Duncan Thomas shares his musical inspirations

Duncan Thomas is a producer, esteemed live performer and vinyl digger. He has been collecting records for more than ten years and his own productions can be recognised through his use of deep sound design mixed with a background in jazz. As a trained engineer, his understanding of hardware is second nature, and led him to build his own studio in east London, and start his own teaching practice Duncan Thomas Studio. It is this mix of musical theory and technical ability that makes for a genuinely unique and engaging style, which routes itself to the dancefloor but creates harmonic space to transcend.

Duncan Thomas productions can be found on the likes of Animal Crossing, Silky Beats, HOWL records, Circa Groove, Deux Mesures, Router and his homogenous label; The Check In. As an east London resident you can find him spinning records in the booth at The Lion & Lamb, or playing live in venues such as Bar 90, and most notably Fabric.

With five forthcoming releases on the way alongside multiple collaborations, and over ten years of experience under his belt, you can expect to see a lot more of Duncan.

Off the back of his latest offering ‘The Check In 006’ Dancan talks us through a few of his musical influences that have helped cultivate his sound that we hear today…

Youandewan - Happiness Machine 

Youandewan has always been one of my favourite producers and this may be my pick of the bunch from him. It completely encapsulates the essence of “squiggle” with its movement. For me its the perfect balance of deep and groovy, driving yet smooth and almost always makes it onto the turntables at an afterparty. Ewan also completely influenced the way I write HiHats to this day, leaning heavily into the off beats and using loads of LFO’d resonance to create small swoosh like FX that really make the groove feel alive. 

Relative Progress - E’s Theory

This track takes us back to the 90s and if you have ever seen me DJ you’ll know that 90s and 2000s house is a staple ingredient to any set. The more I DJ the more I am searching for older music. It seems to put the puzzle together of why I like what I like now and why house music is where it is. I heard the track in a mix by Julian Anthony and it got me immediately. I think music from this era also reminds me how most of the best grooves just require a few ingredients to be well crafted and well balanced, not over complicated. As a producer I can easily overcomplicate my music so I need daily reminders of this concept. 

This track just shows how a good chord progression can lead a track from start to finish. The emotion and feel is created as soon as those chords come in at the beginning and the harmonies lace beautifully over the top and around them as the track progresses. The sound design on the synths is also really lush. I try to achieve this kinda feel in my own tracks perhaps in a slightly more modern way though. 

Nick Holder - Forever In a Daze 

This rack is a Defected classic from 2015 or so I think. It has some classic female vocal sampling and really nice modulating chords that again lead the track. They give it quite a powerful emotive feel and for me this is something I am always trying to achieve or even if I’m not trying to it seems to come out in my music one way or another. As a classically trained musician deep harmony has always been what has hit me the most. Don't get me wrong there is always a place for transcending in the hammer zone of driving techno, but it doesn’t tend to influence my music as much as the more melodic and harmonic styles do. That's why this classic sits right there as a sort of deep house anthem for me. 

Richenel - Gentle Friend 

I heard Ernesto play this track during one of his legendary Beirut Groove Collective Nights, followed by hours of music of really high quality. I wanted to put this one in as an ode to funk and also synth pop. This EP by Richenel is one of my favourites and has such a stinky funk to it. This kind of live electronic synth pop always makes me want to dance and inspires me to make music, it has an aliveness that people are always trying to replicate in DAWs and often failing. The easiest thing to fall down on when making dance music is soul and reality. 

When people make music on their own in a studio or on a laptop it can suck the life out their music and leave them with some pretty sterile results, myself included so I often look to live musicians to re inspire me and remind what music sounds like when its free and moving and not labored over too much with a tooth comb.

Jake Flory - Mutables 

There are a whole host of tracks I could put in here that fit the category of atmospheric and deep. I thought I would put this track Mutables by Jake Flory in to represent that style. Jake is someone I actually got to know online during lock down. He helped me sort out some hardware issues and is a synth / modular wizard. If your a modular head you will hear it pretty clearly in his tracks. I got obsessed with his sound for a while. There are two things that in my opinion that he does so effortlessly. One of those is his ability to create a rich soundscape, and the other is the mixing of this soundscape. The music is so dense and rich but also delicate, and it makes you feel like you are floating when you listen to it. Its quite surreal actually. 

How do you make something repetitive enough to transcend but not so repetitive that it becomes boring? Its an age old question really, but I think Jake does this really well alongside other producers like iO (Mulen), Sakro, Janeret, Alexis Cabrera and many more. This is something I am always trying to achieve in my music too. 

Sweely - Positiv Violence

An obvious choice is this one. And to be honest I could put almost any Sweely track in but this is the one that came to mind fastest. The guy needs no introduction, but as a modern influence he has been huge for me. It's the ultimate funk and groove, bass face and steeze, and relentlessly sexy. It might sound silly but I really like it when music sounds sexy, and like the track itself to have its own attitude and personality, especially for tracks I want to play on the dance floor. “Positive Violence” makes you move and want to dance and makes you feel sort of cheeky. 

Sweely was also a big inspiration for me to play live, alongside other producers such as Kink or Octave One. The art of the live show is hard to pull off and there are so many different ways you can set it up and potential things that can go wrong, and I have always been impressed with the way Sweely has consistently pulled it off. 

Mildlife - Magnificent Moon

If you don’t know Mildlife, check them out, they are one of my favourite bands and manage to pull sleaze and groove in the live setting insanely well. They really know how to take the listener on a journey, through laced harmonies and a relentlessly tight rhythm section. Some of their tracks can feel like ten minute extended jams even though they are so carefully arranged and you just kind of loose yourself in them. 

As a producer I always love making the beginning of the track like anyone, that initial creation is so invigorating and exciting. But I feel like I can lose some of that flare when it comes to arrangement. When I listen to a band like Mildlife it reminds me just how important arrangement is. When things happen is just as important as the source ingredients within the track. It depends what you're making of course but I like to make music that is a little bit euphoric and therefore that means it works better with a narrative and a bit of storytelling. Magnificent Moon takes you on a complete journey with the arping synth on the intro and the trade between vocals and replying synth melodies, all the while with such beautiful sound design and mixing. 

Buy/Listen to ‘The Check In 006’ here

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