Kind of blue

Don’t believe what you read about 2001 being progressive house this or hard house house that – this year’s the year of the chill.

Horizontally-inclined compilations have been the biggest sellers of the last 12 months: the Big Chill festival in England now rivals any of the mainstream shindigs and people listen to Dido. And there’s been a glut of “chill out” types (slowly… very slowly) coming to prominence in the past year: Bent, Zero 7, Lemon Jelly, Kinobe and, not least, Andy Dragazis’s Blue States.

“It wasn’t planned,” stresses Andy. “I suppose it was matter coming along at the right time. There has been a chill-out renaissance with the likes of Bent and Kinobe and now there’s clubs like Sunday Best (popular London-based Sunday session) that play, y’know, easier music, but it wasn’t planned at all. It’s just something the press got onto. It’s great for me.”

One thing that has set Blue States apart from some of their more sample-based contemporaries is their live show. Eschewing the two-dudes-huddled-over-a-pc approach for something approaching what older readers might call a “band”, the live show has changed since their Dublin visit earlier this year.

“The line-up has changed completely,” reveals Andy. “We’ve now got drums, bass, acoustic guitar... it’s more guitar-led. Moving more towards shoe-gazing territory, actually. It’s always been a quite sample-based music, so it’s quite difficult to play it live. But it’s interesting, I enjoy it.”

Blue States first came to prominence in 1999, when, after a string of reasonably well-recieved EPs, they signed to the quietly hip Memphis Industries label and released the album, 'Nothing Changes Under The Sun'. Far from following the chill-out trend, truth be told, Blue States really predicted its arrival. The album became a ‘sleeper’ and slowly crept up the best sellers list.

Trying to explain the music’s appeal, Andy offers: “When I make music, I like it to sound timeless, like it could have been made 100 years ago or today. It’s escapsim. A song to me should do something to you, it shouldn’t sound like it was made on a computer.”

So can we expect to see the live shoe-gazing experience translated onto vinyl for the next album?

“The next one is due around easter next year and there’s a lot less samples, for definite. I mean 4 or 5 of the tracks are vocal tracks and there’s a lot more of a live element. It’s not going to disappear up its own arse or become a rock opera ... although that would be good.”