Fantasy Tracks: Catching up with Lone

With recent single Airglow Fires having proved an underground hit and Azealia Banks adopting his Pineapple Crush, prolific producer Lone reflects on his recent return to a more hip hop-influenced sound

Feature by John Thorp | 05 Sep 2013

Lone, known as Matt Cutler to his friends, reckons he's made more than 20 full-length albums over the last decade. Having previously described his music writing and creative process as ‘keeping a diary,’ his work, currently for R&S Records but previously also Werkdiscs and his own label, Magic Wire, sees public release slowly for a man with such a depth of music in the bank.

As autumn arrives and it suddenly seems impossible to escape adverts for compilations of ‘Summer Anthems’, the euphoria of Lone’s recent a-side Airglow Fires is bound to be a touchstone for those having spent their time in and around the more underground festivals and clubs this summer. Combining vivid elements of early UK rave and 90s hip-hop, it is – at least at this stage – a good marker of what to expect from his coming projects. “I used to do hip-hop all the time, and it’s back to being pretty straight up from me in that sense, as well as having a sort of house influence,” he says, discussing the current state of his forthcoming follow-up to 2012’s ecstatically received LP Galaxy Garden. “Gardens was very clean, whereas this is a total reaction to that. There’s also a lot of great hip-hop out lately that has that 90s sound, which went out of fashion for a while, but now it’s back and sounding completely fresh and inspiring to me.” Of the current wave of young hip hop artists, Cutler cites Earl Sweatshirt, Underachievers and Joey Bada$$ as favourites.

The b-side to Airglow Fires, meanwhile – Begin to Begin – is an equally spirited but more downtempo number. It hits softer than its counterpart, culminating with an enigmatic vocal snippet – “Am I dreaming, am I awake?” – extracted by Cutler from a documentary on lucid dreaming. Is a contrast between euphoria and introspection a running theme in a canon of work that, tellingly, includes titles such as 2009’s Ecstasy & Friends? “I just love working on albums, and trying to reflect different moods and get a sort of big picture together,” Cutler says. “My studio is at home, so if I’m not away touring then I’m just working on music constantly, collecting a body of work, so I think that’s where that comes from.” While preferring to record from home, Cutler acknowledges a lot of discipline is required in simply “not feeling bad when you have an off day. Sometimes I’ll feel like I’ve lost it, but then I’ll come up with something amazing, so it’s always up and down.”

When it comes to road-testing new productions, Cutler has the benefit of a long-standing residency at Manchester’s Hoya:Hoya, perhaps one of the finest underground clubnights in the UK, where the pedigree of guests includes Illum Sphere, Krystal Klear and Eclair Fifi, not to mention one of the most broadminded and appreciative audiences you can find in a sweaty basement. “My girlfriend and I are from Nottingham, but she was studying in Manchester at the time, and I’d come and visit her, and we’d go to Hoya. After two or three times, I heard Ryan (Illum) play one of my tunes, so I introduced myself. We hit it off and he made me a resident.”

Despite the busy radio and production schedules between them, could Cutler envision a release between the Hoya residents? “We’ve spoken about it a lot in the past, but it never tends to happen. I always feel a bit weird and self conscious when working on tunes, so that might be a factor,” he admits. Having featured Lone’s Pineapple Crush on her breakthrough tune Liquorice, Azealia Banks has had Cutler work on two more tracks for her long-gestating debut LP, and Lone says he would love to work with a rapper such as Action Bronson after the two met at Manchester's Parklife festival earlier this summer.

With Lone in support of Jon Hopkins this month at Gorilla, Manchester, those in attendance can expect a set touching on both his own back catalogue as well as classics from R&S and beyond. “I probably do more digging than [keeping] an eye on what’s new,” reckons Cutler. “It’s always cool to find a classic record that you can play among new stuff, and it just works.”

Lone supports Jon Hopkins at Gorilla, Manchester, 24 Sep, 7pm, £12.50

http://www.soundcloud.com/lone-1