Legendary rave DJ, Liquid has a new EP release on the horizon. He’s got together with good friend and partner-in-crime (and another rave legend), Billy ‘Daniel’ Bunter, to produce ‘Mitsu‘ – a hark back to the early days of rave. Back to the early 90s where they were working in a record shop and causing mischief at the legendary Four Aces in Dalston. And they’ve created a special edition comic to go with it.
It’s been 30 years since the rave Summer Of Love. It must be time for it to come back around right?
Are you sure it’s been that long? I can hardly remember what I had for dinner last night. I am not sure what qualifies as the rave summer of love, I think of it as more as more the 88/89 period to be honest, rather than the early 90s.. And there was a lotta love. I did also get CS gassed and held up with a knife, so some people were kind of off-message. But I have to say about the period of the early 90s; it’s incredible the way that music has persisted and continues to resonate with people. Billy Daniel Bunter has a stage at both Camp Bestival and Bestival this year and I’m excited to be playing both. Last year the former was amazing, although it was pretty muddy. As a resident of Roma, I am no longer acclimatised to your capricious weather.
What for you is the ultimate rave track?
KLF’s What Time Is Love (the original version, please!) I think, it just encapsulates that period of my life in one tune. It’s incredibly slow by what generally qualifies as rave standards, both today and in the early 90s, but I can still remember hearing it on a massive system, in a field somewhere, and being almost moved to tears as my whole body shuddered.
What’s this new EP all about – why did you call it Mitsu?
Because the creator of the story for our new comic came up with Mitsu and Bishi as super hero slogans – is that the word? They’re like the rallying calls of myself and Bunter in the story, anyway. I am so slow, it took me a while before I realised what it related to and I called Dan and it was like I’d had some Isaac Newton-esque revelation. I am also ashamed to say that I was going to Ikea for years before I realised it was Swedish and the moment when it all clicked into place (the yellow and blue, the meatballs, the product names)… well I felt foolish! I don’t think I ever took a Mitsubishi, not that I would probably recall anyway. I was more the Cali Blues and Dove era. Although I was no connoisseur, I’d stick anything in my mouth in those days.
It’s a celebration of proper rave – how, erm, did you get into that mindset of the early 90s?
By not poncing about spending ages over-producing tracks really. Back then we were restricted by musical technology’s limitations; today I can be restricted by having too many options. One major positive for me over the last two years is I have really got back into the habit of finishing tracks and getting them done and dusted and out the door, as it were. It’s about a simplicity as much as the sound.
How did you and Dan meet?
He was the Saturday boy in a record shop in Whitechapel where I got a job. Back in the days of Centreforce Radio and Labyrynth at the Four Aces in Dalston. He was only 15. But already a proper handful. We’d come straight from Labyrynth to work on the Saturday and would be ruined before we’d even started… and the cheeky little f*cker would then spike my coffees with all sorts.
If we had the special powers to make it so, would you rather play at Labyrynth or headline Fantazia this weekend?
Labyrynth, every single time. I never played there but I have played Fantazia. Also, without Labyrynth and Joe and Phil, then I doubt I would have ever got into making music the way that I did.
You can pre-order your copy of Mitsu here.
Interview: Josh Jones
Photo: Tom Medwell
