The two first met in college and their avid enjoyment of playing good music have led them to DJ and produce together for the past seven years.

They are signed to respected UK label Botchit and Scarper, which has been responsible for shaping the sound of nu-skool breaks and bringing it to ears and feet on the dancefloor.

SOTO have appeared on numerous Botchit compilations and mixed a few as well. They're also making inroads into production, with the tech-y breaks workout 'Pigsy' under their belt.

We talked to the sun-baked pair after a gig at Bilique in KL and a trip to Malaysia's Perhentian Islands. Toby obliged us with a discussion about breaks, the industry and Malaysian food even though it was his birthday and there was cake.

Toby: I think what it takes is people like Johan, Beatmonkey, to actually do what we were doing years ago.

It's a belief in a certain kind of music that you want to push because you really believe in it and you persevere. You'll do parties where not many people turn up... sometimes no one will turn up, but its perseverance, believing in the music, the scene that you want people to get into.

It's about trying and letting people hear the music that's out there... trying to educate, but not in a kind of pompous way, rather just trying to show people that there's some great music out there, come and listen to it 'cos you'll probably enjoy it.

Everywhere we've been, whether it's Australia, England, America, it's always started with a little core of people who like the music, who heard it from somewhere or other, got into it.. and then putting on little parties to try and get other people into it.

Anywhere in the world, for example London, all the little labels started like that. Just a couple of people who say, look I really like this music, I want to try and get it out to people. It's not about money or commercial things, it's about putting the music out to people and letting them hear really good, interesting music that they may have not heard before but you really think they should have heard because its great music.

You need to build something slowly and get the people interested for a long time. I mean everybody around the world has been listening to house and techno and that's the thing, house and techno have been going for like ten, twelve years, they've built up a solid foundation.

Whatever genre is doing it, they've got to build up a foundation for a few years. You may think 'I'll stick with it for a couple of months and see what happens', but if you like the music, you should be there for as long as it takes.

But once the scene gets bigger, isn't there always the problem of egos and rivalry? What's the situation like in the UK for example?

T: We all know each other, it's like a community and we all give each other all our new tracks and kind of go what do you think about this? We get feedback from other people who we trust because they all write really good tunes... Freq Nasty, people like that, they're all people we know and are friends with. We socialise with them and it's really nice to be able to do that.

There's no point being rivals or having any kind of animosity between people because the music as a whole is what everybody's pushing and if people make good tunes and play 'em and push 'em, whether it be on (Rennie Pilgrem's label) TCR or on (the Plump DJs home) Finger Lickin', whatever, if it's a good tune we all play it you know.

The genre as a whole is not big enough to support one person or one producer, everybody knows that the music has to gain a wider audience and once we're there, hopefully there'll be enough space for everybody to express ourselves in our own individual ways.
 

Alot of people are using the Internet to download music... what do you think of the Internet and it's effects on the music industry?

T: In one way its good, people are hearing a lot of [new] stuff, although from a record label point of view, sales, especially for CDs, have significantly gone down in the last couple of years, because obviously a lot of people just buy one copy, burn it and pass it on to their friends.

From an artist's point of view it's not great, because a lot of people buy stuff and they give the label and the artist the respect they should get for making the music.

But I suppose it's inevitable in a way, its difficult to know what to say about it... I mean, we've all burnt CDs before, we all do it to an extent but to fully rip off songs... I don't agree with it, but it's very difficult to control.

It would be great to have some way of getting contributions to the label even if someone burns a CD.

At the end of the day, independent labels don't make money, we're (Botchit and Scarper) not making money. we put out music for the love it, and to try to get it out to more people so if people are blatantly not paying for the stuff we release, that we've worked so hard on, just to cover the cost of promotions and stuff like that, then... so from a more independent point of view it's not great.

I think it's something that people will have to address and come to some kind of agreement with in some way.
 

What about independent labels?

T: People on big labels like Gatecrasher, Ministry, Cream and stuff like that,  it's not a huge problem, because they sell so many in England, Germany, Europe... they sell a lot of genuine copies.

But with independent labels it does make a difference.. we only sell maybe a couple of thousand whereas Ministry (of Sound) might sell like 50,000...

And even if we make a little bit of money we put it straight back in [to the label] to put out the next release.. we don't make money.

The bottom-line is that the artists are not making money. They put a lot of time into it and they're not getting anything out of it.

We travel a lot to play in different places, but we're not making any money. [for us] It's all about the music and getting people to hear the music, we like letting people hear the music.

Sonia likes her zebras.

It's not like we wont come out and play unless we have 10,000 people waiting... we just charge a minimal fee to cover our costs.. its really about the love of the music.

It's the people without the money who tend to be the ones who are the breeding grounds that generate the more interesting music that the bigger labels then pick up on.

Independent labels are where all the interesting new music comes out from, right down at the bottom. There must be independent labels for the whole dance music scene to exist.

[independent labels] need big labels to pick up on little tunes like (drum n bass crossover hit) T-Power and Shy FX's 'Shake Your Body', for example, and push them and in return give some of the profits back to the smaller labels and the artists to keep the whole thing going. It has to work like that.

We're on an independent label and we're going to keep going whatever. We don't make money but we'll still keep putting those tunes out... there them still people in the business making great tunes and we have to put them out because we love the music. Hopefully other people appreciate it and we get to put out the next release.

 

What do you make of the whole 'prog is dead, long live breaks' debacle that Muzik magazine started?

T: To be honest, with categorising and putting things in little niches... I think it's all because people want to try and explain what a certain thing is, but putting something in a genre or a niche doesn't help massively, because if you say 'progressive is dead and breaks is going to be the next big thing', breaks has (actually) been around and bubbling under with a huge following all across the world for the past four or five years. I think breaks is (still) slowly building... (a lot of) people are making good tunes.

Across all of dance music its not as if something's gotten massive and something's died. I think it's a shame when something really gets massive then after a few months it dies... it's because it hasn't got the foundation in place.

Do you ever get tired of your job?

T: No! Basically I spend all my waking hours in the studio listening to records or making tunes. That's all I do basically, like if I were to go home now I'd be in the studio. It's great to be able to go away for awhile and play music and talk to people who are interested in what I have to say.

How did you get into breaks?

T: It was just a natural progression. I come from the North of England, and we listened to a lot of Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays, Stone Roses and people like that... and its all like based around instrumentation,  broken beats and stuff. Then New Order started introducing a lot of electro stuff into it I took it from there.

I went to (legendary Manchester acid house club) Hacienda a few times when I was 15, 18 years old and that was like... what the fuck you know.. it was amazing. It kind of changes you. -awed silence-
 

[breaks] are all about that kind of broken beat, it's a bit more human and a bit more ... groovy. It makes your body sway instead of just going - doosh - doosh - doosh - you know.

It creates a more human kind of thing, a bit more feeling and a bit more depth, and everybody who plays breaks knows that and we're all sticking at it and trying to get it across to people who really appreciate it.

How's the food here?

T: We LOVE the local cuisine... we've been in the (Perhentian) islands for a few days just chilling on the beach, but this whole area, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, it's the best place in the world for food!

It's got everything that you want! I mean, we love fish and seafood, ginger garlic, chillies, really nice spicy food with that Indian influence... we love all the foods out here. I think I'm getting a belly.. just in a week...

You can go for a really nice French meal... but Malaysian, Indonesian, Thai food is the best.
 

A rare close-up of the Secret Birthday Cake.

Miss the fish n chips at all?

T: Nope! not at all! I'd rather eat beautiful prawns in a coconut, ginger, chilli sauce than fish n chips any day. No competition.

Hmm... We're not sure if we've come across that particular sauce before...

anyway, who do you rate right now?

T: R-Kidz and Noize, they've only released two singles on Mechanoise... they havent gotten that much exposure but they're fucking amazing. R-kidz was on Hart House and he's teamed up with Nick Noize who's a genius studio engineer.

They're make the best tracks you've ever heard in your life.. they create whole soundscapes. When you watch Nick doing it, you cannot figure out how he's doing it, but he's creating the most amazing soundscapes out of it. He's brilliant!

There's a new tune of theirs on the Botchit 5 album... dark and scary breaks but done in such a good way with a lot of intricate soundscapes generated on the track.

They've sampled like some operatic music and stuff, which is all in the background, but when you're on the dancefloor it makes it interesting and it's a beautiful kind of epic feeling, an experience.

It's beautiful and its dark and kind of serious and deep, and you cannot fail to be moved by it in some way. In the whole breaks scene, they've got to be producing some of the most intricate music.

And obviously people like Koma and Bones (on Distinctive Records)as well who've been doing great tracks for the last couple of years... it's pretty hard to pick out anything that's not good by Koma and Bones.

Atomic Hooligan and Jason Sparks, who're both doing albums at the moment with Botchit and Scarper. Some really good energy and scratching there.

-Sonia finishes drinks and bounds over-

Sonia: Music should be more important than just being wallpaper.. its like oxygen because it goes in your ears and head. People shouldn't even need drugs to appreciate music!
 

-joon

-thanks to SOTO and Beatmonkey!

Meanwhile, look out for new singles from them on Botchit in January 2003, and another on 2S2, the label run by underground duo Two Sinners, and remixes for US label Fundamental and Canadian label Urban Z Funk.

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