With UK nightlife finally up and running, Artists are busier than they have ever been and one such artist is the incredibly talented and very much up and coming (100% one to watch) Salo. We fired some questions over to Salo back in June but with a diary packed with live performances, streams and DJ sets alongside balancing her time to write her dissertation it has taken a little while to get this interview to publish. Salo has also agreed to bless Knowledge Magazine with a guest mix so watch this space for more details on that.
How was your weekend? You came to London for the save our scene marches right? We saw some clips on your Instagram and it looked like it was popping off. What was the vibe like at the marches and how was the police presence?
Hiya so sorry for the delay just been mad busy trying to finish this dissertation off and balance everything alongside it but that’s all out the way now finally! I’ve written all the answers for the questions, I have more projects to talk about now as well so it’s worked out well i guess hahaha
It was just mad! Seeing that many people altogether for the first time in a year was a moment to remember. It definitely felt historical especially DJing in the middle of Trafalgar Square with a massive crowd of people around you, I’ve never experienced anything like it before. The next day was even more mad! Getting onto that bus, driving through central London and blasting tunes to people out on the streets was the best way to dive straight back into DJing after a whole year of nothing more or less. It was just amazing. The police presence wasn’t too bad, they were sort of just making sure no one got hurt they stayed out the way and let us protest.
Did you get a chance to play? If so how was it playing to a proper crowd? Must have been the first time in a while?
Yeah I did! I just went down to London with my USBs and just thought ‘nah, I have to get on the decks at one point’ and ended up getting on a few floats to DJ with Kaz throughout the entire day! Showing London what the Manchester sound is. It was an amazing day filled with amazing people and the energy was just super high, everyone was being nice to each other. A day to remember!
We are loving the new (not so new now) single out with Chimpo (Keep you Round). How did the link up come about? We heard his side of things so. It will be good to hear your side?
Thanks! Yeah when I first became a resident for bloc2bloc I kept seeing Chimpo about so I messaged him to see if he wanted any keys or vocals, (I play piano as well) but instead he sent me a couple of tunes to sing over, one of them being Keep U Round, so after I’d come up with the idea and recorded it, Chimpo was just gassed and got me into the studio. After that we’ve just been making loads of tunes together. He’s such a sick producer and artist, he gave me the push I needed to start writing more songs and just singing in front of more people since I was really nervous with doing that in the first place. He’s helped me with so much, we’re family for life now.
You have another tune that has come out as part of Bou’s Dnb for peace project. Can you tell us a bit about that?
Yeah so, I saw that Bou was doing this project and seeing what was going on in Palestine was just breaking my heart so knowing that this project would very likely raise a lot of money I wanted to write a song for it focusing on what was happening in Palestine and help raise anything I could to try and help. Dogger produced the track, who’s another talented artist, and yeah we released the project and it made a huge amount! I was definitely proud of everyone in the scene that put a tune on the project as well as the fans buying them! Big shout out to Bou for setting that whole thing up.
Manchester seems to have a very strong scene right now despite clubs not being open. In your eyes who are the ones to watch right now?
There’s a huge amount of talent in Manchester in different genres but ones to watch right now is definitely Jack Banner, KAZ, Chimpo (he’s recently released his new album ‘Outside’ go check it out if you haven’t!), Jazzy Lioness, Indika, Akemi Fox (check out her music she’s amazing), Teo, Obscura, Kid Katharsis and many more. These are just the names I can name off the top of my head but there’s so much more raw talent in Manchester than any city I’ve seen, the sound here is just different!
As an artist you are clearly a very accomplished pianist, singer/songwriter and DJ? Do you contribute all of these talents to releases? Are you producing tunes yourself too?
Thank you! Yeah, I have been doing! Me and Chimpo have been working on a personal project which will hopefully get finished soon to release. It’s not drum & bass but has a more neo soul sound to it. I just see myself on stage playing piano and singing with a session band behind me, a massive dream of mine! I performed the tunes on Friday at Chimpo’s album launch and the crowd reaction was amazing! Playing at 12:45am was challenging but the reaction was just unexpected, it certainly made me excited to release the project even more. And yeah, I produce my tunes as well I started off just producing jungle however it’s mostly hip hoppy/neo soul type stuff I produce now!
I’ve been making tunes with George (Dub Phizix) and Chimpo (he’s sort of become my go to producer now hahaha) I probably do his head in sometimes, my brain just runs at 200mph, so I’ll message Chimpo at like 4 in the morning with an idea, but we always end up making some absolute sick tunes. Usually, I’ll write something on the piano with some vocals and he’ll form a beat around or I’ll produce an idea on Ableton and bring it to him and he’ll beef it up for me and we’ll sit down in his studio, figure out what instruments need adding/changing and so on. We’ll often be in George’s studio as well, he’s too sick! The skill and knowledge that guy has is unbelievable!
I always want to know what’s going on with every song I make and each detail within each song, I couldn’t just leave it up to someone to do it for me, it’s super fun watching your tracks develop with other artists next to you, going from one small idea you wrote to something just amazing!
With clubs hopefully reopening will you be taking bookings? Will these be as a Dj or vocalist/host?
Yeah, I’m taking bookings, I recently got with the agency, Outset Artists so any bookings go to Jordan! I’ve been grabbing the mic a lot recently and performing ‘Keep U Round’ live but with more tunes that I’ll be releasing soon you’ll be seeing a lot of me DJing whilst also singing!
You’ve also agreed to record a guest mix for us (thanks again) what can we expect from the mix?
Expect a lot of jungle, new and old!
Lastly any shout outs? Future projects you would like to plug?
There’s a lot of tracks that have been in the works with some amazing producers like Halogenix, Sully, Zed Bias, Sl8r, Bou, L-Side, Aries and so on. (And bare tunes with Chimpo hahaha) So keep your eye out any updates on my Instagram