If the name Mark Pritchard isn’t familiar to you, there’s still a good chance you know him under another moniker due not in any small part to the 20 odd names he’s recorded under over the past 2 decades! Last month he bought one such guise to Greece in the form of his Harmonic 313 project courtesy of the a.formal and Bios creative crews.
You were here recently DJing as Harmonic 313 – have you got plans to take that out as a live act at all?
No, I’ve never wanted to do the laptop/Ableton thing; you can bill that a live and get more money but I don’t think it’s a proper live.
‘When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence’ was released this year sounding like a take on instrumental dancehall – did you have that vibe in mind?
I was writing a lot of Harmonic 33 beats before, which are sample based and traditionally hip hop sounding, trying to make the classic US sound more musical, make the arrangements changeable and not just over-use loops, then I gradually moved into using the sort of synths people were using for Detroit Techno and Dancehall and putting strings in while trying to keep it sounding hip hop.
Your last release was ‘Wind It Up’ with Om’mas Keith; how did that come about?
Red Bull Music Academy started a session called ‘A Class of Its Own’ because the academy so hectic that you don’t get loads of studio time so they organised a two week studio session with some lecturers and a few participants; I did one with Steve Spacek, Om’mas, the Mizell Brothers , Theo Parrish, Black Spade… I made the beat, Om’mas said he wanted to do something on it and on the last day in 5 minutes he did!
And that’s out now on Hyperdub?
Yeah, ‘Wind It Up’ was actually finished two years ago but nobody wanted it! It’s a strange track, when Om’mas laid the vocal everyone was laughing but he said this is serious – if we get this right it’ll be big in the strip joints!
www.myspace.com/officialmarkprichard
