As an artist that’s been at the forefront of Europe’s neurofunk scene for the last few years, Pythius has had his fans tingling with excitement for the release of a new album. With a string of singles and an EP dropping since his Descend album blessed our ears five years ago, the bastion of BlackoutMusic has been tantalizingly teasing his followers that something has been brewing over in Utrecht.
That wait ended recently as his highly anticipated album dropped a few weeks back, and it’s been heavily hitting some real heights since. It’s been dubbed a masterpiece by Let It Roll, album of the year by A.M.C and the first track In My Head, a collaboration with Bristol based vocalist REEBZ has been featured heavily on BBC Bristol airwaves. Further solidifying the bond between rock/metal and drum & bass, Alyx Holcombe recently made In My Head her BBC Introducing Rock Track Of TheWeek.
The album features some signature thumping Pythius sounds, tracks like Arrival and Burn ‘Em Down provide thunderous slaps and beats as if conjured by Thor himself. Collaborations with the likes of Burr Oak, Merikan and fellow Utrecht Blackout bomb shellers Black Sun Empire are sure to keep those die hard neuro fans more than satisfied with their contributions.
Turmoil also features more deeper, melodic creations and Pythius’ self-confessed love for Techno and other electronic genres resonates in tracks like Implant and All I Know. The album also has five vocalists highlighted throughout, the likes of flowanastasia, RIENK, MVE, Rhode and the aforementioned REEBZ all hitting notes that complement the range of instrumentals.
We were fortunate to have a discussion all about Turmoil with the main man himself recently and Pythius’ induction into the Blackout Music family as an intern along with some of the highlights from his time with the label are both heartfelt and inspiring. His love of Rammstein from a young age set the foundations to become one of the most respected producers out of the Netherlands in recent times.
We also spoke about the UK neuro scene and how it could be possible to hit the heights like it has done in Europe and with the already successful In My Head hitting Radio 1 heights, is this that shift beginning to happen? The five year wait is finally over, have Blackout Music and Pythius saved something special to celebrate 20 years as a label?
Strap yourselves in, read on below and prepare yourselves for a tumultuous journey. Turmoil has officially arrived and it’s not messing around…
Congratulations on the new album, Turmoil is amazing! Five years since your last album! How does it feel releasing this?
Yeah it’s been a process, 2018 was the last one so it’s been a while. I definitely took my time with this one, an extra year to be honest as it was supposed to come out a year ago but when I first thought “alright, I’ve got an album!” I was quite far in the process already. But then I thought “half of these tracks won’t do” and got rid of them, that went on and on during the entire album process up until like halfway through October. In October there was one track that I still wasn’t happy with so had to write a new one asap. This happened a few times during the process to be honest.
Love it! Sounds like it’s been a real journey for you! There’s a range of different sounds on this album. Would you say this has been an experimental journey creating this?
The whole process of the album, as the name suggests, was quite chaotic. I was just making music and some of the creations were happy accidents. I wasn’t experimenting with the purpose of “I’m making an album.” I was just making stuff that inspired me in the world of drum & bass at the moment and other music that I’d heard around me. With the deeper stuff, I have a real renewed appreciation for deeper drum & bass over the last few years. The stuff that is coming out now is really good like the tunes Critical and Overview are putting out, I’m really into that. So that really inspired me to make some deeper tunes like Byss, Broken and All I know. At the very start of my career I started out by releasing deeper stuff, so it’s a nice full circle moment I guess.
Full circle for sure! Now there’s also some awesome collaborations with some amazing producers, definitely some signature heavy hitting Pythius sounds. What inspired you to create this heavy sounding music?
I’m a huge metal fan since the age of ten or eleven, I saw a Rammstein video on TV and I was just like “wow, what the hell!” I think it was the ‘Ich Will’ music video and they were robbing a bank and thought “this is cool!” The music was nice and I think it was a colleague of my mother back in 2001, he burned me a CD of the ‘Mütter’ album by Rammstein and I was well into that. I was in my last year of primary school when I was already listening to them.
Du Hasst Mich at Rammstein! Another regular occurrence on the album is some fantastic collaborations with vocalists. How do you find working with these artists?
It was great working with them. I quite like the extra dimensions that vocals give to tunes, it kind of really makes it a song instead of just another instrumental track. I’ve collaborated with REEBZ, RIENK, MVE, Rhode and flowanastasia. So with her living in Canada, we did this collab fully online. That was very nice, we had very good back and forth discussions about the project which was cool. RIENK is from Utrecht, the same city as me so that was very easy, he’s a lovely guy to work with and we had some studio sessions and worked one-to-one which is always nice and gives new inspiration as well. He gives very good feedback on the tunes and how the music and the vocals can be incorporated better. The same with MVE, amazing job on the ‘All I Know’ track. He has such a nice, deep voice and put a lot of emotion on the vocal. I’m so positive about all of these vocalists because they did such an amazing job. Then there’s REEBZ from the UK, this one wasn’t in person so we did a few video chats. We did In My Head first and we had lots of discussions until we got to that sweetspot. She’s very open for feedback, has great ideas and she’s such a hard worker! Then there’s Rhode, she’s from The Netherlands as well. She nailed it really fast. She had these really jazzy, smoky vocals that made the tune just more special.
Amazing to hear! We’ve touched on your rock and metal influences. Are there any other genres you take inspiration from outside of drum & bass?
Techno, in the Implant tune you can definitely tell it’s acid techno inspired. All I know was more inspired more by like deep and tech house. For the rest of the album definitely techno along with
the heavy metal.
Keeping with the theme of influences, you’ve got a great relationship with Blackout Music. How did your relationship with the label start?
Well Black Sun Empire are from the same city as me. At one point I met one of the guys in a bar and I was fanboying. I’d had a few drinks so I got the stereotypical Dutch courage and ask them “hey, can I send you guys some music?” So I sent them a tune back when I was still making deep drum & bass and they asked me to open the Blackout parties. This was way before the label started, so I would open their parties sometimes and I was doing music at higher level education studying electronic music production, I needed to do an internship for it. So I started pestering them at the Blackout parties backstage like every time like “hey, can I do an internship with you?” and I just kept on going until they said yes. So I started out as an intern there, did that for a year and a half and then they said they would take me on and I did the label management for another four and a half years.
That is massively inspiring for anybody wanting to take a similar route! So twenty years of Blackout Music this year! What are some of your highlights from being with the label?
After doing the Abandon EP there, that was very good for me and I also remember when I was nobody and they were pushing me to get on some of the label nights. I’d never really played abroad, maybe one or two times and I remember Micha being like “we put you on the Berlin label night” and I was like “wow, Berlin!” I’d never even been there. So that was very nice, it was the start of me getting bookings and that’s all thanks to Blackout.
That’s amazing! One of the bookings we’ve seen you on over here was Neuroheadz Festival this year. What are your thoughts on the UK Neurofunk scene right now?
It seems to be doing a lot better than a few years ago. I remember it being clinically dead at one point but now it seems to be on the rise again which is really nice. There’s labels like Neuroheadz putting in a lot of effort and the likes of A.M.C playing a lot of the tunes. Also the older artists like Ed Rush & Optical still keeping that flame alive and I think that’s doing the neurofunk scene in the UK quite well.
The community over here want to see UK neurofunk hit the heights it does over in mainland Europe. How do you think the UK scene can hit those heights?
I think there needs to be like a paradigm shift with the audience. There seems to be more of a focus on other sounds which is very popular with the younger audience who tend to go to most of the parties. So I think maybe you need some hits over there, something that’s still neurofunk but gets the people like “oh! This stuff is actually cool!” I think the neurofunk sound is great for the die hard fans but it’s not very approachable for a lot of people when they’re used to lighter, slightly easier going drum & bass. It’s like trying to convert a Foo Fighters fan into a heavier metal fan. Foo Fighters to Slayer would be a good one. That’s a good accreditation of still being rock but Slayer not being the ultimate hardest band ever. In mainland Europe, techno is really big and there’s already pretty dark stuff that’s been going on in our electronic music scene. We also have the gabber and hardcore music scene too so I think people are just more used to that harder and darker stuff whereas if you look at the UK, the sound is so different.
It’s an exciting time to be a neuro fan. How was your summer this year?
Yeah it was really good! I played some nice festivals, met some nice people. Choosing a highlight is like choosing a favourite child. Let It Roll is always good, going back to back with Merikan this year, that was really nice. He’s a good friend so we really vibed there. I did something in the Netherlands that was super cool, it was called Baroeg Open Air in Rotterdam. It’s basically a punk and metal festival and they had an electronic stage, I was the only drum & bass artist there. It was super warm and once I started playing in the tent, it was just pure vibes and that was really cool!
This has been bloody amazing! Have you got anything exciting happening in the near future that you can share with us?
I have heaps of shows coming up. One of which is in Budapest, it’s always a vibe over there and the Hungarian crowd is crazy so I love going there. There’s a big night in Utrecht happening too, a Blackout versus Virus night which will be really cool in a big venue. New Years Eve in Czech Republic which will be awesome. So those are some of the highlights left for this year.