I discovered British Bass producer Soular Order through his remix of Nesta Rae’s track “Stay”. His percussion as well as ambiance work is striking and highly remarkable. Soular Order’s “From Here” EP was released some weeks ago through his co-founded label City By Night Records and is definitely worth a listen.

Hello Jon, thanks for giving us this interview, your first one as Soular Order if I’m right?

“No problem! Yeah that’s right.”

Great! What does Soular Order mean and how did you came up with that name?

“To be honest, I’m not really sure haha. I started writing tunes before I had come up with an alias so for a while it was just my name. I did watch a documentary on this cult called the “Order of the Solar Temple” and thought they were absolutely insane. So I guess it came from that.”

That’s interesting, haha. You say you started writing tunes before having an alias, do you still have some of them? Asking in a different way, when and how did your passion for music start?

“Yeah I probably do have some laying around somewhere. They’ll never see the light of day though haha. Probably around 10 years or so ago. I started playing guitar when I was 13 or 14 years old. I spent a lot of my teenage years playing in metal bands before I started producing.”

What a career. I honestly haven’t noticed any guitars in your tracks, did I just missed them or aren’t you incorporating them in your productions?

“There’s guitar in a few songs but its usually heavily processed so it becomes more of a pad type of sound. I’ve been writing some new stuff recently that has more guitar in though.”

Sounds good, can’t wait to have a listen! Imagine you have to explain a stranger what kind of music you are making. How would you describe your style, what determines your productions?

“That’s a good question. I’m not really sure what I’d call it. I listen to a bit of pretty much everything, and that usually ends up working its way into my productions. I think the main thing is probably the way I process pads and percussion. Those 2 seem to be a bit of a constant in my tracks. If I was trying to describe it to somebody though, I’d probably say the best thing to imagine is taking Ambient music, Garage, some Dubstep and a bunch of keys and household items and throwing them all together.”

That’s definitely true, especially your pads are so unique, they stun me with every new release of yours. Talking about about sound processing, do you have a secret, personal or favorite production technique?

“Thanks man. It’s not really a secret, but you can get some really awesome effects by side-chaining something on a return track to the original signal. I use it quite often on reverb or delays for vocals. I like to use a lot of field recordings in my percussion to add some extra textures too.”

Interesting, thanks for the insight! Changing the topic from the technical to the hardware side, what sort equipment are you using, is there anything you would recommend?

“I have a bit of a streamlined set up haha. I use a pair of Mackie MR8 monitors and a set of BeyerDynamic DT880's for monitoring. I’ve had them for a while now and I love the sound of the MR8's. For inputting stuff I use an M-Audio KeyRig 49, a Novation Launchpad and an Akai MPD18.”

Sweet, how about software? Are there any certain synths or plugins you really like?

“I’ve been producing in Ableton for quite a while now and I absolutely love it. It’s great for being creative and getting stuff down quickly, and just as good for when you need to get intricate. A lot of the stock plugins are really great too. For other stuff I use NI’s Massive, iZotope’s Iris and Kontakt.”

You gotta love Ableton, haha. Before starting with a new track, where do you get your inspiration from?

“As cliche as it sounds, usually whatever has gone on during that day or a current situation. Other music plays a big part too but I’ve always found it easier to write music about something, rather than just for the sake of it, if that makes sense haha.”

Yeah, I think I know what you mean. What are your plans for the future as Soular Order (releases, collaborations etc.) ?

“I’ve got a few collabs in the pipeline at the moment. Recently been working on a track with Aeuria and it’s sounding pretty awesome so far. I’m not really sure what I’m gunna do after those though, I’d really like to write an album.”

An album would be great! If you could collaborate with any artist (living or dead) who would be your choice and why?

“I’d love to work with somebody like Shlohmo or Balam Acab. I’ve been into them for ages and I really enjoy their work.”

You are one of the founders of City By Night Records — an independent record label, tell me more about it.

“Ah yeah. I started City By Night last year as an output for my own stuff initially. I didn’t really do much with it, but earlier this year I got talking to Matt (Bruised Skies) and he was really interested in getting involved with it, so that’s when it really started to get going. We’ve had 4 releases so far and they’re doing pretty well. We recently released Aeuria’s debut EP “Birth” and its been going down a storm. It’s a really good EP, especially for a debut. We’ve got a lot planned for the future of City By Night Records.”

Haha, you took the words right out of my mouth, what are your current and future goals/plans regarding City By Night?

“Right now all our focus is on representing Aeuria’s EP and sorting out our next release. In the future, we’d really like to start putting out physical releases. That’s a big goal for us and something we’re determined to do in the next few years.”

Sounds good. At the end I’d like to ask you a random question: what is your favorite food (I hope it is a classy cheesecake)?

“Haha cheesecake is good. Definitely pizza.”

Thank you for this great and interesting interview, if you would like to add or say something, this is your chance.

“Not a problem! Thanks for having me. Make sure you guys check out City By Night Records and look out for new stuff of mine coming soon!”

Find Soular Order on his Website/SoundCloud/Facebook/Twitter/YouTube

Check out City By Night Records: Website/SoundCloud/Facebook/Twitter