Gilles Peterson’s search for unsigned acts in Liverpool

Gilles Peterson is searching for the perfect beat in Liverpool. The BBC Radio 6 DJ, producer and label boss at Brownswood Recordings has launched an initiative, in collaboration with the Arts Council, to find and develop musical talent that exists on the fringes of predictable commerciality. The Future Bubblers team are currently looking for 10 emerging unsigned artists that ‘think outside of the box’ to enter their tracks via the website between 3 July and 18 August. The successful applicants will then begin a year-long journey of mentorship and development.

The team have been digging the grassroots to find musicians and subcultures in areas that are usually overshadowed by larger nearby cities.  So far the initiative has selected musicians in Nottingham, Hull, Salford and Sheffield. Now Gilles has his sights set on Liverpool, but he isn’t looking for the next big guitar band. He wants that moment of discovery to be an audible expansion of the norm and plans to create the inroads for liminal artists to be heard and represented. 

Gilles’s early involvement with pirate radio stations, his love of jazz and worldwide musical subcultures foreshadows the excitement for eclecticism that Future Bubblers has at the core of its ethos and its search. In order to identify and attract boundary-crossing artists in Liverpool, Future Bubblers have teamed up with Baltic Triangle live music venue 24 Kitchen Street, and the local skating community’s Useless Wooden Toys Society. We caught up with Gilles to find out how the project is going to support and develop Liverpool’s musical subcultures, and the artists within it. 

The Skinny: Why has Liverpool been chosen as a focus city, and what do you hope to find there?

Gilles Peterson: Liverpool obviously has an incredible musical history – but in tune with the Future Bubblers ethos, this is all about digging beyond what is always accessible on a surface level, so trying to uncover the newest, more leftfield sounds. When we’re selecting focus cities for Future Bubblers it is more about identifying where we could create more opportunities and support networks for young artists doing the leftfield, genre-blurring thing.

What would make it onto your playlist of unsigned acts in Liverpool and the focus cities?

When we were doing research trips and spending time talking to young musicians and people deep in the music scenes in those areas, a resounding cry is that promoters will always book the guitar-based band over the grime MC, or the weird out-there hip-hop jazz thing, or the glitch electronic soul thing – it’s safe, right? It’s generally accepted as a thing that will get a crowd in – we’re about making a platform for the “outside-the-box” innovators.

It’s too early for me to be pointing at a playlist of that kind of sound – it takes time to get to know a city and really understand its undercurrents. We booked a really cool MC, Nelson, at our launch event though and we had Or:la and Breakwave – I want to be digging to find more of that kind of stuff.

What advice would you give to new artists in Liverpool applying to be a Future Bubbler? What stops you in your tracks when you hear new music, and what keeps you open to new sounds? Are you looking for subversive artists in particular? 

We’ve tried to keep the application process for Future Bubblers as barrier-free as we can. It’s all on the website www.futurebubblers.com – just send us a streamable link to your music. It doesn’t have to be shiny, mixed and mastered – we listen for raw potential and what something could become. Future Bubblers spans all genres and advocates blurring them, so it’s not a simple question really. In terms of what makes me stop in my tracks – it’s just that freshness you can’t quite put your finger on, like you know you should have heard this kind of thing before, but why haven’t you? 

It has been said by the Future Bubblers initiative that it hopes to galvanise current scenes, uncover innovative musicians and ‘deepen the foundations’ of those scenes. How has this worked so far, and how do you expect to achieve this in Liverpool? What contribution to the current scene does Future Bubblers intend to make and how?

We never want to step on toes, so some of the most important foundation work we do is finding partners in each of the cities – people that are already operating within our ethos and what we’re trying to do. There’s no fast track way to understand and learn a city’s culture so these partners are so so important to the project.

Paddy (Quinn) who runs Useless Wooden Toys Society, and Ioan (Roberts) over at 24 Kitchen Street totally get the Future Bubblers wave-length – they are already doing amazing things for music, and are in touch with all the people we want to connect with – and then it’s about joining the dots and setting up all the things that have been missing/not been possible for them. So we’re hoping to do an ‘Industry 101 Masterclass’, trying to make the industry less daunting and confusing for young artists, all on that self-empowerment vibe, [plus] production workshops together with our amazing supporters at Ableton. 

How would you describe the subcultures you’ve found in the respective focus cities? Have any of them surprised you? 

I don’t think subcultures are fixed to cities like they used to be. How can they be when the internet is bringing everything so much closer? Future Bubblers is all about a ‘subculture’ on a national level. It’s about connecting these like-minded music makers, that for one reason or another don’t feel connected to the common place music scene in their city – or have been making music unnoticed in their bedroom, unappreciated – and bringing that all to a surface where it can be appreciated. So we’ve got a Year 1 Bubbler from Nottingham collaborating and making tunes with a Year 2 Bubbler from Sheffield… and they never even knew each other before this project. 

What can the successful applicants expect in their year-long journey with Future Bubblers? How do you match mentors to such an eclectic call for talent?

The mentoring is one of the most unique elements of the Future Bubblers programme I think, in terms of the duration, and how its intention is to encourage a longer-term, slower build of artist development. And it’s a matching exercise on two levels – we try and establish some kind of musical common ground, but also in terms of skill-set. We spend a lot of time trying to understand how they want to develop, where they need support and try to find a mentor that has expertise in that field – be that technicalities of production or designing and delivering a release campaign. We’re not trying to give them all the same experience – their journey will be as individual as their sound. 

What successes have you had through partnerships with the local music scene in previous focus cities? What do you hope to achieve in Liverpool through the Future Bubblers partnership with 24 Kitchen Street and Useless Wooden Toys Society, and what are your plans with them?

Successes are different and quite hard to quantify to be honest. We did an amazing radio workshop in Hull earlier this year – in Hull there isn’t really a community radio platform – so we devised a 1 day hands-on Intro to Radio session with one of our partner organisations, The Warren. It was incredible to see not only how quickly they all took to it, but how genuine the conversation around music is when you put it into the hands of local communities and people. The passion is 100% authentic, real – the commentary is from the heart. The best thing is, we introduced a concept that is hopefully sustainable and something they can continue – a weekly broadcast for three hours empowering their opinions and hunger for music. It’s so rewarding to see those kinds of things just happen in the moment.

It seems you have a long background and interest in uncovering subcultures and the music they make. Where did this begin and why is it important to you? 

I guess it started with pirate radio and a love of all forms of black music, but especially jazz. I love things that are different, unique and interesting and swim against the tide. I get excited by artists who have something different, who make music with a twist.

What have you learnt from developing other artists? What do you enjoy most about it?

Being so close to the creative process is what excites me, and I am constantly learning from new artists, especially now with so many new ways to make music. It is a beautiful thing to be able to contribute to someone’s development, especially when you feel that they are so talented and have so much to offer.

What do you hope with be the long term impact of Future Bubblers socially and culturally? 

Like I said before – it’s with a connected culture of like-minded creatives and music makers that this is going to have its most powerful impact. In London, we kind of take for granted the huge spectrum of music you can experience and access in one particular moment, but as you move outside of those kind of hubs you start to realise there’s a whole host of young producers, MCs, singers, experimentalists that are doing stuff that they can’t easily identify a place for in their city.

Understandably there’s a sense of ‘Should I keep doing this? Is it even good?’ We have to put in work to find these people – we have to dig for it, there’s no set formula for you to find them or where – but it’s just taking the active approach and taking risks on things. It’s the innovators that are going to move things forward. 

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Find out more about the Future Bubblers initiative at www.futurebubblers.com.