Ital Tek is one of the newest and youngest artists to break out on Mike Paradinas’ internationally renowned Planet Mu imprint. Hailing from Brighton the young dubstep producer has recently dropped his debut long-player Cyclical for the label. We cought up with the man himself for a some chat about raff…

DP: So how are you feeling about the Cyclical drop and being signed to Mu and everything?

IT: I hear a lot of people talk about Mu having it’s own dubstep sound. It’s a more experimental sort of sound, people like myself and Boxcutter. I’m really exited about having the label pushing my stuff as I’ve been a fan of Mu for years and years.

DP: Do you feel like a part of the dubstep scene proper now then?

IT: I guess as I’m not from London or any major city where there is a ‘scene’ I can distance myself from it mentally. I basically just get on with making tunes. Having lots of gigs, plus DJs and producers around you all the time makes you feel part of a scene. I feel that the farther away from London you get, the less you become part of the scene. I’ve played out with a lot of the London guys and we sometimes share stuff but that’s about it really as far as the scene goes.

DP: Where do you think dubstep is going to go now? Jungle took years to get taken seriosuly by the press and that lasted about five minutes. Dubstep is already in its media heyday as it were...

IT: There’s something integral to the dubstep sound that makes it kind of accessible as it is. Jungle was popular but was never going to be accessible to most. Dubstep can be more friendly, can fit into more dance music scenes with greater ease. It’s still very new and is as interesting a scene as I could hope for to make my mark on.

DP: How long have you been making dubstep?

IT: I have been making music forever but have really only been doing dubstep for the past two or so years really. I made a lot of demos and got signed to Planet Mu about two Christmases ago. I pretty much only do dubstep nowadays.

DP: How are things doing gig-wise. Are you getting a lot of overseas gigs? The foriegn festival thing is getting huge now.

IT: I seem to only ever get booked in Europe at the moment. I’ve really only got a few dates outside of the UK over the rest of the year so far. You can never be sure how a new sound is going to be taken up outside of the culture in which it was born. The few gigs I have done abroad so far have been good though. There are a lot of guys on the circuit who do fine when they play abroad.

DP: What festivals are you hitting up this year?

IT: Yeah, I’ll be down at Glade. It’s the festival I’m hoping will do well. Dubstep is pretty well represented down there. It’s one of the festivals with a nice and diverse line-up. The festival circuit as far as dance music is concerned is predominantly a commercial dance thing. There are a lot of underground guys getting recognition nowadays which is a good thing.

DP: Do you think the media jumping all over everything so quickly was bad for the scene?

IT: It can be worrying. It isn’t necessarily bad for a scene, but it will happen with any popular music scene eventually. Dubstep has had to deal with it nearly from its inception and has survived intact.

DP:Mr Hank Shocklee (Bomb Squad) shocked the internets when he came over here and described dubstep as being "hip-hop expressed at a different frequency". Stupid statememnt or stupidest staement?

IT: I wouldn’t really agree with that but I can see how some people could come up with that idea. I don’t really see it myself to be honest. There’s a similar swing and a similar tempo but that’s about it really.

FIN.

Check Mr Ital Tek out at the Glade festival (we'll be there) and across the country for the rest of the album tour.

Here is his Last FM page.

Here is his Myspace.