Julio Bashmore: ‘People have misconstrued what house music is’ – The Guardian

The ‘French touch’ sound, with its cut-up samples, oodles of soul and garage-house beats, inspired producer Bashmore’s debut album Knockin’ Boots. Here he lists the tracks that most influenced him
There’s a scene in Eden, the critically acclaimed film about the French house scene in the early 90s, in which the camera pans over a euphoric warehouse rave, where everyone is dressed in terrible, baggy clothing, their hands in the air. What’s striking about the scene, and this film in general compared with others that have attempted to capture clubbing, is how the audience are bellowing the words to Aly-Us’s Follow Me, a signature garage track about anti-racism, embedded in messages about peace and freedom. The scene underlines the unifying, hug-your-neighbour joy of having a loved-up sing-along and is a reminder of how house music was so often uplifting and political at the same time. (You can listen to its cracking soundtrack here.)

This attitude and atmosphere is something Bristol-born producer Julio Bashmore has attempted to capture on his debut album, Knockin’ Boots. It has serendipitously come along like a companion piece to Eden’s celebration of the so-called French touch movement and the early US house records it was inspired by. Many of the album’s tracks have the unmistakable mark of the French sound – cut-up samples, disco instrumentation, oodles of soul, garage-house beats – as if they could have been played at Tony Humphries’ Club Zanzibar in New Jersey, but buffed up with a brand new shine for 2015. It’s the style that first made Bashmore want to explore house music and he hopes that Knockin Boots will likewise encourage people to “dig further into house history” instead of getting their house fix from the current charts.
Here, Bashmore talks us through some of the tracks that contributed to his album’s varied sound and what he loves about those French house hooks.

“I was listening to Daft Punk back in 1997 and that was the starting point for me. My older brother DJs and I soon found out that they were influenced by a lot of Chicago stuff, such as this track by Bidi. It’s an alias of this guy called Glenn Underground and when you hear it, it sounds like a French record back in the mid-90s. It’s what I think of when I think of the French house scene; chopped-up soul music.”
“A lot of the more soulful moments on my album come from this record, which I heard on a Moodymann mix a long time ago. It comes from a songwriter’s perspective and it encapsulates how producers can get songs to work in house music, which is a very hard thing to do. But this track also works in the club in the way that a song like Gabriel does. There’s something very honest about this record: it isn’t trying to be a pop song, or to make it in the charts, it’s just people writing nice songs over nice beats. You listen to these records and you don’t hear a big management team. You don’t get that feeling that there’s anything cynical going on; it’s just a really soulful song.”
“I’ve got two older brothers and we had MTV on a lot in the 90s. Daft Punk’s videos were just so good – the video for Da Funk where he’s wearing the dog mask, especially. I must have watched that about a million times. Homework had such a huge influence on me when I was a kid. I really like the idea of kids listening to Knockin’ Boots and taking the diversity of house music away from it. I’ve been around from the start of this whole house revival, certainly in the mainstream, and what I’ve seen is how house music gets seen as one thing and how people have misconstrued what house music is. I’ve always seen house as very loose, something that comes from different areas of music – disco and soul but also murky and dark music. Sometimes it’s melodic and sometimes it’s dissonant and harsh. It’s all these things, it’s so expansive.”
“Ever since the UK funky days I’ve been obsessed with African music, from early-80s Nigerian boogie to this Ghanaian hip-house masterpiece. It was awesome that I could work with the hugely talented rapper Okmalumkoolkat from South Africa so that some of that flavour could rub off on my album. I’ve always been wary of dance music that takes itself too seriously. For me, that’s a turn-off. I’ve always tried to evoke a sense of fun.”
“A few years ago I met the producer Tim Goldsworthy, who is now living in Bristol, and he played me this early-90s boogie record from Nigeria. This is probably my favourite song; its influence on my album was huge. It’s raw, hissy, melodic, dark and sweet, all at the same time. All I know about Steve Monite is that he looks killer in a suit and has made one of the most romantic songs ever.”
“This encapsulates everything I love about UK funky: bouncy and percussive. It’s a South African deep house record that got picked up by the UK underground around 2009 and it still holds up so well in my sets. The UK funky scene was small and pretty short lived but it ultimately gave me a platform to get my music out there in a predominantly dubstep-based scene in Bristol at the time, because it sat nicely in between dubstep and house music. It takes all of the grittiness from grime and flips it into percussive house beats. It’s all done on pretty minimal equipment and yet has a huge sound – something that has always stuck with me in my production style.”
“This has been sampled to death – I sampled it in 2008 on one of my first ever tracks, Jacks Got Macked – and the original is still by far the best. But the message of unity it preaches is just as important now as it was when it was made. All the house music I love was made by oppressed people, whether the gay community or black community or both, and it’s got such a strong, positive message. That’s something I definitely don’t hear when I switch the radio on, or in the charts, or even in the underground. It really depresses me. Pushing the message that house music originated with is important now more than ever in the mainstream. It could have a really positive impact.”
“I find the connection between France and America quite fascinating – there’s something hip-hop about [Daft Punk and the French house sound]. Those records can sound smooth and so gritty at the same time. I think that’s where the magic of the whole French touch thing comes from really. This track by DJ Falcon best sums that up, or maybe Spinal Scratch by Thomas Bangalter.”

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