- Mon, 2010-07-26 12:50
Manchester has long been a breeding ground for UK musical talent. Nightclub The Hacienda famously spearheaded it’s re-branding as Madchester in the early 90’s with the emergence of rave; the DJ booth, lasers and plenty of hands in the air, with DJs, musicians and clubbers bouncing across sweat lined walls on a Friday night and crawled along grey slabbed city streets come Tuesday morning...
Twenty years on and the music scene is still strong. Though the notion of Madchester has become more novelty ground than a spring board for new sound, the heart of rave still beats long into the small hours.
With Madchester running through their blood, Virus Syndicate serve up party atmosphere and dark, twisted bass in equal measure with their third album The Breakout Trilogy. A potent cocktail of dnb, grime and dubstep, the album is formed via three EPs: The Mosquito EP, The Malaria EP and The Antidote EP.
Virus Syndicate were originally Virus Crew, a ten-member collective who set up some decks in a garden shed and met up to rehearse and jam for hours on end. Following countless underground gigs, a show on Rinse FM and major festival slots, for the last six years Virus Syndicate has been Nika D, JSD, Goldfinger and Mrk 1. I Like Music recently caught up with Nika D to chat about The Breakout Trilogy. We found out how the album came together and the influence of their home town:
Nika D: Life in Manchester has been a total inspiration for us musically. The whole scene has been an inspiration. It’s a weird one. We’ve all taken inspiration from hip-hop and drum and bass and that kind of thing, a lot of which hasn’t come from Manchester, but the actual Mancunian culture is very unique and we feel that definitely comes across in our music.
The process at the moment seems to be that we get sent a lot of beats from different producers and we’ll decide which beat really captivates us the most. We jam out to that in the studio, doing little freestyles, spitting choruses and just getting a vibe and a flow together between the three of us. Then we start putting pen to paper and try and turn it into a song.
