Introducing: Ulterior Motive

James Davidson and Greg Hepworth make music as Ulterior Motive and in a short time, over just a handful of releases, the Bournemouth based duo gained recognition from some of drum & bass’ most prominent figures; signing tunes to both Goldie’s seminal Metalheadz imprint and one of our favourite labels, Critical Recordings. Whilst collaborating with artists like FABRICLIVE 52 artist, Zero T and the current crop of upcoming producers: Rockwell, Sabre, FD et al, the Ulterior Motive duo are taking their skeletal templates and fleshing them out with all the right trinkets; teaming insistent drums with sinew heavy bass lines that croak and rumble in varying accents and trickles and flickering percussion.

Ahead of Ulterior’s Motive’s performance this Friday in Room Two we caught up with them to help introduce their sound.

So for those that don’t know, can you briefly introduce yourself?
We’re Ulterior Motive from Bournemouth, UK. We’ve been writing music together since 2003 and had our first proper release last year on Subtitles. Since then we’ve had music signed to Metalheadz, Critical and C.I.A as well as more on Subtitles.

What kind of background do you come from musically and how did it progress to the music you are making and playing now?
We’ve both had some music training in the way of studying music back at school then music technology at college as well as playing the guitar in bands back in the day. Between us we were listening to a wide range of music from old hip hop and soul to indie to early 90s rave and hardcore. The early 90’s rave eventually turned into a love of drum & bass in ‘96/7 when we bought turntables and started to buy tunes. Our taste in drum & bass evolved from there.



When you did you pick up production and what impelled you to do so?
Production started in ‘97/8 when a friend showed us the basics of Soundforge and Cakewalk 5 on an old pc. We were immediately addicted so rushed out and bought a Yamaha cs1x and a Waldorf Pulse; unfortunately it took a few years before we understood how to use them properly! It’s been a slow road of self teaching since then but we were constantly inspired by the likes of Optical, Matrix, Ed Rush, Konflict and how they made all those crazy sounds.

Do you think that there is anything inherent to all the music that you make that ties it all together?
I guess we always try to keep a bit of dirt and funk in everything that we write - at the end of the day we just make what we think is good at the time, although we’re never 100% happy with what we come up with.

What is the scene like in Bournemouth?
Bournemouth actually has a surprisingly good scene. The two main nights down here keeping it alive are ‘Drumfunk’ (run by Judda) and ‘Enter.’ They bring down big names from across the board every month without fail from Andy C and Friction to Breakage and Rockwell.

Who else in d&b is doing it for you right now?
We’re loving a lot of drum & bass at the moment, there’s a lot of good artists producing a lot of great music. Artists we’re playing the most of at the moment are Alix Perez, Rockwell, Jubei, Noisia, Spectrasoul, Zero T, Fracture & Neptune, Phace… and so many more. For newer artists we’re really feeling FD, Hybris, DLR & Octane, Script, Acid Labs….the list goes on!

What other projects have you got in the pipeline?
We have a couple of remixes to do and will eventually be doing an album for Subtitles but that’s a while away yet.

Catch Ulterior Motive in Room Two this Friday alongside titans of the scene: Andy C, DJ Hype, DJ Marky and DJ Die. For further UM learning check out their recent promo mix for the Medium clubnight:

Stream: Ulterior Motive – Medium Promo Mix