Rob Playford of Moving Shadow

Another video from Video Stock Archives who we featured last month, interviewing 4 Hero and LTJ Bukem. This time we have a double Drum & Bass combo; with Rob Playford; influential producer and founder of Moving Shadow Records and the man credited for the production in Goldie's timeless.... Timeless album (amongst many others). As well Rob, we hear from DJ Hype below. If you want to read up on Rob's work with Goldie, have a look at this SOS article from 1998, here's an excerpt... 

Drum & bass: frenetic, schizophrenic, urban, always evolving. Soho: ditto. It seems fitting that the HQ of Moving Shadow records, one of the leading drum & bass labels, should be based here; cross the borders of this tiny square half-mile of London and life takes on a whole new urgency. Everyday occurrences are achieved with impossible speed: coffee is ordered and drunk without breaking a stride, and shops change hands - and decor - before lunchtime.

Even in this hothouse environment, there doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day for Rob Playford. For the best part of a decade, he's subjected himself to a punishing regime of running Moving Shadow records, producing and engineering his own music (as well as that of many others), DJing around the UK club circuit, and, until recent times, holding down a nine-to-five job as a software engineer. Phew!

Rob is riding on the crest of the still-ongoing musical revolution brought about by drum & bass - or whatever you call it; as the Moving Shadow home page on the Internet succinctly puts it 'breakbeat, hardcore, jungle... call it what you will, it sounds like the future'. David Bowie wanted to be part of it with 'Hello Spaceboy', Roni Size's Reprazent shook up the prestigious Mercury Awards with it, every rock act wanting to spice up their singles sales has a remix using it, and everything from game shows to shampoo advertisements is trying to grab our attention with it. But it wasn't always this way...

Two interviews from the late 90s, with what were to be two of the most well-regarded producers in the genre.. 

Rob Playford, famously producer of Goldie`s "Timeless" album and many other jungle / drum `n bass / breakbeat artists, on the philosophy of his influential Moving Shadow record company, on "doing it for the love of it" and "living the scene"...Interview: Oliver v. Felbert

DJ Hype on how it all started for him with setting up and running his own sounsystem, which evolved into "Shut Up and Dance". How he developed from early hiphop-influenced scratching to djing. How breakbeats are the heart of ever changing and differently named genres like hardcore, jungle or drum `n bass. On the importance of dubplates and making an average of five of them every week. On how newer genres like jungle combine and integrate former styles like house, reggae etc. Founding his own label Ganja Records...Interview: Oliver v. Felbert

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