A Devil Amongst The Tailors

Local hip-hop outfit A Devil Amongst The Tailors have been absent from the scene for a while, concentrating on getting their debut album together, but after "six to nine months" spent recording the CD they're ready to return to the live arena. On a quiet Monday afternoon, three members of the group sat down for a chat about the recording process and their upcoming plans.

Adam Dormand covers several bases with his beat production and MCing, while Mike Thomson's role is to "basically play the MPC - mimic drums live on a sampler" and Leroy Colwell is "just an MC." "Not just an MC," Dormand corrects him to all around laughter as Colwell amends his role to "an MC."

Recorded at Thomson's home in a studio Dormand describes as "fairly pro," the trio, with bass player Luke Jones and vocalist Emma Jones, certainly took their time ensuring the end product met their satisfaction. A perfectionist streak meant that this took a while, Thomson in particular agonising over the tough decisions - "you're never happy with it, but I'm proud it's come to where it is."

But while Thomson is critical of his own creation, 'Learning To Swim' is certainly an impressive debut from the act. The title track that opens proceedings is a dramatic instrumental reminiscent of 90s American hip-hop production, but The Good The Bad & The Ugly jumps in immediately after with a procession of punch lines over a faster beat anchored by a jumping bass. More introspective offerings are also in evidence; Waiting For Sunshine opens with a delicate guitar that bears more than a passing similarity to Skunkhour's Up To Our Necks In It and foreshadows a more mellow track while Miss Perfect sees the pair of MCs talk about trying to find their perfect woman while the soundtrack to this fantasy sequence evokes The Avalanches' dreamy summer island pop.

Now that the album's on the streets, A Devil Amongst The Tailors has turned it's attention to the live arena, with the pressing matter of the CD launch coming up. With that in mind, a trumpeter (Chris Weber) has been recruited to help make the show extra special. "He plays in the Transatlantics, so we've been practicing with him, and he's come up with his own interpretations and we've reworked some of the songs to fit a bit more of him in there," Dormand explains, before Thomson takes up the thread. "That as well as taking what we think the song should be a bit further - if it's kind of a sadder song for example, we get the trumpet to play something a bit more mellow and try to get that mood across a bit more."

For the perfectionist producers, this had some interesting results, as Colwell explains; "we've got an old track off the EP ['Straight From The Underground'] that we've just started doing with the trumpet, and it makes it a whole new song and it's raised the bar, and now it's like 'shit, we really should have looked at that', but you can't get everything."

Additionally, vocalist Emma Jones, who appears on about half of the album's 13 tracks, will be at the show, as well as most future shows. "We'd like her to definitely be involved in future recordings and she's gonna play live with us every time possible," Dormand enthuses before reflecting, "she probably pretty much is a member. We haven't officially sat down and said 'is she a member or not?' But she probably pretty much is - she's featured pretty heavily and even the songs that she's not on on the album, when we play live she's got all sorts of bits and that only adds to the track. That's the other stuff where we think 'shit, it would have been great if we'd got her on before we finished it'."

And just to prove that they're always looking for ways to step their game up, all three then simultaneously talk about some of the other ideas that they've had, before Thomson has the last word "and a little bit of strings, so all those ideas we can try to incorporate into the next CD."

Alexis Buxton-Collins

'Learning To Swim' is out now through MGM.

A Devil Amongst The Tailors' album launch is at the Crown & Sceptre Hotel on Sat 14 June with support from General Knowledge, Metrical Minds and DJ David L.