Sometime midway through just another day in 2020, a mate sent over the ‘French Exit EP’ by Earl Grey. A 6-track EP of percussive excellence which we later found out was influenced by Cuban and Japanese drumming, 60s exotica records, rare groove and plenty more. Fast-forward 6 months and we were lucky enough to chat with Earl Grey about his early beginnings, his music influences and what’s to come in 2021.
Hi Earl Grey, can you tell us a little bit about yourself – who you are and where you are from?
Howya! My name’s Jim Ehlinger and I’ve been writing and releasing uptempo electronic music under the Earl Grey name for a little over 10 years now. I’m based in central Manchester but I grew up on the other side of Stockport, not far from the edge of the Peak District.
Tell us a bit about your favourite music and bands growing up.
Between about 10 and 12 I had a passing interest in whatever commercial dance was floating around Radio 1, and the first album I bought was Basement Jaxx’s ‘Remedy’ which got played to death. I read the NME and sometimes Kerrang (though I’ve never really been into much metal), and sometimes caught bits on MTV2 if I had mates that had Sky TV at home! Eventually heard John Peel play some tracks from Kid A which turned me into a MASSIVE Radiohead fan for the next few years. Got into guitars and found a couple of groups of mates to play with, and enjoyed doing the indie and then stoner-rock thing for a bit.
What led to your discovery of electronic music and in particular DnB?
I’d heard bits of D&B through some of the lads I grew up around, I guess they were maybe rips from their older brother’s tape packs so DJ Hype and Andy C sets but it didn’t really do a whole lot for me. It wasn’t until after I’d gone down down the breakcore/IDM/braindance rabbit-hole and came across Aphex Twin sets containing some
drumfunk/choppage tunes in that it really caught my ear. Hearing Breakage, Equinox and dgoHn was the game changer for me really, and that kind of set the path I followed after that.
How long have you been producing, and has your preferred style always been DnB?
I started to get into computers around 2006 or 2007, and started messing about with whatever little naff bits of free software were easily downloadable, which meant really terrible acid, mashing up any samples I could get my hands on and trying to do breakcore and jungle. Since then it’s sort of chilled out a bit and become a little closer
to something resembling conventional D&B, but occasionally I’ve done some other more downtempo and ambient bits, hip hop, house and garage.
Nice one! So what’s your process for producing music – what’s your typical studio set-up?
It’s mostly just Ableton and lots of sampling from all different sources. I bought an Elektron Analog Keys a while back which has turned up on some recent tunes, and occasionally I’ll play a bit of guitar to use but yeah it’s mostly just ‘in the box’. I’m working at a university that has some great studios though, so sometimes I’ll run
something through their analogue desks/outboard/mic preamps etc before bringing it home to work on, and there’s a good mastering room there to test mixes in which helps a lot.
Your recent EP on Inperspective Records was sick – what was your inspiration?
Nice one! As with most of my stuff there is some jazz and trip-hop influence, but often it’s just inspired and informed by what I’ve filled my sample libraries with. There’s some traditional Cuban and Japanese drumming in there, 60s exotica records, British brass bands, rare groove, dub reggae, and obviously different styles of breakbeat and jungle, bass music and acid.
This question is a pretty obvious one, but how has COVID-19 affected your plans for 2020? And how did you fill your time during lockdown?
Obviously festival season was a write-off, but I didn’t have many dates booked in for the year at that point so it wasn’t such a big deal for me. I was furloughed from my job so spent a lot of time finishing older projects off that had been dormant for a while, and a couple remixes. I was fortunate enough to be in a house of 6 at the time, so
we did a load of BBQs during the rare English heatwave, kicked a ball around, had karaoke parties and generally got a bit wavy! Also had some fun playing some B2Bs at home with my housemate d. Clemente (https://soundcloud.com/d_clemente), mixing up some styles we wouldn’t usually experiment with.
Finally, what plans do you have for 2021 and when can we expect more music from you?
There’ll be a couple of remixes from me due at some point on labels that I’ve already worked with before, but at the minute I’m trying to carve out some new sounds in different styles than I’m used to, spend more time using the Elektron and maybe work with some vocalists. Hopefully DJ a bit too after they’ve banged a vaccine up
everybody’s arm. Looking forward to it!
Interview By: James Acquaye Nortey-Glover