Numbers: In Their Prime

Jack Revill and Calum Morton, better known as Jackmaster and Spencer, have been busy over the last ten years. Since getting a taste for DJing in their teens, the duo, along with a committed crew of likeminded associates, have seen their celebrated Numbers club night spawn an increasingly influential label and expand well beyond its Glasgow base. Having merged Wireblock, Dress 2 Sweat and Stuff Records under the Numbers banner in 2010, and with a stack of highly praised releases from the likes of Deadboy, Jamie xx and Mosca under their belt, they have become a dominant fixture in the UK’s clubbing landscape. The latest step in their development sees them teaming up with Dedbeat to launch Pleasure Principle, a three day festival boasting an enticing line-up encompassing a wide range of electronic genres.

With preparations for the weekender well underway, Revill ponders Numbers' seemingly inexorable rise. “It’s kind of scary and overwhelming, but it’s really good. Everything’s been going pretty well up until now. It’s taken us by surprise, as we never really planned it to happen like this, but it grew organically and we’re really chuffed to bits about it.” For Morton, the key shift has been one of scale rather than direction. “We’re not really doing anything different from what we started out doing. It’s just that it’s got bigger and bigger and it does feel like a pretty natural progression. The festival idea is something that we have been talking about for the last five or six years, on and off. We weren’t sure how it was going to happen, but we knew it would happen eventually.” 

The array of sounds on offer at the weekender perfectly reflects the dynamic blend of varied but somehow congruent styles that has characterised Numbers since its inception. Most predictably, pride of place at the top of the bill belongs to long time allies and fellow Glaswegian trend-setters Hudson Mohawke and Rustie, both of whom have released albums through preeminent UK label Warp Records. Then there are the obligatory nods to the kind of house and techno that Revill and Morton fell in love with at an early age - acts like Detroit’s Omar S and Robert Hood being two of the prime examples here. The bill also reserves space for home-grown pioneers such as UK garage selector, DJ EZ, influential grime crew, Ruff Sqwad, hyperactive elder statesman of reggae, David Ram Jam Rodigan MBE, and early dubstep architect, Loefah.

Several names that have been impossible to ignore in recent years also pop up – Blawan, Joy Orbison and Floating Points spring to mind, along with in-demand DJs such as Ben UFO and Oneman. Further buttressing a stylistically diverse list, and continuing co-promoter Dedbeat’s tradition of pushing quality hip hop, Beat Junkies’ turntablist extraordinaire, J-Rocc, and production maestro Just Blaze also feature.

The long list of talent goes on, but what is clear from just a brief look is that, crucially, Pleasure Principle appears to have been devised in a manner befitting the spirit of the Numbers parties, a spirit that dates back to the days when they packed out tiny rooms in clammy Glasgow basements. While the line-up for the festival is impressive in its scope, nothing on the bill appears out of place; none of the acts stand out as being a cynical appeal to a lucrative crossover crowd. “Music-wise, it’s pretty much an extension of the clubs we put on in London and Glasgow,” explains Revill. “We tried not to book stuff purely based on ticket sales; we wanted to book artists that we liked. We don’t want to trade musical integrity just to make money from sales. We were first and foremost aiming to book people that we know would put on a good performance. The music has always got to be the most important thing.”

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We don’t want to trade musical integrity just to make money from sales. The music has always got to be the most important thing” – Jackmaster

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The setting and overall atmosphere of the festival is significant too though, explains Morton. “For us, it was very much inspired by things like Bloc and Dedbeat. These were basically festivals based in caravan parks, with lots of people staying in a shared site and making their way to a main arena. It pretty much has a community vibe to it and people can come for the weekend and have a laugh. I think anyone who is making the effort to come down to Cornwall for it will be rewarded with a pretty amazing event.”

Though Pleasure Principle seems like an ideal way for Numbers to mark their tenth anniversary in style, the festival is merely one element of what promises to be a hectic year. For one, the collective’s profile will undoubtedly have been bolstered with Jackmaster’s recent addition to the roster for Radio 1’s In New DJs We Trust series. Yet, despite having long been more than comfortable behind the decks, representing Numbers via live broadcast on national radio is somewhat new terrain for Revill. “It gets easier every time I do it but, to be honest, before the shows I’m really shitting myself.

“I don’t really think about anything else that whole day. It’s so different from anything else I’m used to. Obviously we have our own Rinse FM show, but that had started out as a pirate radio station and you can obviously get away with a lot more. I wouldn’t say I’m not myself on Radio 1 but naturally, being from Glasgow, I talk a certain way, and maybe swear a bit, so you need to clean up your act in that respect. You get away with less too. If I was to fluff my lines live on Radio 1, I don’t think I’d ever live it down! So, I’m really scared doing it, but it’s also more rewarding in that sense as well. The feeling of doing live radio like that is quite a serious buzz. I can’t really compare it to anything else.”

Another early highlight of 2013 for the collective came with last month’s release of the double A-side, Triadzz/Slasherr, by Rustie. The significance of Russell Whyte’s debut Numbers outing, the first of their anniversary year, is not lost on Jackmaster. “That was nice and it kind of felt like a bit of a homecoming for him almost. He’s one of the guys who started out on the labels that made up Numbers and without guys like him, and Hudson Mohawke, we wouldn’t be such a big deal on the worldwide scene.”

That Rustie’s luminescent, intricately layered productions, and those of the similarly glitzy Redinho, are so stylistically dissimilar to, say, the dark, acid-inflected techno of Italian producer Lory D is telling. Such variation reflects the label’s broad purview and the assorted tastes of the six people behind it. “We’re completely open which is probably why the label has done so well,” says Revill. “As a group, we all have very similar music tastes. In many ways we’re almost identical. But everyone has their own little nuances and it’s when all the guys come together that something special is formed.”

That special something has blossomed from the earliest interactions the crew had at parties and afterparties in their formative years. Though many of the collective are now based in London, and though the scope of their operations is increasingly global in reach - DJ P.O.L Style often mans a Numbers outpost in Tokyo, for instance - they remain appreciative of the rich Glasgow scene from which they emerged. For Morton, who has lived in London for many years, his hometown’s relatively contained underground community remains one of its strengths. “With other cities, as soon as they get a big bigger, the groups of people who are into the same music become a lot more disparate and a lot more spread out, whereas in Glasgow there seems to be a bit more of a vibe.” He is also optimistic that the same hotbed of creativity that nurtured Numbers will continue to enable Glasgow DJs and producers to flourish. “If you’re into buying records, you can go down to Rubadub and meet other people who are doing the same thing," he says.

“I guess everyone is pretty dedicated to what they’re doing - people like Dixon Avenue Basement Jams, that’s Kenny [Grieve] and Dan [Lurinsky] who we used to work with in Rubadub years ago. It’s great to see that label doing so well and putting out such great stuff. The same applies with Bake [All Caps] and all those boys. To us, they’re the young team, though they’re not even that young anymore and they’re now churning out pretty solid releases. I think everyone is pretty well focused in Glasgow and people are willing to get involved for the love of it.”

The notion of being involved in music as a labour of love is an approach that seems to have worked well for Numbers. Rather than outlining any grandiose plans for further expansion, Jackmaster and Spencer seem committed to the same intuitive approach that has brought them this far. For now, they are set on establishing Pleasure Principle as a regular fixture in the UK’s electronic music calendar. “Beyond the festival, there are probably not any other specific big goals we have in our sights for the moment,” explains Morton.

“We just want to stay true to the kind of music that we’re into and, as long as people are into that as well, only good things can happen.”