Clubbing Magazine


Leama and Moor are Marty Smith (Leama) and Andy Moor. They have since 1999 been working together, before then they were already successful in the industry - Leama had released tracks with Malcolm Mclaren and also formed Odessi alongside Parks+Wilson. Andy was classically trained and had released tracks and remixes under various aliases on labels like Tommy Boy, Hooj Choons etc. At the time the pair had already co-written tracks like “Melodica” and “Requiem for a Dream” before deciding officially form Leama and Moor. Their first project was to remix 2-players “Signet” for Lost Language and found a new sound together by fusing different styles which created the platform for their trademark mixes. Over the next five years the duo has carried out a series of remixes. As their sound progressed and grew to a new level, so did the names they were asked to remix - Britney Spears, Avril Lavinge, Tiesto, Orbital, Brian Eno, Paul Oakenfold & Above & Beyond. In 2004 they released their debut original single “Shades of Blue/Red” on the Primal Label & “Angle Series 1” on Lost Language. Thier debut album “Common Ground” was released in May 2006, and we got in touch with Andy and Marty to get latest.
Was this journey like experience a set thing from the start when you began recording the album or was this just something that happened? Marty: It was a concept that we spoke about before we started the album, we wanted to do something a little different than just write separate tracks which was mainly dance based. We would both prefer to listen to a good artist album that made you think, had emotion and was deep in places rather than a full-on dance album. We wrote track 1 first and then went from there. It was a challenge to make an album this way but it gave us the opportunity to write different kinds of styles and blend them together and we thoroughly enjoyed doing this You are also known to be a part of the trance community - but I have a hard time placing your album as a trance album - there are floor fillers on it but it also has so many other elements to it. Has this been a conscious decision in creating the album? Marty: No not really,,, we have never considered ourselves as trance and when we started out we just made what seemed natural to us , which was making melodic music , and what we produced crossed over between various different styles of music. Andy: I have a hard time defining ‘trance’ these days anyway and as I’ve always said I am not one to try and put a ‘name’ on the ‘style’ of everything we produce. Marty: It was defiantly a conscious decision, some of our favourite albums are far from dance music, so we wanted to combine our thoughts, sounds, emotions and production into styles that we would like to ‘listen’ to (not necessarily ‘dance’ to). When we make singles we will make dance music, but this is an album.
On "Waiting" you have worked with one my favourite singers Jan Johnston, and once more a fantastic track has emerged - I image that you excited and happy with the track - can you tell me about the working relationship and how the experience was working with her? Andy: Yeah we really enjoyed doing this, and its obviously even more exciting working with the vocals of such a great voice. Jan wrote the song (and sang it…..no that wasn’t Leama’s sweet voice on there, as hard as he tried!) and we wrote the music. How would you describe the album in your own words? Marty: It’s basically a story and a journey within music about that moment in time when it was made. As far as trying to define the style then that is up to the listener, but it is basically music that we enjoyed making and still enjoy listening to. Andy: Exspensive,,,,nah,, well that’s a tough one, It’s a insight into what we represent as producers,,, a story and a journey within an album, which we hope doesn’t get labelled in any particular style but be judged as a musical snapshot from ourselves. How is it to work together and do you always agreeing working in the studio? And does the album title "Common Ground" hints at this working relationship? Marty: Yes that’s the reason for the title really. Working together has been great and an experience for sure, and you always learn from each other's idea's and especially for me, with working with someone who is classically trained I get to see different avenues of where musical aspects can go. Throughout our working relationship it has mostly been a mix of trying to pull each one towards the others idea's and different approach's to a track, and most of the time we kind of have to meet in the middle and compromise, but this is what has made the tunes what they are. You have done a lot of remixes - what are the criteria for you choosing to do the remix? Marty: At the beginning of Leama and Moor we were building the name so we were very happy to be offered the chance to do remixes and couldn’t really turn them down. Soon afterwards we were approached to remix artists like Paul Oakenfold and Brian Eno which was an honour at the time and they were great projects. Since then we have been lucky enough to remix Britney Spears and Tiesto as well as some great underground tracks too, but mostly when we get offered a remix it has to be a project we both like and feel we can do something with. We turned down Rabbit in the moon as it was unethical!
	Tell me about the remix that you did of Brian Eno "An Ending / Ascent"? Marty: This originally was an official mix as we were asked by a licensee on behalf of virgin / universal to do the remix. Everyone like it and it was all going ahead until Brian Eno's management decided against the project as he had an album coming out and it could effect this. After this an outside label decided to press it up as there was demand for it and it seemed to get well received. What are you feelings about the quality of the club music at the moment and how do you see it will evolve in the future? Marty: I’m really excited about the music at the moment, there are many different styles that have established themselves now, but also there are many tracks that cross over all the styles too. I think everybody's production has really stepped up a lot and dance music is fusing with the band culture more these days. Now that things have almost become completely digital, its a lot easier to find all kinds of new music from all over the world that can be sent to you within minutes, which means that the range of music you are playing is much wider. Andy: I too am excited for all of the above reasons; there are a lot of cross genre tracks… electro basslines with nice melodies which get played by all types of DJs for example. There has obviously been an influx of slightly poor music too but it’s just a matter of filtering. It was obvious that as soon as production equipment became available to the masses that there would be a lot more music which is a great thing. As long as producers don’t think they are famous when they get a track released and keep learning and developing their style then the future is very bright and will evolve to wherever we all collectively take it. Dance music will always keep a relative formula to allow people to dance to it; it’s how far we can stretch these boundaries inside the realms of dance music that will make for exciting times.
What are you feelings about the club scene? Can you compare the UK scene with the rest of the world? Marty: The UK scene was always at the forefront of dance music in its day, but now the scene is completely global and very refreshing. It’s always good to see a club night in the UK do well but I think the scene is better abroad for DJ's now because people appreciate the DJ more and seem to make a special effort to make things happen. There is also the culture difference, Eastern Europe and South America seem to be the places to go at the moment and you can feel that through the people at the parties. Andy: Every country in the world is different, and I think the UK has the best variety of music for clubbers as it has always been one of the leaders. The scene here is certainly getting better again, sell out crowds in clubs are back and a new generation of party people have arrived with the help of club owners and promoters taking their role a lot further in the scene. I mostly play abroad and I love it there, every country is different and the scene is growing a lot in general, although every country is at different stages in their ‘dance music’ journey. I don’t think you can compare the scene here to the rest of the world, other countries do not have the history of club music, but they are more refreshing to play. It also gets annoying when everybody asks “so where in London are you from”, they seem to think there is not life outside of London (Londoners may argue this point too!). What is the next step for you? Are we going to see "Waiting" as a single release from the album? Marty: We think that “Waiting” is going to be the next single off the album, but we are still looking into who's going to remix it. We will probably get one electro/progressive mix done and one more trancier mix done, but nothing is confirmed yet.
Interview by: Christian Almind