What follows is a lengthy yet stimulating interview with Andy Blake, broken up by carefully nurtured ‘House in slow motion’ mix ahead of his 6 hour set at our basement disco this Saturday. Keeping introductions short and sweet so you can enjoy the journalistic enchantment below, Andy Blake is a veteran DJ and producer of heavy house and disco strand of UK output, the founder of the Dissident imprint and the man behind South London’s reticently popular World Unknown parties. We urge you to get your download on and allow this Nest exclusive to help dispel your Monday blues, and check out the interview if you enjoy reading the candid and insightful thoughts of an intelligent DJ.

The Nest: I’ve read about your slight aversion to all the East London hype and can’t quite believe you’ll be venturing to our Stoke Newington basement on 19th March… what were you thinking?

Andy Blake: It’s not just east London hype I’m not keen on. Hype in all colours is so ridiculously passé now that I find it hard to believe that anyone still has anything to do with it. And in your Stokey basement you’ve got a good space of a nice size with a decent sound system and I get to play proper deep house, boogie and heavy disco for 6 hours. All in all, a situation that makes me very happy indeed.

TN: Tell us a bit more about your World Unknown parties. Would you argue that your stripped back take on the events – focusing on good music, venue and sound and little else –  is what keeps punters coming back for more?

AB: We’re doing something fairly different to everyone else so I suspect it’s basically that and the decent music, the really friendly and up for it crowd and somewhat odd but cool environment of the venue that keeps people coming back. What is quite odd though is that we have a great core crowd and get lots of people booking flights and trains to come from all over Europe and the UK every month, yet there are lots of people, including good friends of mine, who seem to find it impossible to come to a party that’s just a couple of miles away. But that’s classic new-school London and the magnetic pull of the east I guess. And it’s probably a good job too really, we can only fit a couple of hundred in so if everyone who said they were going to come actually did, we’d find ourselves somewhat under siege.

TN: Will you be bringing the “no frills”  vibe to The Nest (arguably the darkest club in London with what feels like ten 60watt, standard issue red light bulbs providing the minimal illumination)?

AB: If it’s darker than World Unknown often is I’ll be very surprised. At times our place borders on being scarily difficult to see in – a bit like when you walk into Berghain on a really bright summer morning and go completely blind for a few minutes while your eyes adjust. And dark is good. Anything that stops people taking photos of themselves all night, gets them dancing unselfconsciously and leads to them getting up to all kinds of mischief and nefarious behaviour is a huge step in the right direction. So massive props to you and your 60watt bulbs.

TN: What can we expect in terms of sound? You’ll be taking us on a journey of Odyssean proportions during your 6 hour set, I imagine?

AB: I imagine lots of proper deep and heavy house will get played as the backbone of the night, and if things move toward a really cool and moody afterhours disco and boogie tip after about 2ish then that will be great. I don’t really plan my sets at all but I’ve been thinking about this one quite a bit already and I’m looking forward to playing a lot of the things I never quite get round to playing in a 2 or 3 hour guest set, the kind of heavy boogie and independent disco records that I’ve often spent years tracking down and handed over a fair amount of wedge for and then hardly ever get to play because you usually have to go straight for the jugular when you only have a couple of hours. So it’ll be nice to have long enough to steer things towards the really heavy joints in a way that means they have a proper impact when they are dropped.

Another thing I’m really looking forward to is the chance to really work some tracks by mixing the various versions up with each other for extended periods. I do it a fair bit in my house sets anyway but, due to the extended set time, it’ll be nice to have the chance to do it a few more times than usual and hang on to tunes for a bit longer.

I still vividly remember hearing Tony Humphries working The Whistle Song to death and back for what seemed like about 40 mins at a warehouse party back in 91 when it was either still on promo or had just come out and was already something of anthem in London. After 10 minutes or so it kind of took over and hypnotised everyone and locked them in to the extent that by the time he finally came out of it there was a palpable air of regret that it had finally come to an end as we’d all been tripping so hard on it for so long.

I doubt I’ll be going anywhere near that kind of length with any single tunes but I’ve got quite a few things with amazing dub and vocal versions that work well together and it will be good not to have to hurry through them to fit everything in for a change.

TN: Journalists have commented in the past about the lack of new material in your sets. Do you focus on giving an impression of “nowness” rather than newness in your sets?

AB: I do like a fair amount of new music but I think there’s something really connected and fresh about playing a set consisting of music from loads of different places and eras, and putting it together in a way that’s likely never been done before quite like that to create something unique and really on the button for that particular night.

I’m not sure there’s much very clever or interesting about just playing a set of brand new releases any more. It’s so easy to do now and everyone has such complete access to everything within minutes of it being out there that it’s completely lost any of the cultural potency that it once had and is fairly played-out as an idea. And anyway, newest was never best, only best is best.

TN: What new artists, electronic or otherwise, are you listening to at the moment?

AB: The forthcoming Gatto Fritto album is pretty special. He’s a good mate of mine and has made a very interesting and unique-sounding record. It looks like people are really going for the album in a big way so hopefully this will be a good year for him. In terms of straight up club stuff there’s a great new house thing by Oliver Deutschmann on a label called Jackoff from Berlin, a really cool track called “Space Atmosphere” on the new Jovonn EP on Late Night Audio and a brilliant and utterly crackers tune by Jose Manuel on a new label called Cocktail d’Amore, again from Berlin. It’s the label of the party of the same name run by Discodromo – who are two Italian guys living in Berlin, and Berghain’s secret weapon DJ, the enigma that is the one and only Boris.

TN: You opted for a sort of clandestine approach to the Dissident imprint and its parties. Am I right in thinking that you’re somewhat disheartened by the current shape of the music industry?

AB: I’m not that disheartened really because I’ve always just got on and done my own thing. It’s a shame it’s in a bit of a mess, but that’s just how it is for now. It’s definitely a bit rubbish that it’s quite hard now for people to put out a decent independent/underground 12” and sell even 2-300 copies without having to engage with the machine and hype it to death. Those kinds of releases were always the unsung backbone of a healthy and interesting club scene and it’ll be a pity if they disappear completely.

I also think it’s a bit of a shame that record business encroaches so completely on the clubs themselves now. A proper club is some kind of communion, not just entertainment or showbiz and the idea of people going to a club or party to see a certain producer/DJ purely because they like his records isn’t something I’m really into. I’m firmly of the opinion that DJing and producing are two almost completely different worlds and too much crossover can easily lead to increasing blandness in each.

TN: The Nest office absolutely loved the second helping from your Cave Paintings moniker – the 2X track was a personal favourite. Can we expect more releases coming from this project?

AB: Nice one, I’m really pleased you all like it. The idea of a big clunky warehouse record going down well on the office stereo really tickles me – although that’s maybe not what you meant. I’ve got a ton of big fat analogue jams recorded and ready to go so plenty more releases will be forthcoming in the not too distant future, both on the Cave Paintings label and also a few other really good ones too. Nothing’s been signed off yet so it would be rude to drop names but a well-respected Dutch label and some very cool chaps from New York and Berlin will be among those releasing my music this year. It feels like quite a new thing for me to have other labels releasing my stuff again. The last time was over ten years ago when I had a project that was signed to Pagan so it’s all quite nice and fresh for me again at the moment. I’d even go as far as to say that I’m finding it at least a little bit exciting.