PREMIERE: HOTEL MOTEL 'THE FALL' FEAT SNAX

The third in a series of albums compiled and mixed by Bill, 'Late Night Tales Presents After Dark: Nocturne' is a glorious collection of disco-influenced cuts, including new tracks from Bill's own project: Hotel Motel. There's also exclusive bits from Emperor Machine and Hugh Mane, plus a remix of pop princess Charli XCX by Norwegian house don, Lindstrøm. 

DJ Mag has nabbed an exclusive stream of Hotel Motel's new track 'The Fall' featuring Snax, ahead of the LP's release on 11th May via LNT. A project comprised of Brewster and Alex Tepper, Hotel Motel's 'The Fall' is sensational. A fusion of authentic, chugging basslines and groovy blended vocals, it's one of the best disco odes of the year so far. We caught up with Bill to find out a little more about his 'After Dark' series and what makes him tick...

Talk us through the After Dark series so far? 
Paul from Late Night Tales first had the idea for it after I did a Boiler Room session for Late Night Tales a few years ago, in which I played a lot of slow, electronic music. He thought it might work as an idea for compilation, so I went away and came up with a sort of concept for it, with a few rules, like no tracks faster than 116bpm. So we’ve tried with each one to have some really good previously unreleased stuff, like the Lindstrøm mix of Charli XCX on the latest one, as well as some interesting older tunes. It seems to be turning into an annual occurrence, like Grimsby fucking up in the playoffs, except better, obviously. 

How is this latest instalment, After Dark: Nocturne different to what we've heard before? 
All the songs are different from the previous two? Conceptually, it’s exactly the same, so there’s a range of slower tempo songs and tracks, but all of it is geared towards the dancefloor.

I’m always trying to find interesting stuff that hasn’t been put on compilations before, so we’ve got Paladin’s ‘Third World’, which I think is an amazing track, the Disconet mix of Plastic Bertrand’s ‘Stop Ou Encore’ and ‘Back To The Streets’ by Rudy Norman, which is a collectible 45 and such a great end-of-nighter. Then there’s some unreleased stuff, such as the Charli XCX tune I mentioned before, some Hotel Motel stuff I did with Alex Tepper, and one of my musical heroes, Andy Meecham, doing a Emperor Machine track for me. 

Can you explain your creative process when creating a mix for LNT? Surely you must start out with ALOT of tracks and ideas.. 
The process starts as soon as I finish the last one, really. So for this one, I created a file last summer and started adding ideas and tracks to it then. After a while it builds and builds into a ridiculously fat file and then I start whittling stuff down so that the songs make sense together. Often, you get turned down for stuff you want to use, so creating a mix that works is a constantly shifting process.

If you get turned down for one track, it might also mean you can’t use one or two other, because of the way I plan the mix, which can be a real downer, so we might get through about 35-40 requests before we get a selection of tracks we’re happy with. Then I fiddled about with them and Cheeky Paul comes round to my house and we have a good fiddle together. With my wife’s permission, of course. She’s a Catholic and obviously doesn’t approve of secret fiddling. 

You've got some tracks from your own project Hotel Motel on this mix. What's the story behind this collab with Alex Tepper? 

Alex and I have been friends for a very long time. I actually signed one of his first records in about 1993 or 1994 when he was a teenager. I was living in New York and he was living in the Midlands at the time, but his dad lives in the States, so he used to come over a lot and we’d hang out together at the Sound Factory Bar and various other places. We started making tracks together in about 1998, but we never really finished anything, though neither of us can remember why now.

Then he came to my birthday party about 6 years ago and suggested working together again so we started doing stuff from there. To be honest, we hadn’t done much together for a while but we had a few sessions to get stuff completed that we’d half finished, so I could use them on the compilation. I love working with him, he’s a great guy, has loads of ideas and laughs at my jokes. Plus I smoke all his fags and he never complains.  

What else in the works for you this year? More books? Festivals?
I’m currently working on a compilation series for Harmless called The Anthology, where we take classic old label and do these rather lovely three CD compilations. So far we’ve done Easy Street, which is just about to come out and I’ve also finished Sleeping Bag, Fresh and I’m currently working on Streetwise, Sam and P&P. On top of that, Frank Broughton, my partner in crime, are doing another one of our Low Life festivals (www.wildlifefestival.net) in June, which I’m really excited about. And me and Damian Harris from Skint are planning something new for both of us (it’s not naked glitter wrestling by the way). In between that, I’m DJing quite a lot. Feel free to book me. 

And finally, tell us your best late night tale?
It changes all the time. My current favourite is the Jon Hopkins, which is the latest. It’s one of the best for ages, very thoughtful, quite intense with some moments of beauty in there, too.