Delayed with...Yama Music
In the age where social media presence and the following are often more valued than the quality of music that producers make or DJs play, one duo from the UK decided to concentrate on latter and let the music speak for itself. Daines and St.Bernard, better known as Yama Music are usual suspects on infamous french imprint Yoyaku Records, but their story is like a breath of fresh air and proof that at the end of the day the most important thing is music. We sat down with Yama Music and chatted with them about their beginnings, how they were discovered by Yoyaku’s head honcho Varhat and more. Daines and St.Bernard also made this trippy minimal house mix which is perfect after-hours material.
Hey Daines & St. Bernard, so nice to have you here at Delayed. Tell us, how was your weekend?
Hi, thank you for the warm welcome. Weekend was great, one of us has just got back from Sardinia and the other has been stuck in London in the rain.
I would like to know a little bit about your beginnings in music production. How and when did you start producing music? I learned that you both worked on music production before starting to work together, which later turned into Yama Music project. How did you guys meet?
D: We met when St. Bernard was throwing parties in our local town, the music policy was underground house/techno that was completely different to anyone else in the area and that attracted quite a unique crowd, the parties were quite intimate but wild. A mutual friend of ours introduced us at one of these parties, we got chatting about making music and decided to work on some stuff together.
S: Daines was making music already and had been signed to a label, he was already an accomplished producer and I was just starting out. We got together regularly and seemed to just click in the studio. We had some reasonable success with a couple of projects in the past together and as solo artists but now it’s all about Yama Music!
What are your musical influences?
S: When we first met at one of my parties we actually realised we both love Gary Numan, so that’s definitely an early influence on us. We both love electronica especially on a deep/minimal vibe and the mid 2000’s minimal scene was and still is a major influence. Going to parties in London especially the afters was huge to us, we would be so inspired by what we heard, that we would come back and write music like it but in our own way. We visited Circoloco at DC10 around this time as well and that blew our minds! We fell in love with the place and that sound system ;)
D: We started started buying records in that style from labels like Perlon, Minibar, Oslo and Minus and things just moved on from there. We still adore those labels most notably Perlon, which for us (and many others) is the epitome of the scene. All of their artists are heroes of ours both as DJ’s and producers.
How does a usual day in the studio with the two of you look like?
D: We both have studios which means we can work on music individually or collaboratively in our own space. We are really into our hardware/analogue gear and each have different pieces of hardware that we can add to a mix. When we get into the studio we like to bring the machines together to jam and see where it takes us!
What is your go-to VST or piece of hardware when working on music?
S: VST wise Native Instruments Komplete is our go to, particularly Reaktor. It’s such a powerful tool and can offer you so much. Plus the community around it is amazing, there are so many developers offering fantastic little tools which can add the right ingredient to your track.
D: But as per your last question we are more focused on the analogue side of things. The Korg Electribe ESX has been a stable for us over the years alongside the Tanzbar. Most recently though the Jomox Alphabase has been lots of fun to use alongside Make Noise 0Coast and Waldorf Blofeld which are great bits of kit to add that “magic”.
Do you perform together? b2b or live? If not are there any plans for it? Where are you based in the UK? How’s the local scene there?
S: Yes we DJ together and have done so for many years, we have been working on a live show but we always seem to come back to playing vinyl at gigs. In truth our hometown doesn’t have a scene, which is quite disappointing. There are a number of talented producers around though but not much of an outlet for them.
D: We cite London as our home town really, we live so close to it and that scene is where we identify ourselves with.
Yama Music’s beginning is quite interesting. You guys decided to release a track per month on your Bandcamp page before connecting with Varhat from Yoyaku, who decided to sign you on Yoyaku's roster. I assume that before signing your music with Yoyaku, you had complete freedom in what you are putting out. How did the fact of becoming part of the Yoyaku roster affect your approach in music-making?
S: We were both working on solo projects plus running labels, which were time consuming and we weren’t really releasing the music we wanted too. We hadn’t worked on any music for a while, we saw each other regularly though as we are friends outside of music and one day we decided to come up with a new idea.
D: Every month we would make, master, produce artwork and distribute an EP. That seemed quite a big deal to us as some of our previous tracks took weeks to finish but the time restraint plus looming deadline made us super focused and really pushed us to finish music.
S: We chose Bandcamp as it’s such an amazing platform for independent artists/labels. Don’t get me wrong, Beatport etc are good but it didn’t really sit right with our ethos and we didn’t want to wait around for them to approve tracks blah blah blah.
D: When Varhat downloaded our music we literally fell off our chair. Our sole aim was to one day get our music onto one of the labels and we were over the moon when he offered us the chance to work with Yoyaku/YYDistribution. They have been a dream to work with, obviously we can’t put out a record every month (even though we have the music too), but we have total freedom to release the music we want and luckily it’s been very well received.
Your career had quite a boost after you guys had been discovered on Bandcamp. It’s unique, and for me the best platform to dig for music. What is your usual place where you go to dig for some new tunes (besides Bandcamp 🙂 )?
S: As we mentioned earlier we both play vinyl so Phonica and Juno are the main ports of call for new records plus we love to dig for music on Discogs. We’re also partial to the odd charity shop dig, you can find some gold in these shops and your helping charities.
In the age of overwhelming social media presence in the music industry, you’ve decided not to have any, and at the beginning just release music under different monikers which later turned into Yama Music project. What influenced that decision?
S: We just feel that social media is compromised now for the little guys. For example you set up a page on Facebook, you grow that page organically over a number of months/years so that people are genuinely interested in your music, yet when you want to reach out to these people to promote a record, party or whatever; you have to pay hundreds of pounds to reach a small minority of them.
D: Plus if you put out music you believe in then people will find you. It’s a bit of a cliche but we release Yama Music records that we love, it just so happens we are the ones to make them as well.
As this is your very first interview and sort of press and online debut,we are pleased to be part of it. What is your plan for a future online presence? Are SoundCloud, Instagram and/or FB on the horizon?
S: Firstly, thanks for interviewing us :) We do have an Instagram account, we like the idea of putting up visuals and not much else. We have a mix series which we use Mixcloud for, we have some great guests coming up for this and will try to get these going on a regular basis.
Yama Music 004 is coming out in October, what’s new cooking in your studio? Are you planning to release music on some other labels as well?
D: We are buzzing about YAMU004, the reaction from the likes of Okain, Nick Beringer, Ittetsu, Vinyl Speed Adjust has been overwhelming. We have had their releases in our record bag for a number of years and to see them supporting us is incredible.
S: As for new music from us, we have just put the finishing touches to YAMU005 which will be a VA featuring some people who have supported us from the very beginning. Can’t say anything just yet but it’s sounding very very good!
We are also looking to launch a new Yama Music digital series and yes it will be on Bandcamp hahaha.
In the end, tell us more about the mix that you made for us. Where was it recorded it and what was your set up?
S: I have just moved house and I have converted one the rooms into a Cocktail Lounge with a bespoke bar/deckstand which Daines and a friend of ours helped built, it’s a bit like the DJ booth at Concrete in Paris (RIP). The mix was recorded in there with a couple of rum cocktails and a lot of love! hahahaha