Souped Up veteran, label-boss and rowdy beat maker, Dutta, returns with ‘Dom Perignon’, a three-track project ready to turn summer 2024 into a wobbly wonderland.
Raising the bar of his own dutty-excellence after committing to an intense seven-month stint of musical up-skilling, this bouncy new EP is proof of the Mancunian producer’s hard work, slight change of direction and eagerness to focus more on the musical elements of his tracks.
New flavours, new techniques, same old Dutta. We pulled him in to find out more.
Dutta! Highlight of the week so far?
I met a really nice woman the other night! Work’s going well too. I feel like a lot of good things are landing on my lap at the moment. I’ve been making a lot more healthier choices, putting a bit more love back into the cup and the universe gives back to me tenfold. So yeah – I’ve had a great week this week!
The wholesomeness we all wanted. Let’s talk about your new EP on Souped Up – was there anything different you wanted to do with this one?
Realistically, for the last 7 months I’ve been taking a lot of time off shows and working on my music, knuckling down on my songwriting and stuff like that. Kind of taking a bit of a different approach with my songwriting, how I’m making my tunes and the direction I’m taking my sound in. So yeah, I wanted my music to be a bit more mature, a bit more songwritey! I wanted to reinvent myself, come with a fresh new sound. Show everyone how much I’ve been working. I wanted to showcase the new skills I’ve been learning over the last 7 months in terms of my production.
What brought on this change in direction?
I just feel like I kind of needed to reinvent how I was making my tunes. Up the levels of everything, instead of making the same old stuff I’ve been making. I started noticing that there were a lot of things that I could do to improve on. There are things I didn’t struggle with, but the things that I did struggle with I just knuckled down and went back to basics with everything. You find yourself writing the same sort of music. It’s kind of good to step away from the style you’re writing and learn new things and make other types of music. I found after doing that, when I went back to the style I was creating, my confidence in the studio was a lot higher. My consistency is getting a lot better. I think I needed to work on that over the last 7 months and take my music into a new direction.
A natural progression for an artist! Is it easy to clock when it’s the right time to step towards a new sound and start upskilling again?
I think right now because of people’s attention spans, when you’re making too much or something, people are just getting bored of it. I personally wanted to start writing much more exciting music, so I needed to go back to the drawing board. Personally speaking. You could be an artist who has had one big tune, then you go off and carry on writing thinking your tunes are the best but they’re not. It depends on what sort of artist you are. I’m very self-critical. There’s a lot of ideas that I write that go straight in the bin. All the stuff I’ve been putting out have been tracks I’ve really liked and genuinely wanted to put out.
Having a big hit very early on in your journey as an artist must create a huge amount of pressure, perhaps anxiety too?
It creates a lot of pressure because everyone is watching. Even being a one trick pony, there’s no consistency there. The proof is in the pudding. You’ve got to be consistently releasing good music. That one trick-pony thing would give me a lot of anxiety. I’ve been making music for about 14 years so it’s a walk in the park. I really enjoy it. It’s what I do in most of my spare time, for fun. So I don’t really feel pressured in the studio or anything like that, but I can imagine if you made a hit, and it’s early on in your career, it’s a lot of pressure because then you need to make a tune as big as that hit.
Making music for fun is the one. There’s a lot of value in doing things for fun instead of doing things for money.
It’s a big escape for me. Saying that though, even when I’m at my happiest and I’ve got good stuff going on, that also inspires me to sit and make music. It helps me express my emotions a lot better and helps me control what I’m feeling too. It’s more therapy to me than a get rich sort of thing. Even if I didn’t do what I do in drum & bass, I’d still be writing music regardless.
That sounds like a very healthy way to make music. Keeping the love for our creative ventures is important, paying your rent off your creativity can sometimes be exhausting.
It just becomes a chore. It can be difficult doing the music thing full-time. I left my job when music was paying me more than my job but even then, it’s still good to have a stable income. You might get your first big pay out or you might be going out for a grand a gig or whatever, but if you have other work too, you have stability. It’s healthy to separate your work from your art. You don’t want to be in the studio choring. Like urghhh I need to finish this project. It should be fun. I found myself doing it. I have been releasing music since 2015 so over the last 10 years, I’ve felt a few of the emotions you know. I’ve just tried to not bring any more stress into my life. Life is hard enough as it is, you don’t want to make it any harder regarding the work that you’re doing every day. Especially when that thing is something you love and your art, something you really do pour yourself into it.
You’re an independent artist who works across different labels whilst self-releasing too – what are the pros and cons of working in this way?
I work with the people I work with, sort of thing. I keep my circle small and I work with the people I’ve worked with for a long time and built a relationship up with. I think it’s good to have creative control over your music. So doing the self-releases and stuff like that fills in the gaps when you don’t have a release on a big label or big artists to work with. Then that creative control keeps the consistency with releasing. Work with big artists and labels too though. Working with labels opens doors for new fanbase, new fans who follow the label and like what the label do too. New people might check you out and then you might become their favourite artist! It opens a lot of doors. Not that it can’t be done independently. If I’ve got any advice for artists, I’d say it’s good to stay with a team and work with a team. You don’t want to be releasing with every label under the sun. Don’t be sending the same demos to all the labels. Wait until you hear back from them, wait til they’ve spoken to ya, then go elsewhere if they turn you down. Don’t be sending all ya tunes to every Tom, Dick and Harry. No ones going to want to hear it. Only if people don’t get back to you after a week or two should you go elsewhere. People like exclusivity. It shows loyalty, which goes a long way in this industry.
Artists that you’re rating at the min?
Absolutely! I want to shout out Parallel, Hexa, if you’re reading this, go and check those out. They’re making wicked tunes, tunes that are going off in my sets at the minute. Flipnosis too, everyone I’m working with at the min, Serum, Trigga, Upgrade. I’ll leave that there. There’s loads of people.
What do you think the best thing, and also the most challenging thing, is about being an artist in 2024?
Wow! TikTok. For both! Nah, the most challenging thing in 2024 as a musician is that it’s very saturated. I feel like everyone wants to do it. Everyone wants a quick buck. The music was from the underground and it will always go back round to that… I’m just hoping that it does sometime soon! Things are a bit difficult at the minute. Everyone is still skint from lockdown. All the clubs are shutting. The promoters don’t have the same budgets they had before lockdown. There’s a lot of things affecting the industry that’s out of everyone’s control and a lot of artists are really taking it out on themselves at this time, regarding gigs and feeling disheartened about work and stuff like that. I’m hearing it a lot across the board from a lot of my peers when we’re catching up. Everyone’s finding it difficult. We’re in a massive recession. No one has any money. People at the minute are more than happy to sit at home with a pair of decks, listening to tunes they want to listen to, a load of mates chip in on a nice bottle of vodka for a tenner each, or you go out and spend £100. So what you gunna do. I get it. But people need to support the local scene and support the underground scene because if they don’t and they stop, it’s just going to disappear.
Any final words of wisdom?
Everyone eat your veggies, everyone support the underground scene and everyone support each other too. Also – everyone reading this, I have an event in Manchester on August 30. Boiler Room style rave with a sick lineup that I’ve catered myself. Very limited ticket capacity. There is a rule that your front camera and back camera will be covered on entry. There’s a policy- no videos in the rave. You can use your phone, if you’ve got too mash-up and you need to find ya friends, you can still do that but otherwise, no phones in the rave. I want people to be locked in the moment and to have a special experience.
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