It’s easy to forget that up until recently Mefjus was a producer who people tipped as ‘one to watch’.
Now he’s premiere league. And it feels like he has been forever.
One of the many incendiary Austrian talents, Mefjus has played a massive part in bringing the techy side of drum & bass to our ears with his intricate, surgical productions. A critical Critical family member, the forthcoming debut album – Mefjus – Emulation – has given him a platform on which to flex his production muscles in a way he hasn’t been able to before… And it’s clear he’s taking the opportunity seriously.
Mefjus – Emulation is released December 1. Here are four of the many reasons to get excited about it…
Emulation…. The name applies to modern society, too, because if you look around nobody reads newspapers anymore, we’re all glued to our screens becoming more and more like machines.
Some of the tracks have been smashing dancefloors for a year…
“We had the album launch a few weeks back where we took over Room 3 of Fabric. It was a great opportunity for me to show off all the tracks on the album. Every track got a really good response – it was great seeing people’s facial expressions and reaction to each tunes. In fact, I’ve been playing some of the tracks from the album for about a year now so I’ve been able to gauge how people reacted to the tunes quite a lot which has been really helpful. Most of the time they’ve gone off and I hope that continues after the release of the album. For me that’s the best way of judging the quality of a track.”
His hip-hop roots shine through as much as the drum & bass…
“Out of the 14 tracks there’s 11 drum & bass tunes, a few hip-hop tunes and one which is more of an experimental 80bpm tune, so there’s a nice balance. Those hip-hop tunes are to kind of show the audience where I come from musically. Back in the 90s, the Golden Era of the hip-hop, I used to listen to a lot of Wu Tang Clan’s stuff and also a lot of stuff produced by DJ Premier, so it’s nice to be able to show those influences on the album alongside the drum & bass. I also used to produce hip-hop and I’ve always loved making it. It’s going to be interesting to see how people react to those tracks but I hope they like them.”
It’s the result of meticulous planning and production…
“The album took over a year to produce and there was a lot of planning beforehand too. When I first started I had a really clear picture of how I wanted to mix it down because I’ve listened to a lot of albums in the past that don’t sound consistent production wise and I wanted to make sure I avoided that. It’s taken so long because I wanted to make sure each track is as good as it can be; whenever I discovered a new production technique or new plug in I went back to an old track and used it to make it even better. It’s really hard letting go of a track but now all the tunes of the album sound really organic and I’m really happy about that.”
It’s a story as well as an album…
“When I quit my job a year and a half ago my main goal was to make an album because it’s quite a rare and exciting opportunity, and I thought the most important thing to show everyone with the album was my progression from hip-hop to drum & bass. Emulation is a kind of transformation too in my opinion so it seemed really fitting. The name applies to modern society, too, because if you look around nobody reads newspapers anymore, we’re all glued to our screens becoming more and more like machines. People spend far too much time in front of screens these days and there are a few samples in the album that hopefully make people question and reconsider this. People who have followed me over the years will understand why my sound is the way it is now, so I guess there’s a story element to this album.”
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