TRUSME with DERRICK RAMIREZ at Augusta House (152 Augusta), Friday (October 24). $10. marlowbarksdale@gmail.com
When you first hear productions and DJ sets by Manchester-based up-and-comer Trus’me (aka David James Wolstencroft), you’d be forgiven for thinking he was a Detroit veteran or a secret pseudonym for someone like Moodymann. His gritty and raw take on soulful sounds betrays a large debt to the Motor City. As it turns out, that’s no accident.
[rssbreak]
“Detroit and Manchester are so heavily connected musically, probably from way before I was even alive,” admits Wolstencroft on his way to a gig in Scotland. “You can’t help but hear all these different kinds of techno and house that filtered through Detroit and then came across the ocean to us. Several guys who still work in record shops here pioneered bringing house music to the UK back in the 80s, and a lot of those people are my friends. Living in Manchester, it’s hard to not get into this stuff.”
His debut full-length, Working Nights, rode that cross-Atlantic connection to significant buzz and gave him an increasing profile as a DJ. He hasn’t been resting on his laurels, though, putting his energy instead into his label, Prime Numbers, and his second album.
“The album’s almost finished and should be out in February. We’ve got quite a few guest vocalists on board this time – Amp Fiddler, Paul Randolph, Jose James.
“The whole idea was to try to recreate the sound of the first album, but using musicians instead of samples. I was trying to push this record a bit further, do it with a sample mentality but have musicians come in that I could hum a bass line to. That way I could engineer the sound the way I want it, instead of having to work with something that was already there.”
On the DJ side, you should expect a lot of underground disco and house classics and not much in the way of contemporary electro bangers.
However, he doesn’t want to be thought of as strictly a purist deep house DJ, and name-drops dubstep-influenced producer Martyn as one of the more current artists he’s excited about.
“It’s a bit challenging to get it into a DJ set when people are expecting strictly straight 4/4 house, but I like to push the boundaries a bit and get people into different sounds. I don’t just want to be playing classics all night. That’s not the kind of DJ set that I want to hear.”
benjaminb@nowtoronto.com
