During a period when nu-house, stadium trip-hop and drum n bass constitute the greatest musical exports, Darren Price has flown in the face of fashion with his debut LP, Under The Flightpath. A widescreen techno epic, Flightpath combines eerie electro excursions, acid blips, swooning strings and healthy doses of future-funk rhythms.
Although Price is one of the UK s most prolific producers, and has also notched up scores of impressive releases as Centuras and Transits Of Tones , he hopes Flightpath will give his music increased mainstream recognition.
I released a double pack last year with two friends as Transits Of Tones, but that was harder music, suitable for DJs, he says. NovaMute asked me to compile an album for home-listening, and I think Flightpath is better: it s more of a home listening album, and I hope more people like it, especially the Americans: that s where all the money is! Bands like the Chemicals and The Prodigy are really getting on in America, because there s a rock element to what they do. I hope for my own sake that the Americans turn on to instrumental techno at some stage!
Price has been present since the start of the British musical invasion of America: as Underworld s official tour DJ, he has toured the US with the band and worked with them all the way.
I really enjoy playing in America, but it was always a gamble: because Americans don t buy pre-sale tickets, it s impossible to tell whether the 10,000 capacity venue you re scheduled to play will be full or empty. The only place in America I didn t enjoy playing was New York, which was full of record company suits!
Price s links with Underworld have come through Darren Emerson, whom he knew through DJing at early acid house clubs. Price also got to know Andrew Weatherall, who gave him regular DJing work, while during the day he got a job in Terry Farley s promotions company who happened to share office space with an obscure record label called Junior Boys Own. To a cynic it might seem that Price merely knew all the right people at the right time, but rest assured his useful contacts would have been rendered obselete quickly if he had been merely a hanger-on in a fast-developing musical scene.
When I first heard electro it was the first kind of music that sounded different to anything I d heard before, he reminisces. I really got into electro and reggae between 1984 and 1988, and got to know people like Weatherall through going out, mainly to Shoom, when acid house became popular.
One of the first tunes I ever released was Chrome Peg as Centuras for Junior Boys Own. It was basically me and two really old friends putting out a record together. We were all self-taught and had bought our own equipment. It was really good money, because the label always sells between five and ten thousand copies with every release. After Chrome Peg the other two didn t bother writing any more stuff so I bought their share of the equipment, and started writing on my own. I think one of them works in a bank and the other is employed by Thames Water!
A slew of critically-acclaimed releases followed for labels like NovaMute, Ascension and Intelligence, most of which focused on techno s denser, harder and more frenetic side. Price, however, claims that he takes influences from all spheres of music to create his music.
I get inspiration from everything including Detroit techno, pop music which I listen to in the car on the way to the studio, and drum n bass and mix it all together. I don t think I ll be making a breakbeat track just yet, though. It s really tricky to do, so I ll leave that to the drum n bass boys!
Despite operating at the cutting edge of techno music, Price bemoans the lack of a proper techno scene in his London base, and feels disappointed by the creative stagnation of Detroit s most innovative producers. I don t know what people like Jeff Mills and Mad Mike are doing at the moment, and I haven t heard anything by them in a while. They seem to have been overtaken by other producers. There are a lot more people making music now so that helps, but the techno scene in London has become much smaller. The police have clamped down on dance music in general, so it s hard to get a venue.
Even when there is a techno club, people don t really seem to enjoy themselves. They just stand around with their arms folded vibing each other out: all you ve got to do is go to the toilets of any club to see what the problem is. People might say that London is the clubbing capital of the world, but I rarely DJ in London, and my manager makes sure that I get gigs in places where there is a proper vibe, like Glasgow, Liverpool or Dublin.
With plans to record music again for Junior Boys Own, Price admits he is having the same problems he encountered when working on Flightpath. I m trying desperately to think of a name for my work for Junior Boys Own. The same thing happened when I was trying to think of titles for Flightpath. I was flying back from Canada, and NovaMute rang me and said, We need the track titles now so we can send the artwork off to the printers. I hadn t thought about it, so I looked in the British Airways catalogue and picked all the titles for the album in a few minutes! n

Under the Flightpath is out now on NovaMute.