Daniel Crossley Interview

Dec

2009

Articles | Interviews

Written by Evan M.

With the foundation of Fluid Radio and now Fluid Audio, Daniel Crossley has positioned himself superbly in the music industry 2.0 world with their artistically noble credence: music first, money second. With 3 successful releases under his belt and another release imminent; I had the opportunity to take a moment with Daniel.

Daniel, thank you for your time, could you tell us about who you are and a little history.
Mmmmm…

Always a tricky question to answer, as I am one of those people that find it extremely difficult to talk about myself although Jess probably wouldn’t agree haha :-)

I have been fascinated by music from a young age through my father who was a sound engineer. He passed away when I was only young, and became a huge influence on my life. My love for music just kind of got stronger as I grew up. I remember getting my first set of decks at the age of 15. This was around the beginning of the summer of 88 when the early acid house movement started taking off in a big way. I’ll never forget that era, and it was then that I experienced my first illegal rave in a huge field in the middle of nowhere. I remember being captivated by the DJ beat matching mixes and I knew from that moment that I wanted to express music to others in a similar way.

Before I knew it, I had become a vinyl junkie and spent every last penny that came my way on obscure beats, and very quickly started playing out at gigs in London.

The early House scene soon came and went and I found myself being drawn into drum n bass in the early nineties, and it wasn’t long before myself and a good friend set up a pirate drum n bass radio station broadcasting from the tower blocks of Bow, East London. I learned a lot from managing that station and looking back now I can see how it was a foundation for Fluid Radio.

Through different reasons I had to put music on the back burner for a few years and concentrate on other aspects of life, and it wasn’t until 2001 that I started to get the bug again after meeting my wife Jess who was a Chillout DJ at UK festivals. Since then I have found myself moving into the world of experimental Downtempo genres, which kind of brings me to the present moment.

Where did your inspiration for Fluid Audio come from and what’s your vision for it?
Fluid Audio kind of grew out of the Fluid Radio project…

The original concept for the label was going to be a free net/download site as a way of promoting new artists we had discovered on Fluid Radio. I started to think about putting together a compilation and approached James Murray (A wise man indeed!)

After a long discussion with James I realized that a free download approach would not be the best direction to go, especially as we started thinking about the compilation project (Hope) donating towards a charity of our choice.

I remember talking to Jess one evening about the radio station running at a substantial loss financially each month (still does) and was going to ditch it. Then it occurred to me that we had discovered some great artists through the station and the idea of trying to promote them through our own record label could be a great way to help with the running costs of Fluid Radio and also to promote the artists in a special way.

When we set the label up I have to be honest and say I was feeling totally out of my depth as this was something I had never done before, and the more I looked into it the more daunting it became.

It was only a telephone conversation with Mahiane at Ultimae Records that truly gave me the confidence to give it a go. Her wise words and encouragement will always stay with me!

I would like to thank Vince and Mahiane for all the love and support they have given to myself and Jess in helping with the label. They are truly beautiful people x

I guess that was the inspiration and as regards to the vision it’s basic but at the core of what we believe…

To promote new artists
Deliver alternative packaging
Provide limited edition projects
Focus on experimental soundscapes

After the Hope compilation and Field Rotation’s first two releases do you intend to continue to focus on albums that have specific themes to them?
Yes this will be the case with most projects that we get involved with for sure…

As you mentioned the first two releases were both very specific in what they tried to convey, and I guess our next release from Iambic will be as well as it focuses on elements of the four seasons.

This is not to say that every release on the label has to be created in this fashion, but it is something that interests myself and Jess as we both strongly believe that good music manages to convey so many messages, and if there is an underlying story to a project then that can only be a good thing!

Because of the limited nature of your hard copy releases, will you be seeking to release more often purely on the internet?
This all depends on each project to be honest and will be discussed with the artists involved…

Fluid Audio is a little different with regards to some labels, as we are not looking to get big and take over the world. Neither are we about making money. As long as we recoup our initial costs for each project and pay the artists something we are very happy as that allows for us to work on the next one, and so on.

The whole point of the label is to give artists complete freedom to experiment within there musical compositions. The artists that work with us know from the outset that they have this freedom and are also aware of the limited edition format.

For example there will be releases that are extremely limited with regards to cd sales and so we will make sure they are also available on the net in all digital stores. However, there will be other projects that get released in 2010 that will go on sale in a limited edition cd format and that’s it! No digital at all. Once they are gone, they are gone!

Stylistically, are you specifically looking for artists on your label who zero in more on Modern Classical influence or other cutting edge fusions?
Good question, as I don’t know myself haha :-)

No seriously we are never on the look out for artists that focus on a specific style or genre, but what we do like are artists that are prepared to take risks and maybe step out from there comfort zone to try new things.

Two great examples of this would be Field Rotation and Iambic…

When Christoph (Field Rotation) provided us with ‘Regenzeit’ for the ‘Hope’ album I knew straight away that here was an artist that could easily create other musical structures that slightly moved away from his original sound. We had a long discussion about this one evening and I asked him to come up with an alternative ‘Regenzeit’ that focused more on his classical upbringing. Two days later he sends me over ‘Regenzeit II’, which got released on ‘Imaginary Friends’.

Our next release ‘Dials’ from Iambic was fashioned in a similar way. It consists of four long compositions that do not contain any drum patterns at all. I asked Guy to come up with a project that concentrated purely on instrumentation (piano, cello, etc). Again this was asking the artist to slightly step away from his normal procedures and yet the results are stunning!

So with regards to your question we don’t zone in on any specific styles as such, but we do look for artists that are open to try new things.

Have you picked up any artists that you would like to announce?
I like to keep these things under the radar to be honest until the right time…

I can however let you know that 2010 will be a busy year for Fluid Audio that will see at least 7 releases.

If aspiring artists are reading this and thinking of contacting you, what would you like to see out of them?
Like I mentioned above the most important thing is to be open to try new things when it comes to creating compositions for the label. Some artists like to have tight boundaries, which are understandable, but we like to work the other way round.

To be able to play instruments is very important to us as well as all releases in 2010 will have an acoustic element to them. I know that may sound a little patronizing but you would be surprised at the amount of demos we get sent, and when we ask if they would be interested in doing a project that relies on some kind of instrumentation incorporated I never hear back from them again :-)

Most importantly we want to work with artists that are not obsessed with making money.
I know that everyone has to make a living and so that comment is not said lightly or meant to patronize in any way. It’s just important that artists are aware we are a small label, providing limited edition bespoke packaged projects that focus on the music more than the sales!

Music, with priorities, when the foundation is right, the rest will soon follow, Thank you Daniel.