Having dominated the electronic music landscape for almost a decade now, bass spectrum titans My Nu Leng still carry the same emphatic energy that fuelled them when they first burst onto the scene. The duo are renowned for their niche style of mixing, blending a multitude of different genres together, rooted in drum ‘n’ bass but infused with UK garage, grime, and house. It’s a sound that makes complete sense given Jammo was brought up influenced by the screamo and hardcore scene whilst Tommy was brought up on classic bands like The Cure.
The Bristol-based duo have made a huge name for themselves through their genuine approach and love for music, in return earning huge respect amongst their peers within the industry. There is something so special about the duo, the way they carry themselves, and their natural charisma that is so refreshing to see, remaining completely down to earth.
For their latest project, the duo have instigated their Wavelengths collective in an initiative that will see them head back to the smaller clubs to pay respect to where they started from. Through Wavelengths they will be promoting a variety of different genres and DJs that they will personally work closely with, with the premise behind it being that they expand their dedicated fanbase, whilst also giving newcomers to the scene a helping hand on their way, telling you all you need to know about the My Nu Leng guys.
For the duo, the scene is far more than just the music, they care endlessly about the way that music can positively impact the lives of others and are incredibly supportive of other collectives that are doing the most in trying to improve these situations.
Clash writer Ben Broyd caught up with the electronic icons to find out more.
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So, you guys have been together for a long time now, where did it all start for My Nu Leng?
So, we’ve been talking about this recently really, trying to reminisce and pinpoint all the moments and it’s about 12/13 years ago now. I was living in High Wycombe, which is quite close to London, and Tommy was living there too, because of an ex-partner. Tommy was doing photography at the time, and I was running a club night called Focus. And I think his ex-girlfriend kind of contacted us and got him involved; he did some photography for me, we ended up chatting, ended up sort of mixing together and found that we had the same love of drum ‘n’ bass.
Our record collections were similar. We’d be flipping through each other’s records going like, ‘right, I’ve got the same one’ and all this kind of thing, and we kind of connected straight away. Things didn’t work out for him and his ex and then he was having to leave Wycombe and I had a spare room at mine, I was living in like a shared house at the time – so he moved in, and we ended up DJing all the time and producing… and that’s how we started really.
And then you moved to Bristol after that?
I moved a few years later, then I think Tommy, about a year after that moved down, and we moved in with like couple of other producers: Troy Gunner and Rao. We had a big production house, it was sick! There was just loads of music being made around that time, it was wicked. How much of an influence did living in Bristol have on your musical style now? I think anyone that moves here from outside is going to be effected. I started going to uni here for a year, and around that time, I was just constantly going out.
I kind of completely swerve the whole fresher’s thing and I’d be going to like Basement 45, Thekla and Motion and all these amazing line-ups that you’d see back in the day in here. I think that kind of really inspired me to kind of just write as much sort of weird and strange music as I could to try and find our own sound.
That’s awesome. And you’ve recently announced a new project Wavelengths, what’s the premise of this project?
So, we really want to go back to sort of our early days of writing sort of whatever music we wanted. We’ve been sat on so much music the last sort of three, four years, and it’s all different genres – we wanted to have a platform where we could put out techno one week, garage the next, and drum ‘n’ bass another. It all kind of revolves around club nights as well, so we’re looking at doing some residencies in key cities around the UK and playing smaller intimate venues where the journey for the night can explore those different genres.
Oh, nice. And you recently played at Phonox, how was that?
Yeah, so that was wicked night, we kind of had some really cool DJs down. We had Alexisitry, Testpress who came down from Glasgow who were like really sick sort of tech-house kind of guys, Emerald, who’s amazing selector, she plays some really wicked stuff, whenever she’s playing, we’re always looking at what’s on the deck and seeing if we know what the music is. And then Grooverider came down and that was just like a real honour play back-to-back with one of the godfathers of the music scene in the UK. So yeah, it was a wicked night man. And it was a good sort of start of what’s to come with all the Wavelengths ideas.
You’ve both been really supportive of the EOTT guys, and they’re doing incredible work with their music and mental health campaigns. How effective do you think music is in aiding mental health concerns?
I think it’s such a natural thing for human life to be drawn to music, it can sooth you it can excite you; it can really help in so many different emotive states. And I feel, especially for me and Tommy, it’s something we’ve always turned to, and something we’ve had, which we’re so blessed to be able to do. I feel the more avenues people can have to look, if they need help especially if it’s linked to music, people might be more comfortable accessing it. So, I think it’s really good to bridge the two worlds of like mental health and music. Tommy’s been really outspoken about it all, and I think it’s great for people to see people like him and myself, that we do struggle, and we are we are going through similar things as everyone else. It’s important for people to feel like this is normalised, and that there is definitely help out there.
I feel like no matter what anyone’s sort of lifestyle, there’s always some kind of story and stresses that your average person doesn’t know and isn’t aware of. So, I think it’s great to sort of spread this and hopefully spread a bit more empathy in people as well as a bit more understanding that everyone’s going through their own individual issues and stories.
And moving on to Snowbombing, there’s no doubt you’ll be tearing it up behind the decks, but will you be tearing it up on the slopes as well?
I think we’re going to try get up on the slopes, and just catch a vibe. We’ve got our crew coming with us, so we’re gonna try and kind of create an after-movie. I definitely want to get out there and experience the energy, but I don’t think we’re going to get on the slopes this year. I know Dread would be like: hell, no. I’m not the most gifted skier, so I need a few more lessons before I get back up there.
What’s your favourite memories is Snowbombing?
We’ve played so many times. It’s been such a staple for us, we’ve done the igloo a few times, which is amazing – it’s this kind of club room that they’ve created out of this frozen igloo at the top of the mountain… so yeah, some amazing memories in there! It’s a wicked place.
It’s also a great way to kickstart a festival season. What have you got planned for the festival season over the summer?
We’re playing Hideout, Love Saves The Day in Bristol, which is always like a big favourite of ours, because it’s kind of a big one for us, sometimes our family comes down as well, and obviously, all our friends and family are sort of in and around Bristol. There’s one in Cardiff called In It Together Festival, which is a new one, which is looking really good, and then we’re waiting on a few Glastonbury things, it’s all kind of coming together.
I feel the whole kind of industry sort of changed quite a lot since pre-pandemic time, so we’re just happy to be out playing, I think once the music comes out, and hopefully it resonates with people, we should be playing around a bit more often.
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My Nu Leng are so well known for having such a unique sound mixed with such an awesome variety of genres and making it work. Is it something that you worked on through hours of mixing, or was it just something that came naturally to you?
I feel if you look back at some of our mixes, which we put online from like 10 plus years ago, there’s always a bit of techno here and there and a bit of garage. We’ve never wanted to be sort of pigeon-holed into like a specific sound, so I guess over the years we’ve kind of always wanted to explore that. So, we’ve kind of naturally been improving at that over the years. But I think for us, it’s all about kind of how the mixes sound so if they’re in key and they’re sounding nice, and they’re kind of like two tunes, it might not necessarily be from the same world, but they can work really well together.
So, we’ve always focused on sort of mixing in key and things like that. And yeah, I feel like when I go watch music out, it’s quite refreshing to sort of have a journey through different styles, we try and do that each time, and when we sort of put on nights, the line-up, we kind of want it to have a journey throughout the night as well, we’ve curated it to try and stagger the night so that the energy builds and sort of chops and changes for different styles.
Obviously, it helps to have Dread in front of you as well, because he’s just electric.
Yeah! To have Dread there helping us push the energy up when we need it, he’s just great to have with us – he’s such a vital part of our team. We’re all going out to Snowbombing together, and we have such a laugh. I definitely don’t take for granted travelling, I used to think this was the worst part of the job. The travelling is something I actually missed over the pandemic, because it was like a moment of where we could all catch up and it’s something outside of the work. I kind of took that for granted before and I think that that’s something I look forward to now, having some time with everyone in the team.
And obviously, because you make such writing music, who your main musical influences growing up? And do you still listen to them now?
Yeah. Our influences are quite varied, I know Tommy was influenced by like his dad’s music in The Cure and things like that, I used to be in a band and I kind of used to listen to a lot of hardcore and screamo type stuff, and that kind of led onto my drum ‘n’ bass influence. But yeah, we used to just go clubbing in London quite a lot. So, like the RAM at The End was one of my favourite nights I’d go to and then MATA which was at the O2, which was an epic club used to go I had to learn at nights there.
Just watching the DJs like Andy C, DJ Randall, the greats in the drum ‘n’ bass world – they’d be the sort of people we’d look up to DJing. But musically definitely influenced from so much different stuff from like your electronics sort of bands to your, your metal bands I used to listen to and then just yeah, all sorts really.
And finally, what does the future hold for My Nu Leng? What can we expect from you guys for 2022?
So 2022, once this Wavelengths project starts, I think pretty much the rest of the year we’ll have a release every month… so we’re really excited just to get it started. And then I think, for at least the next 12 months, we we’ve got music ready to go. And then we’ll focus on the club nights, we really want to sort of bring the energy from like what we had at Phonox to like around the country. Probably do some more residencies in places like Bristol and London and things like that.
And then I think down the line Wavelengths is gonna be a new home for the multi-genre sounds that we have. And hopefully we see that represented on the dancefloor, that’s all we really want to do is just write music and get out playing to people. So, it’s starting to get there again. Hopefully everything keeps going well and moving forward for everyone, I think we all need it. I think even in the public there is still a lot of uncertainty out there, but I think what I saw at Phonox last Thursday night was a lot of smiles and a lot of laughter on the floor like everyone was having a really good time, and it was great to see. So, I think hopefully more of that.
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Words: Ben Broyd
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Source: https://www.clashmusic.com/features/the-right-wavelengths-my-nu-leng-interviewed
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