Interview – Sigma
Without innovation, there would be no progress, and nowhere is that saying more appropriate than within the world of drum and bass, where new stars rise from bedrooms studios every week. With such a huge influx of producers emerging, it is often difficult for new comers to maintain an edge and to separate themselves from the pack, yet one such trio of artists, Sigma, comprised of friends Cam, Wooz and Ben, has managed to do just that.
“Initially the guys that I work with in Sigma were all in University in Leeds,” Wooz, the DMC turntablist and a producer within Sigma, remarks. “Cam used to promote nights and I used to mix hip-hop and do scratching, the whole DMC thing, and he booked me for one of his events. We became friends and started to get into the studio and write tracks together. When we finished University we moved down to London, and just carried on from there.”
Since the beginning, Wooz’s interest in hip-hop ran parallel to his love of d’n’b, and as such he was pushing the d’n’b sounds from the start. “I always loved d’n’b,” he explains. “The majority of the nights that I was playing at were hip-hop DMC scratch nights. We used to always like to play a bit of d’n’b at the end of our sets, and the crowds used to love it. I was diggin’ it since I was a teenager, even before I went to University.”
Success for Sigma hasn’t come over night however, and Wooz recognises the difficulties in progressing through the ranks. “It’s taken years,” he reflects. “Drum and bass is defiantly one of the hardest types of dance music to produce and to get to sounds really good, so yeah, I mean we were kind of working together in the studio for a good two years or so before we even got our first release on Mampi Swifts Charge label.”
With different elements to the crew, each member of Sigma has contributed their own style towards the composition, and as such allows their music to take shape from those influences. “I think that like, I was more on the production side of things, I was kind of doing a lot more of the engineering and making stuff sounds good, and kind of bringing more of a jungle-y raw vibe to the sounds,” Wooz explains of his own contribution. “Cam was more coming from the rock side of thing .. when we put it all together, it all seemed to mould well because its a real kind of high-energy-octane-dancefloor-mental-mashup, know what I mean?” he laughs. “We definitely bring different sides to the table.”
In the push for success however, a frequent a trap is often pushing too hard to try to out do previous efforts, thereby possibly waylaying a groups creative output, and Wooz and the rest of the Sigma lads seem more than aware of this issue “That’s probably one of the main problems we’ve had recently, we just want the next tune to be the big tune, so we are in the studio and we have some nice ideas, some really cool ideas, and we are like ‘is it going to be massive’,” he ruminates. “So a few months ago we were maybe kind of questioning too much on what we were doing music wise .. but now we’ve decided to take a step back from trying to push for that big tune so much, and just work on stuff that we are into and that we think will create more of a vibe.”
This ethos may just place Sigma in good stead for their climb up the ladder, and whilst things in the studio take a more pragmatic view, on the dance floor, the energy will probably be anything but.
“Well, I am going to do plenty of scratching,” Wooz laughs, his enthusiasm for the upcoming gig blatantly apparent “You’ll hear plenty of new exclusives, and we’ll just generally rev up the party – we’re just really looking forward to it.”
Tags: cam, Charge, DMC, leeds, sigma, wooz