Reso: The ethos is sci-fi, robots, anime, heavy metal, everything

The London producer, who sculpts traditional dub and breaks rhythms into bold and punchy galactic soundscapes, is releasing his first LP this autumn. Tangram, he explains, is inspired by his passions. ‘The ethos is sci-fi, robots, anime, heavy metal, everything,’ he says.

But before then, he has Playgroup Festival to look forward to.

Rescheduled from its original August date, the festival has a ‘Lost Toys’ theme, which organisers hope will bring out a stream of unusual costumes and concepts. The event’s roots stem from Brighton, but it has since grown into one of the UK’s most imaginative events, and with a series of interactive dens planned for this year, it’s sure to cement its reputation as being three days of pure fantasmagorical hedonism.

‘I’m so excited!’ says Reso. ‘Playgroup is a lot of fun. I like that it’s not a great big pile of dog poo.’

He’s on the bill for the second year running, but 2011’s event sounds like it will be hard to beat. ‘I didn’t have a highlight as such, I like going as all my friends are there and it’s a massive party with about 100 people that I know. That’s why I like to play there, it has as community vibe to it.

‘Last year I saw a little kid trying to make tunes on a laptop in the middle of a field on a tiny portable studio. He was trying to make horrible brostep but that’s not the point, the point is that he was able to make a tune in the middle of a field and some dude was helping him. That sort of sums it up, community vibes!’

There will be ‘no horrible brostep’ from this year’s eclectic line-up, which covers everything from hip-hop to acoustic pop, reggae to disco and drum and bass to a twenty-five piece marching Latin orchestra. ‘I’m looking forward to High Rankin, he’s funny, I’ve got a lot of time for Will,’ says Reso. ‘Qemists are playing, I met them not so long ago, they’re a lovely bunch of chaps and I did a remix for them, it’ll be fun to watch them. I’m not sure who else is playing. The point of that festival for me, it’s not really the music it’s more the whole thing, everyone’s there and it’s good vibes. But there is good music. But I like the weird small stuff rather than any big headliner.’

Like what?

‘Well that’s the point!’ he exclaims. ‘I like going with no expectation of knowing what music’s on, so when you hear something good you’re like “wicked!” Last year I really enjoyed watching our mate Ross, Boss Kite, playing a live skweee set, there were only ten of us in the tent. Skweee is Scandinavian, they squeeze all they can out of their equipment. It sounds like electronic funk, hip-hop type stuff.  He uses a midi pick up on his guitar, and plays a bit of keys and uses samples.’

Reso, can you rewind your mind back past 2011? Can you remember your most heartbreaking lost toy?

The producer goes quiet, dropping his head towers the floor. ”There’s one I remember losing that was the bitterest experience of my life so far,’ he says, softly. ‘When I was at primary school everyone used to collect marbles, and I had a little Gola bumbag full of kingers and queenies and all sorts of wicked marbles. Then this kid had a fat granny ball bearing, it was essentially a ball bearing the size of your fist. I swapped my entire bag for it, went and sat in the lunch hall, put it on the table and it just rolled off. I still remember it, it really hurt.’

So will you be dressing as a marble for the festival?

‘Yeah I might just wrap myself in tin foil and go as the giant ball bearing that I lost. I probably won’t do fancy dress, it’s fun for the first ten minutes before you realise it’s really fucking annoying.’

You could go as a robot….

‘I should, I’d go fucking mental with cereal boxes!’ he laughs.

Playgroup Festival, 21-23 September, for more information visit www.playgroupfestival.com

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• http://www.facebook.com/kuma3000 David Hampson

  WTF was that all about? A heavy metal festival where they play “brostep” and marching bands? Aren’t you meant to have smelly hippies at a heavy metal festival?

• stonedwolf

  Hippies at a HM festival? LOL WUT?

  HM festivals are greasy-haired young men 16-24 in Jeremy Clarkson jeans wearing blood & rape band t-shirts, drunkenly slipping-over in each other’s puke and throwing pints of urine at each other.

  Hippies are at the Green Gatherings and the likes of Eden Festival, dressed identically in “unique” technicolour Nepalese hoodies charging each other £30 for workshops on lentil technology.

• Pacificweather

  Sounds like it would break the first law and probably the second as well.