special.”
Their debut single, Strength 2 Strength, was immediately acclaimed by dance music critics and fans. An album, Universal Truth, followed in due course. But their work seemingly appealed only to dance music aficionados. This changed during the early summer of 2012 when All I Know entered the top 30 on Britain’s singles chart.
“We’d done some remixes for 3Beat Records,” Jamie explained. “They really liked them and suggested we might do something with a singer named Luke Bingham who they’d just signed.
“We immediately knew he’d done a great vocal for All I Know but it was originally recorded over a different track. This was really good but just didn’t seem perfect so we spent a long time working on various ideas to find the right music to back Luke’s vocal.”
It was a different story with their second hit single, Magnetic Eyes.
“The music was set,” Brendan remarked. “We knew that was right but we couldn’t seem to find the right vocalist. We tried a good many, male and female, some of whom were terrific but just lacked that special something which was eventually provided by Baby Blue.”
Their current smash hit, Control, features the vocal talent of Philadelphia-born, but London-based, Max Marshall.
“We were introduced by our manager,” Jamie revealed. “We had the music ready for Control and were looking for a vocalist so we tried Max. She was fantastic. She absolutely nailed it in one take.”
“Not that we could leave it at that,” Brendan laughed. “We’re notorious tweakers. We keep making little tweaks to our tracks right up until the time they’re released.”
With more singles and a new album lined up for this year, could 2014 see Matrix & Futurebound hit top spot on the singles or LP charts?
“I don’t know about that,” Brendan continued. “We’ve been amazed by the success we’ve had so far. Every track seems to be bigger than the last one. I can’t see us ever topping a mainstream chart but some dance artists have reached number one so I guess we can hope for the best.”