Trus'me Interview

Prime Numbers label boss Trus’me, aka David James Wolstencroft, is an exciting addition to the line-up for Familia on July 9th, joining Popof and ItaloJohnson for a heavy dose of house of techno.

Originally digging heavily into soul, funk and disco for 2007's superb debut album 'Working Night$', in more recent years Trus’me has begun drawing on his techno influences instead, 2013's 'Treat Me Right' album even getting a second life with a remix version featuring everyone from Skudge to Alan Fitzpatrick.

His latest album, 'Planet 4' (out now on Prime Numbers), refines this direction even further, packed with atmospheric dance floor tackle like the bleepy Electrifying Mojo-sampling 'Ring Round Heart' and the slamming 'So High'. As well as being influenced by techno's traditional preoccupation with science fiction, titles such as 'Water On Mars' (Planet 4 is another name for Mars, since it is the fourth planet from the sun) show the influence on Trus'me of science fact and the sometimes mind boggling hypotheses and possibilities of modern times.

With this in mind, we asked him to pick five techno tracks and five scientific discoveries that helped him touch down on the surface on 'Planet 4'...

TECHNO INFLUENCES

1. Gypsy - 'Funk De Fino'

If I had to choose a soundtrack for exploring a planet, this would be the one. Detuned bells, dramatic sweeping pads and eerie crescendos rocking on a filthy '90s beat.

2. Jeff Mills - 'Roswell (Something in the Sky Part 3)'

Simplicity drenched in complexity, Jeff Mills knows how to be haunting yet surprisingly uplifting at the same time. A master and a teacher in all things sci-fi and techno.

3. Drexciya - 'Lardossen Funk'

As if the mothership has landed and is performing the Irish jig right on the dance floor. Unique but familiar, you are sucked into an alien like melody that keeps you tense and spooked at the same time.

4. Laurent Garnier - 'Astral Dreams (Speakers Mix)'

Those Martians have been talking to us way back from the Haçienda days, or so the French would have us believe. Is this is not from another planet? Or did an alien make it? I know what I put my money on.

5. Surgeon - 'The Crawling Frog Is Torn And Smiles'

Modern twist on everything that’s deeper and darker, yet tougher than a battle axe. Huge influence for sure on the mindset for 'Planet 4'.

SCIENCE INFLUENCES

1. Traveling to Mars and back.

The next time Nasa fires Rocket No. 2059 for 500 seconds in just under 45 years, it will be carrying humans on their first deep-space mission. Mars is around the corner, it’s not fiction it’s reality.

2. The Chimera Era is upon us.

It’s possible, they say, that ‘some human cells might find their way to the developing testes or ovaries, where they might grow into a human sperm and eggs. If two such chimeric mice were to mate, a human embryo might form which would be trapped inside a mouse’.

3. Human beings are nothing special (but octopuses are).

The octopus appears to be utterly different from all other animals, even other molluscs, with its eight prehensile arms and its large brain for clever problem-solving capabilities. Aliens really do live amongst us.

4. Our world is a computer and we are the programers.

'There’s nothing in this cosmic lawfulness to tell us whether we’re in a simulation or not. If the program is good enough with no obvious ‘Easter eggs’ or hidden messages left by its designers, then any experiment we perform will return the same results whether we’re in a simulated cosmos or not.' Mind Blown!

5. Finally I will leave you with the question, should we go to Mars at all?

Mr Science himself explains this far more eloquently that I ever could. Carl Sagan is why I have been obsessed with humanity’s journey to Planet 4 and science in general.

Buy tickets for Familia on July 9th, featuring Trus'me Popof, ItaloJohnson and more, here.