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Blasting towards summer festivals with Bahar Canca ahead of Psy-Sisters Spring Blast!
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A long overdue catch up with JourneyOM ahead of his next Tribal Village party this Friday 14th January 2022 at the Steelyard, London!

Larger than life: interview with Clare Large

Reported by K8-e / Submitted 21-06-06 19:55

Don’t let Clare Thwaite’s svelte frame fool you, her passion for music and relentless enthusiasm make her most definitely larger than life! And then you have her infectious smile which lights up her face, and the room.

I met Clare a few months ago travelling to a gig with some mutual friends. We had a rip roaring night and her eclectic attitude, style and positive energy attracted and interested me. With a forthcoming release on Neuromorphic Records, a live PA in the works and some pretty impressive international experience I wanted to introduce HarderFaster to the world of Clare Large.


Clare Large @ The Purple Room, Revolution, nr Totonto, Canada


Clare this if your first HarderFaster interview so let’s start at the beginning, how did you get into djing and producing? You used to play under the name Little Miss Large, why the change?

Hey there! OK. I grew up in Cornwall, and in 94/95 started going to Dance Planet events at the Cornwall Coliseum. I was 14/15. I just loved the energy and unity and didn’t question it, just followed it. I went to so many different nights with all sorts of music, the root being an awesome energy and the best feeling inside.

This continued and still does in so many different ways when I hear all sorts of music. I like to lead not follow so djing was my way of doing this, and more recently production. I got booked at some cool venues like The Monastery in Torquay, the Escape Club, Brighton within my first year of djing: I’d keep sending out tapes and gradually the bookings increased. This was playing mainly what came to be hard house, and some trance. Then I organised some tours every year to Canada and the USA with other countries booking me so I got exposed to different music and cultures, but with the same core solid energy of great grooves.

Little Miss Large was just a name we came up with at an after party and it stuck. Then there were lots of other djs called Little Miss something so it was confusing and I kept the Large but used my real name Clare instead. My surname is Thwaites, which is a mouthful for some English people let alone foreign promoters. It also marked a change in music styles from hard house and trance to all sorts of techno, house and broken beats due to all the new stuff I’d been inspired by.

Production was a natural step and I have a PA pretty much ready to go in Ableton so watch out! I plan to hit the circuit with it in the next few months. I’m also planning to start my own label, releasing my own material and others stuff that I dig, so anyone reading this, send me your stuff: it must be different, absolutely no hard house, or any kind of trance. Strictly tech house or techno, or deep house, and maybe some nu-jazz/breaks for the B’s.

You have quite a musical back ground, as you mentioned earlier you play the harp. That’s a pretty impressive instrument!

Yes, I started playing the harp when I was eight and it paid for my decks! I did the all the exam ABRSM grades and music theory, which definitely helps writing any kind of music. I played around with the flute, clarinet, and various percussion and still do, and can just about play in my riffs how I want them on the keys too. I’ve been lucky to tour in Mexico, India, Bulgaria and visit other countries for one-offs, and am currently in China, which I love, so I always rinse the excess baggage getting as many traditional instruments back as I can!

I love to jam with bands and musicians who can use a harp and am always up for collaborations, so anyone reading this . . . if you can use a harp, give me a shout!

You are resident for legendary underground night Ripsnorter in Bristol and are regularly playing across the globe at some pretty impressive parties in places like Tokyo, Montreal, Nevada, Los Angeles and San Francisco to name a few. Where has been your most memorable gig and why?

I hate the human tendency to try to evaluate all incidents and pick just one, that is the ‘best’! I couldn’t pick one. Playing sexy jazzy unpredictable broken beats in a surround sound dome at Burning Man last year as the sun came up and everyone who had looked totally mashed and chilling got up and smiled and danced and my heart just skipped several beats . . .

Getting a crowd who had absolutely loved Bollywood and hiphop beats earlier in the night in Delhi, India (I was waiting to go on, thinking “sh*t man, this is the worst gig ever, I will bomb, they won’t get it!”) totally on my frequency and rocking to Dave Angel, Headspace records, and tons more deep and funky techno, and playing on for 2hrs after the club was supposed to close.

A big warehouse party in Quebec Canada peak time — 30celcius outside. Last set at a warehouse party in Seattle playing techno and taking everyone with me . . .

Any gig at the Monastery in Torquay cos it always had the most electric atmosphere, appreciative crowd and non stop banging tunes! A spin off night from Ripsnorter called Esoterica at the Depot in Bristol (RIP) where I was playing funky house and techno and suddenly my room was packed and everyone was lovin the beats . . . stood out because it was a different style to what they would normally hear and I love tuning into people cos then you can take them with you wherever you wanna go . . .



You are on your travels again, where are you this time? Is there any country you’d like to play in that you haven’t already?

Yes I’m currently touring China and I have four gigs all in different cities, I can’t wait. I just got gigs confirmed in Berlin and Ibiza, and some festivals I’ve spun at before in Canada look like confirming too, with more in Japan tbc, so it’s looking like a busy year. I would love to spin all over South America and never have. I’ll do this soon.

I feel there is a core, basic, instinct root of energy in the dance scene, and it is universal no matter what country you go to, and that’s what binds us all together. Music is the universal language. The true dance heads feel that anyway. Some don’t know why but they can’t ignore the feeling. Like me when I first heard dance music. The subtle differences from country to country are just curious and funny and exciting and I love finding that out too, with utmost respect for the different cultures.

What do you miss most about England when you are abroad?

Nothing. Except it’s really hard to get a Christmas dinner in Calcutta that’s not a curry. And sometimes my studio although the portable one works great! Maybe just my new monitors.


Clare Large @ Club 7, Hennessy Tour, Chengdu, China


Given you play across a variety of styles what can people expect from a Clare Large set? Do you have a dominant style?

I don’t think I have a dominant style and I definitely don’t have a favourite, I thrive on the variety. I love techno and I play a lot of it, from banging to funky to minimal and I like it because I feel so free playing it, you can roll it around however you want and the subtle changes make it. I enjoy the mental challenge of playing techno well and mixing it up and getting into peoples heads, whilst keeping the momentum.

But then somewhere like San Francisco there’s not so much techno so I love deep, tight house with throbbing bass, never too many vocals in my sets, and I especially love playing chill out because you have a captive audience a lot, and therefore you can introduce people to music they may not have heard.

I have so much energy and I feel so lucky and privileged to be able to share this with people across the world. I try to reach out to people in as many ways as possible so the various music styles gives me more options to do this.

You work in the industry as a sound engineer and location sound recordist for TV and films, how did you get into that and what does a typical week involve for you?

Yes I quit a Rolls Royce sponsorship after a few gigs at the Monastery made me see the light and I did a Music Tech Degree. I did it to learn how to make dance music and got inspired by so may other areas while I was at it. Right now, I mainly dj, and also work as a location sound recordist on movies, TV or corporate gigs. I also record and produce bands, do post production audio for films, and I just started working as a camera assistant for an awesome guy who does loads of helicopter filming all over the world. I’m also working with several people on spatial sound concepts that I hope to use with my PA in due course.



You have recently produced ‘Tingles’, a track which will be out on Neuromorphic Records (based in California) this summer. What equipment/software do you use and what’s your sound all about?

I wrote that track on Reason at Oakland airport near San Francisco, California last summer. Then I sat on it for a while and the Neuromorphic guy asked me a few times, as he was a good acquaintance on my tour, although we never properly hung out, if I had any tunes, so I sent him a whole bunch of work in progress ones, and he dug that and a couple of others I’ve not finished yet. Then when I got home I took it into ProTools and added a few more parts.

Right now I’m totally loving Ableton live, as you have total control over how your work is sequenced and being able to do that live is the best feeling. I guess I’m just real spontaneous and the more ways I can live my life in that way, the better, especially when it comes to performing music in front of others and passing on great vibes.

I also just got my head around soft synths and have tons of them fired up and its awesome when you’re on the road a lot, to have so many sounds at your fingertips. My sound I don’t really have yet to describe, I want to write all sorts of good music, and the PA is deep tech type stuff, with harder bits and more mellow bits. The most important thing for me is consistency and that’s what I want; to put out consistent underground solid floor friendly sexy beats of whatever style I feel when I write it.

You have a “Binaural Britain” section on your web site http://intelligentaudio.net do you want to explain a bit more about this project?

When I was at uni doing Music Technology we did a spatial sound module and this guy called Dallas Simpson came in and played us all some of his binaural recordings, I was blown away as you really feel like you are somewhere else, so it’s like a senses f*ck up, you look around and you’re sat on the floor in a lecture hall at uni, but you are hearing sounds move around you as if you were in an Indian market, or a children’s playground in Spain, or really, anywhere in the world. I was totally excited at the potential of that so started making recordings everywhere I went once I’d bought some kit.

The binaural Britain is more for people abroad, as there’s such a diversity of accents over here and different energies from city to city, town, country etc, I wanted to document it a bit. The files are all on a map so you move your mouse over roughly where that place is and you can hear what I recorded when I was there. A bit geeky but have had tons of interesting feedback from it. There’s also files from all over the world where I’ve been too.

What’s in your box at the moment?

It really depends where I’m playing. Techno-wise I’m really diggin Spilo records, Apex, Maximum Minimum, SuF, Drumcode, many more and I picked up tons of old solid stuff in Tokyo so going through that when the time’s right too.

House-wise labels talking to me are Bio, Detour, Dialect, New Religion, Infra Red, Headspace, Morris Audio and MUCH more. Broken beat wise, Spinning Wheel, Straight Ahead, Far Out, Ubiquity, Compost, Jazztronic . . . My style is solid, smooth grooves which translates in many ways.


Clare Large @ The Basswave Marina, Burning Man Festival 02, Black Rock City, USA


Who do you look up to and take your inspiration from these days?

A recent massive inspiration when I got back from Canada and the US late Dec, has been Vince Watson, (deep/Detroit/tech producer from Glasgow) I’ve been playing his stuff for years and don’t even have that much of it but love it. I wrote to him and he responded with similar energy to mine and chatting to him a fair bit made me re-evaluate my life a little in great ways.

People I have found to be consistent and quality, and/or I just have seen some crazy one-offs in no order are: Billy Nasty, Carl Cox, Darren Emerson, Kelvin Andrews, Terry Francis, Chris Liberator, Rackitt, LuSINda, Mr. C, Jim Masters, Ken Ishii, Dave Angel, Giles Petersen, Jeff Mills, Juan Atkins, Mr. Gone, Kyoto Jazz Massive, Jazztronic, Spinning Wheel, Hiroshi Watanabe, Meat Katie, and so many more but those sprung to mind first up . . .

Do you have any spare time with all you’ve got going on, what do you get up to?

Yes I love hanging out with good positive friends, calling all my good people in Canada and the USA (where most of my good friends live), walking and running in the country or on the beach, sunbathing, and yoga and working out is so important.

Finally, where can we catch you playing in the UK soon?

I have my own night called Clear where I aim to provide a smooth progression through all the styles I play, with guests. Recently I’ve not done too many, mainly bank holiday Sundays around Bournemouth, and I am looking for some new homes for it. I want it to be partly in Bournemouth to try to bring some new vibes to the scene, but also in London, where I am moving to when I get back from China mid July. When I tour I will take it abroad too.

I am vibing my old residency at the Camel bar in Bournemouth, a good place because its now got a seven day a week 6am license, so I’d have a captive audience in some ways for the new sounds. But there’s volume limits as it’s right in town and some other issues, so once I move to London I will be looking for venues there and maybe doing back rooms at other promotions as well.

Right now, you can catch me at the Camel bar in Bournemouth normally 12–5am weekday nights and occasional weekends when I’m not abroad, Lakota in Bristol Aug 4th, and Ripsnorter every month from October. All my other gigs are abroad in the next few months which I absolutely love, and once I move to London I hope to play even more gigs, with more in this country too.

Photos copyright Clare Large. Not to be reproduced without permission.

For UK bookings please contact Tom @ TEK–DJ Management: Bookings@tek-djs.com/+44 (0)7904 388675
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Other Features By K8-e:
The One and Only Eddie Halliwell
PunchFunk & Geushky Presents "Let's Make Rave" with Ian Void & Chris Vaux
Cream @ Amnesia - Ibiza 2010 - Reviewed
Pure Gold: Interview with Will Gold
Turning the Corner - Interview with IAMX
The views and opinions expressed in this review are strictly those of the author only for which HarderFaster will not be held responsible or liable.
Comments:

From: MATT HANDY on 21st Jun 2006 20:54.22
Great stuff Clare , good to see you still loving it

nice interview K8-e

From: TEK-DJ Management on 22nd Jun 2006 09:07.22
Wicked interview Clare and well done K8-e! An inspiration and true friend, keep the passion and the faith :o)

From: raving.looney on 22nd Jun 2006 12:28.03
Wikkid interview......its all about the techno!



From: Lx on 22nd Jun 2006 12:43.24
i just wonder how the hell she got my work email addy to send me note about having this interview on HF???

From: timcoe on 22nd Jun 2006 18:16.07
Hi Clare. I'm so pleased to read about all you're doing these days and am impressed with your future plans. So you're moving to Lonodn? See you around sometime. Tim x

From: Mike Harris on 26th Jun 2006 18:37.10
Cool interview, sounds like you have been having an awesome time! Thumbs up

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