Over the last 20 years Tilt has been a name that is synonymous with quality underground house and techno dripping with a moody progressive edge. Back in the 90’s and early 00’s they were a staple name featured on many classic compilations – think Sasha’s legendary San Francisco Global Underground, or even Danny Tenaglia’s Global Underground Athens mix. Their tracks featured heavily in sets from Paul Oakenfold to John Digweed and beyond, with regular signings to the buzz labels of the time like Hooj Choons, Perfecto and Baroque. Having had some personnel change over the years, which included Andy Moor and John Graham aka Quivver as members at some point, they are now settled as a two piece consisting of founding member Mick Park and Nic Britton. On the eve of their new album release, Resonator, on Scottish label Pro B Tech Records, Tilt is ready to take their sound to whole new generation of music lovers. To celebrate the release of their new album, Tilt has delivered us a rare treat: A 90 minute Balance Selections podcast that should keep fans of their earlier work extremely satisfied, and win over some new fans too.
Balance Selections Q+A with Mick Park
Name: Mick Park & Nic Britton
Location: UK
Alias/Producer name: TILT
Labels affiliated with: Pro B Tech Records
My last 3 releases: TILT Resonator (album)
What music did you listen too as a child?
My parent’s home was always filled with music and I actually grew up listening to a lot of classical, which my dad loved to play as he relaxed. My three older sisters were fans of dance music so you can see it was a very vibrant house to grow up in.
When was the first time that you realized that you liked electronic music?
I would guess listening to a lot of 80’s acts such as Joy Division, Duran, Human League, Visage and Gary Numan. I remember hearing Gary Numan’s ‘Are friends Electric’ for the first time whilst in music lesson at school and that just blew me away. It sounded so rich with all those vintage analogue synths driving the track.
When was the first time you saw a DJ in a club?
I used to go to a lot of Raves in and around 1989/90 when the whole Acid house thing exploded here in the UK. I vividly remember going to an Amnesia House event in my hometown of Coventry and seeing Carl Cox DJ for the first time – ‘The 3 Deck Wizard’ as he was affectionately called back then.
He had some much energy, which projected onto the crowd he was playing too; he is a true genius of the DJ world. I also remember a very young Sasha playing alongside him and he opened his set with Frankie Goes to Hollywood ‘The World is my Oyster’. I have to say it was an amazing time for dance music because the scene became a huge melting pot for so many styles and genres, from pops acts such as Inner City – Detroit Techno acts like Derrick May, everything was played!
Which producers/artists/acts inspire you?
I’ve mentioned this guy many, many times before in interviews – its William Orbit. He is just the ultimate producer/song writer in my book. He can make hits such as Madonna ‘Frozen’, All Saints ‘Pure Shores’. Then create an insane remix like Morgan King ‘Free’ and then flip to make an album like ‘Strange Cargo’. For me, he is the benchmark when we are writing in the studio.
What was the last album that you downloaded/bought?
Jungle – Jungle: The album is perfect chill out music, some people could argue ‘its very samey’, I would say its their sound and it works so well on many levels – a must buy!
What is your current production and DJ set up like?
Nic and I both use hardware and software, whatever suits the track. If something sounds better from the original synth we will do our best to source the hardware to use it. In the studio we still use synths such as the Telemark, Juno 106, DX27, Nord Lead and SH101. On the virtual front, the Native Instruments stuff is good, also Diva and Ace by U-He. For free though you can’t beat Synth 1, which does an awesome job of emulating the Nord. Hardware for Dj’ing again depends on the purpose. For example we both have S4’s in our studios for quick mixes but in the clubs the CDJ2000 Nexus’ are standard. The latest edition to our tech family is an Ableton Push controller and Live 9 with Max, which we are using for our new live shows.
What releases do you have on the horizon?
Well our main project at the moment is our new album ‘Resonator’ which is set for release Nov 3rd on Pro B Tech Records. It took over a year to make and it was a real labour of love. We wanted to create a body of music just for the DJ, where you could take any track and play it in your set. It could have easily gone down that chill-out/beat less route for the home listener, but that’s just not us – however there is a more laid back track on the album called ‘Make you high’ (which I am very proud of). I would like to think ‘Resonator’ packs a real punch musically, with no fillers. I also have to mention that we collaborated with some fantastic singers and producers on this project – Sam Mollison, Dominique Atkins, Natasha Cadman, G- Man (LFO), Silinder, Namespace, Roger Lyons, Kastis Torrau & Arnas D. They all added their unique talents to what is possibly our best body of work to date. On top of that we have a whole new live show to put together which will involve a 50 min showcase of the new album plus live visuals. It’s a bit of a departure for TILT of old; in the past we used to take a lot of people away with us on tour – but this became a logistics nightmare. This new show consists of just Nic and myself performing with Sam Mollison on vocals.
Where can we hear you perform?
We are about to embark on a small promo tour in the UK and this will include the brand new live show/visual show and DJ set. Our first show is in Stoke on Trent on November 8th then we do Manchester and London.
Tell us more about the podcast you made for Balance?
It’s a real cross section of our favourite tracks at the moment, all recorded on Traktor. Yes there are a few standout tracks on there; I would say Sasha’s remix of Kwabs, Alan Fitzpatrick and Ku. Namespace and TR20 are certainly the production duo’s to watch out for in 2015 – I love what those guys produce. The podcast took us a few hours to put together; the main difficulty being is we had so many great tracks to use!
My Recommendations
The top track in my DJ wallet currently is:
If I could recommend only one of my tracks for you to listen to it would be:
LFO ‘LFO’ – its possibly my favourite track of all time. We were fortunate enough to work with Gez on the new album and that was a very cool experience.
If I could recommend only one track for you to listen to it would be:
Madonna ‘Justify My Love’
My favourite Balance compilation is:
Hernan Cattaneo
The last movie I watched that I really liked:
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
My favourite TV show:
Anything on the Discovery Channel or Sky Arts
If I could choose anyone to compile a Balance comp it would be:
TILT 😉
Tracklisting
1. Kwabs – Walk – (Sasha Remix) – Atlantic Records
2. TILT ft Namespace – Ku – Pro-B-Tech Records
3. Gianni Callipari – Modular – EP
4. TILT ft Dominique Atkins – Falling Again – Pro-B-Tech Records (Hernan Cattaneo & Martin Garcia Remix)
5. Moderat – Bad Kingdom (DJ Koze Remix) – Monkey Town
6. DNYO – Magabasswave
7. TR20 – Flow Motion – taken from their new ‘Mini’ album’ – Pro-B-Tech Records
8. TR20 – Ooph – taken from their new new ‘Mini album – Pro-B-Tech Records
9. Alan Fitzpatrick – For fear tonight is all – Cocoon Records
10. Underground Allstars – Hail to the Seraphim – Pro-B-Tech Records
11. Daughter – Love (Acid Rockers & George Thompson Remix)
12. G- Man – Cosmic Shores – Bang Bang Records
