Making his own imprint on the drum & bass/jungle community for years now is the name, Fanu aka FatGyver. Always busy crafting new arrangements, he is also busy running a label and offering mastering services! With his newest album now available, we got in touch with Fanu for a few questions.
Hello Janne, thanks for letting us get some updates on your recent music. How have you been doing?
Good good, busy, thanks!
So your new Fanu album "The Silent Watcher" is out now and it is packed with a nice array of productions! "Agenda" & "Everything Is One" might be our favorites. Over on your Bandcamp site, you offered listeners a "name your price" deal for the new album. Have you received a good response so far to the new music?
It's been really really great. This album was another of those cases where I put a lot myself into the album but put it out there without any expectations. It's always when you expect the least that things go really well – and it works the other way, too…when you think you're going to smash it, it'll be really slow. That's life in a nutshell anyways. Not that Facebook stats are everything, but if you look at that, it says something for sure. It got crazy with the album. I'm actually working on getting the album out on vinyl, so more news on that soon
It's good to see that you are still involved with the full music process from creating, mastering, & publishing. It has been some time now that you have offered your mixing & mastering services to the public. How has that been going so far? Do you plan to continue doing more?
Yeah, mixing and mastering became my job. It's the best job I've ever had. I can do what I'm good at, have fun and be geeky with treating other's music, and get paid for that. What's not to love about it? I'm so booked, it's hard to do “more”, but I'm giving it all I've got. Production-wise, I'm taking it a bit easier this year, as in 2016, I produced four albums worth of material. This year, I'm mostly concentrating to putting those out; I've already put out two.
So we have seen your work under the pseudonym FatGyver, make a new appearance on the Helsinkinstrumentals release! Quality sounds and productions as expected! Hopefully we can expect more releases from the FatGyver moniker?
For sure. One of the two albums I'm still supposed to put out this year is FatGyver stuff (the other one is more “genreless” electronic stuff).
Can you tell us any new updates regarding the new Phatventures label project or offer some insight to your idea? Will other artists be able to release material on this label?
I mostly started it to put out my own music – just like how Lightless started. You pretty much need a label, under which you put your music out. I'm not looking for demos, but there's a homie whose music I want to be putting out. He's from Helsinki, and he's the most oldschool dude I know; all hardware, as analog as it gets, all classic hardware gear (SP, EPS, s950, tape recorder, and all that). That should be interesting.
Are you currently remixing anything or doing any collaborations? Also, is there anyone out there currently working on remixing any of your music?
No. The reason for that, mostly, is that I'm always just too busy concentrating on my own projects, which keep me very occupied. “Sorry”, ha!
In recent years we have seen an increase of jungle music and a number of new labels taking shape. There is also talk about the "resurgence" of slower bpm jungle music. Do you have any feelings or thoughts on the matter?
I love it. Slower can be super dope. If you take a look at producers such as Om Unit, he's been doing it for a while to a great extent and to a great effect. I've been dabbling with that tempo as well on some releases. Currently working on some heavy techstep type of shit, and it just kind of makes sense at 165 BPM or so.
In no particular order, can you give us 3 tracks currently getting a lot of play on your speakers?
That's such a tough question. I just did a list of 10 influential tracks, and even that was hard, so I can't go super specific. Go check anything by Om Unit, Out Of Fuel, Defrostatica Records, Cosmic Bridge, Halogen Music, Samurai Breaks, Recue, Insperspective Records, Eprom, Alix Perez, Fracture, Mister Shifter, SDS, Desto, TMSV, Etch…off the top of my head. Oh and bump some Drake, always.
Any closing thoughts or shout outs?
Do your own damn thing, man. It ain't worth it otherwise. Don't sweat about what's trending. Absorb as many influences as you can, but do what comes naturally. Also, as for quality/quantity…two good, smaller releases per year is better than two mediocre albums per year. Make it count, make people remember it. Also, for many dance music producers, I'd say, give writing albums a shot, and you may end up liking it way more than doing singles. Me, I can't even remember all the singles I get, but I do remember albums. They also allow you to open up creatively.