Taz Buckfaster: Future Funk

Good morrow to thee Mr. Buckfaster. I trust all is well on the production front of late? Lets start with a little info on how you started out. When did you adopt the cheeky Taz Buckfaster moniker and what were the first musical endeavours like?

All is good. The name came about around 2006. Everyone called me Taz, and Buckfaster was just a hat-tip to the dark stuff (for the uninitiated, that's Buckfast Tonic Wine).

How did you get your first big break and what happened after that?

I had been making tracks on and off for years but once I started immersing myself more in bass music, things just started falling into place. Breaks-wise, I owe a lot to Hudson Mohawke for being one of the first to regularly play my stuff out, prompting someone from Radio 1 to get in touch and getting me my first airplay. After that, doors began opening, labels began showing interest, Mary Anne Hobbs premiered tracks on her show and I've been on that path ever since.

Having been involved the grime and dubstep scene for a while now what has been the most interesting development/shift in dubstep in your opinion?

It has diversified to the point of some fans being completely unfamiliar with the other styles under the same umbrella, which is weird. The 'filthy' wobbly stuff has almost reached the point of self-parody, and a number of third generation artists are making dubstep influenced by dubstep, disregarding the relevance of a lot of what came before. Musical cannibalism. 

Another interesting development is the mainstream's sudden acceptance of the genre, albeit in a somewhat desperate attempt to cling to some sort of underground credibility, and the cash attached to it, as people's tastes gradually fall away from the declining market of sanitised pop fodder we've grown so accustomed to.

I remember reading that there was a planned album. Is it still in the works or has it taken a back seat for just now?

I completed the album two years ago, but wasn't entirely happy with how it sat on a track-by-track basis, so decided to shelve the project for the time being. I think when releasing an album, it has to flow seamlessly and sound like an album, as opposed to just another 'collection of tracks'.

What was the catalyst that made you move primarily from grime to dubstep?

Frankly, the nature of dubstep as an instrumental genre primarily interested me due to the fact that grime MCs, despite sounding great on tracks, tend to take bloody forever to get work done. Also, grime was a very closed scene with very few people outside of the London set making any significant inroads. Dubstep seemed very much more open, and not dissimilar musically.

…And were there any genres that kickstarted your lust for DJing and producing?

I've always had a passion for music as far back as I can recall. I was massively into the '92 hardcore sound as a kid. I had an older cousin who would pass me tape packs and cassette singles of various artists, Altern-8 being my particular favourite, and despite none of my friends 'getting it', I started to immerse myself in the music. An interest in jungle followed, then drum and bass, garage, grime, etc. – the 'hardcore continuum'.

Embarrassingly, when my first set of decks arrived, I was primarily spinning trance and hard house, and as I started to get into production, my output reflected this. Breaks and jungle began to creep into sets as I grew increasingly bored of the straight 909-led 4x4 fodder.

Which aspect of your music do you consider to have achieved more notoriety, the uplifting synth driven side or the dubstep nitty-gritty of releases on Ramp and Subway?

Meh. Notoriety isn't something I crave.

Songs like Gold Tooth Grin and Hyphen sound like they were made for vocals. Have you considered working with vocalists on some of those tracks? There were grime MCs on the early collaborations with Durrty Goodz and Professor Green and the track Drunk Sex ft. Yasmin almost bridges the gap, but what if it got slower?

Both Hyphen and Gold Tooth Grin were made for vocals that never happened. I'm open to working with vocalists and emcees, but so often things get agreed on and then never materialise. I'm looking at you, P Money. Ha.

What would you consider to be the main differences between the music scenes in both Edinburgh and Glasgow?

Edinburgh has the numbers for larger scale events and a burgeoning scene (with more focus on the student-friendly wobblers), not to mention the soundsystems (shouts to Electrikal family!), but Glasgow tends towards a more forward-thinking scene, and it positively oozes 'cool', and you feel it in the kind of music coming from there.

Any cities you'd be very keen to play? You mentioned a while ago that an opportunity for getting some gigs in America would be seized right quick.

With a few exceptions on the basis of safety, there's hardly anywhere I wouldn't love to play. However, I'm holding off going to America in the current climate and I won't be playing in Israel any time soon either (with apologies to my friends in Tel Aviv).

Just out of an insatiable curiosity, what are the top three gigs you've played in previous years and why?

1. Playing at The Arches in Glasgow in '06 and spotting Pharrell and Chad creep in during my set.

2. Krakow (PL), Feb '10. Great city, fantastic hosts, quality club and not an ugly face in sight! Missed my flight back to London due to the insanely early flight time coupled with the very late club hours. By a stroke of luck, managed to secure the last seat on a flight to Bristol, which was where I was headed after London anyway. My mates had to wait in Krakow Airport for another 8 hours. Poor lads!

3. Wrong Music, Bristol, Feb '10. Day after Poland, long, torturous flight there with screaming babies, landed in a hungover daze, played a blinder despite huge tech problems, met some of the soundest characters I know and ended up staying longer than expected as a result.

Having just released a successful EP on Glasgow's Numbers imprint, what have you got planned for 2011?

The Digital Nomad EP is being released shortly on Holland's Rwina Records, which is (unsurprisingly, given the title) a digital-only affair. I'm also working on a number of projects that I'm keeping hush for the time being. Keep your eyes peeled!