National Geographic Music (National Geographic)

Through the past decade British producer, DJ, and band leader Will Holland a.k.a. http://www.quantic.org/ has been constructing a musical universe by blending sounds from Europe and the Americas reminiscing the sound quality and aesthetics of the 1960s and 70s productions.

He became popular in the early 2000s with the Quantic Soul Orchestra, which blended electronica, jazz, soul, funk, and hip-hop attracting jazz fans and dance club audiences. Later he incorporated Jamaican reggae and dub to his mix, and after a trip to Puerto Rico, got interested in hard salsa and other Spanish Caribbean music genres and styles.

In 2007 Quantic relocated his studio in Cali, Colombia where he began working with renowned local musicians like Peruvian pianist Alfredo Linares, and icon of Cali's salsa scene. There The Soul Orchestra recorded its last album, and two new projects emerged, Combo Barbaro and Flowering Inferno through which Quantic began to incorporate Colombian cumbia and currulao to his signature sound. During his residence in the Latin American country Quantic has also helped put together compilations for Soundway records of obscure Colombian music that had been forgotten in old record stores or kept in personal collections.

Nat Geo Music caught up with Quantic to talk about his musical career and influences which are well documented in his new The Best of Quantic collection recently released on the Tru Toughts label. In October Quantic will the tour the United States performing several DJ sets across the country (click here for complete tour dates),

Nat Geo Music: The compilation of your greatest hits is a retrospective of your work in the past decade. In your earlier recordings you seem to be very influenced by jazz and later by soul music. How did you got interested in these genres and incorporate them into your work as a DJ?

Quantic: I grew up in a small rural town, so you had to really travel to get into music. My father was a folk musician who spent much of his time putting up American bluegrass and folk musicians who were over to play in our area. It was my father who first took me to a jazz record store in nearby Birmingham, he bought records regularly there and it was a great store that had all kinds of jazz, blues, folk and reggae. My mother also took me to a lot of alternative concerts in my youth, like Benjamin Zephaniah poetry readings, baroque music concerts, and lots of theatre.

From this background I got into looping and sampling in my teens, my mother bought me a Yamaha SU10 sampler and I was off to sample anything I could in the house, the family piano, guitars... the television. I also inherited around that time a couple of reel-to-reel machines from my uncle who was a DJ in the 80s, and I got interested in recording on tape. All this happened before I started DJing, that came second, it was a natural progression of collecting records. I think anyone becomes a DJ once you reach a certain critical mass of records in your house, you just have to get out there and play them to people!

Nat Geo Music: You are known around the world as a DJ, but you also lead two bands in which you have a role as an instrumentalist (Quantic Soul Orchestra and Combo Barbaro). Which of the two sides of Quantic emerged first, and how did the other develop?

Once I was producing records as Quantic, first for London based Breakin Bread records and soon after Tru Thoughts in Brighton, I started on a more live project. Lets say that the first records I got out there were mainly loop based, with little original musical instrumentation. So I recorded "Super 8" which turned out to be the first record by the Quantic Soul Orchestra. In a way it was a pun, because I was essentially doing what I'd always done, looping things up, but this time it was my friend on drums, my sister on sax and myself on guitars. I wanted make records that sounded like the 45s I was spinning at my DJ nights, stuff like James Brown, Eddie Bo. They all had a presence in the drums that I wanted to emulate. That first 45 sold out quite quickly so it naturally lead to a whole album of funk oriented songs Stampede..

Once there was an album, people wanted to see the band so I put together a band to represent the record. It was rather a reverse of the normal band evolution, we went from being a mythical name on a record stamp to a real, fully functioning band playing around Europe. When I moved to Colombia in 2007, I made the fourth and last Quantic Soul Orchestra record Tropidelico. it was almost like a 'Quantic Soul Orchestra goes Tropical' record, recorded on location in Puerto Rico, Panama and Colombia. Once I was settled in Colombia I formed a group of studio musicians that I dubbed 'The Combo Barbaro' and this lead to the first album Tradition in Transition.We've now toured that record three times throughout Europe and the United States, its been a great success.

Your live bands, seem to recreate the music you sample as a DJ. How does your DJ/Collector side influences your musical work?

My record collection and by proxy my wondering musical tastes play a big part on my own musical output, as I guess it does with any musician. I'm not really sampling records these much anymore, but records still play a big part. Its like a reference, a library of sound to give you inspiration and reinforce ideas you have.

In recent years you've turned to Latin music. How did you get interested on it?

I always liked the music I heard from Latin jazz records that I found in the UK and of course a lot of the jazz made in 60s New York had a strong Latin influence. But it was when I got to the States and Puerto Rico that I was able to get more directly exposed to music from the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. Sometimes I feel the Latin side of funk and hip-hop can be tremendously underplayed, just like the Jamaican side. I came to Latin with a hip-hop aesthetic, if you spend days looking for beats and breaks on funk records, its not too much of musical leap to get interested in the bongos, congas and clave of the Latin sound.

While recording in Puerto Rico with friend and producer Nickodemus, I got more and more into boogaloo, guaguanco, pachanga ... all the sounds I was hearing off LPs and 45s I was finding in San Juan. Eventually, this got enveloped into my own sound, I started working with more and more Latin musicians. It was just a natural evolution. I'm not a diehard salsa fan, I just like rhythm -- something that South America has in abundance.

You're now based in Cali, Colombia. What took you there? How has the city influenced your work?

First and foremost I went to look for records with my good pal Beto Gymemant, who had compiled the Colombia and Panama compilation for Soundway records. Whilst we were there, hitting up shops and colectionistas (collectors) for vinyl, Beto recommended we go meet Alfredito Linares, a Peruvian piano player living in Cali since the late 80s. We met and got on really well, so I decided to return and record there.

I'd already had a lot of experience recording abroad in Puerto Rico and the states and I really loved to idea of having a new place to record. I'd got a little stale and bored in the location where I was recording in the UK and I felt like a change would do me good. I returned to Cali with a plan to make a record with Alfredo for 6 months, but that 6 months soon turned into 5 years! Cali, like Barranquilla and maybe Medellin too, has a good ambiance, a nice vibe on the street, the people give a lot to life, you feel like you're living everyday to the full. I really enjoy it as an environment to live and record, it's been a life changing step in my life.

Your work not only includes Spanish Caribbean music influences, but traditional Colombian musics such as cumbia and currulao (from the Pacific coast). Yet, you don't focus exclusively on any one genres but create a kind of pan-Latin sound. Are you interested in exploring any of these specific musical genres, or do you take them as sources to create a unique Quantic sound?

I figure there is no point in me making a strictly currulao record or a hard salsa record, as there are people already doing this very well already. Why should I spend my time doing that when there are already a hundred or so traditional bands doing a fine job of it already? [laughs]

So, it's more about trying my take on some of those sounds, letting them permeate what I'm doing but also trying to vary a record, trying lots of different things. The underlying idea with the Tradition in Transition record was it to remain a Latin soul record throughout, not to lose that aesthetic. Likewise, the Flowering Inferno record Dog With a Rope' was meant to have a reggae aesthetic throughout, but obviously there is a good amount of salsa and cumbia in the mix.

In a callus sense, its also a commercial decision, Quantic has a sound, a certain sound that needs to be maintained, so that people continue to follow my work and stay interested.

In Colombia and Panama you've been working with well-known recording artists such as Alfredo Linares, Papi Brandao, and Anibal Velasquez. What has been your experience working with these musicians?

I've been learning and playing accordion since I moved to Colombia, I met Roberto Brandao and Anibal as I wanted lessons from them. Anibal has been teaching me regularly every time I can get to Barranquilla. I've also spent some time with Brandao and Fito Espina in Panama. It's like going straight to the masters to hear advice and learn songs, these guys are true masters. The thing I always liked about Papi Brandao is that he started out as an accordion player for a fairly communistic folkloric dance troupe in rural panama, cut some killer dance floor-heavy 45s in the 70s and then ended up being a mobile DJ and sound system owner in recent years. It's like full circle.

What is your relationship with the new generation of musicians in Colombia?

Colombia has a very small network of musicians making new, interesting and progressive sounds. I spend a lot of time with Pernett especially, because he is now based in Cali. I guess in some respects the country is still quite divided by region, and most of the happening young bands move to Bogotá. But, I think there is a certain sense of unity between people making music here, I think we look on each other as kindred spirits, I feel like I've been accepted by fellow producers here.

What comes next for Quantic?

I've recently completed a record with Alice Russell for Tru Thoughts, recorded in Colombia, that is due for release in early 2012. I'm also putting the finishing touches to a compilation of cumbia from 78 rpm records for Soundway, that has been a long process because finding 78s in Colombia takes a long time!