Science faction

Futureshock, aka Phil Dockerty and Alex Tepper, came to prominence over the last two years with a series of high profile remixes for artists like Jamiroquai and Jennifer Lopez, as well as working with Underworld, Jean Michel Jarre, The Chemical Brothers, Groove Armada, Luke Slater and Meeker, the most recent signings to Darren Emerson’s Underwater label.

Focusing on the dirty, grungy drum-led end of house music, the duo’s work has been championed by DJs from all ends of the loosely collected house spectrum. Tom Middleton, Roger Sanchez, Steve Lawler John Digweed and Sasha have all featured playing their remixes and, more recently, the duo’s own productions.

Having signed a deal with Junior Boys Own last year, the lads also set up the Fuju imprint, with Junior, as an outlet specifically for their work.

Speaking to Phil and Alex over pre-gig drinks at the most recent Smirnoff Experience event at Lush!, Futureshock don’t exactly come across as the archetypal, self-confident superstar DJ types. In fact, they seem more comfortable waxing lyrical about the Lush! crowd than they do addressing the undoubted mark they’ve left on modern club music.

“I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve played here,” Phil says, gesturing towards the crowd already going mental to Lush! resident Col Hamilton’s warm up set. “We played here last on New Year’s Eve, and it’s always a great gig. The crowd are having a great time before you even get on the decks. They’re so responsive it makes your job easy.”

Phil observes that the Smirnoff Experience gig ending at 2am is an advantage for Futureshock. “Things end earlier than in London,” he says. “But that just means they start earlier here and the night is more intense. There’s more energy in the venue and our own performance is tighter.”

Where DJing is concerned, like many of their peers, Futureshock have progressed considerably in their approach: their set at Smirnoff Experience takes in three turntables, an FX box and a sampler.

“The set up involves a little bit extra to what most DJs do,” Alex explains. “It feels like we’re not just playing records: I suppose it’s a throwback from the old reggae sound systems where they used FX boxes too.”

Of course the other similarity to Futureshock’s Jamaican predecessors is the duo’s use of their own remixes – in Kingstown terms a ‘version’ – in their Djing: for example, at their Smirnoff Experience performance, the duo drop in an as yet unreleased take on Green Velvet’s ‘La La Land.’

“Apart from playing our own work,” Phil says, “adding what we do in the studio for other people really adds to our DJing. They feed off one another.”

Having worked under an array of pseudonyms and guises in the past, they have decided to focus all their attention on the Futureshock name. This is necessary, Alex believes, because of the time constraints imposed by the scheduled release of their debut album in September.

“We’re cutting down big time on our remixes,” Alex elaborates, “unless a record comes along that we really like and that it makes sense to do. Because we’re working on our own material – the album is going to be clubby, based on what we play.

“It will also include some experimental, down tempo stuff. We don’t want it to be one-dimensional and it would be nice if people could listen to it at home. However, the clubby material is very important for us and we don’t want to lose sight of that.”

Listening to the duo work the Smirnoff Experience crowd into a frenzy, there’s no doubt that the club environment is the natural home for Futureshock’s dark, drum led house sound. So what do they make of the inevitable comparisons with the rest of the new wave of progressive house?

“We’ve never been comfortable with the term,” Phil says, “as far as we’re concerned, the word lost its meaning a long time ago, way before people stared attaching it to what we do. There was a little bit of a movement back towards house music about two years ago. We got bundled in with Peace Division and Steve Lawler – but we’re all very different. The term is misused, but we’re all trying to make music that is progressive in the sense that it moves on.

“You shouldn’t analyse it too much though,” Phil concludes. “We just make house tunes, and if Erick Morillo and John Digweed both like them, then that’s fine by us.”