Everything You Need To Know About Creatures Debut Album

For an artist things can never really get more personal than an album.

An expansive body of work that captures your range, your style, your thoughts and feelings and everything you care to share with the world; albums can be the most comprehensive and honest signature and an invitation to your innermost soul.

Such is the case with Creatures’ eponymous LP.

Three years in the making with a real focus on a very particular timeless techstep influenced sound, the album features some of Harvey Gordon’s closest friends and is consolidated by a concept that goes right back to the very foundation of the Creatures project… Back when it was a trio rather than a solo artist.

Released on Rebel Music last week, loaded with link-ups with the likes of Codebreaker, Joe Raygun, Minor Forms, Philth, ZeroZero and Nautika, and each track coming with its own artwork and bespoke illustrated creature, Creatures – Creatures is an impressive reflection of how personal and meaningful an album can be.

We called up Harvey to find out more. Watch out on our social media in the next few days as we go deeper into the meaning and inspiration of each creature too!

Creatures… Set the scene

So I’ve always been massively into Greek mythology and those films like 300 and Clash Of The Titans. They’ve always enthralled me. And for this Creatures project, long long long before the album, the idea was that each track should be a different creature. That’s the ideology behind the artist name and concept to begin in.

You are essentially creating animals

Essentially yeah. Long story short; there were three of us when Creatures first started. Myself, Ben and Jake who was a bit different in his approach. He wanted to write stories about each creature and everything. It was a cool idea but in the climate of the industry there’s no time for such level of detail. Not with a single anyway. So the album is a way of actually consolidating that and re-launching Creatures as a visual concept to brings things back the inspiration.

Oh nice. This is much more depth than branding isn’t it? It allows you to take yourself out of it. You’re no longer Harvey. It’s more of a creative vessel.

Yeah that’s right and especially on the album. Aly Bartley is the guy who’s done all the artwork, he’s not an artist on the scene at all, he’s someone I grew up with. When I first started getting into drum & bass, avidly listening to things like the Lifted podcast and acts like Noisia and Spor, Aly would be there with me. He was there when I was first exposed to this type of music and really got into it. So he got the concept completely. It was really cool seeing each creature come to life as he sent them over.

This is fascinating and I would imagine that had an influence on how you approached each track?

It definitely had an influence. There’s a bit of cheating going on, retro fitting things to fit on the album a bit better, I won’t lie. But most tracks fit the creatures really well. Particularly Golem. That felt like a massive stone monster that drops down on you when it hits.

Ha!

Aly helped us name them and come up with each creature. I told him we needed 16 creatures and he came back with some suggestions like Strix, which I’d never heard of before, but it was perfect as a Strix has a massive mouth so it worked well with a vocal tune.

Ahhhh. I couldn’t actually work out that creature connection so that makes total scene. Obviously you’ve got the don Codebreaker on the other vocal tune on the album so tell us about that particular creature…

So the Mumakil are massive elephant like creatures from Lord Of The Rings aren’t they? And for me, because of the tribal drums and half time feel, that imagery really worked. Especially with Codebreaker’s bars almost feeling like a war-like chant.

Yeah! I love this connection with Aly and the artwork. You’ve really gone in!

Yeah I hadn’t seen him for eight years. I reached out to him when I started doing the album, he usually does this beautiful 3D rendering., I knew I could get a beautiful aesthetic out of him,. He was a big part of the project and it meant a lot to me. It brings the album together with meaning and makes sure it’s not just be a collection of bangers.

The standard for so many albums now!

Oh don’t get me started. Sonically the whole vibe was about trying to achieve an old school sound. Not a crispy clean dancefloor sound that’s so rife right now. Every album I listen to lately has got three vocal features which they’ve probably paid for, a couple of a collaborations and a remix. All of them feel like banger after banger.

Not much creativity there…

Don’t get me wrong, if that’s what you want to do then great but I think you’d have more success putting them out as EPs if you’re going to just putting out bangers. And that’s not me. If you’re going to spent three years writing an album it needs to be close to the heart of what you want to write.

Yes! It needs to be really personal

I think so too. I think I’ll probably do three albums in my whole career. If I’m lucky. They take a long time and they need to mean something. I think albums represent the end of a particular era and this for me is writing this type of music.

Wow.

Things evolve and change don’t they? During the years since I started writing the album the sound in drum & bass has changed so much. Every six months something will come along and influence everyone and for me it’s time to move on and write something new. Just to add, I wrote off a laptop during the album process too and I had to rewrite a lot for it.

Oh no! Did you manage to salvage anything?

Two or three tunes but I wrote a load of fresh stuff based on the audio I had to listen to and it made it a lot better.

Sounds like it was meant to be. Also sounds like this album is a bit of line in sand and a jump-point for the next chapter of Creatures?

Yeah for sure. It’s a good place to be. I’d taken a break from writing after finishing it and I’m just starting to get inspired again.

Have you been testing these tunes in the dance?

When I first made them I’d give them a few tests to see if they worked or not but then I would put then aside so as not to over-play them. But recently I’ve been playing album showcase sets and playing them all. I’m filling my sticks up with old school rockwell and dubphizix and have tunes I can build around my album. It’s the first time in years I’ve been digging and buying music and building a set in that way.

Ahhhh flipping things. I mean you should be anyway as a DJ?

Yeah it’s easy to get out of that habit and get involved in the slugging match with the other DJs. Sometimes it feels like a game of ‘who can play the most tunes?’ Because we’re all fighting over the same dubs.

Ha! Yeah it’s a very different world for jobbing DJs I think. When it’s a full time job and your income is dependent on it, everyone is occupying – and fighting for – a very similar spot right now.

That’s a very interesting point. I did actually quit my job for a bit to do music full time when I started my album and I’ll be honest with you; it was worst decision I could have made.

I’m not surprised. It changes your relationship with the music

It really does. And I’d always had a job which allowed me to just be creative. But I really wanted to be full time DJing and producing. It had been an ambition for so long. It turns out I’m not that guy and I really don’t want to be either.

Real talk!

I don’t want to be playing in front of so many people. I struggle coming home on my own after being around thousands of people. I don’t like being on planes very much and you’re being paid good money but a lot of it is to play tunes you have to play and not what you want to play.

I hear you! And I see that a lot. Especially in drum & bass!

Yeah it’s a real problem when you scratch the surface. Especially when you consider the disparity of income or how producers are incentivized to become DJs, right? But I don’t think this is the time and place. That’s not what this interview is about is it?

Correct but I think it’s good to note that you’re taking yourself out of that side of the game!

I don’t think I’m in that game anyway. I’m not involved in the big room side of it. It’s not what I got into drum & bass for at all. Back in school time, I was a weirdo no one liked because I listened to D&B. Like ‘Why you listening to jump-up at 10 in the morning?’ Leave me alone I’m listening to Chef on Kool!

Ha! And leave you alone because you’re about to start making a whole new batch of creatures?

100% and I’ll be doing them at my own pace and in my own time and with my own idea of drum & bass or any other genre I’m making. I’m in a good place, I’ve got good people around me and I’m doing meaningful things. That’s all I ever want from this.

And the album captures that!

I hope so. I poured my heart and soul into it and it doesn’t matter what it achieves now it’s out there. I know I’ve put absolutely everything into this. Everything. I have a lot of friends involved in it, it’s very personal and its very meaningful. That’s why it took three years!