Ill Truth – An Interview – In-Reach Magazine

Here at In-Reach we pay close attention to up and coming artists and try to keep our ears to the ground to sift out the real promising talents moving up the ranks. In a scene that’s continuously growing and gaining attention it can be a bit difficult to shine through and get noticed, for some anyway… One such duo that have seemed to spring out the woodwork with a string of incredible music are Bristol locals, Ill Truth.
Already amassing releases on labels such as Technique, Soul Trader, Limitless and now finding their way onto revered drum and bass don, Break‘s ‘Symmetry Recordings’ with an incredible 4-track EP called ‘In Your Soul’ featuring collabs with current liquid golden boy, Satl as well as vocals from angelic voiced songstress, Charli Brix.

The EP is an extremely well executed and varied offering to the scene and something that im sure will pique listeners interests for future music from the duo.

We thought it best to catch up with them and get a little insight into what they are about!
Easy, Ill Truth! Thanks for taking the time to chat with us here at In-Reach.
Firstly let’s get a bit of background of who you are and what you are about, where do you both come from and how did the name ‘Ill Truth’ come about?

Well we both come from Somerset, we met each other at college, you could say ‘DJ-ing brought us together’ (as cheesy as it sounds it is pretty accurate) haha! From DJ-ing we both got into producing music and pretty much helped each other learn throughout. The name came from us moving away from our previous alias (Despicable Youth).
We thought a change was needed for a few reasons but the name originated through doodling in sketch pads and doing a lot of literary research into words or phrases that we liked.The name ‘Ill Truth’ doesn’t have a specific meaning but when we thought of the name it was almost a reflection of our style and interests in music; we pictured a hip hop group of some sort and as our background is mainly hip hop influenced it seemed like a name that would stick. We also produce a span of all sorts, not just drum & bass and hopefully in the near future we will be putting some of that stuff out, we wanted it to work for our ‘sound’ rather than one genre.

How long have you guys been producing/DJ’ing for?

We have been producing for about 5 years so far and probably more like 7 for DJ-ing

What is your musical influence, any other genres that do it for you?

As we mentioned Hip hop mainly, however like other producers (I think) you’re influenced by what sounds ‘good’ to you, for us that is anything from Motown, funk, dub to garage. Not saying that we enjoy every track from every genre but there are certain qualities that catch your ear that is sometimes present in a number of different styles and genres, if it sounds good, it’s good 🙂

How would you describe your sound to someone that hadn’t heard before?

Well we’ve had this talk before with some friends of ours, at this stage it’s hard to pinpoint what makes your ‘sound’, I think it is something that comes in time. Saying that, I guess you could say our sound is sub orientated music with a sprinkle of funk, hip hop & what ever we had been listening to that week. Excuse the pun, but Truthfully, we have no idea.

Being relatively new to the scene and already amassing releases on some revered labels is quite the entrance… Are there any labels you’d love to release on, and why?

Yeah for sure! The list is pretty long, as we said earlier, we do make all sorts of stuff so our label goals are varied. Headz, Dispatch, C.I.A, Flexout, Invisible, 20/20….. there are a lot more

So, you’ve bagged a release on Break’s renowned Symmetry imprint, how did that all come about?

We had been using Break to master our releases since November last year and from hearing our already signed music he called us up and asked to send over anything that was unsigned his way. We send him a handful of stuff we had at that time and he picked his favourite 4. It was actually a really easy process and Charlie (Break) is a great guy to work with, really easy going and doesn’t beat around the bush.

Residing in Bristol means you are surrounded by fellow scene members, who do you draw the biggest inspiration from and why?

Collective. For those that don’t know it’s a monthly D&B night in Bristol run by Break, DLR, Kyo, Hydro, Total Science, Mako & Onset.
These nights and the people involved are the biggest inspiration in Bristol for us really. You can go out to Collective and hear nothing but dubs and the atmosphere is incredible!
You wake the next day and there is always a talking point; a track you heard, a mix you heard etc. There is obviously a huge list of inspiration in Bristol overall but right now Collective is where its at!

If you could collab with anyone, who would it be and why?

For drum & bass: Break, Halogenix, Spectrasoul
Other dance music: Geode, Phaeleh, Kaytranada
Anything goes: Hanz Zimmer, Elton John, Alicia Keys

Summer is drawing ever closer which means its festival season, are there any shows you guys are playing/attending?

Yeah can’t wait for some sunshine now! We aren’t playing many shows this summer but we are playing at ‘Run: All Day’ in Bristol in September, there are no festival dates in the calendar though, we are finishing our university degree right now so we are taking the time off to work on music and relax mainly (it’s been pretty stressful) haha 🙂

Give us a little forecast, what can we expect from Ill Truth in the next 6 months?

So we have music forthcoming on Technique, Fokuz, Blendits as well as our first ‘Ill Truth Presents’ album; this will be a full feature album showcasing some incredibly talented, up & coming producers and will be released on Lockdown Recordings (Big up Ben!).
Apart from that we will be compiling a mixtape project with one of the most talented vocalists/MC’s we know: Bluejay, we will hopefully be releasing some of our hip hop projects with Defex as well and there are a few things that are under wraps at the minute that will be revealed soon.

Any last words, radio shows, mixes, releases?

Just a special mention to Liquifyah Bristol, they’ve been at the beginning of a lot of up and coming, successful D&B artists in Bristol and have brought a lot of its producers together, not many people know that! Big up Sammy & Alun!

Thanks for taking the time to chat with us here at In-Reach!