Africa Hi-Tech: Isms of the Congo Natty Continuum

If you’ve been anywhere near a decent nightclub within the past two years, you’ll probably have got down to the sounds of Africa Hitech. After two storming EPs, the formidable pairing of Academny studio team members Mark Pritchard and Steve Spacek are releasing their debut album, a record that pushes the height and depth of their project into full view. Be prepared to lose yourself in a rhythmical excursion into the terrain of bass past, present and future. They describe their progression as an ‘ism’…

RBMA: When did you first become Africa Hitech?

MP: I think a few years after our first collaboration on 'Without You' and 'Turn It On'. Steve was working in the States for a bit and I didn’t see him for a while – and then about six years ago coincidentally we both moved here in Sydney about ten minutes from each other, on the other side of the world. So I suppose the project grew from there, as we were both in the same place, so we started working on tracks straight away.
SS: Yeah and we both started going away as well with RBMA.

RBMA: I heard you might have started as Africa Hitech at one of the Academy studios?

SS: Yeah it started to solidify around that time, I think in Toronto – we dabbled in Melbourne as well but maybe Toronto, was it Toronto?

MP: Yeah I think in Toronto, the first single 'Blen' was done there, and 'Too Late' which is on the last EP, that was done there as well I think. We started loads of tracks when we were there 'cus we were in the studio together just vibing with loads of participants about. All the RBMA staff, when we were working on it, were big fans, Many (Ameri) loved it and I remember when we were making it and Theo Parrish came into the studio and was dancing around. It was the first time Steve tried that vocal style, it was one of those things where if the vibe seemed right just do something a bit different.

RBMA: It sounds like it might have been made after drinking some Red Bull. It’s kinda hyperactive.

SS: (laughter) Yeah! 

RBMA: You’ve described your music as having a techy reggae feel, and you’ve also referenced Congo Natty…

SS: Yeah from back in the day. But we’ve always took that on as a sort of "ism", a meaning. Those guys always had it originally, but there’s been this aesthetic in music all along the way along the years, that certain tracks have displayed that me and Mark have always liked, they’ve just had this kind of feel to it, an approach to the way the drums fall and the bass falls. The whole aesthetic in the way it’s put together, it creates a certain vibe and a certain feeling, especially if you’re a really good club on a good sound system. It’s that whole reggae vibe I suppose if you like, but just modern day. Really soulful and meaningful.

RBMA: What is that meaning? Is it just about dancing?

SS: Essentially, that’s where it resides, but it’s about the way drums talk. You know when you listen to the sound of a drum it’s got some primeval meaning to it, everyone understands the basic beat. Most people if they go out to a club they’ll dance and not everyone’s taught to dance but somehow it kind of makes sense, you go there and move to it. It’s that basic connection between the way we interact as human beings with music and drums.

RBMA: Why do you think that UK sound is so influential elsewhere in the world?

SS: It’s a similar vibe from Jamaica, if you look at Jamaica as an island and the music coming out of there, the world’s fallen in love with reggae from day one. There’s a big part of that in the music from the UK, I think it comes through that as well that feeling that people love, it’s connected to reggae.
MP: What was that thing you were saying when you mentioned the influence of Jamaica on the UK and you were saying, "if it wasn’t for Jamaica the UK would be all Knees Up Mother Brown?" That was the traditional Cockney music, but the Jamaicans moved in. Luckily… (laughter)

RBMA: The first couple of times I listened to the album a lot of it felt like it was referencing obviously Warp and that bleep sound but also a lot of what is currently going on in London: there are a couple of grimey tracks. But as the album goes on it opens out more. Especially on the last few tracks, there’s a couple of African rhythms, I think there’s a rumba type rhythm. It’s like you’re taking contemporary dance sounds or scenes and back to their roots. Is that something that you did deliberately?

SS: Well if you talk to us about music, the way we’re always approaching it is: there’s all these different styles and genres, but we love them all, when we make them it’s not like oh we’re gonna make a dubstep track or a grime track, we’re just making music and somehow it’s coming out that way. It’s almost like, well, all of it to us is the same. So you can maybe use the style and the rhythm technique of a juke track at a dubstep tempo, you know what I mean. There are no rules, you can do what you can go anywhere you want and if you can, why not?

RBMA: I felt like I was being taken on a kind of journey.

SS: Well a lot of that stuff we love anyway. Another big thing on there is Detroit, you know. it’s definitely got a hold on me and Mark’s past.

MP: And Chicago house, and also African, Ghanaian and Nigerian music. We have got more tracks on that kind of vibe were they’re almost more traditional, in a way, in the soundset but trying to get some modern future kind of thing in there. I think as the album progresses we realised that it would be a much more interesting if it had a few other elements put in. The singles were slightly more grimey, they were kinda grime and techno mixed type thing. I think it’s good that the singles are more aimed at the club – doing an album’s a different thing to doing singles, you’d hope that you put something together that people listen to and it takes them on a journey and maybe to places that you don’t expect.

RBMA: It also seemed to go from being almost quite aggressive at the beginning to being a bit more spiritual?

SS: Yeah that kind of naturally came about. Because that spiritual kind of sound is the sound that we like. You could liken it to, you know, Bobby Konders, The Poem? It was quite a big track back in the day, we used to get down on that. It’s got a sound that once you hear it will make sense, if you’d come across it back then you’d definitely love it now.
MP: When we were trying to arrange the album, which we always found quite difficult, it’s kind of trying to – that was quite important to how you can make or break and album on the track order. So naturally you can start off with some more heavy hitting ones, a bit more aggressive like you say, and then dropping off a little and then it comes back up again, so the album had some kind of up and down flow. But ending on some more deeper soulful ones.

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RBMA: Those tracks at the end, like 'Cyclic Sun', are the rhythms built on a computer or played?

MP: A lot of it is played. Maybe starting off with sequencing but playing live over the top but chopping it so it’s got a feel – chopping it by ear, not by grid, so you’ve got that natural feel – and then layering up loads of sounds on the top. I think initially it was programmed percussion but then I got to the point where I really wanted it to sound live.

RBMA: When you did your version of 'Out In The Streets', had you heard Chrissy Murderbot’s 'Braaain' when you did that? I love these footwork reworks of dancehall classics.

MP: Nah! The first stuff I heard, I think the first person to show me some juke stuff was, I think it might have been Untold. I think one day he just flicked over some YouTube stuff when we were on iChat. And then Mike Paradinas from Planet Mu started sending me a few things because he was really excited about the music. And the more he was sending me the more I was blown away by what he was sending me. I think the first couple I was playing were DJ Rashad’s ‘Who Da Coldest’ and DJ Roc’s ‘One Blood’, they were the first few I was playing out in my sets, and ‘One Blood’ fits perfectly with the ‘Out In The Streets’ vibe. So I was just taking inspiration from what they were doing. To us it’s another thread of that thing we were talking about, it’s got that same vibe that we were just talking about.
SS: It’s got Congo Natty going on! And it does sound like grime as well. The same patterns, the same kind of sensibility.

MP: I mean if you look at early Chicago and Detroit music that was massively influential to the whole of Europe, and hip hop obviously had its periods when it was really strong. But as for new genres of dance I personally haven’t been a fan of a lot of the stuff coming out of the States for 12 or 15 years, this is for me one of the most exciting things I’ve heard to come out of the US since Chicago house and Detroit techno and New York house as well. For me it has a real close link to the UK sound.

RBMA: Why are you called Africa Hitech. Wouldn’t it be weird if someone from Africa called themselves Europe Hitech?

SS: (laughter) It doesn’t sound as good!

RBMA: Haha. But explain to me why there’s a meaning attached to Africa that there isn’t attached to other continents?

SS: It’s in the music. It was about our love of all the modern styles of music, UK bassline essentially, on this album, but showing how all these different types of music, if you trace them back, the feelings and the sounds and the rhythms, they go all the way back to Africa. If you go all the way back through techno, all the way back through disco, and then all the way back through to soul and funk, and then that goes all the way back to blues, it just keeps on going. The whole project is an amalgamation of our love of that sound, and how we see it in modern dance music.

Melissa Bradshaw was a writer for Plan B Magazine (RIP), and currently writes for Pop Magazine, alongside a million other projects. The Africa Hitech album, '93 Million Miles', comes out May 9 on Warp Records.