Clubbing Magazine

From South Florida comes Thomas Penton a veteran that has been DJ'ing, producing and releasing tracks since 1992. His sound is dark, tuff - a mixture of deep trance, progressive and tribal - his + 40 productions have been released on Perfecto, Boz Boz, Release, Armada and many other labels. His remix of Nujen - Darksides was featured on Paul Oakenfolds - Great Wall and has pushed Thomas Penton career even further. Thomas Penton is current working on mixing a compilation mix CD for the Danish label Nervine Records that also has released his latest release “Distorted Reality”. On another Danish label Nano Beat he has released the double A-sided 12” “Monolith” / “Settle the Score” and when Thomas Penton was in Copenhagen for the Nervine Records release party in May 2004 we sat down with him to get the story.

Some of my favourite tracks are your remixes of Nujen - Darksides (Release Records) and Chris Domingo - Darklight (Boz Boz) where does the Thomas Penton sound come from?

- Well - those tracks I think are a little darker and progressive. Right now I’m feeling like I want to get away from the darker stuff – I would like to get more club friendly and pumping type of sound, more tribal actually. Technical these tracks to be given that characteristic are all actually, a lot of virtual synth, audio sync, Cubase and Reason – tweaked out and edited to hell and that’s how it’s pulled off. Those tracks diffidently share some similarity in style, but that style is something I personally want to get away from – I’ve done it for so long – right now I’m trying to change a little bit – sometimes it’s more trancy and sometimes it’s more housy – let see what I can do the next couple of months.

I see your sound as a crossing between progressive and deep trance with the deep dark sounds.
- Totally - I can diffidently see the similarity - many years ago I did the more harder edge trance music and we were very dark at that point, so a lot of that is still is in me and that’s why I still incorporate that characteristic into todays stuff.

But your sound is also a Thomas Penton trademark?
- Everybody says that – they say the minute when they hear the track that’s it mine. That sound – which is good, but for me I have been hearing it so long – it’s time for me to move on and try to do something else – as an artist your brain has its own characteristic and it’s hard to break out of that.

Your remix of Nujen - Darksides was featured on Paul Oakenfold’s - Great Wall – has that made in impact on you career?
- Sure - it has established my name more. Its strange Paul Oakenfold has always been playing a lot of my stuff – I have always been sending him material when I’m done making a project – hoping he would support it. It’s good and bad – Oakenfold is very commercial and a lot of people don’t respect him – but overall it’s a plus not a negative. Release Records that original owns the track still releases it with success.

Do you approach a remix differently from an original track by Thomas Penton?
- It all depend on the time and schedule – it’s always fluxating - sometimes too much sometimes too little. Everyone will say a remix is easier to make because you already know the foundation, you already know where you are heading and you know what you have to use. Originals can be a pain in the neck – you will switch it 8000 times and you finally get it done. But I will always be writing an original track.

You have done a remix of Mary J Blige “Real Love” that was released on RR1000 from Release Records – how did that come around?
- Ohh – well let me quickly say Release Records shop are the best store in America – great guys, great store always upfront with the promos and their label send me the full on vocals of her singing and I didn’t think it really fitted that song, the speed of the chorus is totally wrong, so I just found the few words she said about the rhythm and I pretty much wrote an original track around it – I was happy because we heard a lot of people playing it – Deep Dish had it in their sets month before the record came out and it sold really well and I’m really happy with that.

You are from Miami - tell me how you see the US club scene.
- I personally think that Miami has the best club life in all of United Stats – reason why - is the location, being the beach, the tourist, the combination of all the Europeans, the nationalities and so forth. The clubs themselves – there is so much variety – you can have a 200 person small nice techno club, right next to a super club like Crowbar with 4000 people. They are great venues, with millions and millions of dollars spend in these places. Club Space is in a 15 million US$ renovation and can hold 4-5000 people. New York I think is making a comeback – they are having a lot of new super clubs that are re/opening. Los Angeles in my opinion is a little stagnated – Giant and Spundae are doing the same thing, there is nothing new and fresh. Las Vegas always got so much money and they can do what ever they want and they have some decent clubs. So just for an overall good night out with a good atmosphere - I think that Miami is the best place.

What kind of music inspires you?
- It’s strange because before all the dance music – I was so hardcore into hip-hop – so I don’t know how I ended up here where I’m now. I was into the 80´s synth pop stuff, but on a more commercial mainstream basis – I didn’t get deep into it and a lot of rock and role of cause – Zeppelin rules.

You have also released a sample CD with drum loops – where did the idea come from to do this?
- I have been collecting samples for many years now – samples I got from other people, sounds I’ve done myself and I’ve created a massive library over time and I figured if I edited these sounds a better way and cleaned them up and put them in a compilation easy for producers to access it would sell. And it did – I sold it via my website.

I don’t see your music as typical West or East coast music.
- Exactly – I don’t known if it’s a good thing or a bad thing – when I DJ I don’t like to play the kind of music that I make – right now I’m trying to play a lot of stuff from Spain, which would be more in the tribal end – I will start off very progressive sounding and then go into the more harder tribal stuff. West coast is very house orientated – East coast is still on that UK progressive trip – but Miami has its own flavour. Spain is where it’s at on new tunes.

Interview : Christian Almind

Related features: Photos from Nervine Records 2004