Andy Gardner and Lee Rous are on their way to play Miami’s Ultra Music Festival as I call Lee’s mobile. They’re waiting for they’re luggage at Miami airport’s baggage carousel, having just moments before disembarked the flight from London. Rous is thinking about finding a bar as they wait to be chauffeured to their hotel. Plumps might not be playing the main stage at the event, but they’ve been invited back for the second year in a row and have a string of side shows lined up – not bad for a duo that have historically been known for championing a sound that isn’t a popular as it once was.
After releasing their first album A Plump Night Out in 2000, the two went on to smash it in the field of breaks, putting out more than 200 releases and spearheading the move to define the breaks genre on now defunct Finger Lickin’ Records, along with label mates Krafty Kuts and Stanton Warriors.
In a move to keep producing ever-evolving beats, the two set up their own imprint Grand Hotel Records, having recently released their first LP on the label, The Dirty Weekend mix album, which received Mixmag’s accolade of album of the month, along with a string of hard hitting singles.
Listen to Plump DJs now and you’ll hear elements of dubstep, electro and bass, along with their mainstay breaks. These guys are in no way breaks purists.
“We stopped thinking in a genre-specific way some time ago,” explains Rous. “The genre of breakbeat is obviously where we found our feet and Finger Lickin’ was the label for funky breaks. So people like A Skills, Krafty Kuts, Stanton Warriors and ourselves are still making breakbeat records but we’ve experimented more with other genres.
“Now we’re experimenting with defining a genre that doesn’t even exist yet, which we’re just calling ‘Plump Music’ for the moment. We’ve always liked to have a free reign on what we make and never be too genre specific.”
2012 marked the release of their smash club single Gobbstopper, showing a return to form. Their single Hammerhouse recently came out, with more on the way – the result of hours of lockdown spent in their Soho studio over the UK’s winter season.
“I think this is the most forward-thinking record we’ve done lately,” Rous says of Hammerhouse. “We’ve just done three more; we’ve been working really hard in the studio. They’re all similar in the fact that they’re not similar at all; they’re all pushing in different directions.”
The Dirty Weekend LP features 25 tracks with collaborators and protégés, a showcase of the Grand Hotel Records imprint, including tracks from up and comers Bonsai Kat and Submo, recently signed by the duo.
“We’re lucky that in London we have a big melting pot of music and we can draw on a lot of influences and there’s a lot of good energy for creating because of its inadequacies – the weather is bad and you know, we put that energy into other things. So it’s a great place to pick up new music from new artists,” says Rous.
“We became really enthused with loads of acts and wanted to get work with some new people and because we have the label we have the freedom to put what we want on it and look at who’s inspiring you and see if you can work with them.”
In terms of the Plump’s much loved live show, Rous says that the two have developed a certain amount of clairvoyance after so may years sharing the decks.
“We are very much in tune,” he says. “From late teenage years we’ve been playing records together at home and at parties and after making music together for years and years and years we have got a bit of ESP.
“I do the odd solo gig now and again but it’s so much more fun being in the duo. We’ve got a bit of presence up there, even though we’re getting on a bit. We’re still making relevant music. So we’re pretty proud.”
BY JO CAMPBELL
