Do!! You!!! Radio host, maverick DJ and seasoned producer Richard Sen gives us a tour of his debut solo album “India Man
Over 3 decades, Richard Sen may well be one of those figures who never shouts that loudly. But where it comes to reputation, there’s no denying his pedigree as one of the best selectors out there, who certainly knows when to turn on the style. From fetish clubs and festivals, to dark basements and back rooms, disco pubs and super-clubs… Richard really has done it all. From time to time, he’s even put himself out there on the global scale.
His authenticity, experience and 30 year history in dance music maps out a unique story. A former London graffiti artist, Sen began DJing in 1989 and if you care to listen – these days is recognised as an elder statesman, educator and expert. After all, he has more music to call upon than most. His sets tell a story and reflect a deep understanding of the dynamics that make up the dance floor. His sound draws from 70s, 80s, 90s influences and places them firmly in the present. Seamlessly flowing back and forth between Retro and Future, Dark and Light, Disco, Italo, Wonky house, Acid and Electro, Breakbeat and Deep techno.
Having previously released under the guises of Bronx Dogs (1997-2003) and Padded Cell (2005-2012). These days he’s been putting out music under his own name, on his own label: Darkness Is Your Candle, and for like-minded imprints, Klasse Wrecks and Public Release. Having also remixed respected artists such as Bryan Ferry, John Grant, Unloved (David Holmes) and LCD Soundsystem. It suffices to say Sen has been involved in many interesting projects over the years.
As big fans and regular listeners to his weekly show on Do!! You!!! Radio, we tracked him down for a deep dive into his background and get a lowdown on the making of his debut solo album “India Man”.
It’s been a busy year since you released your superb Dream The Dream: UK Techno, House and Breakbeat 1990-1994 compilation. What have you been up to since?
Well, just the album India Man I guess, finishing that up, but a lot of that was done already. I’ve just been getting on with that and the radio show which is on Do!! You!!! Radio, Fridays, 12 till 2pm as that takes up time every week.
It takes me a day to prepare for that every week: listening to new stuff, downloading it all and then going through all my old records as well. I quite enjoy the process.
There are a few remixes I’ve done recently as well, there’s Gus Patterson – I’ve done something for him, for Headman and Louis Heel. There’s a label called Backatcha Records that does a lot of 80s reissues, I’ve also done three or four things for them.
So, I’ve just been getting on with it, really.
You’ve been super busy like! How did you and Charlie Bones actually cross paths and get you involved with Do!! You!!! World? You’re a main feature of Fridays now…
Well, I went on his show when he was on NTS. I was a guest two or three times on his breakfast show in 2016 and 2017. So, he knew me from that. And then he started doing ‘Do!! You!!!’ over the lockdown. I think he was just doing it from his house at the time.
But it was when he moved to Well Street at Kristina… I was just walking past because I live quite close. I saw him there and then I said, I’ll bring you some records and I didn’t know you were here! He said, why don’t you come down and do a show?
At first I suggested doing a monthly slot. And then he suggested doing it weekly. Weekly is better! So I did it every two weeks and moved over to weekly. It’s good, it’s like having a residency. Like back in the day, people would go to clubs every week or listen to their favourite radio show every week.
So, it’s given me a chance to build something and you’re putting stuff out there every week, which is good. It’s been gathering momentum and is a lot better than just doing it every month. So, he was right, it’s been amazing.
All sorts of people have started to listen now, follow me on Instagram or message me… stuff like that. I’m thinking, why is this happening all of a sudden?
You’ve got three decades of experience and a very, very deep knowledge of a lot of music, because it’s been your lifeblood?
This is it. It’s coming together and taking off.
You can push things, but the best things happen organically…
Yes. I’ve been doing the show now for nearly three years and it’s the right thing and it’s genuine. I really like these records. Some of them I can talk about, as I’ve had them for 20, 30 years. Some of them are brand new. I like to have a mixture of old and new. There’s a lot of new music coming out, trying to keep on top of that and promote new artists because most people just won’t find out about them.
So, I like promoting new music as well as having that old knowledge. But I think yeah, it’s having a space for that – I enjoy it. And the listeners get that vibe as well, it’s really special. That’s been taking up a lot of time, DJing as well and then the production.
You’re managing to kind of juggle all those balls and you’re still working in the vinyl exchange?
Yeah, I do two days a week and that’s where I get a lot of good music from.
And, you can work when you want or not work for ages, depending on how busy you are with the other stuff. So it kind of works well and they’re quite easy going with things.
How did you actually first get involved in making your own music?
Well, it was through my friend Paul Eve who sadly passed away this year, we used to work together in the shop. He was from a hip hop background, break beats and funk. I was from more of a house background but I like disco as well, so we kind of met in the middle with disco and breaks.
We’d just made this one track ‘A Tribute To Jazzy Jay’ together as a bit of fun. We got a load of samples together that we liked, we had a bit of a theme basing it on this old recording of a jam, using the same breaks that we’d used.
And it just went from there, really. We always had to use an engineer so we’d go in the studio, come up with the ideas and the engineer would do all the twiddling of the knobs. It started then in 1997 and it just carried on until probably the mid-2000s, then I started to do Padded Cell with Neil.
So that’s where that next project kind of overlapped and you moved onto that?
Yeah, because Neil had his own studio.
How did you actually get them released, was it happy accident or did you send as many demos out as you could?
It was more through playing them to friends and there was a label called Kontraband which was based in Hoxton Square which we recorded it at. The lady who ran it with her husband or boyfriend, they had their own studio. I think we got the ideas together separately and then managed to finish it in the studio there. They put it out… it was an up and coming label when there were labels like Nuphonic, new disco stuff, Idjut Boys. All that kind of thing was happening at the same time, so it tied in with it all.
Before we knew it, DJ Harvey played it at his night at the Blue Note and a lot of people came back to me saying, ‘Oh, we were at this Harvey gig and he dropped this track of yours!’ It kind of picked up from there and became quite a popular track, not only in all kinds of clubs, but with the Breakdancers, the B-boys and the Hip Hop thing as well – people would break to it in the hip hop clubs.
And then we made another track called Madame Mars. This was before digital, so if you wanted to play it out before it was released, you’d have to get a dubplate cut! I got a dub cut of the track, I was playing out in a pub somewhere and I dropped it. Jon Carter who used to be on Heavenly as Monkey Mafia came running up going, what’s this? What’s this? And I said, oh, it’s one of mine. We’ve just finished it! And he suggested to phone up Heavenly Records, play it to them and see if they’re interested (as he was signed to them at the time). So it was kind of being at the right place at the right time.
When I phoned Heavenly, Jon was there in the office and he was going to the owners Jeff and Martin, get Richard in!. And then I went into their office and because they’d heard Jazzy Jay, they agreed to release Madame Mars and then they offered to manage us.
They were managing Weatherall before and they were doing press for Primal Scream, so they were really connected in the music industry at the time and they had a press office. So they started getting us really big remixes like St. Etienne, Jungle Brothers, Sizzla, some quite big names and big fees! And then also the odd gig here and there. So they managed to raise our profile and it all started to kick off in the late 90s.
So, that pretty much paved the way for you to do Padded Cell afterwards?
Well, Padded Cell was with Neil, who I also used to work with in the shop. He had his own studio which we’d also used as Bronx Dogs and we thought, why don’t we just try some stuff together? His studio was called The Padded Cell, it was covered in carpet all over the walls to soundproof it, so we just went with that!
You’ve done a lot of stuff since, it must be 12 years since you did the The ‘This Ain’t Chicago’ Compilation for Strut?
Yeah, that was 2012.
Why do you think it took you until now to write and release your first solo album?
Well, it’s taken a while because I’ve never really thought about it. We did a padded cell album in 2008 and then we kind of faded out because we lost the studio and DC Recordings (Depth Charge’s label) closed, so things just fell apart with Padded Cell.
After that I did a course in music production to try and learn how to do everything myself and that’s when I started making music on my own. Well, basically remixes and then singles. But I didn’t even think about albums.
As with a lot of people through COVID, I had a lot of time to get stuff done. I got a few tracks together and thought over the one or two years, why not just make an album out of these tracks.
Would you say it just took you your time to gather your thoughts and have a concept to work on then?
Yeah, especially as the stuff I’ve made for the last 10 years or so, it’s a bit more dance floor. It’s difficult to make a decent album that’s electronic or dance music.
So with India Man – it’s quite varied. It kind of made sense with the different tempos, a lot of live drums. It’s a bit more of a listening experience really, so it made sense to say okay, this would be good for an album.
There’s eight tracks in total on the LP, was that a conscious decision? Or was it you had loads to choose from, and you pared it down to eight?
A bit of all of that, you don’t want too many tracks or people just get bored. You lose focus. I mean, I think I did about 10 or 11 tracks and chose eight. These are the better ones, or these are the ones and they might need a bit more work here and there.
Why not just have eight, that’s all right for an album – it’s done. Especially with vinyl, it’s nice to have two tracks each side for a double vinyl.
And what are you using kit wise?
I use Logic. A lot of plugins, a lot of stuff on the computer, I’ve got one of those Behringer 303s, little acid things. They’re so cheap and a little MicroKorg which has got all the classic Korg sounds on. And then I’ve got a Moog Voyager synth as well. So yeah, I do actually have a few little bits. But you can get some really good new synths now, like classic things that are quite cheap: 200 or 300 quid.
It’s like we’ve got back to the original idea of synths for everyone!
Was there concept behind India Man or was that something that came later?
It sort of came later. I did maybe four tracks to start with like the ‘Moksha’ track. I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do. I just thought let’s see what happens and Charlie said, ‘Why don’t we put out your album? If you’re going to do an album, we’ll put it out.’
We were sitting outside having pizza one day – me, OG and Charlie and one of the local characters came up and went, “India Man” to me. And Charlie was like, there’s a title for your album almost jokingly. Why don’t you call it “India Man”?
But he thought it might be racist if it came from him! And so I thought, no, it’ll be fine because of my heritage and it made me think. Well, my dad came here from India in the 50s. His father came here in the 1930s before going back. And my great-grandfather came here in the 1920s to study and so I thought… My family has this connection of coming over from India to London and going back. Apart from my dad, he came here and stayed. It made me think of my heritage first and the three or four generations of connection between India and here, and it all kind of makes a good concept.
Take us through the tracks then…
A1: Eleven Eleven
I’ve been listening to Charlie’s show since 2015 or whatever. I don’t know what it is, there’s some kind of spiritual meaning behind it. But Charlie shouts out ‘Eleven Eleven’ every time that it gets to 11:11 am every morning. He’ll go, ‘One, one, one, one, 11, 11, 11, 11… ‘ I didn’t have that name in mind until I’d finished the track.
It started with just a drum loop, a sample of a drum loop from some 1970s glam rock thing. I can’t remember. It’s just a loop all the way through. It doesn’t change and it came together really quickly. So I just played a synth part and got the groove going. I looked at ‘Jamaica Running’ by The Pool and just tried to slightly copy that baseline.
So I got that as an inspiration, then I just played keys over the top. It’s quite jolly and cheesy. But it’s what I was feeling right then, then maybe another melody, two or three melodies and it came together within a day. It was one of those ones that just worked, you know.
It just flowed and I thought maybe I’ll give it another day to tweak it a bit but it basically took a day and I thought this is wicked as it is. The drums don’t change at all. It’s just got one single note for a bass line every bar. That’s it. And it just has the music on top. And I thought, fuck it – less is more. I called it Eleven Eleven because I thought this sounds like the kind of stuff that Charlie plays. I had him in mind.
A2: Moksha
‘Moksha’ started as a remix of a DJ Regal track (Paul Eve, my former Bronx Dogs partner). He made this track called ‘Train of Thought’ based on John Coltrane and there was a lot of saxophone, so he got this guy in to play live sax.
His original thing was quite downbeat and he wanted me to do a remix. So I thought I’ll do a house remix. The title wasn’t even ‘Moksha’ then, the working title was ‘Train of Thought’.
So, I just took a lot of the sax, got the bassline around that sax and then added a few keys and a couple of other little synth parts and made it a long house track, dark, sleazy with the sax kind of works. I didn’t call it ‘Moksha’ until the end when we decided to have an Indian theme.
B1: Indus Symphony
With Indus Symphony, it’s basically a disco loop. I just found some old disco record and looped it, and then added my own drums and then put in a sample of an Indian singer, Lata Mangeshka who’s probably the most famous Indian singer. She’s sung and made more records than any Westerner, I think she’s probably one of the most recorded singers ever. So when you Shazam it, it comes up with her song. It just sounded right, mucking around with the samples.
B2: Parsi Princess
So this one is more Persian, but in India there is a community called Parsis, who are people of Persian origin living in India. Because I sampled this Persian vocalist, I thought I’ll call it Parsi Princess and then put some kind of chug flavouring under it really.
C1: Proto-Dravidian
I’ve always wanted to use the break from Funky Drummer.
Back in the day, Funky Drummer was used a lot on some Balearic things or Italian tracks, it’s become like a classic sound. A bit like the amen break. I think it’s just like the 808 or whatever, it’s just a classic drum sound that you can use anytime. And I thought, it’s been so long. It’s kind of time to revive the Funky Drummer break and use it.
I didn’t know at the time but Radio Slave used it on his album that came out recently. Then I got the Indian samples, I can’t remember who it was but I put some Indian samples over the top. It seems to work. I just based the track around that and some really mad dubstep bass lines from Logic.
C2: Magadhan Empire
This was another one I did before, I can’t remember what I called it before when I was working on it. I was using the drummer tool in Logic. It’s just like a live drummer. You can change the drum sounds, how hard you hit the drums, the fills on each bar.
You can vary things slightly and you can have different things coming in and out, cymbals percussion using different weights, varying how complex the drums are or how simple they are, how hard you’re hitting it etc. So it does sound like a live drummer, you wouldn’t tell the difference.
I was just mucking around with that and an arpeggio in logic and then just built it from there. Again, not really having any Indian influences, I found some vocal samples that I got off Youtube. I just dragged some of that into it and thought, this sounds quite cool. A bit like an ancient army going on an invasion kind of thing. I think it’s the track which probably sounds the closest to Padded Cell stuff.
Because of COVID, no one was going to clubs, so it was more of a listening thing, being experimental with the synths. On logic, there’s a synth that you can really mess around with how the sound and how the modulation changes within that one sound. So, I just recorded loads and loads of variations of the same arpeggio changing and different bits. I kind of placed that in around the drums.
D1: Mysteries Of Meluhha
Again, this is one that might have started before I thought of doing an album. It was one of the tracks I did during COVID with a guy called Big Vern Burns or Box Heater Jackson. He used to do stuff with Weatherall in his studio back in the day. I knew him from 20 years ago, and he’s started to make some music and done a couple of albums which are quite old school. They sound like old UK House albums from the late 80s really, rough drum machines, some weird vocals and 101 type shit but he plays guitar as well. He said that if I ever needed any guitar then he was happy to get involved.
The track started as a disco type thing, he played loads of guitar on it. But I only used a tiny bit of it. I changed the vibe of it completely in the end and stripped it down. I made it a bit more electronic but kept bits of his guitar and that took a while. It was ongoing for about a year or so. I played it on one of my shows and people were commenting that it sounded like the BBC News theme. I’m thinking, oh man, it does sound like that!
D2: Hills of Kashmir
And then the Hills of Kashmir, I think, again, was another track that was ongoing and I had to keep changing the drums, change the bass line and go back to it. It wasn’t quite right and then finally, I got something that kind of fits in with Eleven Eleven and Magadhan Empire.
There are quite nice melodies going on, in an almost Yellow Magic Orchestra type way. There’s an Edgar Frose track which I was inspired by as well. And then I thought, put some 808 drums and make them really distorted. It kind of gelled it all together. I had to rename them all afterwards to keep with the India Man vibe. So I thought I’ll call that one Hills Of Kashmir as a nod to the classic, Hills Of Katmandu track.
I hadn’t realised that the vinyl sold out. Does that mean that there might be a repress coming?
I don’t think Charlie’s going to do any more. He pressed 300 double albums with artwork and stuff. He chose a bit of an expensive one for mastering, pressing and then the artwork printing etc
What have you got coming up next, you’re starting your own label now?
The label’s called ‘Darkness Is Your Candle’, we’re on the second release. The first release was in 2019, then COVID happened and I haven’t put anything else out. So, the next will be the second release: two John Grant remixes that I did. – Disappointing and Voodoo Doll. I’m allowed to put them out. We’ll do hand stamped white labels, I’ll just do 200 copies with digital, obviously.
