Since bursting onto the drum & bass scene with his first release back in 2016, Ben Downton aka Low:r has been building towards a special moment which has finally arrived.
Having released on labels such as Liquicity, Soulvent and Spearhead in the past, Low:r has just dropped his debut album, Can You Hear Me, on Galacy. Twelve tracks featuring collaborations with the likes of SYNGA, Surreal, Dustkey, Tempza, Sam M and Beò provide an eclectic project that has been years in the making.
Coming a long way since the days of playing in bands and starting out as a dubstep DJ, Ben has always had musicality flowing through his veins, leading him to his first album drop. Constantly developing his ever evolving sound, we caught up with the man himself recently.
In this conversation we find out about Ben’s relationship with Galacy, where he found inspiration from for the album, sending demos to labels and so much more.
Can You Hear Me is available on all platforms, so strap yourselves in and read on as we dive deep into the mind of Low:r…
Congratulations on the release of Can You Hear Me! How does it feel to be releasing this?
Oh man, amazing. It’s definitely one thing to check off the bucket list for sure, it’s been a lot of fun. It’s been a long process to get there but it’s a really good feeling to have it finally come together.
Love that! Where did you find creative inspiration from for this project?
There wasn’t anything specific really. So the way I normally write music is just whatever’s feeling right in the moment. Because this was written over like a year and a half, there were so many little moments. Like coming back from a party and being hyped on that and then writing a track based on that feeling, or having like a down moment in the winter or whatever and then writing around that. A bit of everything really, I feel like that’s kind of reflected in the body of work as well.
Absolutely! So can you talk to us about some of the artists you’ve worked with on this project?
Yeah, so there’s one vocalist I worked with quite a lot is Anna Pankaldi, but she’s going under the name of Beò with this. So I’ve done another track with her on Liquicity before, but this one track, Untouchable, I feel like that really worked out quite well, it’s a proper tune. So that’s kind of nice to have something like that on there. There’s another singer on there called SYNGA, she’s a dope Dutch singer and I’ve worked with her two times now. There’s a couple of other drum & bass artists as well, Surreal and Dustkey. Sam M also did the vocals for Can You Hear Me, he’s awesome. Mine and Dustkey’s single came out already, that’s called Betelgeuse. I’m really happy with how everything sounds overall.
Some real talent featuring on this body of work, love it! Can you talk to us about your relationship with Galacy?
So I’ve been sending them music for like maybe five years plus. They didn’t always accept them, but I’ve always been trying. Then eventually they started to like my tracks and I would get through to them. So I started releasing on Galacy, like the odd single here and there. I then ended up with an EP once on Liquicity and I started getting bookings for their shows. I just fell into that whole label mindset and started working with them quite a lot. I don’t know if you know, but when you’re an artist in this scene, you send a lot of demos here, there, and everywhere, and you may not get answers. That can be quite frustrating, but I was getting answers from them. If it was like “no, you should work on this or, this is all right, but this needs changing.” They were just giving me more feedback. So I feel an allegiance to them now. I’m very happy, they’re a great label.
Amazing, I know as an artist sending out projects to people, you don’t always get answers so it must feel great to get feedback and this is where relationships are born?
Yeah, for sure. Sometimes all you want is that “it’s not quite there yet” feedback or something like that. But I know and understand that probably their inbox is full of demos, so it’s not that possible. But from an artist perspective, it can be quite soul destroying in a way. So it’s nice to have, like a bit of feedback, which is why I just kept working with them to be honest.
What are your thoughts on drum & bass in general at the moment?
It’s stronger than ever, I feel like jump up is especially strong at the moment which is cool. I feel like it would be nice if promoters would have a more eclectic lineup rather than booking the same people. I think they should give more of a chance to the lesser known artists as well just to spread it out a bit and introduce the punters to new artists. I think the scene is in a strong place at the moment though for sure it’s got a good range of everything. I’m hoping there’s going to be a liquid kind of resurgence at some point.
This has been awesome, have you got anything excited coming up you can share with us?
Nothing planned at the moment, I’ve just been focusing on release strategy, coming up with interesting promo ideas. I sort of burnt myself out a bit over doing all these things so I’m now resting up a bit so I haven’t got anything planned. I do have about eight tunes just sitting around that are finished so I’m sure some of those could be packaged together at somewhere at some point I just need to maybe write a couple of A sides.
