Steve Davis on ‘Baltang Arg’ from Damogen Furies (2015)

Obviously, Kavus [Torabi] and myself are renowned wedding DJs now. You knew who your friends were when you dropped ‘Baltang Arg’, because it absolutely asked the question of the crowd. We’ve had mixed results with it, as I’m sure Squarepusher has had mixed results when he’s played live. ‘Baltang Arg’ definitely sorts the heads from the haircuts. You know if someone’s receptive to abnormal music when that one comes on. And if it goes down badly we put ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ on and see if we can get some of them to come back from cowering in the corner.

I had no history of listening to Squarepusher from the off, I wasn’t into that type of music at the time, and I’m delighted to now revisit it even though I’m behind the curve. Recently I did an interview with Tom so I swotted up a bit more. I started listening to Feed Me Weird Things and I thought what a great melding of jazz and drum & bass and jungle and whatever else you want to hang on it. I thought it must have been amazing first time around, it’s cutting edge stuff, and probably turned a lot of people onto fusion by the backdoor even though they didn’t know. The track that resonates with me the most from Feed Me Weird Things was ‘Theme From Ernest Borgnine’. I’m not saying that others don’t push button, but that one rocks, it bounds along.

At the time when Squarepusher signed to Warp I stupidly thought soul music was the only music worth listening to. I don’t have any great memories of going to a rave or a club. I had bigger fish to fry at the time. I was still playing snooker, but I’m sure I could have snuck away. I could have stolen one of Squarepusher’s masks and turned up at a rave. Surely he could have lent me an old one?

One of the reasons why Kavus and myself, our agents are Blow Up Live, is that I was asked to DJ in between acts at a Shobaleader One show at Islington Town Hall in 2016. They represent Squarepusher as well. After that I got a phone call from our now-agent Rick Morton saying ‘We’d like to represent you as well. 'So Squarepusher was instrumental, the catalyst in how it transpired that we got one of the coolest guys, Rick Morton, as our agent, someone who’s more out there than his artists! Marvelous!

I was up in London last week having a meal with a few friends, and I popped into Phonica and got the latest album, Be Up A Hello. There’s a fucking great track on it that I think is now my current favourite, it’s called ‘Vortrack’. There’s something about it, it is a groove, it really does, so that is now my current favourite.