We (X-Press 2) have been Djing and producing dance music for over 20 years now. First as DJs then later on as remixers and producers, most notably for our track, Lazy, in 2002 with David Byrne. During that time we have seen huge changes in the way that music is made, marketed and eventually sold. Recording studios that cost hundreds per day to hire down to one desktop computer, marketing and promotions departments now replaced by social media and 12 inch singles reduced to digital files.
Back in the mid - late 80s, we were wide-eyed, eager club goers from the less than salubrious western suburbs of London, venturing 'up west' to try and find the clubs that were playing the funk, soul, jazz, hip hop, electro, disco and early house that our ears were craving. Then spending every Saturday schlepping round the cooler record stores of Soho and the West End looking for the sounds that we were hearing.
Everyone hanging around the counter waiting for the latest import delivery. As well as the deleted albums, 7s and 12s of rare grooves, jazz, funk and soul from back in the day, we lapped up anything that was new, shrink wrapped and came from exotic warm places like New York, Chicago, Spain, Italy and Belgium. For us, as DJs and music collectors, it was all about hanging out in the record shops waiting for the next delivery. Now the music is delivered direct to our hard drive from the artists themselves. Of course the travelling aspect of our job is so much easier now. Two boxes of vinyl that weighed around 30 kilos to a CD wallet and now simply a USB stick, cuts out that nail biting wait by the carousel to see if your box will turn up.
Our collective, eclectic tastes in music are part of the make up of X-Press 2, that whole ethos of finding new sounds but dipping back into the past is part of what we, as clubbers, dancers, DJs and now producers, have always loved about what we're involved with.
There seems to be a lot of this going on in house music right now, with younger, newer producers and DJs looking back and taking inspiration from what's gone before and trying to interpret that, but in so doing, creating something all their own and consequently, new. I suppose it's the constant cycle and recycle of dance music and just what we were doing 20 years ago. We were listening to a lot of disco records, European techno alongside new productions from Chicago.
We took all that and made our own version of it. Something that we've continued to do so until now, with the release of our current album, The House of X-Press 2. The results of 25 plus years of inspiration and two years work. Inspired too, by the film Paris Is Burning. A film about the voguing and house ballroom scene in New York from the late 80s/early 90s. A scene at it's peak around the same time that we started making music.
Twenty years later and the technology that we used couldn't be more different.
Back then it was a sampler, a PC running some sequencer software and all manner of other kit. We'd spend the first two-three hours every session sampling then getting the samples in time, working out any time stretching on a pencil and paper.
Nowadays we do pretty much everything on one computer program. It's reduced an entire room full of analogue desk, keyboards, samplers, record decks and outboard gear down to one desk top machine, that samples and stretches pretty much instantly.
The record decks are still there. The one piece of analogue kit that we'll never lose.