Dubeats
Who are Swamp people?
Swamp People is a duo of music lovers, record diggers and synth junkies.
We read a book called Samogitia by Pichel, Chas. L. Thourot and we were fascinated by the history of the area we are from. Our area is surrounded by the swamps and in this book was mentioned how we use to lure our enemies and drown them in the swamps. So basically that’s how the name came about, Swamp People, because we are both from the same area even though we meet thousands miles away from home.
How were Swamp People formed?
We met through mutual friends and found out we are both making music, although very different (one of us was making jungle/drum and bass, other house and techno) we decided to give it a shot and collaborate. It clicked right away working together was just easy so we kept going and here we are now.
Where are you from? And where are you based now?
We both are originally from Lithuania, based in Edinburgh, Scotland right now.
Both left the country for the same economic reasons, the goal was to make some money to build a studio back home, but we fell in love with the beautiful Scotland we consider our home now.
How long have you been playing?
Between us we got more than 30 years of Djing and over 20 years of music production.
Who are your musical inspirations?
To name a few: Richie Hawtin, Kerri Chandler, Derrick May, Drexciya, Prodigy, Photek, Congo Natty, Fatboy Slim, Portishead
How many pieces of equipment do you have and do you have a favourite piece?
Too hard to count now, definitely over 20 and most of it is used regularly. We got a rule if you don’t use it just sell it and get something that will be used. Also too hard to choose a favourite but a few would be: Akai MPC 1000, Roland TR-8, Korg Minilogue, Korg Microkorg XL, Moog Minitaur.
What are your current musical highlights? (SP tracks/gigs/festivals etc)
We started Swamp People probably about 6 months before the pandemic and things just reopened so not many highlights as of yet. We do have a lot to announce soon however so follow our social media for all that fresh stuff.
Tell us about your recording studio
At one point looking at the amount of equipment we gathered and decided we need to look for a space for the sake of having a living room and sanity of the neighbours. By sheer luck we found this space as if Swamp People was meant to become a serious musical project. We call it black hole since it’s all black and sucks you in for hours at the time erasing all sense of time and space. It’s a place to work as well as to hang out and banter.
Tell me about Jazzy T – process of making / theme/feel of track / what you used to make it etc
Jazzy T is more representative of our current approach on making music, everything is played in live as you see in our live jam videos and then edited to become a full finished track. We generally work a lot out of the box however this track is definitely a mix of both. It has that jazz/funk feel to it with a super groovy beat and bass, that’s how we like it best.
Tell me about Get High – process of making / theme/feel of track / what you used to make it etc
Get High is a special track for us since it was probably the first serious track we made and finished. The track was from an era before we started doing more live performance approach of making music. This one just came together very easily. This was early days of our production which is reflected in the raw and unpolished sound. This track was a crucial moment in the development of Swamp People sound and we are really happy it’s coming out here at Scottish record label. We used Korg Poly 800 for this which is one of the iconic synthesizers used in early days of electronic music especially house and MPC1000.
-Swamp People
Artist: Swamp People
Title: Get High
Label: Dealt With Records
Release Date: 2021-09-10