Lockdown hasn’t always been kind to DJs.
Normally the spin master extraordinaire – even if you’re checking out some Boiler Room set – is ensconced in a darkened club somewhere backed by a whoop-heavy crowd.
Instead, over the last year we’ve been watching them stream live from their bedrooms, seen that the people we’ve paid lots of money in the past to take us away can’t seem to dance and could do with a little more Vitamin D with their three PM breakfasts.
Leon Vynehall doesn’t really tick many of those front room boxes; cerebral but intense, the London-based producer is far from most people’s stereotypical producer.
All I want to do is devour music.
“I value my solitude, especially when writing music, the process is a vulnerable thing for me”, says
Leon Vynehall from his Tottenham studio. Characterised by the British producer as “sauna-like”, he swivels around the room in his office chair to show it off, revealing keyboards and synths stacked up against the wall, a suit jacket hung up casually on the wall and a bookcase filled with resources of any kind. He’s operated there since last October after moving from Shoreditch, and it seems to have turned from a studio into an obsessive workspace and part living space. It was the room that saw him finish up his second full-length album, Rare, Forever , which sees the light of day soon on Ninja Tune.
Few can build worlds with their music quite like
Leon Vynehall. Many possess the ability to transport a listener or dictate a mood, but only a small number can trigger true immersion like him. ‘Rare, Forever’ adds to his intoxicating discography, unlimited in scope and undoubtedly Vynehall’s most ambitious yet, resulting in one of the year’s most fascinating records.
It’s an album which couldn’t exist without what’s come before. After sending dancers into a frenzy with early releases, his debut album
‘Nothing Is Still’ reined in his dancefloor sensibilities and found Vynehall tracing his family lineage and crafting an unexpectedly tender body of work. Most recently, he stepped up for an entry in the DJ-Kicks series, which took his storytelling to new heights. Best of all, ‘Rare, Forever’ is a triumphant reclaiming of these many strands, stretched across snatches of ambient beauty and dancefloor chaos.