Interview with Nolan

Tim Belcher AKA Nolan has been making waves in UK dance music for the last 20 years. As he joins forces with Sasha’s Last Night On Earth label, we catch up with him to discuss his new release and more.

 

Hi Nolan, thanks for joining us today! How has your year been so far?

Incredible thanks! Hectic but so much fun. We just celebrated the 10th annual edition of the Brighton Music Conference down here which in the glorious sunshine, as you can imagine, was very special. It was great to see so many industry friends, old and new, in one place with loads of fascinating talks and panels. So many highlights but having Carl Cox play us a sunset DJ set over 500 feet high up in sky inside the i360 Tower was a serious buzz.

Can you tell us about your journey as a DJ & producer and how you got started in the music industry?

By blagging it!! I started DJing around the age of 15 back in the early 90’s through just wanting to play my friends all the new music i’d picked up on tape or vinyl. Couldn’t afford to buy proper Technics turntables for years so just blagged sets wherever i could and learned to mix on the job and practiced at a few mates houses too if they were lucky/rich enough to have been able to buy some or had belt drives! I started promoting nights back then too which always helped when wanting to get behind the decks.

As for production, that came a few years later in 1998 when I was at Uni in Leeds and a mate had ReBirth RB-338 (which emulated the sound, look and feel of two TB-303’s and a TR-808) on his PC which i loved messing with. Having got the bug I then set up a pretty much full hardware studio back down south after Uni finished with a mate from Spain called Alvaro Garcia who had a great job at the time designing the 1st commercial websites and who kept buying new synths, samplers and a 48 track mixing desk! We had all the gear and no idea! So we spent a few years on a sharp learning curve and got to grips with it all in the end. It was 6 years after this that i felt ready for my own 1st release though so no where near as quick as it can be done today with modern tech and online courses everywhere you look!

Yep since the early 90’s! Nights at the Haçienda and Leeds Love Parade were the first few gigs i caught Sasha at. I’ve been a massive fan of LNOE and so am super excited for this release to come out on it. He signed a few tracks from us over lockdown, one of which featured on his LUZoSCURA album called Breathe You which was a collab i did with Just Her and featured Keisha Mair on vocals, and this one with Amber.

Are there any specific themes or messages that you aim to convey through your new music? 

Yes, this particular track i did have that early 90’s warehouse rave vibe i was going for with the breaks mix, and then a tribute to the Haç in the House mix so it feels so right to have Sasha remix it now too.

What drew you to work with Amber Jolene, and what unique qualities does she bring to the release? 

I’ve worked with Amber since around 2006 I think, back in our London days. We’ve had quite a few collaborations together either under my old Timo Garcia guise or as Nolan. A couple of the Nolan ones got remixed by Kant and Finnebassen and have hit over 5 and i think 13 million views on YouTube now too which is nice! We did quite a few live PA’s over the years too including one at Ministry of Sound when i had my old Berwick Street Records label residency there. I love Amber’s voice and she’s great fun to work with. We put records out together on Yoshitoshi, Southern Fried, OFF Recordings, Black Hole, Hed Kandi, Sleazy Deep. We even did a collaboration with X-Press 2 for Skint Records too.

Are there any collaborations with other artists that you would love to explore in the future? Who would be your dream collaboration?

I’d love to work on something with Anders Trentemøller some day, his sound design is incredible, especially in the Poker Flat days. Also Nick Murphy aka Chet Faker to record some vocals.  

---