The Score Magazine - Archive August 2015 issue! | Page 43

NIRUPAMA BELLIAPA
It didn’t come easy – Harley’s journey started at a nightclub in a
little English village before he started working at a record shop
in Piccadily, London while simultaneously studying Music
Production at SAE. “It was tough, I had to live lightly, get loads
of buses, eat basic food, I could never eat out or do anything fancy
– but I made it work” remembers Harley. An unforgettable tryst
with the sultry Spanish isle of Ibiza in 2000 and several late night
rendez vous of the sonic kind would soon see Harley working at
legendary nightclub Space, where he first met Sasha. “Sasha
was one of our residents, so I generally hung out with him a lot.
He approached me - I think he’d just sacked his tour manager –
and asked if I wanted to work just for him and I was like ‘That
sounds great!’ I still remember when I got the phone call from his
manager, and honestly I ran around the house screaming – it was
so exciting, because that was the beginning”.
What would follow was a highly potent mix of travel, music, clubs,
festivals touring the world with Sasha – one of the most innovative
thinkers in the dance music space, a man who doesn’t shy away
from exploring the new and unknown, a technological pioneer as
much as he is a creative mastermind.
How has being around an artist like Sasha influenced
your own musical approach?
Being around Sasha, I think the way that he treats music is truly
inspiring. He’s been around for such a long time but he never relies
on his history to keep him going - he’s always looking forward to
the future. He never plays old records – if a record’s 6 months old,
he won’t play it. And I think that’s why he’s still going – he plays
new records that no one’s ever heard before
What’s his set up at the moment?
Right now he’s just using Traktor with 3 CDJs, a Pioneer Nexus
900 mixer, an RMX 1000 FX unit, and we just carry a recorder.
Pretty simple compared to the old days when it was laptops, midi
controllers and all that.
Tell me about his setup in the old days and about