1. GotSome – Bassline (Defected)
So this was the start of the story for GotSome… I wrote this song in my old studio which was situated above a metal gear workshop in the heart of Bristol.
‘Bassline’ was originally supposed to be a remix for a Manchester band called the Get Along Gang. When I went to start the remix the band had only uploaded the vocal stem. So I waited a couple of hours to see if any of the other parts would appear. I waited a while and nothing appeared so I decided to write a completely new song around the band’s vocal parts. I added new pads from a synth I had sampled a few weeks before.
I had also been listening to Adonis’s classic tack ‘No Way Back’ all day in the background whilst waiting for the band to send me the additional parts… so I decided to resample adonis’s bassline and switch it up a little. I basically flipped it so it played backwards and then it was done.
Then my friend and Dj at the time BTraits was sitting in for Pete Tong on BBC Radio 1. She played it first and the guys at Defected were driving back from a gig and heard it on the radio. They contacted me the next day and then I signed it to them and as they say the rest was history!
2. GotSome – Vibe Out (MTA)
I always had a dream to work with Wiley ever since I got into watching lord of the mics and watching him spit with ‘Roll Deep’. I wrote ‘Vibe Out’ a few months before and had a random Hip Hop acapella on it. I said in passing to my manager at the time: ‘It would be sick if Wiley went on that beat’ and did think anything of it. Then a few weeks later my manager called me and said John Wolfe had been on the blower and that Wiley wanted to give it a go. So that’s how Vibe Out came about!
3. GotSome – Mystify (Love & Other)
With ‘Mystify’ I did a couple of writing sessions with my long bearded friend Will Clarke. He had been sent a couple of really cool vocals from German based rapper Mr Eyez. The vocals didn’t seem to fit on any of the tunes we wrote in our sessions, but he heard this song that I had made on my own and thought the vocals would work together. I played them to the guys at Love & Other and they all really digged the vibe. This song was the first of my songs to be played at DC10 at Circo Loco by Seth Troxler. Definitely a milestone moment for me!
4. GotSome – Sound Suite (Eton Messy Records)
Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to tour around the far east and Asia. On my second trip to Bali I played The W Hotel. Anyone that’s been there knows how beautiful it is. Bali is a really small tropical island in between Singapore and Australia. One minute it will be blazing sun and the next minute there’s a tropical storm. Music manager and booking agent Damian Saint at The W in Bali had a smart idea to build a recording studio in the basement of the hotel. So whenever the rain came pelting down and I’d hide away in the recording studio.
This was the first tune I wrote at the studio and I named it ”Sound Suite” after the studio. I visited the studio again last year and have just finished the second song. I’m just waiting to get some new vocals over the track then it will be ready. Shouts to Damian for letting me use his amazing studio.
5. Kanye West – Fade (GotSome Edit)
I first heard Fade when Benji B was filling in for Annie Mac on BBC R1.
So I wrote this DJ edit to play purely at festivals over the summer of 2017. The reason I wanted to do this edit so bad was because of the samples that Kanye used. He used Mr Fingers – ‘Mystery Of Love’ & Hardrive – ‘Deep Inside’ which are two of my favorite house records or all time.
He had slowed them both down to a Hip Hop tempo and I loved everything he had done with the arrangement, so all I wanted to do was bring it back to a House speed so I could play it in my DJ sets. That weekend I road tested the edit in front of thousands of ravers at a festival and it booted off. So… on Monday morning I decided to send it to Annie Mac. She hit me straight back saying she was on the way to Radio 1 in Ibiza and could she play it there. I said yes! She ended up spinning it on the terrace at Space. The following Monday I had a not very nice email from the A&R dept at Virgin Records who were looking after the release for Kanye in the UK.
Then loads of emails & DMS from world class DJ’s asking for the edit to play. Everyone from Diplo to AfroJak, Goldie to Groove Armada, Mark Ronson to Seth Troxler. The list went on. I even started to hear bootlegs and my edit as people were trying to get it so bad they were remaking what I had made. Same drums, synths and bass lines! That’s fucking crazy but not the last time that has happened to me…
6. GotSome – Larry (Nervous Records, NYC)
Nervous Records is one of the most respected House labels in the world. I started collecting their records when I was a young collector.
One day I spend the day going through the whole back catalogue.. Records, CDs, the whole lot. I started sampling old Kerri Chandler, Louie Vaga & Mood 2 Swings records. I love sampling off records – It’s how I originally learnt how to make music.
So I made the drums purely from old Nervous samples. Then started looking through all my old Larry Levan edits and remixers. I found these Disco stabs so I added them to the song, then found this old documentary from all the clubbers that used to go & dance to the Paradise Garage to see Larry. I added a few vocal samples from that. Then sent it to the guys at Nervous in NYC. I wasn’t sure if they were going to like it or even know that I had sampled a bunch of their old records. They came back a few weeks later saying they wanted to sign the record. This was a real achievement for me, as I respected them so much.
7. GotSome – GURLS & BOYZ (BIG BEAT)
This is another song that came about from my extensive sampling. The original vocal sample came from an old Chicago house record from the late 80s by Jesse Valez called Girls On the Floor.
I just wanted to do a more jacked up edit. A few people heard me play it at the Warehouse Project in Manchester. Then it got dropped on the radio a few times and that when Big Beat got involved.
8. GotSome – The Mac (King Street Sounds, NYC)
As many of you know I’m a massive Hip Hop fan especially 90s/2000s classic Hip Hop. The day I went into the studio one of my Hip Hop heroes Craig Mac had just passed away. So I spent the day blasting through all of his singles. I came across P Diddy’s remix of ‘Flavour In Your Ear’ – I loved this so much I sampled Craig doing his signature “Ahhhh It Goes Ahhh” I was also messing around with loads of old US Garage sounds, so I put them altogether and this is what came out.
I was super stoked to have US House dons ‘Kings Street Sounds’ want to sign it. It was really important for me to retrace my roots in House & Garage at this point in my career so this was a perfect fit.
9. GotSome – Plastic On Acid ft Roxanne Shante (Ultra Records)
So this was my first ever Acid tune. I managed to borrow an original Roland TB303 & a TB707 off one of my friends so I went about trying to make an original Acid House track, also at this time I was listening to a lot of early Hip House records.
Hip House is amalgamation of 80s Hip Hop and House music usually with a rapper spitting on top of the track – Artists like Fast Eddie, Tyree Cooper, Technotronic & Jungle Brothers to name a few. So at this point I had a banging acid tune but I kept hearing a Hip Hop rapper on top of it. So I went home to get some ideas. That evening I ended up watching this Netflix drama about the life of female rapper ‘Roxanne Shante’ from Queens Bridge, NYC.
After watching the film I was like imagine (Dreaming) getting Roxanne Shante on my Hip House/Acid tune. The next morning I rang the A&R at the record label and told him of my revelation. He called back saying he had called her cell and she had agreed to feature on my track…
For me this record wasn’t a massive success as GotSome records have been in the past but this was a real achievement for me… Bringing all the original elements together such as using the 707 and the 303 to make the song on and then to have the first female Hop Hop Mc to come and rhyme on top of your beat. That was a dream for me.
10. GotSome – Caught In Your Rhythm ft Clementine Douglass (Toolroom Records)
Finally this brings us up to date with ‘Caught In Your Rhythm’ on Toolroom.
So at the start of lockdown I decided to bring part of my studio home and set it up on my kitchen table. I spent most of March, April & May just writing loads of ideas. Lucky enough before Christmas I had sampled a bunch of old classic synths off Like a Roland Jupiter and an old Yamaha DX100, and with ‘Caught In Your Rhythm’ I started the tune writing a bunch of bass ideas with my Yamaha DX100.
I had a pretty sick bass riff then decided to add some chords with the Jupiter they seemed to work well. Gave it a nice mysterious 90s rave sound. At this point I connected with vocalist Clementine. She sent me a bunch of her vocals. The first acapella she sent me was the song and it worked a treat. I played it to a few of my pals. They all kept telling me that they had the song stuck in their head.(That’s always a good sign at this point) I sent it to Toolroom records and all the guys loved it, then it came out a month later!