Making the Grade: Meet Midland

Midland, otherwise known as Harry Agius, spent an ex-pat childhood in both Africa and Greece before ultimately settling in Leeds as a postgrad, drawn by cheap rent and a great music scene. Here, he met contemporaries such as Ben UFO and Pangaea, founders of Hessle Audio along with David Kennedy (aka Pearson Sound). While Hessle blossomed, Midland has, slowly but surely, emerged as one of the most nuanced and creative young producers around, trading not in the strands of what quickly became known as ‘UK bass’, but a rich and urgent house and techno sound as well as warming up the room for bigger names all over Europe while never playing second fiddle.

This summer, it’s already difficult to navigate any dance music festival without the distinctive synth line of Midland’s Trace drifting from all sorts of tents. A real breakthrough anthem, it followed a series of releases on Will Saul’s Aus label, as well as collaborations with the likes of Pearson Sound (who collaborated with Agius on his first ever release, in 2009) and Breach. The next Midland release will drop on 15 July through his own personally curated label, Graded. Entitled Archive 01/Realtime, it could be his strongest work yet and at this stage, surely a dream signing for any respected label. So why choose to release it on his own platform?

“The idea of being able to dictate how, where and in what form the music is presented is a very appealing idea”, Agius tells us. The busy release schedule at Aus and an urgency to get his music out also informed his decision to found Graded, a name that he feels is indicative of the sound of his music in general (Midland tunes are generally rendered through cassette tape). Despite his personal analogue leanings, Graded will trade digitally, as well as on wax.

“This is something I thought about long and hard when starting the label, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised it’s not my place to dictate how people should acquire and digest the music,” considers Agius. “The focus of the label is presenting a beautiful vinyl product, and I want people who buy the vinyl to be rewarded. But I think it is unfair that someone who desperately wants to hear the music and doesn't have turntables, should be subjected to listening to YouTube rips.”

A Midland DJ set utilises a Serato and vinyl deck set-up, with Agius estimating that he spends “around £80” a week on new or old records for his sets, which are then digitised for performance. “I am not bothered about having all the new stuff,” he says of his performances. “Everyone has that. If a song is worth playing in six months' time then I am happy to pay for it then. For me there is nothing better than watching a room freak out to something a bit off the beaten track.”

This attitude has led to some truly exciting gigs, including a forthcoming back-to-back at Space Ibiza’s We Love Sundays with Paul Woolford, as well as a recent warm-up for an unfortunately delayed Joy Orbison that stretched to nearly five hours. Even on bigger stages with more established artists, a Midland set is still all about pacing. “It’s a balancing act,” Agius reckons. “Knowing you have these bigger tunes to play, but timing when you play them and keeping people interested in between. If you play three massive piano tunes in a row, then they lose their impact.”

Despite his increasing appeal and knack for re-discovering tunes, he doesn’t see himself as a tastemaker “at all”. Once infamously retreating on a pilgrimage to Spain away from recorded music altogether, Agius now cites the likes of Boomkat and Phonica to keep him in the loop like the rest of us, as well as “kicking round the internet, going on little tangents.” Not to mention, in the search for transcendent records, being friends with the likes of Ben UFO does no harm.

“I have massively enjoyed being involved in every part of the process, from attending the mastering and cutting the locked grooves, to shaping the artwork with our designer Alex Sullivan and beyond,” enthuses Agius, when we insinuate that setting up a label must never be an easy task in any instance, never mind while juggling production and touring. Agius sees a potential future for Graded in which he is able to release material from producers and DJs he wishes to bring to the fore, but in the meantime, expect more releases from Midland that surpass his own ethos.

This article was amended on 12 Jul 2013 updating an incorrect reference to 'Pariah' as one of the co-founders of Hessle Audio to the correct reference, 'Pangaea'