How many talented producers have we lost to the growing demands of day jobs and family life? Life in dance music can be all-consuming, with its late nights, costly kit and long hours spent obsessing over the right snare in the studio, and there are some who, faced with other commitments, choose to hang up their headphones – though Future Engineers are evidence that that doesn’t have to be the end, only a pause.
After two decades out of the game, Lee Batchelor and Keir Cleminson are finally releasing music together again, picking up where they left off as pioneers of drum & bass’s Atmospheric niche in the mid-1990s. With early releases on Renegade Records and Partisan Recordings, they snatched LTJ Bukem’s attention with the 1997 release “The Silence”, securing them a place on Good Looking Records and, later, the 720 Degrees imprint. They went on to release music on their own label Transference, along with other artists like Dauntless and Marso & Gala, but when life outside of music took over, they were forced to take a step back.
It’s a creative partnership that has weathered multiple barriers since they became friends as youngsters in London. They continued swapping music when Keir moved to Glasgow, eventually setting up their own drum & bass operation when Lee’s Scottish family returned north of the border too. Stripped of their proximity to the scene’s big players, who were mostly operating from the south of England, Future Engineers were forced to pick up production tricks on their own, with input from fellow Scottish DJs like KMC and Kemal.
Nowadays, the internet makes those geographical distances easier to close. With Lee now living in Sydney, the bulk of their collaboration happens online, and Lee also uses Zoom to host production workshops for producers keen to hone their craft from places as farflung as the UK, USA and Estonia.
We caught up with the pair about the Future Engineers’ new chapter, their Glaswegian origin story, and building a music community online.
What was it that inspired you to come back together after 20 years?
Lee: I’ve always kept the lights on, so to speak. I’ve still been producing, I’ve been running the label, and Keir’s been secretly observing in the background, waiting for the right moment.
Keir: It was like, “I’m not coming to the studio this weekend,” and then that turned into 15 years. Life got in the way, as it does. Then COVID struck and I had time all of a sudden, and started writing.
Lee: Keir would send me clips he was working on. I was like, “These are wicked, we need to finish these and get them out.” That was part of the impetus for why we launched the label again, because that had a bit of a hiatus as well.
Keir: I started to fill my boots with production knowledge. YouTube, we never had that back in the day. I was lapping it up, and Lee was giving me advice, and the ideas just kept rolling.
Do you think that YouTube learning has changed your production style from the early days?
Keir: Hopefully what was evident throughout Future Engineers from day one was a desire to be technically brilliant quality-wise with our production techniques. We didn’t have a massive network, because we were in Glasgow, so we were having to learn things ourselves, whereas now, there’s a wealth of geniuses out there that put it on YouTube, and you’re like, “Wow, I’ve never thought of that. I’ll give that a bash.” When people start to hear the newer stuff, it is going to be a different angle to where we were. The sound has moved forward. When I stopped producing drum & bass, there was a certain angle we were going at, which people took and ran with – the likes of Shogun, Overview, all these labels are where we were, making this atmospheric techy drum & bass. I think these guys took it up from where we stopped, and it took off great.
Lee: We’re very mindful that we want our new stuff to be able to stand up against what’s happening currently, but still have flavours from the past to retain that atmospheric vibe.
What can you tell us about your next releases?
Lee: One of the tracks, “Larni”, I wrote during lockdown. A bit like Keir, I was just writing something that moved me emotionally. But one thing we always try to achieve in our tracks is to have that musical deep element that also stands up on the dance floor. It’s got a good rhythm to it. It’s nice and driving.
Keir: “Disconnect” is taken from the more current production styles. The two tracks are going to sound quite different – it’s interesting to blend the changing styles of drum & bass. I think “Disconnect” is that progression from where we were at 720 – that’s where the sound was edging towards. It’s a bit more minimal, a bit more rolling, a bit more techy.
You’ve mentioned Atmospheric drum & bass growing legs since you stopped producing together. Are you trying to reflect that evolution in your new releases?
Lee: We have influences from the atmospheric sound, because we were fortunate enough to be part of its golden era, but we’re trying to get that balance between the musicality and the harder dance floor element. I love all that deep, lush, atmospheric stuff, but with a modern edge. There is this wave of slower 160 atmospheric drum & bass, which is cool. It’s quite refreshing to slow the BPM down, especially now we’re getting older. There’s people like ASC doing that kind of stuff.
Keir: Personally, I think some of the best drum & bass production out there is the hard stuff. It’s always been a benchmark, production-wise, but taking the musical stuff from the atmospheric world and blending the two. Some of the production that the harder producers do is just unbelievable. Having said that, it’s easier to get a cleaner mix when the music’s so minimal. When you’ve got all this music and pads in, it’s hard to get it sounding as clean. We’re always striving for the best mixdown possible, but not sacrificing the emotion in the music
What’s your process like, working together from opposite sides of the world?
Lee: So far, mainly Keir has been starting ideas and sending them to me. To be honest with you, the more he sends me, the less work I’ve got to do, because they’re getting better and better. We want to get into a position where there’s more back and forth. He’ll start an initial idea, send it to me, I’ll add some stuff, send it back, and so forth.
Keir: We could start really interacting and cooperating at a higher level, as you would a normal collab. We’re never going to be in the same space to make tunes, unfortunately.
Lee: That’s the beauty of the internet and technology. The next step is us jumping on Zoom and writing a track in real time together, with screen sharing and audio streaming.
How does that compare to when you were making music together in Glasgow?
Lee: We were in the same room, so it made a big difference. Keir would be jamming on one of the keyboards and I’d be beat looping, working on the drums. Then Keir would do something, and it would catch my ear. We’d pull that into MIDI. Sometimes it takes someone else sitting there to hear something you’re doing and pick up on it. I could be a bystander to what Keir was doing and then jump in and say, “Hold on a minute. Do that again.”
Keir: It was more like a jam, musicians together in a studio, while still technical. It’s a completely different scenario these days – it’s all done on computers, so it’s a different workflow. Beforehand, we were both in the studio and we had the keyboards, we had the samplers, we had the same modules. It was all hands on. You kind of miss it, but at the same time, we worked it as a full-time job when we were at our peak. You could spend eight hours a day in the studio and walk away with nothing.
Tell us about your Production Sessions workshops – what led you to set those up?
Lee: I’ve always wanted to teach music production, but there was the geographical logistics of going to someone’s house and teaching them one-on-one. Then Zoom became the new normal for communication. At that point, I had a handful of tracks I’d been working on, so I thought, why don’t I let people sit and observe? I can play them the music, give them some hints and tips on how I’m producing and what my workflow is. I had a small group of people that joined right from the start who are still with me to this day, and it just expanded. Now we’re writing music together that I’m driving in my DAW. Everyone can bring their own samples in and we decide as a group what we think works and we finish the track. That was another reason I decided to relaunch Transference. The people that are part of the group would actually see their music come out and be released commercially.
Keir: A lot of the people involved in it are our age, so these guys are more ingrained in the original sounds of drum & bass, and it’s bringing their techniques further forward. Hopefully, we will see that in some of these guys’ own music when they start to release stuff. It’s a good idea for trying to drag atmospheric drum & bass kicking and screaming back into the modern era.
Was there a part of you that wanted to help other producers because of your early experiences in an isolated scene in Glasgow?
Lee: I think back then, because we were so far away from all the other producers, there was only really KMC and Konflict that we were bouncing off. We were learning production techniques through trial and error, but also through magazines – there’d be Future Music or Computer Music. We’d get little tips here and there, a bit like what it is now with YouTube, but it was harder back then.
Keir: If we’d had the same possibilities of having a community of producers working together online back then, it would have made a huge difference. It would have been incredible. There were so many brilliantly talented guys that we never got to interact with. What we could have done together could have been great.
You both discovered hardcore and jungle when you were living in London. How did you end up in Glasgow?
Keir: I came back to Glasgow with my parents in 1990,and Lee was coming up because his family was Scottish as well. He was giving me tapes of Kool FM, etc, so I always had a love of hardcore. In Glasgow, it was all techno, house, happy hardcore, kick drum flavours, but I always preferred the breaks. When Lee’s family moved back up to Glasgow in ‘94, he brought the basics of a studio that he’d started making tunes on and we ran with it. We spent three or four years together and then we had the first release on Renegade.
Lee: The pirate radio stations in London, you can’t underestimate the importance they had in the development of the scene. It was nuts. I would religiously tape certain sets on the radio on a weekly basis.
Keir: The pause button massive.
Lee: It’s really cool because Kool FM’s moved to Rinse now and Technimatik played “Larni” on their Kool FM show on Rinse. Growing up listening to Kool FM and then, however many years later, having our tune played, it was pretty nice to hear.
KMC played an important role for your development as producers. How did you first link up with him?
Lee: We promoted some drum & bass nights back when drum & bass wasn’t really happening in Scotland, around ‘96. We spoke to Metalheadz and they said, “We’ve got this new up and coming guy called Bailey.” We were like, “Yeah, okay, he sounds alright. We’ll give him a go.” KMC was the only one that was doing anything remotely close to what we were into – the more musical Bukem-orientated sounds. I think we were the only two producers in Glasgow doing that style. We thought, why don’t we see if KMC wants to DJ at the night? That was the start of the relationship.
Keir: He was majorly influential on us. He’s a touch older and he’d been DJing in the rave scene. He also had a lot of connections, so it really helped us. He was cutting our stuff and playing it. It’s those old cliches that nobody ever believes are true, but they are – something gets dropped in a cutting house and then next thing you know, you’ve a track released.
Lee: That’s how our first release came about on Renegade Recordings. Keith was down in Music House in London cutting dubplates, as you did back then, spending a fortune on acetates. He was cutting one of our tracks “Shattered”, which was the B-side of “The Silence”. And Clayton from Renegade came barging into the room and was like, “What the hell’s that tune?” Clayton got in touch and we sent him some stuff. “The Silence” was on that DAT. It was very much about the right time at the right place.
How did you then end up on LTJ Bukem’s radar?
Lee: Keith had “System” released on Good Looking before we ever got signed, so Keith knew Bukem anyway.
Keir: We did play alongside him as well around about that time, here and there. Whoever came to whatever night, we dropped a DAT in their pocket hoping we would get some feedback.
Lee: We gave him a DAT and the Renegade stuff was on there. He was an amen fan, so he cut “The Silence” to dubplate. I think we, consciously or unconsciously, wrote “The Silence” being quite inspired by that Essential Mix and the Bukem sound. To hear that Bukem liked it and was playing it out was a really big thing. Back then Good Looking had such a monopoly over that sound, so we sent all our music to Bukem and the other DJs, like PHD, Blame, Tayla, and then eventually Bukem had “Timeshift”.
You mentioned on your podcast another artist who influenced you early on – Blame. What was it that drew you to his productions?
Lee: Blame was doing something different. We’d gone through the dreamy, washy atmospheric stuff and we’d done some releases on Partisan. But when 720 came out, it was like, this is cutting edge. This is pushing things forward. It was still musical, but it’s slightly harder and technical. That set us on the path of what our sound became, that relationship between the uplifting musical elements and the harder dance floor energy, which was what 720 was all about.
Keir: The 720 sound was a bridge between what Kemal and Rob Data were doing with Konflict and the tech-step sound that was kicking about. It was also more techno sounding to a certain extent. We’re in Glasgow – you go out for a night in Glasgow, it’s house and techno. The people we were surrounded by were all house and techno producers and DJs, so naturally that soundscape you’re drawn to.
Blame said on the podcast that you took his sound and built on it – that must have been gratifying to hear.
Lee: We were quite young back then, and it was always our dream to get released on 720. When we finally found the sound that we liked and it fitted the label and Blame liked it, that was really affirming for us that what we were doing was right.
You also spoke about the impact Australian producer Dauntless has had on you. How has he helped to shape your sound?
Lee: Bill and his wife booked me to DJ in Sydney years ago, before I even lived here. We clicked straight away, and he’s a great producer. He’s really technically minded and has taught me so much. I’d finish a track, get it to sound as best as I can and send it to him. I’d be dreading his feedback, because I know he’s going to rip it to pieces. He wouldn’t even comment on the track. He would just go, “You need to cut 150 hertz by three dB.” Really technical feedback. Then I’d be like, “He’s got a point, actually.” He really pushed me. I don’t think I would have started doing the sessions online if it wasn’t for Bill.
You’re not the only artists returning to the scene after some time out. We’re also seeing new music from Kemal, and J Majik had a comeback pre-COVID. What do you think is driving that trend?
Keir: It’s funny, I don’t know why, but I’ve always had mates that were cyclists. Music production and cycling are the same sort of hobby – they’re incredibly expensive and you need to have the time to engage with it. I think people are starting to take time for themselves and doing things that they want to do. Maybe COVID had a big thing involved in that. People suddenly realised that they need to do things that help them personally. Certainly, that was the case for me. All I did was be a father and go to work and I had nothing else, whereas I now have this third element in my life, making changes whenever I have a minute, or a day off looking after the kids while also thinking about a kick drum.
Lee: I also think the whole nostalgia piece is really big at the moment in all aspects of music. People are reminiscing about back in the day. You’ve got Blame doing his “Shadow” remixes. You’ve got all the old crew doing old-school lineups. Everyone’s reliving their youth at the moment, which is cool.
You’ve alluded to some new releases coming in the new year. What can we expect next from Future Engineers?
Lee: There’s a lot of music in the pipeline coming on Transference that we’re excited about. It’s a real example of how we’ve both matured and our sound’s grown. We’re playing off each other’s strengths and enjoying writing music again that we get a buzz out of. Hopefully, people that have liked us in the past will continue on that journey with us.
Keir: We’ve got ambitions to hit some other labels that we never got the opportunity to do back in the day because we were so focused on Good Looking and the atmospheric drum & bass. Hopefully we can start crossing genres, hitting other labels, other scenes, other sounds, and show that Future Engineers are more than just 10-minute atmospheric dreamers from 1996. Let’s hope we get some new people excited about the vibe and the sound.
Lee: That’s something I’m trying to do with the Production Sessions – empower producers that want to really hone their sound. That’s my number one goal, to share our knowledge and help people learn from the mistakes that we made over years and years of trial and error. We can fast-track that learning, help grow the scene and inspire a new wave of producers to write amazing drum & bass.
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