Locals in profile: Harvey McKay

After speaking to Glasgow's Harvey McKay for a short period of time there are two things you notice: the first is, he is definitely a character, and the other is his seriousness about music. For a start, music runs through Harvey’s blood. With a drummer for a father he was constantly exposed to rhythm even in his days in the womb and eventually began his own exploits in primary school at the age of 10. While other kids were busy learning Maths and English, Harvey was cutting about with all the wrong crowds and learning how to mix on his first decks. It eventually paid off when he earned his first residency in Tin Pin Alley at the less-than-legal age of 16. Since then his DJing career has been on the up, touring with Smirnoff Ice and M8 Magazine before he finally made the decision to turn his ear to production, and a recent signing to Glasgow imprint Soma Records.

Making his own music came naturally to Harvey, who uses a set-up of Logic, Cubase, Ableton and Reason to compose his work. He's been producing for five years, but it was in the last couple of years that he was noticed for more than his DJing talents. Harvey was picked up by Jon Virtue and had his first release on Virtue’s Artificial Silence label. Since then he has gone on to release on Perc Trax, and Cubism. His influences range between Alex Under, Mark Romboy, James Holden and Soma label-bosses, Slam. Ironically enough one of Harvey’s first attempts at production was attempting to recreate the sounds he heard on Slam’s Alien Radio album, in particular the deep techy bass frequencies. Harvey is one of a school of new young artists to come out from Glasgow’s thriving underground club circuit, with new artists such as Alex Smoke emerging through the scene. Smoke is one artist who Harvey cites as an influence on his music, not to mention the contrasting and seminal Dark Side of The Moon LP by Pink Floyd.

His sound has evolved to sound clean and crisp, but undoubtedly dancefloor-friendly. Often described as minimal, Harvey avoids this tag. Although his sounds and textures used are distinctly minimal in nature, he deliberately swerves the minimal scene, choosing instead to pad his tracks right out to their fullest, falling somewhere in between techno and minimal: a genre that can only be described as minimal-not-minimal.

The skeletal clicks and beeps are all there but they’re mixed with some perfectly deep basslines, glitchy melodies, chunky kicks and terse snares, combining to a floor-shattering effect. These are all glued together by Harvey’s deft touch and his keen knowledge of how to drive the floor into a frenzy. Drop any one of his productions at peaktime and the crowd will go off the hook!