Catching Up With Klute, his new LP, The Draft & his FABRICLIVE x Commercial Suicide Mix

Tom Withers has always stood out as a bit of a lone voice within the drum & bass scene but with his seventh album under the Klute moniker, The Draft - which is set to drop on 14th October on his own Commercial Suicide imprint - he’s stretching the parameters of his vision even further. Always open to different genres (he also performs as part of the punk band Stupids) Wither’s new record continues apace creating, in his own words, “a total melting pot of styles and influences within the structure and disciplines of drum & bass”. Ahead of him launching the album proper in Room Three on Friday 27th September alongside sets from Doc Scott, Nymfo and Soul Intent, we caught up with Klute to find out where his head is at after completing the record and to ask him if he'd make us a mixtape - which he did and in rather emphatic fashion too. Download: Klute – FABRICLIVE x Commercial Suicide Mix (September 2013) You’ve made seven albums to date as Klute. What keeps you inspired to make music? A constant need for shallow adulation; if I'm not told I'm amazing at least 5 times a day I feel worthless and the giant hole in my heart only gets bigger. Apart from that I do it because I love it. There aren’t many happier places for me than 2/3rds of the way into writing a new track when everything starts to fall into place and make sense. It’s all about the toys and the melody. The press release has a quote with you talking about switching off and taking a vacation from d&b. Is that what you’ve always done when writing albums? Did you approach this one any differently? I took a vacation from making d&b, not from d&b in general as I run Commercial Suicide which is a full-time thing. Anyway, this time I wanted to return to sampling: my first love of computer music. I started with a sampler and for me its manipulating samples that gets me all excited, so I wanted to immerse myself back into that and spend a lot of time just LISTENING to other peoples music - outside of drum & bass. I wanted to make my own LP as if on a desert island. How would you describe the album yourself? It’s KLUTE and it’s like no other - a total melting pot of styles and influences within the structure and disciplines of drum & bass. One of your tracks on the LP is called ‘Birdland.’ I just wondered if the title a reference to the Weather Report track of the same name? Do you feel like what those guys did, melding all of those influences together into something completely new, is what you’re also trying to do with your music? I mean you’ve always trod your own path… I wish I felt like those guys… If you try to cast yourself back a few decades you start to imagine how much more powerful and radical those diverse influences were. In a sense I am doing the same, throwing in all my different tastes and energetic influences but it’s much harder to be radical with the technologies that have been available to us. It’s funny you mention that title because I’d completely forgotten about the Heavy Weather album; perhaps it is a sub-conscious coincidence. I was listening to a lot of jazz again in the lead up to writing The Draft, but more you're early 60s east coast stuff. ‘Birdland’ is actually named after a venue I played at in Sendai, Japan. Whats next after the album for you? I recorded way more than the material that is on the new album and I touched on a few ideas that I really wanted to set aside and get into in a concentrated form. I'll be releasing that stuff as well as working on a couple of other projects over the next 6 months. Aside from that? I’ve been feeling a little twinge for doing some more Stupids gigs next year. Maybe even get back in the studio with those guys again. There’s going to be a lot of music from me for sure… Klute – FABRICLIVE x Commercial Suicide Mix (September 2013) Tracklist: Quadrant - Spinout [Commercial Suicide] Detail - Time Stretching [Commercial Suicide] Break - End of Time [Subtitles] Nymfo - On the Chase [C.I.A.] The Invaderz - Fog Of War [???] Klute - Last Words [Commercial Suicide] Klute - Song For The Broken Hearted [Commercial Suicide] Chroma - Sovereign [Ram] Klute ft. Collette Warren - Separation [Commercial Suicide] Optiv & CZA - Hindsight [Subtitles] Klute & Prolix - Light Bleeds the Truth [Trend] Optiv & BTK - Journey From The Light [Red Light] Optiv & BTK - Breakthrough [???] Nymfo - Whenever you Need Me [C.I.A.] Klute ft. MC Fava - Gaze Into Your Eyes [Commercial Suicide] Need For Mirrors - Werc [Commercial Suicide] Dom & Roland - Unofficial Jah [Metalheadz]