Manchester-based artist Sivey compiles a guest playlist of tracks that have shaped him over the years.
Producer, beatmaker and remixer Sivey came to some notoriety in the future beats scene a couple years back, releasing music with the LA-based collective Soulection, as a solo artist and via collaborations with Evil Needle, which came to fruition after a series of online beat battles, as well as releases and remixes drop on labels like Astral Black and Ninja Tune. The recent resurgence of the broken beat movement was something that inspired him, admiring the balance between musicality and danceability. He made his first experiments with the genre in 2017 and found that it mixed perfectly with what he’d already been creating. Eager to share the results with the world, it made perfect sense for his first bruk offerings to find a home with seminal groove collective CoOp Presents.
You can stream ‘Nobody Else’ and ‘Somebody Samebody’ his killer two-track release for the label above. The record also comes with remixes from Danvers and IG Culture.
For his playlist, Sivey has selected a broad range of music discovered over many years which includes everything from Slum Village, Erykah Badu, Bugz In The Attic, Stanley Clarke, Herbie Hancock, Yussef Kamaal plus many more delights.
Without further ado, over to Sivey who talks us through his selection below…
These tracks represent the phases I’ve been through in discovering and exploring different areas of music.
I’ve roughly sorted the songs by style in the order that I discovered each.
#1-4
I listened to a lot of dance music as a teenager – UK garage, drum & bass and a lot of very repetitive techno. I can’t take much of that any more, but some of the grooves are still dope to me. My brother was into house for a while, and I heard a lot of funky American stuff through him.
#5
I bought this banger as a CD single before I really knew about Timbaland. It’s a less well-known Destiny’s Child track from a movie soundtrack and always made me wish they worked together more in this era. Timbaland now has to be in my top 5 producers of all time. There was a lot of futuristic sounding R&B around 1999-2001 that was definitely influenced by his sound.
#6-7
I listened to more hip hop around my early 20s, mostly new york/east coast stuff. Spent a lot of time looking for anything produced by Premier or Pete Rock. Early Busta is some of my favourite shit ever. I started making hip hop beats in about 2003 and made a lot of boom bap stuff for a while. People started listening to and exchanging beat tapes more a bit later and there was a lot of material to nerd out over. Dilla.
#8-9
Two of the best neo-soul tracks/albums ever. Listening to different artists associated with the neo-soul style definitely opened me up to other genres with similar musicality and wide influences.
#10-11
I was pretty late to broken beat but it meant there were plenty of tunes to delve into by the time I discovered the scene. Bugz were obviously, and this deep tune by Lanu & Simon Grey is a personal fave.
#12
I was obsessed with Fela’s discography for a solid 6 months after I found his music. I love the long extended jams, and the grooves are so good.
#13
This track was a big inspiration as a producer at the time. I was probably just starting to try out making beats without samples when Hud Mo dropped this over-the-top synth banger on his Butter album. It was a tune that made me want to try making something like it, with big bombastic synths and half time drums.
#14-16
I didn’t really embrace west coast hip hop until I really started listening through producer Battlecat’s discography who immediately became one of my favourites. At the same I was discovering a lot of dope early 80s funk/soul stuff too.
#17-18
I’ve always had a thing for 70s music in general, but I’m a particular fan of the jazz that was being made at the time, particularly the way they were mixing it with rock, funk and Latin music. My favourite fusion tracks have a lot of groove and a tight rhythm section.
#19-20
Some more up to date jazz/fusion from both sides of the Atlantic that has inspired me recently. Makes me very happy to see young people getting into jazz by other young people in my own country at the moment.
Nobody Else / Somebody Samebody is out now via CoOp Presents. Buy here.
