Last month Pilot dropped another new talent dispatch: A glistening deep viber from drum & bass debutants Hillsdom – Lucid Dreams.
Coated in the crystalline vocal gymnastics of Novokane, Lucid Dreams was instantly picked up on by the likes of Friction and Metrik and is look set for strong support throughout the summer.
It goes a little something like this…
But who are Hillsdom? How did they arrive at this moment in musical time? And what are they going to drop next? We called them up and copped their first ever interview. Get to know:
No one knows anything about you right now. Shed a little light…
Jack: We’re Jake and Jack, we’re called Hillsdom, we’re from the UK and have been making drum & bass for many years now…
But Lucid Dreams is your first release?
Jake: It is. It was actually started three years ago. We’ve been writing a lot of stuff but only managed to finish most of recently.
Doing it the old way… Spending more time honing your sound than spamming the game!
Jake: That’s it. We want to take time to find our sound and style. I know this is a constant thing for artists but we wanted to get a whole collection of songs down and then work out how we do things, rather than just constantly putting things out and working from tune to tune
Jack: It was a case of getting the production down and up to scratch and now it’s all started coming together
How far do you go back?
Jake: Since year nine in school. Years mate!
Jack: We were in a lot of the same bands and started getting into drum & bass at the same time. It’s just something we’ve explored together and had fun experimenting with when we’ve not played in bands.
I was going to ask about instrumentation – is that one of you playing those sweet guitar sounds? And what other instruments do you play?
Jack: Yeah that’s me! Jake plays drums and we both dabble in other instruments.
Jake: Knowing music theory definitely helps with production.
Tell me about the bands you were in…
Jake: We’ve been in hundreds of bands of all styles. Just trying to expand our knowledge and experience.
Any big gigs?
Jack: We did some cool festivals like Boardmasters and Brownstock and had loads of smaller shows. We’ve constantly been in bands since school, really.
Drum & bass has been your dirty little secret on the side then?
Jake: It’s been our more consistent project. Everything else has chopped and changed but this has been the constant project we’ve done. Me and Jack always doing this together. Bands change and split all the time – this is the most solid thing we’ve ever worked on.
Jack: It’s so much easier with two people. No egos, just a shared vision.
So who’s Novokane?
Jake: A friend of ours I met at college. He does his thing. Funny enough we had that vocal before we had the track done. We’ve been asking him to send over bits of vocal all the time and he sent us that. It took a while for us to work out how we could be use it.
It’s a perfect fit with Lucid Dreams!
Jack: We were blown away when we tried placing his vocal on top of the track and hearing at how well they worked together.
So it sounds like you’ve got a bunch of tracks ready to drop?
Jack: We do. There’s some musical stuff and some heavier and dancefloor stuff. I know Lucid Dreams is on more of a liquid tip but we’ve got a lot different sounds ready to release very very soon.
Any final shouts?
Jake: Our manager Ray Smith should have a shout. He’s helped us realise all of this and make things happen. Bigup!
Bigup Hillsdom: Facebook / Soundcloud / Twitter
