12am.com.au : Mixing Music Media


	.: Soul of Man

Date of Interview: 15 December, 2002
Contributed by: MJ

Dance music in the 90's seemed to go through several phases. The dominant club sound in the early 90's was techno; mid nineties saw progressive take over as the style of choice while the decade was closed out with almost everyone in love with house music.

In the new millennium, many in the dance world are tipping breaks as the next big thing. And why the hell not? Combining the intricacy of techno, the flat out dance floor energy of progressive, the feel good funk of house and elements from the hip hop world, if its phatness you're after, breaks has it by the bucket load. Two men well and truly in the thick of things as the breakbeat revolution gains momentum are Justin Rushmore and Jem Panufnik, aka Soul Of Man.

With over 20 remixes to their credit as well as a bunch of 12" including the awesome Dirty Waltzer/ Get It Girls double A side, Killa Brew and Gonna Keep On these guys have been busy. Add to that the fact they run arguably the most influential breaks label in the world in 'Fingerlickin' and a heavy touring schedule, and its no wonder they are looking forward to getting some sunshine down here in Oz!

In the lead up to their Australian tour and annual gig at Sydney's massive Field Day on New Years Day, 12am was lucky enough to catch up with with SOM on a cold, early British morning….

Jem answered the call at his home/studio before a busy day. He informed me the pair had a full day ahead in the studio, Justin was running late and to top it all off his boiler was broken and it was freezing! It was no wonder then it wasn't too hard to get him thinking of the upcoming tour.

"I'm definitely excited. Not only the heat factor, but its just …amazing. This is our forth visit, but our third for New Years that we have been in Australia. We've got some great friends down there as well and what can I say…Party People!" he enthused.

Sounding excited by the prospect of coming to Australia where it's more than 15 degrees (cheap shot), I thought it a good opportunity to get his take on how our local breaks scene sits in the big scheme of things: "Its pretty well at the top actually. I mean compared to the rest of the world there does seem to be this serious interest in breaks, and the scale of gigs we play out there, we've not really played anything that big anywhere in the world. We've played big gigs before but nothing like Field Day for instance. And its great having a breaks act likm the Plumps headlining that sort of event." And we agree.

The universally popular Plump DJ's are Fingerlicken's most successful signing, and last year played to a capacity Field Day which as well as the Plumpy Ones and Soul Of Man featured cohorts Krafty Kuts and Jessica Joy, making for one of the crews most memorable parties ever. As Justin would say later on, it was one not to forget: "Yeah it was really weird. The next day we went on a boat with Ming and John (from Fuzzy) and the rest of the promoters and DJ's. We had a video camera and everyone was filming each other to see what they thought of the day, and literally about 35 out of the 40 of them said more or less it was one of the best days of their lives in terms of going out and partying and I totally agree. I mean it was by far the best event we have played at." High praise indeed when it's coming from the top.

But it's not only those in the Domain on New Years Day that will get to rock it with Soul Of Man and the rest of the crew this time around. There are dates in almost every state, proving the Fingerlickin sound and breaks in general is spreading, and appeals to a wide audience, as Jem affirmed: "I mean that's what appealed to me the most about it (breaks). Both me and Justin come from sort of funky and housey backgrounds, and it's like a fusion between funk, hip hop and house and its sort of mixed all together really nicely… Just really funky stuff! It has similar sounds to house, but also has that more funky edge that you need."

Instigators of the party breaks sound, Fingerlickin Records was originally started by the pair in 1998 as a means to get their records released: "The label really was started as a vehicle for our own stuff. I mean we really love making music, that's really what we want to be doing," said Jem. "We started the label just to do that, and the first ten releases were pretty much us under different guises. But now we've got successful artists on the label so it does become a priority, and its important we make sure all the stuff gets out their and all the artists are happy. So as artists ourselves we've kinda had to take a back seat, but we are desperately trying to get everything set up and engineered now so we can get back to doing what we love, which is making tunes." With a number of killer remixes under their belt, I asked Jem if that was their preferred thing: "We enjoy doing both really… I mean remixing existing tunes is fun, especially if you like the original…because you get the raw elements and work around it, but with your own stuff your finding your own starting point and you have to find loops and samples and things to kick the track off, so sometimes it takes longer… But I love doing both!"

With a debut artist album due out early in the New Year, there are already signs SOM haven't lost their midas touch in the studio despite their other commitments. With a fresh new remix of 'Let It Roll' by Doug Lazy already doing well, even bigger things are expected from the new single 'The Drum'. Licensed to Tayo's upcoming Y4k mix and the next FabricLive CD mixed by Plump DJ's, it is getting praise from all over the place, as Jem explained with a touch of humility: "We have had a fantastic response from it, people like Steve Lawler are calling it 'the greatest tribal breaks track he's ever heard' (chuckles) and things like that and people sort of all across the board have been into it. Its very deep and rumbling, ominous, percussive and just kinda builds and builds. Were quite excited about it." And there's plenty more to get excited about, with Soul Of Man also releasing two new mix albums in the near future, one for React and another on Fingerlickin. "After that we will mainly concentrate on finishing off our artist album. But its very hard cos we are both busy with the label and stuff…. Its very hard to get the time to hit the studio uninterrupted you know?" As I can imagine.

Between studio sessions and gigs, Jem still manages to find time to do all of the labels distinctive artwork, a kind of graff edged cartoon style that encapsulates the FLR vibe in a swirl of colours. Asked where his influences lay, there was one who stood out for him: "Well I've always been into graphics, the degree I did was in graphic design and animation. The stuff I love is sort of American 60s art by Rick Griffin. It's very sort of psychedelic. He did a lot of the Grateful Dead album sleeves and that sort of thing. I just love really punchy funky, bold coloured things really, and that's the sort of stuff I do for the label." While Jem takes care of the artistic side, Justin is left to take care of a lot of the business side of things and also puts in time at Vinyl Addiction, the popular record shop that he owns. The shop is the perfect way to keep in touch with what's happening, something which Justin (when he arrived a few minutes later), said he was well aware of: "It was definitely a source of good music when we started, and a good indicator of what was going on in terms of people's styles. It was easy to hear what was going on. I think through DJing for so long as well you generally know what is going on, but now it is more a case of we do our own thing (as artists). Were in quite a good position because now we have established ourselves. I still keep my ear in, but there is just too many records coming through the shop!" Not the worst problem to have!

After their all too brief stay in Australia, the boys will continue to be kept busy in the new year releasing other peoples artist albums, with FLR set to unleash longplayers by Lee Coombs and Plump DJ's as well as their own after the success of the Drumattic Twins 'Drumattical' earlier this year: "It's like growing up for us really as a label….because we've been churning out the 12 inches for DJ's mostly….and now we start to be able to make albums and its sort of like the next chapter really," said Jem. The label continues to get bigger and better while all around there seems to be a cloud of uncertainty hanging over the dance scene in the UK, as he explained: "I mean it's a funny time at the moment. A lot of the dance music scene is sort of saturated by the Ministry style compilations and that type of thing… Its time for a big shake up, and breakbeat is lucky in a way that it has been bubbling away on the side out of the limelight for the last few years and its got the solid foundations there… I think its gonna blow up next year. I think its time has come really." Sentiments that are echoed by Justin: "The whole dance music thing is in a slump at the moment. People are turning onto rock, and mp3s are damaging sales…but breakbeat doesn't suffer as much as say house music." As well as the upcoming releases from their existing artists, Fingerlickin have a few new projects on the go, one of which is a release from Stereo 8, old friends who run the Blowpop night in Bristol, and are described by Jem as "a mad mad bunch of people." They have done two tunes for the label, one of which is Groove Digging, which is already a favourite amongst breakbeat fraternity all over the place. Another is Fingerlickin Funk, which will feature a number of new releases by Krafty Kuts. "The Krafty Kuts and A Skills album is stupidly funky. Very sort of hip hop based. I mean Krafty is sort of looking to funk and hip hop routes for this album and A Skills is a very competent musician and DJ himself…They've already done a large chunk of the album and its fantastic. It's a slightly different angle, that's why we started that branch thing. So far Krafty Kuts has just done one EP for us, but we have big plans for it." With so many upcoming releases and a dance market looking for something fresh, things are looking good for Jem and Justin as both musicians and businessmen.

Although it does take some hard work and long hours, it's evident both the guys enjoy what they are doing, made easier by the fact everyone gets on well: "What's great is we all really like each other more than anything and there's a great amount of mutual respect … we end up playing each others music which I guess is a pretty rare thing to do. There is definitely an interest between us all, we like to do stuff for each other like burn acetates and swap them round and road test them and that sort of thing. It is a bit like a family in a way, and everyone is in it for the right reasons and everyone is doing it together, and everyone is doing it out of pure love for the music, and that I guess makes it (Fingerlickin) the force that it is," Jem explained.

…In the midst of the cold morning, the doorbell sounds in the background. A weary Justin has arrived and apologises for his late arrival. Straight off the street and onto the phone, like Jem, he has no trouble talking about the annual trip downunder: "I love it. In the past it's just been really refreshing. The Australians seem to be able to tell if you are being genuine or not and there is no attitude" Its obvious he's also looking forward to a little bit of time off…"Here there's too much to do. I'm over worked at the moment, so I'm definitely looking forward to heading over to Australia that's for sure!" said Justin "Its still quite a hectic schedule though because we go to Tokyo for 3 days to do some gigs, then we have got gigs in Sydney, another big one up on the Goldcoast…. And then we are hoping to make it to the Great Barrier Reef and go diving as well. I've always wanted to do that. And that will be our holiday!" Here for a good time not a long time as they say.

But there are no complaints from this side, with the duo heading over with a stack of fresh wax under each arm for our listening pleasure. Expect to hear an array of new Fingerlickin stuff, with 'The Drum' and the Plump DJ's new single sure to get some rotation alongside the rest of the upcoming album stuff. Jem and Justin have just finished work on another couple of Soul Of Man tunes, 'Acid Punch' and 'Overdrive', but in my haste to find out what we could look forward to from the shows it slipped my mind to ask if the two most recently completed tracks would make it into the record case. New tunes or not, the tour promises to be a blinder: "We've been over a few times now, so we know how it ticks and what to expect. The Fingerlickin sound obviously works really well down there. We will be bringing a lot of new tracks, remixes and reworkings for the Field Day gig. So we have got a pretty exclusive, up for it set prepared really."

For existing breaks fans and curious onlookers alike, make sure you check these guys out for a glimpse into the dancefloor mirrorball. The future funk has arrived, with Soul Of Man and friends delivering the message to the masses this summer. Bring it on.

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