Submotion Orchestra

A seven-piece outfit, that blends electronica, jazz, soul and dubstep to create their very own unique sound, Submotion Orchestra are a festival favourite and will be gracing the stage at this year’s Horizon Festival. We speak to producer Dom Howard, (a.k.a Rukspin) and find out a little more about this intriguing band.

Hi Dom,

How are you?
Well thanks. Just finished a month-long European Tour so we’re all having a well-deserved rest!

How’s the festive period been for you?
We haven’t really been around for the pre-christmas hype thankfully, although we did play a gig in Hamburg in an authentic German Christmas market, so that was fun.

As 2014 draws to a close, what would you say was a highlight of the year?
Well this year has been full of highlights – we have released possibly our best record to-date with Counter Records (a Ninja Tune subsidiary). Working with the guys at Ninja HQ has been really exciting for us. Also we played main stage at Secret Garden Party just before Public Enemy and a huge fireworks display… that was a lot of fun!

Secret Garden was great! Speaking of festivals, you’ll be heading out to play at Horizon Festival in March 2015, which looks to be quite a unique festival, what are you looking forward to most?
We have a lot of friends who are playing at Horizon so we’re looking forward to having a good party with them. We’ve never been to the festival before but we’ve heard great things so we’re obviously looking forward to performing… maybe we’ll even fit in some skiing too.

Let’s hope! Eastern Europe is really on the up for music festivals and as a holiday destination in recent years, have you spent much time over that side of Europe? How would you describe the crowds?
One of our favourite festivals is Outlook Festival in Croatia. We’ve also played to huge audiences in Poland, Ukraine, Czech Republic and all over that side of Europe. They seem to really appreciate us as we keep getting asked back. The crowds are really enthusiastic – always dancing and singing along.

Where would you say is the most amazing destination that Submotion Orchestra have had the pleasure of visiting?
We did two gigs in Istanbul towards the end of the tour – it’s a fantastic city to visit. We spent a day looking around the markets and the old town, and I even found time to play a DJ set for the Istanbul bass-music crew at Pixie Underground. We rarely get to spend time doing things like that when we usually play gigs abroad.

What other big plans have you got for 2015?
We’ll be writing and recording our 4th album, and hopefully touring again after another summer of festivals.

You guys have such a wonderfully unique sound, fusing together jazz, soul, and electronica… being a 7 piece do you all bring your own tastes together?
I think we manage to balance our individual tastes with the overall direction of the band. We began with quite simple live improvised dubstep mandate but it has obviously grown far beyond that and we’re all just as excited about the future as we are when we first started.

What’s it like being quite a large outfit, is there anyone in particular that writes the majority of the tracks?
To begin with, Tommy and myself wrote most of the material, but now other members are getting more involved in the writing too. We are starting to do a lot more joint songwriting and jamming by taking ourselves off for a few weeks together each year. It has been really productive so far so I’m looking forward to what we come up with next.

There’s a very atmospheric quality to your sound, do you have a general mood you want to push across?
I see my role in the band as combining the various elements we have in our music into something that makes sense in terms of a musical landscape. That’s where the production really makes the difference – it helps emphasise the mood of each track.

You started off in Leeds, are you guys still all based up there?
A couple of us still live in Leeds, but the rest of us have moved to London. We still rehearse up in Leeds – it’s a lot easier to get everyone together and book out space for a long time. In London everyone is pressed for time and it’s difficult to be creative.

There’s so many layers and levels to your sound from Ruby’s vocals to the instruments and electronic samples… how do you transpose this when performing live?
Our live setup has developed a bit over the years to help us best represent our tracks live. Tommy uses an SPD drum pad in addition to his full acoustic drum-kit, Simon uses an MPC to trigger samples we can’t otherwise re-create live, and Chris has a unique bass set-up that we have developed a lot over the years. I can’t really go into more detail or we’ll be here all evening picking each track apart. I’ll leave that to the technical rehearsals!

Being a multi-disciplinary group, do any of you work on solo projects as well as Sub-motion Orchestra, and if so, are there any exciting new releases to look for, or anything in the pipeline?
We all have our own separate projects that we write and tour with aside from Submotion. I can only speak for myself and say that there will be new material coming from my ‘Author’ project, as well as some more solo gigs and releases in the pipeline.

Thanks for your time and all the best for Christmas and New Year!
Thanks – you too!

Submotion Orchestra will be performing at the up coming Horizon Festival in Bulgaria.
Get your discount to Horizon Festival by using promo code BBM20

By Hannah Shakir

@hanshak