Album Review: Jack listened to the new Captain Flatcap Album

The editor gives his take on the new Captain Flatcap LP

Having recently decided to take a step back from actually writing the blog posts, it may strike some of you as odd to see my name in the byline again. There’s a simple explanation.

A few days ago I received a promo copy of the Captain Flatcap album, which was released today on Scour Records. To say that there were some nerves as I downloaded the files would not be overstating things. I’ve been a big fan of the Flatcap sound since I first discovered their remixes a few years ago. I enjoyed their early releases, including collaborations with Dutty Moonshine. Was this full length album going to live up to the early promise, or would it be one of those that leaves one feeling shortchanged? Full-length albums are few and far between in this scene, so when one disappoints it really feels like a kick in the teeth. It can be hard to sustain originality across that many tracks, especially if the act don’t look to push the boundaries of what vintage remix can be.

I’m very pleased to report that Captain Flatcap have sidestepped this pitfall with considerable flair. They’ve managed to weave together such a wide variety of influences, from ska to hip hop by way of folk and dnb, glitch, electro-house, plus a healthy dose of swing, all the while maintaining a style that is recognisably Catflap.

It perhaps should not come as a surprise that they do this with such apparent ease, given that Chris and Tom Rotherham, the brothers who represent 2/3 of the band, are classically trained musicians. The subtlety of the instrumentation at points is remarkable. In particular Chris’s flute is used to great effect on a  number of occasions to provide a lightness, brightness of sound that is rather uplifting.

That said, if their skill is only signalled by the gentle waving of a silk handkerchief, their love of a jolly good knees-up is announced rather more rowdily, with blaring brass and some very silly, squelchy wubs.

There's also a humourous tone to a number of tracks, with spoken samples taken from the likes of Black Books and Monty Python, which  gives an interesting insight into the chap's viewing habits, as well as providing a few genuinely funny drops.

I genuinely find it difficult to pick an objective favourite out of these tracks. I imagine that traditional electro-swing fans are going to feel most at home with tracks like ‘Coconut Affair’ and ‘Are you Me’, which sounds to my ear very much like some of the Jenova Collective’s work.

But for me the tracks that have been on heaviest rotation for me are the two hip-hop tinged tracks, 'Boom Bap Boxing' and 'Squeaky Clean', both very different, but featuring some of my favourite MCs on the scene: Great Scott and Too Many Ts respectively. I really look forward to 'Squeaky Clean' being released as a single: I imagine that the video will be fun.

But then I’m a sucker for hip hop. I can also see 'Sergei’s Journey' being spun by DJs in about three of Boomtown’s districts, so that implies a certain versatility. For straight out dancefloor stormers the appropriately named 'Filth Wizard', 'Alien Jazz', and 'Are you me?' are the go-to tracks.

I wrote on Facebook that I thought this was an example of what vintage remix can be, and I stand by that: While there’s a definable thread that runs through the work, there’s so much variety in this album that I think it should help to shove the scene out of the creative rut that it was in danger of entering. I can see this some tracks appealing not only to the vintage remix community, but to a wider audience of dance music fans, especially the growing community of Americans who have grown bored with 'EDM' and are beginning to explore the weirder corners of the dance music world.

Go out and buy this album now. Seriously. Do it.

Why are you still here?

Guest Post: Captain Flatcap Album Preview

Captain Flatcap's Tom Rotherham joins us for a guest blog to let us know a bit about what to expect from their new self-titled album. 

Hi everyone, Tom Rotherham here from Captain Flatcap, guest blogging about our upcoming album and paying tribute to Jack the Cad for having me on his superb Guide To Vintage Remix – thank you! For those of you who don't know me, I'm trumpet and guitar player and co-producer (alongside my brother Chris) in Captain Flatcap.

'What is Captain Flatcap?!' can be a hard question to answer but I'll endeavour to be concise. Musically, it is [*inhales deeply*] multi-genre, vintage-remix, instrumental, electronic dance music! It is the live 3-piece band. And the DJ. And the production duo... besides of course being my brother Chris, the Captain... who wears a flatcap... confused? Just watch this interview from earlier this year.

---

"we grew to realise we are fundamentally a dance music live band, and it wasn't until the term vintage remix came about that we felt truly well-placed in the scene"

---

It feels great to say that we'll be releasing our self-titled, debut but long-time-coming album on the 24th of November 2016 on Scour Records! Of course, this feels like a real milestone for us. Chris started the band four and a half years ago, and we released the studio session video of 'Funky Farmers' and not long after that our remix of 'Dragons' by Caravan Palace, which, combined, got us noticed in the electroswing scene. Although we are (since 2010) big Caravan Palace and Dutty Moonshine fans, we never intended to be an electroswing band. Rather we grew to realise we are fundamentally a dance music live band, and it wasn't until the term vintage remix came about that we felt truly well placed in the scene. Since we started out we've experimented with combining all sorts of vintage styles – swing, ska, funk, folk etc. - with different styles of dance music and the album is almost a portfolio of much of what we've tried to do.

There's something for everyone on the album - with the Spanish guitar + ska + DnB party antics of 'Are You Me?', the Russian mandolin electro voyage of 'Sergei's Journey', the trademark Flatcap electroswing sound of 'Coconut Affair' and the filthy squelchy glitch of 'Awakening' - as you'd expect it features a multitude of instruments (including the classic flute an trumpet parts,) and a variety of genres and tempos.

---

"it would be nice to hear more music that's come from deeper than the surface of infinity"

---

Chris's inspiration formed the core of the record. He started eight of the ten tracks and brought out their basic compositional essence ('Coconut Affair' and 'Boom Bap Boxing' were the only two I produced completely independently). In November 2015 Chris told me he was ready to release the album, but I certainly wasn't. The next 6 months were filled with tireless and sometimes argumentative work, composing and recording but mainly producing the album, smoothing out every rough edge and sitting frustrated in a makeshift cabin studio in Australia whilst all around us, outside, was a music festival... six months after that and a festival season later, it is finally ready!

Our aims for the LP and and how and why we've made it take me back to our childhood. My brother Chris and I have always had very similar musical tastes, especially when it comes to dance music. We grew up listening to the same bands and receiving classical music tuition in our instruments. We were at first both very apprehensive of dance music but gradually came round to it via artists like Justice and Infected Mushroom who combine more traditional musical elements like melody and harmony with the power and timbres of dance music.

We both became obsessed with dirty electrohouse, with its complex, layered sounds and melodies; this is what inspired Chris to write the first Captain Flatcap tune 'Funky Farmers' and it helped to form the basis of Flatcap's creative ethos. Our electrohouse days also had a huge influence on our production style; despite being a band, we produce our tunes like typical dance music (strong beats, little live band feel), because that's what our music is – dance music. These days I don't dive deep into listening to any particular genre, what I love is finding things I haven't heard before, anything that's different. The ecstatic fascination I felt when hearing both Caravan Palace and Dutty Moonshine's first electroswing tracks (the latter aren't available any more!) for the first time are now something I chase. So, I think of vintage remix and combining genres as a way of finding this.  Both Chris and I agree that a huge part of Captain Flatcap is about making music that we would enjoy, and I've found when writing for Flatcap that it's like I'm making the unknown music for which I've been searching but can't find.

The Captain Flatcap lineup: L-R, Tom Rotherham, Chris Rotherham, Matt Woods

A suggestion Jack the Cad made to me for this blog was that if we have a point to make with this album, make it here.

After reflecting, something small occurred to me. We don't really have a point to make, we don't think music should be made any particular way, we just do it like this because we like to... But... the reason we've taken to vintage remix and combining genres is because it opens a world of infinite possibilities; to me, vintage-remix means the allowance to literally combine anything in the whole world of music. Ever. And now with technology and electronic music, a whole new world of music has opened up.

That's pretty mind-blowing if you think about it, so, at least for us it would be nice to hear more music that's come from deeper than the surface of infinity, people can allow themselves to be thrown into it a bit further. The only rule I follow (although it's subjective) is that you have to work to create a convincing, unified expression when combining genres; you can't just play Edvard Grieg's 'Morning' and System of a Down's 'This Cocaine Makes Me Feel Like I'm On This Song' simultaneously and expect their aesthetics to merge! It's worth saying here that a fair bit of our music is unplanned or comes from happy coincidences. We use whatever we have available (e.g flute!) and try random things and just go with it and make it work (we hope!)





It is an honour, a pleasure and privilege to be releasing the album with Scour Records! It's not only our first LP but Scour's as well, so we're really happy to be working together to reach the same milestone.  We're also stoked to have collaborated with the amazing rap duos Too Many T's and Great Scott, vocalist and album designer Isabel Drake, and glitch-hop connoisseur William Breakspear. They've all made the album truly special – big up! Over the summer we performed all three vocal collaborations - spontaneously playing new music live on stage has a reliable magical energy, I'll never forget each performance and you can expect more live collab performances to come!

So once again, the Captain Flatcap self-titled, debut album is out on Scour Records on the 24th November 2016, exclusive to Juno. Soon after that, physical CD copies will be available to buy from our bandcamp page. These are worth a special mention - they contain sleeve notes, beautiful artwork designed by Roo and Isabel Drake and a free poster - a collage of memorable Flatcap moments! On the 12th of December the album will be available to buy on all other outlets.

Finally, we want to say a huge thank you to everyone who's helped us get the ball rolling and everyone we've met in the vintage remix scene - it's a beautifully warm, inviting unpretentious community – big up!

Captain Flatcap - Exclusive interview and free music download

Since its Friday, and I know many of you will be reminiscing about last weekend's Bank Holiday, I thought you might need cheering up. I myself have only just fully recovered from the after effects of Swingamajig, where I had a thoroughly splendid time. My remedy is sure to get you back in the party spirit, and is guaranteed to make you smile - not only do I have a nice little interview with Captain Flatcap for you, but I also have some EXCLUSIVE FREE MUSIC ahead of the release of their Debut EP 'Bonklet'. Don't say I'm not good to you.

Jack the Cad: Right then chaps, lets start with you all introducing yourselves.

Chris Rotherham: Hello! I'm Chris the Captain! I play flute and guitar.

Tom Rotherham: I'm Tom, Chris's younger brother - guitarist and trumpeter, and co-producer.

Gareth Roberts: And I'm Gareth, the "box whacker"

Jack the Cad: Box-whacker! Nice.

Chris: Yes, I think 'Box Whacker' is the official term. But for those of you not down with the lingo, this means he plays the cajon and various other percussion.

Jack the Cad:  And for those who don't already know, explain what Captain Flatcap is, in all its glorious forms.

Tom: Multi-genre electronic dance music, with influences of swing, ska, funk, folk and anything and everything - both the live band and the DJ Chris Rotherham.

Chris: Yeah, the live band has so many genres intertwined I wouldn't know where to begin, nor say we are even a specific genre.

Chris: But when I do DJ sets its usually "electro swing" and "ghetto funk", in all their various forms.

Tom: We toyed around for a while trying to come up with a catchy made-up genre name but gave up when we realised it was impossible to accurately reflect what we do in under 4 words. I think my favourite suggestion was 'squelchadelic'

Chris: Filth-folk was my favorite suggestion, but we're not really folky at all

Tom: Yeah, we just have flute.

Chris: Haha... Squeltchadelic swing skankin ska stomp...

Jack the Cad: Ok, I see the problem! I saw that one or more of you had a gig in Clapham last night - how was that?

Chris: Yeah, I did a DJ set in Clapham last night put on by 'Wonderland Festival', was a really good night, decent crowd, good vibes. Tested 2 of the 4 tracks on our forthcoming EP out on them... Not meaning to blow my own flute here, but they went down pretty well!

Tom: There's been a lack of live gigs recently 'cause i'm off being a uni wanker in Huddersfield - we'll be doing a lot more in the summer, watch out for that!

Chris: Yup, gunna get out giggin' caps back on!

Jack the Cad: Ok, so Chris you mentioned your new ep. "Bonklet"...  good name!

Chris: You reckon? Cheers! We were gonna call it "Skank N Stomp" but discovered there's already some event called that

Tom: 'Bonklet' was originally thought of by Dutty Moonshine, who started off the first track. Not sure what it refers too but I like to think of it as the sound the bass riff makes.

Chris: Yeah I can hear that now you mention it!

Jack the Cad: "Bonklet" is at least as good a name. The ep. Has a couple of collabs on it - who were you working with and how did they come about?

Chris: Well we'd been meaning to write a track properly with Dutty Moonshine for a while cos we'd only remixed a track by them in the past, although we did feature on a track on their last EP with flute and guitar. "Real thing", that's the name of the track.

Tom: Well we've been meaning to collaborate with Dutty Moonshine for a while - they were a massive influence on us when we first started getting into electro-swing before Captain Flatcap even existed. I guess we've got a fairly similar and they're such lovely chaps so it seemed natural.

Chris Rotherham: Yeah, to be honest when we first started working with them it was pretty surreal.

Jack the Cad: Surreal how?

Chris Rotherham: Well just a few months previously I thought of them as a really big deal... I still do. I just didn't even think writing a tune with them would happen! But yeah just cos of their position in the electro swing world, it was a bit of a dream come true. They're fairly normal people really...faaaaairly.

Jack the Cad: Hang on... I've met them too, remember!

Chris: Hahaha! Oh yeah. Anyway, Kitten and the Hip have been wanting to do a collab with us since we remixed their track a year or so ago "Shut up and dance".



Tom: Yeah, that track went down really well, so we've got something with a fairly similar for the EP.

Jack the Cad: So, do you feel like you guys are starting to make waves in the scene now as well?

Chris: I think we're making waves in various scenes, it's been hard to get any where in the "Electro Swing" world, purely because we don't play just electro-swing.

Tom: Yeah for sure, i'd say we have a pretty wide spectrum of people in our audience.

Chris: Yeh, I guess the newest to that is the ghetto funk audience, we're making more and more 100-110bpm tracks now (this free track "Alien Jazz") for one!

Jack the Cad: So what do you make of suggestions that the term 'electro-swing' is too specific a term for what the scene has morphed into in the last couple of years?

Chris: I'd say that's spot on. Electro-swing only really fits the really swingy, electro, housey, tracks, when really there are so many sub-genres. Hip-hop, glitch-hop, drum'n'bass, dubstep, etc etc. Even trap [Chris makes a face]. ...I joke.

Jack the Cad: Hahah. Just wait for gabber-swing?

Chris: Oh good grief! It's probably already a thing.

Tom: Anyone who makes gabber-swing should be shot. But I've come to think that there's two types of 'electro-swing' these days - there's pure electro-swing which literally makes swing music electronic, and a newer scene which simply seems to be multi-genre EDM music.

Chris: Gazz any comment?... "THE TRACKS THAT GO WUB ARE THE BEST!"?

Gareth: Haha Chris you know me too well! I think there is a tendency to pigeon hole anything with a swing sample and a beat as electro- swing whereas the genre has grown and developed so much further over the last few years.

Jack the Cad: I think we had better change track lest we disappear down a genre-busting black hole!... You've got a little exclusive freebie for Jack the Cad readers, I believe...

Chris: Yes indeed! I guess influences on this one are glitch-hop and trip-hop really, with a bit of swing in there too, and some Monty Python samples for good measure!

Tom: It's very silly.

Chris Rotherham: Yes, silly silly silly! I had it on the back burner for a while needing to be finished, pretty much been working on it solidly for the last few days. I'm awful at finishing tracks before starting new ones...

Jack the Cad: Excellent - we like them silly. And I can break out the Ministry of Silly Walks on the dancefloor.

Chris: Yes!!!

Tom: Hahaha I'd love to see a dance floor of people doing that.

Jack the Cad: Make it happen! Where are you gigging in the next little while?

Chris Rotherham: Oh god, I'm gonna have to refer to my list... we've got a few small ones here and there, Southampton, Chichester... we're doin' Bournemouth Uni graduation ball, that's gonna be funny! DJ sets at Noisily and Boomtown. Live at Illusive festival. Oh and I think I'm DJing at a wedding in Scotland too...but really we've been trying to get this EP out rather than get gigs, once it goes out I'm sure we'll have more dates for the summer.

Jack the Cad: Great stuff! So, finally you had better let us know when and where we can get this EP of yours.

Chris: So it's being released on Rocstar Records and is out on Juno for a 1 week exclusive on 15th June, then out everywhere else 22nd June.

Tom:  There's a preview up on YouTube and Soundcloud at the moment too - search 'captain flatcap bonklet EP'.



Jack the Cad: And any other messages for my loyal readers? Or for any disloyal ones?

Tom Rotherham: We're stupidly excited about releasing the EP, I'd definitely say it's our best overall work to date, been working towards it since Captain Flatcap started out, hopefully you'll all like it too!

Chris: Cheers for reading, if you dig the EP please buy it, it'll make us very happy!

Tom: Gareth! any last words?

Chris Rotherham: WUB WUB WUB.

Gareth: [silence].

[Editors' note - This interview was conducted via the internet, and Gareth had a very poor connection. This makes it sound like he was in a war-zone, so we shall leave it at that.]

So here is that promised free download - have a listen to the Soundcloud below and then insert finger here for the free download link.