Con*Natural, the artist also known as MC Conrad, is launching a new biweekly drum & bass event called Con*Sequence in the heart of London’s west end on Tuesday 14 October so we tracked down Conrad Thompson to find out what to expect…
Why have you decided to launch Con*Sequence?
It’s an opportunity that I’ve pondered on for some years. I got a head full of music and a soul full of expression, what do you do with that?
What made you go for Tuesdays?
Drum & bass has always had a good history of showcasing during midweek. You’ll get some real heads that will rep the hunger for dnb on Tuesday for sure.
What’s your all-time favourite midweek drum & bass night?
Speed at the Milk Bar.
I’m not familiar with the venue, The Clinic at Piccadilly Institute; tell us about it and why you chose it…
Location – 1 Piccadilly Circus – “I’m in London during the week for work / pleasure / holiday I wanna hear some good beats, where can I go?” – says it all with that really…
However, I must say it’s new on the map to me too, it’s a good thing for us that the club manager likes dnb a lot. Have a look at the Piccadilly Institute website, it’s got six mad rooms, all different with a kind of “Alice In Soho Wonderland” feel to them.
To be honest, it was more like the club chose me after a con*sequence of events that took place at another midweek night, Soul In Motion, with the manager of the Piccadilly Institute and Kris Kordas, my co-promoter. Let’s see how the night goes and I’ll tell that story…
What’s the night all about?
The plan is to put on four biweekly events, a “sequence” of events running up to the end of November. If people like it enough then we may appear again for Christmas / NYE and resurface in early spring next year. There’s talk about doing it weekly but it’s small steps right now for Con*Sequence events.
The music policy is liquid funk and musical dnb, but the true boundaries of that? I’ll tell you when I stop dancing. I think every dnb DJ has a good few sets of that kind of flavour that they’d like to jam out at some point, even if they’re not currently known for playing it.
The guys who have been supporting and creating this music during its evolution as a style, especially the newcomers and overseas players, deserve a real world major city forum away from the weekend large scale event demands to simply jam, interact and share ideas. Makes for an interesting sequence of events forthcoming, I’d say.
Dnb, in all its forms, seems to be having a real good period right now on the club circuit, but the last thing we want to do is create overkill, there needs to be a demand.
In general, the night is about letting you hair down in the west end away from all the weekend rush in a nice part of town, to the soundtrack of good, soul stirring, liquid funk dipped dnb, with not too much of a fanfare on the mic duties but with well guided vocal direction and highlights.
What can people expect at the Con*Sequence launch party next week?
Randall, Zero T, Madcap b2b Ros (Addiction Recs – Poland) and myself on host and mic duties with newcomers Destiny b2b Kenzie playing during the early bird hours. Doors open at 9pm, it’s free before 10pm and £5 after.
What have you got lined up after that?
For the Halloween special on October 28 we have: Bryan Gee, Nookie & Five Alive, Phil Source, Junior SP from Athens.
During November we have JJ Frost, Utah Jazz, Dazee MsDos (UK debut show), Technimatic and Paul SG all confirmed. We’ve got Darrison and Visionobi coming down to bless the vocal section and also Jdok & Process, a couple of the DJs I play alongside with in Birmingham at Prospec.
Where else can people catch you?
10 October – Basslaced Presents Ten Years of Shogun, London.
25 October – Sublime music presents – A Guy Called Gerald at The Queens Head, Redditch.
25 October – Breakthru at The Custard Factory, Birmingham with Marky and LSB.
08 November – Anamorphic, Belfast
15 November – Thessaloniki, Greece with MsDos.
21 November – Highrise, Leeds
Why did you change your artist name to Con*Natural?
Why not? I think it represents a wider understanding of what I’m about and where I’m coming from these days… Google it, look up the word. It’s not tagged with the “just an emcee” moniker and also gives a bit of mystery, that’s showbiz isn’t it?
Got any releases in the pipeline we should look out for?
Nothing hard pinned as yet but a lot of material across multi genres and a multitude of interested artists, musicians and producers and, when the right situation for release comes along, we’ll break off a chunk for the masses…
Right now though, I’m having fun just showcasing my DJing passion along with a few ideas old and new via my podcasts #theliquidconsessions (liquid dnb) and #theuponallfoursshow (house and techno).
Anything else you want to tell us about?
Nothing more than just a massive big up and thanks to all my “real world” and “virtual” friends, family, fans, peers, enemies, trolls, supporters, instigators, agitators, well wishers, spiritual uplifters, survival instructors and boot camp drill officers.