Since 2015, ALB has been carefully crafting drum & bass that will soothe your soul. It’s silky. It’s deep. It’s mystical. It’s as much the soundtrack to meandering through a dewy forest after rainfall as it is walking home from Fabric at 6AM. Both experiences every bit as magical as the other, if you ask us.
Inspired as much by R&B and electronica as he is by the likes of Dawn Wall, Mohican Sun and Artificial Intelligence, ALB’s music sits seamlessly in the soulful, atmospheric corner of liquid drum & bass. It’s as good on a Spotify playlist as it is in a club, and after years spent honing his sound and releasing on major imprints including RAM Records, UKF, Liquicity and Spearhead, he has decided to take ownership of his artistry.
Introducing his new imprint: Trident Records
Trident gives ALB’s music a home on his own terms. No compromising. No waiting around. Just a clear, unwavering vision and an abundance of music ready to be unleashed.
With the label launched and some exciting projects with mystery alias LOATIAL en route, we caught up with ALB to find out more.
ALB! You’ve been busy. Talk to us about your new label Trident Records.
I’ve been wanting to self-release and start my own label for a while now. I think I was always a bit anxious about doing it because you never really know how your music is going to perform when you’re putting it out completely independently. Eventually I just thought, ‘Let’s forget about the numbers and just go for it.’ The first release is called ‘Finding Reason’ and it’s going really well! We’ve had some amazing feedback & it’s already done a nice amount of streams which is great considering there wasn’t loads of Spotify playlist support behind it. We’ve got a four-track EP coming this summer and there’s a lot more music after that ready to go.
Amazing! Where did the name Trident come from?
My birth name is Alexander, I’ve always been into history, mythology, The Greeks, Romans, Vikings etcetera. I knew I wanted to go down a Greek route when it came to naming the label. Quite a lot of thought went into it actually, as well as a design concept for LOATIAL that will intertwine with the Greek theme. All will be revealed when the first EP drops! The Trident represents Poseidon, the Greek God of the Sea. My aim for the label is to release god tier D&B – pardon the pun – mainly focusing on liquid, so it felt fitting. Poseidon being the Sea God, which in my head equals liquid, they kind of go hand in hand. I want Trident to become known for high-quality, vibe-fuelled drum & bass.
What will the output of the label look like? Is this for you or other artists too?
At the moment, the label isn’t accepting demos. Right now it’s more of a home for me and LOATIAL, who I’ve been working closely with for the last couple of years. We needed an outlet for all the music we’ve been creating because there’s honestly so much of it. I don’t think any label we had in mind would’ve ever been able to handle the amount of music we have. Starting a label just made sense and the timing felt right. That being said, I definitely want to start accepting demos and releasing music from a variety of artists in the future. When that time comes, I’d like to do things a bit differently to a lot of other labels. One thing I’d like to do is give artists a bigger split. A lot of labels operate on a 50/50 split but to me it feels fairer if the artist receives the bigger share.
Indeed. A great outcome for the artists you do work with…
Exactly. I plan to do all of the artwork in house, and the mastering too. Rather than spending money on those things, I’d rather put money into marketing and Meta ads to hopefully help grow the artists and to help grow the release. Some probably think running ads is throwing money away, but I see it differently. Even if you don’t generate loads of streams from one release, if it helps bring new fans into the music, then the next release hopefully performs better, and the one after that and so on.
Sounds like a plan. In terms of your own production: What or who inspires you when making music?
Loads of drum & bass inspired me when I first fell in love with the genre. If we’re talking liquid, artists like LSB, Lenzman, Technimatic, Alix Perez, SpectraSoul, and, of course, Artificial Intelligence, Dawn Wall and Mohican Sun. I think my whole focus and outlook on what I wanted to create in drum & bass changed the day I first heard Dawn Wall’s debut release, ‘Simple Mind’, when it premiered on UKF’s channel in 2015. I followed UKF religiously throughout my teens and early twenties, both drum & bass and dubstep, but when I heard that track, it changed everything. It was like nothing I’d ever heard before and it made me feel a connection I’d probably never felt with a piece of music. I was obsessed with that sound then and I still am now.
AI’s The Series EP’s were also a game changer for me. In my opinion, I don’t think there’s been a better body of work in drum & bass since then. Vibe-wise, all of those releases are phenomenal and unmatched.
They all really did something new, didn’t they!
Absolutely. You could genre-tag it as liquid, but what Artificial Intelligence, Dawn Wall and Mohican Sun did felt like a whole new subgenre in my opinion. The foundation was mainly liquid drum & bass but in a league of its own, in my opinion. The samples they were reaching for I feel came from such a broad and eclectic range of influences. You could hear contemporary deep R&B, trap soul, electronica, downtempo and cinematic influences perhaps from films, TV series and games throughout. There was also this eerie feeling and sense of mystery in the music. Some of the tones sounded like they came from ancient chants, tribes or ancient civilisations. I loved all of that. For some reason I just resonated with their music more than most. Maybe that’s because I have a similar taste outside of drum & bass.
And what are your influences outside of D&B?
To be honest, over the last seven or eight years, I don’t listen to as much drum & bass as I used to. I’m very much into all the genres I just mentioned as well as house, rock, experimental stuff and loads of other genres. I listen to all sorts and I think that really helps with my production. I’m probably more influenced by artists from other genres than the one I actually make. If I was constantly taking inspiration or following trends from other drum & bass artists, I feel like I’d lose who I am as an artist.
You’re heavily connected with the mystery alias LOATIAL. What’s the connection there? Any exciting releases incoming?
I’ve been working closely with LOATIAL for a couple of years now. I’ve not actually done that many collaborations throughout my career, so it’s quite a surprise that it’s become such a thing, but definitely a nice surprise. We’ve pretty much been working on stuff together every week since we made our first track together around two years ago. It’s sick to work with an alias that has the same passion as me for the style of drum & bass we aim to create. LOATIAL is definitely one to watch!
We’ve got a four-track EP coming out on Trident in August. The first single, ‘Finding Reason’, is already out, so is the second single, ‘Come Closer’, which dropped on June 5th and then the full EP follows in the first week of August. I’m really excited for people to hear it.
There seems to be a common thread running through ALB, LOATIAL and Trident. What links everything together?
I think it’s the shared passion for the specific vibe of drum & bass we all love, but also the genres outside of drum & bass that inspire us. We’re all chasing the same thing. We’re all chasing the feeling that certain music gives you. I was watching the Beckham documentary recently where he talks about the feeling of scoring a goal in front of a crowd and wishing he could bottle that feeling. I’ll never experience that, but I think making music is probably the closest I’ll ever get to it. When you make a track that genuinely makes you feel something on a deeper level, it’s hard to describe the feeling and raw emotion that brings me. Sometimes you’re working on a tune and you find a vocal that resonates perfectly with a moment in your life. It might just be a vocal you’ve pulled from a sample, but the words somehow connect exactly with what you’re going through at that time. The same with how a melody alone can sometimes take you back to a specific time in your life. Those moments feel quite profound. No matter what happens, I’ll always create music for those moments.
Follow ALB: Spotify / Instagram / Soundcloud
Follow TRIDENT: Instagram / Soundcloud
