Audio: Hear Elliot Adamson displaying his daring form

Few house artists typify the modern dance music scene better than Elliot Adamson. Known for bold tunes matched by his outspoken persona, the UK producer has had a considerable amount of attention coming his way in recent years, mostly through his buzzing social channels. With every post he makes online he seems to cause a stir among his fan base, from lamenting the culture surrounding extortionate DJ fees to remixing The Streets or Ricardo Villalobos. He’s also known for his ties to the likes of Patrick Topping and Eats Everything, two artists that supported his music early on and now often play alongside him. At only 22, Adamson’s significantly younger than many of these peers, meaning he still has some way to go before reaching his peak. Ahead of his Forms appearance with us on 27th July, he showed us why so many people are hooked on him right now with one of our most daring mixes in memory. Download: Elliot Adamson Forms Promo Mix So next weekend will be your second time playing for us, did you have much experience of the club before that? Hey, first of all, thanks for having me! fabric is very much an institution that helped to shape me both musically and in almost every other aspect of my life. I first went to the club for the 15th birthday celebrations, and I distinctly remember a tall DJ playing a breakbeat remix of Decompression and I said to my friend “Wow, this Ricardo Villalobos guy in incredible!” for them to quickly inform me that a) it was actually Mathew Jonson, b) the set times had changed, and c) I was an absolute idiot. Is there a theme to the mix? In the past a lot of my mixes have featured a large amount of my own music and I guess this mix is in direct response to that. So I’ve tried to impart as much of my personality as possible into the selections, transitions and overall arc of the mix without actually directly making any of the music myself – that’s the theme. My favourite mix of all time is called Narrative Mixing First Movement, Land and it kinda sits between an audio book, a mixtape, and a mix and it has sound tracked most of the favourite musical moments of my life – mostly that area between the party and the not, where no one else is willing to put any music on and I’ve found myself with the responsibility. This mix is kind of a rip off of that in terms of vague concept, but is filtered through my own tastes and filtered through my kind of impressionist way of working super fast to capture the moment so it doesn’t have a lot of the really cool extra sound design bits that feature on that mix. Also at the time of assembling the mix I was reading this art history book and was kind of obsessed with this idea of different movements fixing the problems of the prior, and I tried to curate the music in a way where this led to a noticeable progression across the hour and a half whilst not necessarily being linear. I tend to fleet between the thoughts of mixes just being selections of music some weeks and that they’re a grandiose form of curating sonic art the next, and I hope this mix can hopefully resonate with people whichever side of the fence they’re on. Where did you source the records from? I tried to have a nice balance between emotive music which has stuck with me for whatever reason, music which I had only discovered in the few days leading up to the mix, and tracks that I play a lot in clubs. In its essence, all the music is sourced from the internet – primarily download stores, secondly promos, thirdly from friends and lastly, I think it includes one track that is a sound piece from the end of a music video, so that’s a YouTube rip. Can you tell us about the concept of your Self [Entitled] release? Self [Entitled] is the first in a series of multi-discipline, multi-platform pieces designed to explore the idea of Self. I find it hard to create without a purpose, and using this idea has helped me to apply a purpose to creating outside of my comfort zone. Self [Entitled] was compiled at a moment where I was really thinking about what kind of music I was releasing. It marked a change in doing things for myself instead of for what would necessarily sell. I was being ‘self-entitled’, and of course it’s a tongue in cheek jab at what boring artists call their first longer length projects. When I considered extending it beyond music I naturally went to tackle other things that relate most to my current work, primarily club nights, stage design and lighting rigs. I feel really self-conscious about moving into things outside of music, so naturally I think that will be the name for the next project, which as it stands is an audio-visual experience involving an infinity room with two-way mirrors and a custom lighting rig, exploring the relationship between how people respond to music and how the perception of how large the space is affects how the music is played and perceived. You’re closely linked with some of the other artists you’re playing with – how did you meet one another? I’m mainly just a huge fan – but that’s incredibly useful for a friend to have in this weather. What are your plans for the rest of the summer? I know my exit strategies and I never plan anything, so in fifteen minutes I can be absolutely anywhere.