Catching Up With... The Others on His Debut Album, Red Planet

Dub Police artist The Others is happily on the verge of releasing his debut album, Red Planet. Ahead of the LP launch - in Room One on Friday 21st December - and the album’s release we caught up with the producer to get a better insight into the scope of his project, the sound of it and the themes behind his first full length... What’s up Alex? How are you? What’ve you been up to? I'm good, now that I've finished writing my album I feel like I've got a blank canvas music wise which is a nice feeling. I'm enjoying writing some new stuff and getting all the little details in to place for my album. What made you want to work on an album? Did you feel like you had more to say than you could put on 12”s or…? I've put out many singles and EP's over the years but never felt like it was the right time to do an album. I think it got to the point eventually where I wanted to try a new challenge, and the label were also keen for me to do so. I really wanted to try and tell a story and have a theme throughout the music and an album lets you do that more so than an EP or singles. What themes does the work have? In the beginning I always kind of had a theme and image I wanted to try and build the music around, and a bunch of artists that I wanted to collaborate with (Joker, Emalkay & Breakage), as well as try some vocal ideas. I was really happy the way my last EP (First Flight) came across visually, and it really gelled the music together and told a mini story due to its comic book style artwork and I was keen to carry on this theme. So with all this in mind I knew where I wanted to take the project musically. I set out to try and create a sci-fi sounding album, lots of space themes and generally quite futuristic with a kind of film score feel about it all. Hopefully people have as much enjoyment listening to it as I had fun making it. Why is it so important to have your album release at fabric? From early on in my career fabric have always been supportive and interested in whatever me or the rest of the Dub Police crew have done. The Dub Police nights at fabric have been going for over 4 years now, and ever since the very first one the vibes and atmosphere have always been off the scale every time. There really was very little thought process when it came to deciding where I wanted to have the album release party, I'm really looking forward to it and no doubt it's going to be great fun as usual. Do you feel like it’s a body of work that will change people’s preconceptions about your sound? It's hard to say really. I would like to say that got my own sound that people know me for, which is all good but then with the album I also wanted to try some different styles and creatively broaden my horizons. I think there's some tracks that may catch people off guard and may not be my usual thing, but that's kind of the point of doing an album. Hopefully the fans who have been in to my sound and supported me over the years like it, that would make me very happy, if it changes people's preconceptions and gains a wider audience then that’s an added bonus. But I aim to make music that I like listening to, so when other people enjoy what I'm making then I really can't ask for more than that. What comes after the album for you? As I said I'm already trying some new ideas and writing my next batch of music. I may try some different styles and tempos but for the minute I'm just going to carry on having fun creating some new songs. I've got some great shows lined for the foreseeable future where I'm really looking forward to trying out my album tracks. After all that is done and dusted I will return to space and plan world domination. Catch The Others launching Red Planet in Room One on 21st December.