Interview: Koreless

Lewis Roberts, aka Koreless, is the latest producer looking to find an alternative discourse to dubstep’s classic boom boom clap womp womp aural signature. “I’m trying not to pigeonhole my music into anything particular, like post-dubstep,” he says of the deep and captivating 2-step sounds that are found on his debut double A-side single, ‘4D’/’MTI’. “But I see it as a kind of electronic soul… Well, something like that, anyway.”

The 19-year-old Welshman says his previous attempts at forging a musical path under the pseudonym of Nadsat (the fictional argot used by the teenagers in Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange) led him to “pretty much rip off Burial”, although he still cites the mysterious producer as a major influence: “Listening to him on all the different levels that he works at got me excited, and made me want to have a bash at music myself.”

As Koreless, he has found a sense of space and ambience within his music that transcend general preconceptions of so-called ‘post-dubstep’, and stand in perfect contrast to the sounds he remembers from his hometown of Bangor: “Poor reggae, bad drum’n’bass and really dodgy, wobbly dub nights.”

Roberts now resides in Glasgow where he’s a second-year student of naval architecture (“I come from a long line of naval architects,” he jokes). And it’s in Glasgow that he’s discovered a city open to his musical ideas, not least since Rustie and Hudson Mohawke headed south to London. “I tend to concentrate on my music for a week and then my studies for another,” he explains. “But it’s been pretty mad in the last few months. It’s a nice little scene here where everyone is together, speaks to each other and shares ideas.”

The immediate future looks more than promising for the young upstart, and the capital has already been calling with the likes of Gilles Peterson, Benji B, Huw Stephens, Jamie xx and James Blake all giving him his props. There’s also forthcoming collaborative work with Sampha and Lone in the pipeline, plus he’s looking to get his head down and finalise a live set in time for summer.

With regards to making an album, Roberts says: “I’ve been listening to a lot of jazz — not as a direct influence, but more for the rhythms and movement… I’m looking to make a flowing piece of musical unity, where it can take the listener somewhere.”

Now that would be a discourse with a difference.

Related: