In 2016 after previously playing b2b on a regular basis, Drogheda duo Jordan Bohan and Kyle Rankin formed Decorum. Since then they have built a brand which has seen them play on the same line ups as some of the biggest names in the industry including, Special Request, Fjaak, Ejeca, Dennis Sulta, Hannah Wants, Solardo + Many more.
Following releases on labels like Houz, Project Brand, Real rotation Recordings, Too Rough 4 Radio [TR4R] (Cassette + Digital) and Choki Biki Records (Vinyl + Digital), they now land on Edinburgh’s Fresh Take Records with Tekken: five tracks that show the breadth of their production nouse, taking in dreamy, melody-led broken beat, electro-leaning house and propulsive 4/4 grooves.
With the EP out now, we caught up with Jordan for a chat about what comes next.
Hey Jordan, thanks for chatting with us today! As we approach the end of the year, will you look back on 2022 as being a positive one for you?
Hey, thanks for having us! Yeah 2022 was definitely a positive one, we got to play some great shows, festivals and release new music which is actually going to be played in clubs as opposed to last year when no clubs were open. Also got to meet a lot of DJs this year I have been talking online and putting faces to names etc so it was an all around good year.
Tell us about your journey into electronic music, when did you first fall in love with it?
Electronic music has always been present in my life since a young age, I always had an attraction to it for some reason, I’m not sure if it was because it was just so different to what I would normally hear on the radio at that time or because it was tough to find back in the day. Over the years I’ve developed my taste but I listen to nearly all types of electronic music, if it sounds good it’s good enough for me. I’ve been collecting vinyl for the last 5 years or so now and have found some real gems along with having my own track pressed on vinyl which was a massive milestone for me.
What was the inspiration behind your new EP Tekken, are you big into fighting games??
The lead track from the EP is inspired from TEKKEN 2 but growing up I used to be big into TEKKEN 3 and TEKKEN 4, playing them daily for a long time! I never really got into any other fighting games such as street fighter or mortal kombat. The rest of the tracks were a combination of tracks I had been working on and would work nicely together on a release!
We hear you just got a spin by Pete Tong! That must have been quite a buzz…
Yeah definitely! Pete Tong’s radio show is one of the biggest in the world and to be featured on it was an honour! It gives a great sense of accomplishment and will definitely be used as motivation going forward!
There’s a real variety on the new EP, breaks, house, kinda electro vibes too – is keeping things unpredictable important to you as producers?
We’re still trying to develop and find our sound. Creating the same genre just doesn’t really appeal to me. Most producers are great at perfecting a particular genre or style but I see it as a limitation. I listen to a lot of different music and think this reflects in my productions and helps me create this variety and leaves my releases unpredictable.
How did you hook up with Fresh Take for the release?
We previously released for Fresh Take during Covid for our Feel Good/ Party Time release which did pretty well considering the circumstances of world events, before this I have always been a big fan of Fresh Take. They helped me discover a lot of great music and artists the last couple of years and to have now released 2 EPs with Fresh Take and to add to their great Discography is a real honour!
How do you work in the studio, do you have an idea in your head you work towards or do you just experiment and jam and see what happens?
It is a mixture of both really. Sometimes ideas just stay as ideas and don’t work out the way you had imagined, other times ideas end up turning into something completely different through experimentation and sound much better than originally imagined.
What are some of the key bits of music-making gear in your current setup?
I have only recently moved house so my studio is currently in a pretty makeshift state, but usually when it comes to making tracks and getting into it I use FL studio which isn’t the usual DAW of choice for electronic producers. I use the Akai Fire as a control interface and would highly recommend it to any other producers using FL.
I also use a midi keyboard which I have a couple for different scenarios/setups. Roland tr8s is also great along with the Roland Aira Mx-1 as a mixer/soundcard, I have synths I use mostly for live jams and these include Korg monologue + minilogue, Roland system-1 & behringer tb-303. I have a lovely set of RCF AYRA 8 studio monitors which sound great, along with a set of V-Moda crossfade m100 headphones.
What else should we be looking out for from you for the rest of 2022 and into next year?
We have a couple gigs coming up to close out 2022, still to be announced along with a remix which shall be released at the end of the month. We have some self releases we plan to put out very soon along with continuing our residency on Project Radio based in Edinburgh. We haven’t looked too far into 2023 yet but we expect it to be a big year for us!
