THE NO.1 MUSIC PODCAST (ON MARS)
Momentarily leaving the soundscapes of his Hessle Audio influences, Bruce, or Larry, sends tracks into the cosmos from early school days and university afterparty anthems that soundtracked his life. We get into discovering an ear for sound, his love for Bristol, how music soothes cruelty and exploring singing alongside DJ-ing.
My guest is Larry McCarthy, better known as Bruce, a DJ and producer who consistently explores and tests the boundaries of what is possible with sound. When he was considering getting into music, he had the realisation that he had to be making ‘bangers’. He has since achieved this in spades, releasing music on Hessle Audio, Hemlock Recordings, Timedance and Idle Hands,to name a few. Since those initial tracks which focused on heavier sounds, he’s since expressed his sound in more emotive ways through his voice, singing over swirling, emotive soundscapes and moody atmospheres on his recent Timedance recording ‘Now’.
Though his productions have reached for the darker realms of electronic sound, Larry can be just as playful, as his recent radio show andparty series Get Loose would suggest, coupled with what he calls his ‘stupid sense of humour.’ Ultimately, his common thread through his work is his drive to present authentically, not being drawn by convention or trends. He said in a recent interview that ‘DJing is so often celebrated when consistent and of a logical nature, but the more and more I do it, I feel all that should matter is that the DJ is bringing a performance that is authentic to their tastes, joy, and energy.’
Episode Transcript
Matt
My guest is Larry McCarthy, also known as Bruce, a DJ andproducer who consistently explores and tests the boundaries of what is possiblewith sound. When he was first considering getting into music, he had therealization that he had to be making bangers to be heard. He has since achievedthis in spades.
Releasing music on Hessle Audio, Hemlock Recordings,Timedance, and Idle Hands' label to name a few. Since those initial tracks,which focused on heavier sounds, he started expressing himself by singing overhis tracks, adding shimmering vocals over swirling moody atmospheres.
His first album in the project, 'Not' was released in June2023 on Timedance, exploring love that's been lost and found amongst otherthings. With a second record now out on the project, it's clear that Larry hasmuch more to delve into here. Though his productions have reached for thedarker realms of electronic sound at times, Larry can be equally as playful andsilly as his radio show and party series Get Loose would suggest, coupled withwhat he calls his stupid sense of humor.
Ultimately, his common thread through his work is his driveto present authentically, not being drawn by conventions or trends. He said ina recent interview that 'DJing is so often celebrated when consistent and of alogical nature. But the more I do it, I feel that all that should matter isthat the DJ is bringing a performance that is authentic to their tastes, joyand energy.
Larry, welcome to the podcast.
Larry
Hi, Matt. Nice to have me, mate.
Matt
Yeah, nice to chat to you. So where does sound sit in yourlife today?
Larry
It's, everythingreally, it is everything. I'm fortunate enough to, it been my full-time job forquite a while now.
I guess it's the way my brain's wired. I'm pretty sure I'mneurodivergent to quite a degree. I'm yet to get proper, proof of that. I think because of my practiceprofessionally, I've come to realize my ears literally don't turn off. So forthat reason, it's super important.
Yeah. Can you remember a time in your life when youthought that you had a particular earfor it, just being really in tune to your surroundings that made you thinkthat, sound was, going to be part of your life.
I mean, I thought Iwanted to be a policeman mate. Like, you know what I mean? Like, when I was akid, before that I wanted to be a plastic surgeon. Yeah. Like, when growing upin like home counties, middle class England, it's rare you get the opportunityto be presented to this idea that you, you can and will be a musician.
Like it was something I really had to fight for, on allcorners, you know, whether it be, I mean, I was very fortunate to have lots ofsupportive people in my life, both teachers and parents and friends. But noneof them believed me when, you know, whenI, really decided I wanted to do this.
So I guess there's the two-pronged answer to this, but thengoing back to when I first realized, that I heard things slightly deeper thanother people maybe. I don't know. Youonly really know that when you get people's reactions or shock.
I guess two thoughts come to mind. I was playing on thepiano. It was a honkytonk piano in my playroom. And I remember there was a song on the radio and I was showing my mum Ithink I must've been like seven or eight, maybe nine.
And I just start playing it on the, on the piano just fromhearing it. I remember her face going, how the, how didyou, how did you do that? Only just heard it. I was like, I don't know. Iguess, I guess just can do that. And I'm not classically trained. Like I, Ilearned to play the guitar and the cello around that time, but I still can'tread music and I hate music theory for other reasons.
Mostly 'cause I can't do it. But then, and then the anothertime was some guy was playing guitar with my dad in a bar somewhere. And when the music stopped, he was just kindof riffing around and the sound of the finger going up and down the fretboardthat re you know, that sort of sound when the finger goes up and down betweenthe notes . He was on, a classicalguitar, so that those sort of sounds are really resonant, through the body ofthe guitar. And I could hear those 'rrr' 'rrr' sounds so I just go to this guy like, hi, how didyou make those sounds?
Those 'rrr', 'rrr' sounds? And he is like, what the fuck youon about? What, what are you on about? Like, no idea. My dad looks at me justlike 'strange child', you know? I was so convinced. I was like, that's thecoolest bit. Like the bit that the root, root sounds like they, they've gotsuch character to him.
I mean, those are twosituations when I was much younger, which I think still stick with me, I think.
Matt
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I definitely want to come back to theproduction and sound design, element of your work. 'cause I know it's a reallyimportant aspect of How you pull your work together and how you look to findthose smaller details which make the full package come to life.
I'm keen to hear your first track, that you're gonna besending into space. And, if you couldgive a bit of background on how you chose your tracks and any thought processthat went into them.
Larry
Yeah. Cool. Each one is sequential through time. I wanted to choose a track that kind of had aspecific period during ages. So like, youngest to most recent, and thenthe youngest being I think like six,seven maybe. And most recent being like 21. I'm 31 now.
And I think about how each of them have a significance, bothin how they've influenced my style and little incremental stylistic details,which I hold really close to my heart in my music, but also how they've kind ofinfluenced me as a person and I feelthey do have a message each for the cosmos and for anyone out there listeningto learn something about the human race. So I've put a little thought into it.
Awesome. And what was the first track that you wanted tosend up into space?
So, first track is Need You Tonight by INXS.
FIRST SONG TO INCLUDE HERE
Larry
I honestly don't know much about the band really. I knowthey're from the eighties, I think. Actually I know fuck all, I literally justknow it was a cassette that I had, was one of my parents' cassettes, and I listened to it in my Walkman and Iremember listening to it in bed over and over again. It's, it's a fucking sicktrack. Like it's groovy and sexy as hell. But specifically what it was that made me go back to it over and overagain was the ending. I can't evenremember the final line he says, but the beat finishes, and then there's asingle line of dialogue in the, in the vocals and then just nothing and itstops.
And I just thought it was so cool. I thought the way thetrack had this sense of cadence that gave such a, sting, a scorpion tail stingof tension as the track's over, I was like, fuck, I want that again. And I justgo back to it over and over again and just to get that feeling and thatbasically, that massively influenced mein regards to my love for cadence. A lot of my tracks in the past have usedsilence and the idea of like, tension and release in regards to silence andbreaking stuff.
There's multiple tracks I can think of that have influencedme in that way. Songs For The Dead by Queens of Stone Age, has a pause in itbefore it slams into something else. Like, these kind of moments of intense cadence that are so overwhelming justby doing very little, you know? And that kind of tension release is somethingthat is it's so big to me.
I just love that , I don't know, I'd love the feeling thatyou get, like when, when you get that moment of unexpectedness, like, it's thatsense of what's next. For me, the onlystuff that really slaps has to have this element of journey in a tense or dynamic feeling.
And you can only really establish those things by using techniques and ideas and themes and attitudes to, to build that kind ofphysical kinetic momentum. There's so much music or like DJs out there thatjust roll around in a similar sort of tension.
I'm not sayingeverything has to have huge peaks and troughs, it doesn't have to be superdramatic, super tense, but like, it has to have a sense of physical, physicalsense of journey. In particular in those tracks, let's use, , Song For The Dead by, Queens OfThe Stone Age. Is the sense of selfself-awareness in the now.
Like whatever moment you were sucked into before is now thisand you are here. So whatever the artist or whatever the person behind the workchooses to take you from there will have a profound effect. 'cause you could go anywhere from here and it'll beso much more powerful than, if you've just done it without that sense ofcadence, you know?
Matt
Yeah.., I completely agree. Also just coming back to, your second tune by INXS. I had a little lookon the old web and, I thought you were gonna say that you'd heard it on M T V 'cause they won a string of M T V videomusic awards with that.
Oh really? Apparently it was one of the hundred greatestvideos of all time, number 21 at the time. So, if you're gripped by the tape,who knows what's gonna happen when you see the video, because, you're gonna falloff your seat. So, yeah, definitelycheck that out.
Wicked. Yeah. What's your second tune?
Larry
Second tune was a big nod to basically the music that myparents influenced me intentionally and unintentionally with.
So the intentional stuff they in influenced me was like, LedZeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder. Dad on the rock, mom onthe funk and soul. They wouldoccasionally casually buy CDs for the car that had way bigger effect on me. SoDad casually bought Moby 'Play', and that CD was just, still is such a biginfluence. I played on the tracks at Houghton actually. And then another one was Artful Dodger, AllAbout The Singles. It's obviously, it's a compilation -Greatest Hits 'bestalbum ever!'. Yeah. That, that is like, that was like, yeah. Still is obviouslyloads of amazing garage bangers inthere.
The track I actually actually chose in the end was by thesame bloke that sings, 'I Wanna Be Like You in The Jungle Book' theme, which was a big influence when I wasmuch, much younger. So I went for actually a tune that is probably my favorite song of all time.Like actually number one for real. It's, ' Just a Gigolo' by Louis Prima.Fucking amazing. It's kind of cool howpeople know this as my song. I, I closed the last Get Loose party, the final, final one, I closed it with this song and it's like,there's no other song that makes me move and dance like this song does. And Ithink I, I actually discovered it through listening to it must have been Disney soundtracks and found Louis Prima. And I typed inLouis Prima into YouTube because it was actually a little bit later. But Iremember just this, this style and this kind of sound, it induces such achildlike energy in me. On an unreal level.
But this song, everythingfucking goes for this song. Like, I lose my shit to it. It's like theperfect depiction of sadness throughjoy. He's basically, 'I'm just a gigalo,everywhere I go, people start to say about me' and he portrays such a sense ofsadness and that the fact he's gonna be on his own, he's got no one around him,but the song is so joyful. The music is so amazingly full of energy and power,and personally, that's where all the best stuff sits, in my opinion.
If you're able to create a song that is in , such rich, major key and has this jazzyelement to it, which isn't over inundated with too much jazzyness but the storyitself is, is one of such sadness. It's like yeah. Pure emotional power and itshakes me to the core every single time.
SECOND SONG TO INCLUDE
Matt
Oh such an incredible tune. , I just wanted to hear a bit.more about your newest stuff, because. It feels like a slight. Slight. Stepaway in terms of the production., I guess most notably, because you are, you'reputting your voice very, very prominently on the tracks, and you have sometracks where you actually don't have a huge amount going on behind your voice.
There's a track on your album, 'Not’ called Flakes. Whereyou just have the start of the track completely your voice and your voice sounds quite vulnerable at times.It's, it's higher, it's, it's more exposed. And you've, you've done some live stuff with that, you played atGlastonbury and did a live set there.
How has that been stepping away from, just more synthetic sounds or, or at least sounds that have been warped and changedand, modulated to something which isquite clearly your voice and, steppingon stage and putting that in a more prominent place.
Larry
Well, it's interesting you should see it as less modulated,'cause I feel like this is the most sound design stuff I've ever done is onthis record, and it's actually, ultimately, this is one, one EP and thenthere's gonna be another EP at the end of the summer, and then an album at theend of the year.
I think it's totally to fair awareness of it, but like, Iguess the vocal does ground things and makes it feel less otherworldly, but theintention very much is to use that as an anchor so the, the instrumental can gomore other worldly.
It took me a long time, about two years over lockdown to solidly learn how to write popmusic to a level that I was happy with.And it got there. I'm really happy with where I'm at I'm still learning so much even up to thefucking mix down period.
Like we ended up using a mix engineer Tom Bauer, who was sogood learned so much and like his. His approach to, to realize, to help merealize this sort of stuff, really informed on a technical level, reallyinformed the way that I kind of saw the songs and how I wanted it to perform them.So the ary was the second performance I ever did.
The first one was En Masse Festival, which is Time DanceFestival in Bristol. Its last September. And both of them very differentexperiences for me. En Masse was near perfect, even though I was recoveringfrom laryngitis. And then Glastonbury technically was an absolute nightmare,but there were wet faces in the crowd and like the following the, like Sundayafter was walking around , and two complete strangers who approached me andwere like, that was like, they just went, that was amazing.
And I was like, holy shit, you're gonna make me cry. And Ijust, I just like walked away and like burst into tears as well.
So the whole thing comes from. A series of really intenseemotional relationships. That's the whole, that's the whole point. That's thewhole story. That's the namesake of everything. It's the whole yeah. Source ofall the, all the vocals and all the stories. And it's to be able to bring thatto other people in this way and have them even after just a second performance,connect with people like that and make them cry, and they don't even know themusic is like, yeah.
Serious fucking goals, like really, really happy with it. Itshows that, of course it's kind of nuts. Glastonbury was my second ever gigwith that and it's like, to have that sort of response is profound.
What's different withthis project is I don't have any fear around it. You know, like I've had anissue with DJing pretty much all of my career. I felt there's, there's somethinginherently inauthentic about playing other people's songs. I think I've realized more recently that itliterally is down to a level of control and whether you are willing to just letgo and let, let the music control the situation rather than you having to tryto do everything. 'cause it's just so stressful. And that's very much been myown battle.
Like people will go up to me, they'll be like, oh my God, itmust be so scary. It must be so completely nerve wracking to be able to, stepup and sing like that. And I'm like, honestly, it's not, it's so much easierthan DJing because I know the songs, I know how to sing them. I just need to stand there and sing it. Justlike I prepared. And to translate thatlevel of vulnerability with such an alien, for me personally, alien sense ofconfidence is yet it's also nuts.
So when you've got people coming back to you and they'relike, that was amazing. It's like, yeah, this is sick. I'm, I wanna be doingway more of this, you know?
Matt
Nice man. I thinkthat leads us on to on nicely to your third track. What's been your thirdselection?
Larry
Cool. So thirdselection is We're All Going Home in an Ambulance by Reuben. It's from their third album. It's from like2007, I wanna say. So basically probably the most, the most formative periodbefore dance music of music was rock, and more specifically on the heavier side.
I think I rememberthe first band I listened to was Evanesce. Oh no, the Lincoln Park. Lincoln Park, obviously Hybrid Theory. I remember going to H M V and buying that CDand around that time it was then Evanescence and then Fallout Boy. I was a huge My Chemical Romancefan, which is probably the only band I've ever been into, which I'm now slightlyembarrassed to say.
Then but yeah, it wasover this time I kind of found myself getting heavier, but then as you get intoheavier stuff, you kind of lose the actual musical juice of stuff and you startgoing into a realm which angry people go into just to be like, argh, you know?So like, I was never really exposed to any older stuff.
My parents hated any heavy stuff. They really went intothat. The heaviest my dad went was like, Nirvana, which obviously also huge influence, but I didn't get into InUtero until much later, which I wish I got into sooner. But at the same time Ihad Reuben and Reuben were yeah, a UK band that didn't get the career theydeserved.
But this song, this album is fucking sick. In Nothing WeTrust. And I discovered them actually while buying Kerrang.
Cause Kerrang after that album were just like, yo, this issick. You should definitely listen to this. And I did. And I was like, holyshit, this is sick. This is amazing. Hugely, hugely moved me. It still bringstears to my eyes listening to this album. But this song in particular, We're All Going Home in an Ambulance, isfor me that final precipice you're on before things get too heavy, but it'sstill got a real amazing sonic kind of draw to it that's not poppy as such.
It does have melodies to it, but it's really sitting in thefringes.
And the song is about the fury, the the like how absolutelyinfuriating it is to witness the ignorance of people and how that ignorance canget to the point of brutality and how they will act out of brutality and ignorance,just out of self-loathing and it's fucking powerful. There was a line in it, ifyour mom and dad beat you as a child, I feel sad for you, but that's no excusefor it. Except it's okay to behave in this way.
I remember I had a punch bag around this time and like, Iused to listen to this song and beat the shit out of it when I was gettingbullied at school. And it was just like, yeah, this song was like, really droveit home as this element of like ' how can people be this fucking ignorant?' Howcan the people be this cruel . Just out of self-loathing, you know?
MATT
Yeah, that was, we'reall going home in an ambulance , by Reuben. Yeah. Massive, track and I can soimagine you just rocking out andpunching a bag in your, in your, in your room and just, just raising, raisinghell. I'm sure if you were looking at your future self and your gigging career,maybe it wouldn't recognize your future self in that room.
LARRY
I don't know. I mean,I feel like I kind of recognize that kidstill, you know, There's still that level of angst and frustration I have.Yeah. I mean, I don't get bullied anymore, fortunately. I'm the bullyer now.No, I'm kidding. I, I, I generally, you know, I feel like yeah, no, there's,there's still frustrations I have to the world and I definitely still listen tothat music when I need to rock out or go to like a, a punk gig when I need tolet off some steam.
I mean it, you know, there are other musics now which aren'tas violently tinged . That have the similar sort of energy that gives you thatsame sort of release, which actually leads on quite nicely to the next track.
Matt
Yes, definitely.What's the fourth truck you're going to be sending up to space
Larry
Sure. Number four. Sothis guy, Spor. Big tech head, kind oftech step drum and bass. This camearound the time when me and the lads discovered, or the lads and I discovered,bass music, basically, dubstep drum and bass.
This is like the era of that Caspa and Rusko CD, Fabric life37, Benga, Skream, Chase & Status, just off the back of all the electrobandy stuff. This is when like dubstep made that big blast into, the popular field.
It took us all bystorm. We'd listen in our form rooms be like just either. Like ramming this onthose hi-fi or of the music rooms orlike passing round some shitty Sennheiser headphones that we were convincedthese ones had more bass in than the other ones.
And just kind of getting sucked into like the incredibleworld that these sort of artists would create. I mean, there's a lot of, a lotof them did, you know, all pretty just like boshy bangers off the back of that kind of bob step, pre bob step sound orlike jump up. But the tech step stuff was fucking nuts 'cause the sound designin it is just unreal. Mm. So this track Valentine by Spor, still is reallyimpressive In regards to sound, sound design. It almost sounds like it's part of a movie. Or part of a, like, there'sa sound in it that sounds loads.
It's like Gears of War. So it's, it's very blokey, very like'Raar' sort of vibes, which, you know, but I'm coming out of Reuben mate, youknow, I'm still, I'm still got a lot of emotions to work out.
Yeah, Valentine just has this amazing cinematic feel thatreally opened up the world for electronic music for me. It made, really made mesee just like, bands are cool, like bands are really great having this sense oflike, this sense of you and listening and everything, and you really feel likeyou are being spoke to as a singular person in the bands.
You've got this personal relationship with stuff, but this,the electronic music blew that wide open it. I was so engaged by the musicand just the, the sheer depth you cancreate with electronic sounds over what you can get in a four piece band, fourfive piece band, you know?
Matt
Sick man. Alright, well let's hear it
4th SONG HERE
Matt
Wow. Yeah. That sound design is truly insane and is surelygoing to blow the minds of the alien life force who were sending this out to. Ithink I've, actually heard you talk a bit about, the early dubstep days and how you were a bit annoyed to missthem.
Larry
I was, but I, I was at the time 'cause I was just like,especially when I was meeting people like Batu for example, like a big part, big thing for him 'cause he hada much more privileged in on it. Like his uncle got him into drum and bass quite young and he was going to these really sick nights in Oxford.I didn't have any of that. I had toreally worm my way into this stuff 'cause I was very much in the sticks.
So yeah, there was a slight jealousy in that respect, butI've since just gone on Discogs and kind of found all the tunes that I liked.So yeah, I missed the moment, buthonestly, it's kind of tiring. Peopleare kind of over it now, but there was a period of people were just like, no, Imiss dubstep. Oh, sucks. Where's dubstep going? Like, you know, there's,there's like, because there's a load enough people are playing out again, so itdoesn't feel so far away. So that's nice.
Matt
That's so true. That's so true. You can get stuck in the mentality that lifeis a museum and .Something that's gone before is so perfect and the sort ofperfectness can't be re recreated. But I guess those kind of big moments dokeep coming. It's just, they're infrequent when just the sound or like a moodreally explodes and people are really taken with it. So like I've no doubt thatsomething as big as that movement will come again. It's just, up to people whoare actually producing and, and in the game to be, experimenting with things .
Larry
Totally. But unfortunately down to a biological makeup, itis very hard after the age of 30 to find something as new and exciting as whatgrabbed you when you were in your twenties.
So like, whilst I agree the idea of being like, 'wahh', it's not like it used to be. Like that levelof nostalgia is fucking boring. But at the same time, , it's one of thesethings where it's like, well, I'm glad I did have a good feeling in my twentiesbecause I know that essentially I'm, I'm literally not gonna be able torecreate that feeling in the same way.
And that's okay. But that's kind of part of moving forward.You know, you have to be able to move forwards by accepting that it's literallynot gonna be as good as it used to be. It's simple as that. And it canbe nearly as good you can find, discoversomething new and go, God, this is something, this is really cool.Unfortunately, I mean, you may disagreewith me. May, you know, you may feel differently,
Matt
Damn. That's, that's a heavy thought. I, I think what you'resaying is it's all downhill from here.
Larry
No, that's not what I'm, that's not what I'm saying. I'msaying, I no, no, no. Because obviously as a musician because that's theanother side of it as well, like as a musician, I'm aware I have a shelflife. Honestly, there's so few peoplethat actually have made amazing stuff until they died in their late, like intothe seventies or eighties.
So few, because it's really fucking hard to stayconnected to a level of creativity andto still engage with those really important essences that keep you inspired andexcited by your work. Whilst keeping in touch with what's still going on. Whoknows how long I'll be doing this for, you know, that kind of attitude. There'salways new stuff to feel, so I'm just saying that it's important to be awarethat it's probably never gonna be quite as amazing as it once was.
Matt
As the dubstep days,
Larry
As the dubstep days, but hey, Coki's still touring so youcan, you know, get a slice of it.
Matt
I think it's time for your, your last track. What'syour, last track that you wanna shoot upto space.
Larry
Yeah. Nice. So, offthe back of the electronic music discovery there's like a huge world of stuff specifically just beforeuniversity that really fed into thatlike, thing of me just going, this is it.
At school, I got goodart and. I also got good at music, but I didn't have as much to show for it.Like in art was making these bigportraits.
I did a month of art foundation, like only a month before Irealized like, fine art is bollocks. I have no time for this. And I was like,no, I'm gonna drop out. And I spent the year kind of working at what I wantedto do. Applied for a course at Bath Spa and did creative music technology atBath Spa University and it was in that year, building up where I was justworking. I did it on a couple of holidays, but it was barely a gap year. I justused it to save money before uni. And I yeah, inevitably spent on records themoment I got to university, 'cause I met Ploy in the first week and he did atalk on Hot Flush and I did a hot talk on Hessle Audio and we were just like,'Hey, let's be friends.'
And around then at the same time, I bumped into people,bumped into my best mate Will who yeah, was hogging the speaker at uni party and afters, and he waslike really into James Blake and stufflike that. So like all this Yeah, these, I started building friendships basedon music and this was a new thing for me previously.
All the friendships I'd had, I were just people, I was justhappened to be in the class with, you know? Maybe with partners at the time,I'd share musical interests and musical things, or people I went to gigs with,or people I was in bands with. But it wasn't the same, as like being in a placebecause of a love for music.
Yeah. And that was a really, really big deal for me. Thatwas just like, all of this struggle and frustration and proving myself and thepeople around me that I can do thisthing. And I'm pretty sure I'm not a hundred percent sure 'cause I haven't doneit yet, but pretty sure I can do it.
You just need to fucking believe me. And having those, thatsupport circle around me with Sam and Omar, who was in the year below, and acouple of other people, you know, people who are best friends still to thisday, who were like such support groups in regards to sending them music, inregards to mixing in our bedrooms, in regards to we started a night together inbath.
Yeah. All these things, they built this rich, beautifulfoundation and ultimately blossomed into what is my life now. You know, it'sactually really nice how Sam and I, like, a few years ago when we, when we oncewe both signed to Hessle Audio, we used to listen to their radio station every week when we were livingeach other in third year of uni. And that the poetry of that we're just like,we're just like, yeah, it's sick.
But this was a track that after all these brilliant uni house parties, this would always come on near the end of thenight. And it was, listening to it now gets me so emotional. 'cause this verymuch is the feeling of, and I had it at the time, like this is, these are thegonna, these are the best years of your life, mate. They literally don't getbetter than this, you know? All these,all this total fresh, wild, unbridled youth energy. In a mixing pot of totalchaos with , no responsibilities, but a huge sense of overwhelming freedom andall this new discovery and play and power. And the beauty of this songencapsulates that moment for me.
I can literally see my friends dancing round the living room in slow motion with the sunrisecoming through the window.
And whenever I listen to this song, it takes me back to thatmoment. It's by Luisine and it's calledGravity.
5th song inclide here
Matt
Also, this was when you were also going to Bristol quite alot, right? 'cause obviously bath was your home at the time. What was the scenethat you found in Bristol that made you wanna stay? 'cause I know you're,you're there now.
Larry
Yeah, yeah.
Well, Bath sucks. Weactually in the last year of our course, me, Sam Ploy and a bunch of other of us , and then Omar did the samething the following year, moved to Bristol just to escape it, but also to be close to theaction. And then we'd commute in the last year of our course.
There was a bunch of us who were from London and for them itwas just like, please get me outta Bath.It's like suffocatingly shit. And just to have a slice to be slightly closer tosome sort of metropolis. And then for the rest of us it was, we were from nearvillage, it was just like, fuck, this is cool as hell. Like, everyone here isso nice. We are so close to all themusic all the time. Idle Hands was open on City Road. Like that was, that wasamazing. Being there and basicallygetting friendly with people there and The Bell would do these nightsthere loads. Cozies was cool back there. It still is actually. Cozies is prettygreat still. And there was Take Five as well., and then Motion Man, obviouslyMotion, motion was the way in for all these kids discovering electronic musicand raving for the first time. Yeah. Real special moments. Of course. You know,you look back at it now and you think, wow, you couldn't pay me to go sort of thing. It was so bad, but like at thetime it was so special, you know?
Matt
Larry, I think we can wrap it up there. It's been , such apleasure chatting to you and hearing your five tracks and I feel like, we'vebeen on such a journey, not only through your selections, but through your pastand production and hearing about your sound design .
I'm just so excited to hear what's next for you and to, tosee where this new phase goes for youbecause , it feels like a, butterfly,just emerging into a new phase.
A beautiful butterfly.
of your sound,
Larry
'look At my beans'. Exactly. Yeah, no, I'll imply my own Bugs Life metaphor. Yeah,mate, that's really sweet of you, man. I've really, really enjoyed this. I've got to point now where people maybewant to hear about how I've got to here, and it is really affirming and it'sreally fucking nice. So, thank you, Matt. Thank you so much. Having me makes mefeel like that little kid listening to INXS, you know, in his bed on his parents' cassette player feelskind of validated, you know, like for whatever innocence has been turned into acareer and however the cosmos is gonnareceive that.
Matt
Wicked man. Well, yeah, thanks so much. And thanks for sending your, your tracks intospace. How do you feel the Alien LifeForce are gonna receive these tracks?
Larry
Hopefully withcompassion, hopefully to realize that the human experience is a complex onethat shouldn't be taken too seriously. But at the same time, we have an abilityto cause each other a lot of harm, butalso cause each other a lot of love and we're kind of worth not maybedestroying with big alien laser gun please.
Matt
Just enjoy the tape and we will cause you no harm. Justenjoy the tunes. Wicked man. Thanks for coming on.
Larry
Cheers, Matt. Thanks man.
Send A signal
To send a signal, please contact: matt@cosmiccassette.com To connect to the mothership, @cosmic.cassette
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