GORGON CITY

Quite often it’s more fun with two people in the studio. You can bounce ideas off one another, give instant feedback, crack jokes and generally have more of a jolly old knees-up. This is what the two notable producers involved in Gorgon City — house bod Foamo and RackNRuin from future jungle/breaks — have found since hooking up together a year or so ago.

“We’d played a few gigs together and decided to try collaborating on a track,” Foamo, aka Kye Gibbon, tells DJ Mag. “We then found that when we worked together, we were coming up with new ideas quickly and were really happy with the results. So we thought there was potential there for a whole new project, and maybe an album.”

“It was a lot of fun when we realised the collaboration was going to work,” says RackNRuin, aka Matt Scott. “Sometimes working with other people can be difficult and unproductive.”

The guys didn’t really have a mission statement or plan when they started working together. “But we did find that the tracks we were making weren't really a combination of our two sounds,” says Foamo. “It was like a whole new producer altogether. This was one of the reasons why we decided to start a completely new alias for the project.”

Indeed, ‘Thor’ is straight up deep jacking house that Heidi or Maya Jane Coles might play, a muted hammering bassline presumably accounting for the Norse god reference of the title. ‘Real’, featuring the smooth soulful vox of Yasmin, meanwhile — the other track on their double-header that’s out on Black Butter this month — is a deep house cut that would fit snugly on Jamie Jones’ Hot Creations stamp, or even on daytime radio. And there’s plenty more where those came from.

The guys start talking about their influences, mentioning that they come from quite similar places musically. “I think we've both listened to a lot of the same stuff growing up, especially jungle/d&b in our teens,” says Foamo. “Also a lot of garage and grime.Although you can't always hear it directly, it definitely inspires our sound.We've also spent a lot of time raving to house music in recent years, especially on our travels, so that's definitely had an affect.”

“Yes, a lot of house raving and DJing over the past couple of years has influenced us a lot!” adds RackNRuin with a grin.

When they’re in the studio together, they want to get as much done as possible in that time, says Foamo. “It's easier to get stuff down when you don’t have time to second-guess and deliberate on everything,” he believes. “If something sounds good at the time, we just record it down and get on with it.I find you often get the best results when you just let the process flow like that, and don't over-think things.”

“When you've been producing alone for a while, sometimes it's hard to get a vibe going,” admits Matt RNR, adding that they both are, of course, going to also be keeping their solo names for other productions. “Working with Kye has definitely been a lot of fun and very inspiring.”

Look out for Gorgon City DJ and live gigs to follow later this year.