I’ve always felt finding the right fit of shorts to be even more frustrating than jeans. I don’t want anything that makes me look like rough trade, nor do I want to look like I stepped off a Grand Puba video.

The Norse Projects high rise chino shorts find that balance, sitting just above the knee when worn at the waist with the relatively high rise allowing them to be worn lower as required. They’re made from a soft lightweight cotton, but a crisp cut prevents them from being billowy. Belt loops and button fly prevent any terrible misunderstandings leading to charges of indecent exposure, what more is there to say?

It may still be April (just) but bitter experience suggests pushing the season on these may not be a hasty move. Already sold out at Oi Polloi, you can still pick them up at Goodhood and from the Norse Store.

The significant downside to some specialist titles is that beyond the product guides, the level of journalism and production could be somewhat lacking. Titles from small independent publishers with low circulation don’t always have the best resources available to them. That’s the trouble with a niche interest, there’s not always the money circulating to fulfill certain requirements.

Fortunately, hunting, shooting and fishing in the UK is well serviced by Fieldsports Magazine. This is so much more than a buyer’s guide to the latest Barbours. Covering the gamut of traditional outdoor sports, it offers both a outlet for enthusiasts to extol the virtues of their sport and report the latest events. The majority of the writing is first-hand accounts from active participants, offering a fascinating insight into sports that may seem shrouded in mystery to outsiders. If you’ve ever wondered what motivates someone to load up their Land Rover with dogs and guns and go pheasant shooting early on a Sunday morning, the writing is testament to their passion.

Fieldsports Magazine is proud of the traditions that go hand in hand with the sports and makes no attempt to gloss things over to appeal to a younger market. It’s not politically incorrect like the crude jokes your uncle still tells, but neither is it ashamed of what it represents. There’s product reviews extolling the virtues of shotguns that run in to several thousands of Pounds, photos of proud Estate Managers stood in front of their Subaru Legacys and even space devoted to events and what can only be described as society pages.

If only all chance pick-ups were this rewarding.

B&F: To start off, tell us where you come from, where you’ve been and where you’re at now.

Lone: I’m originally from a real small town on the outskirts of Nottingham. I moved to the city about 6 months ago.

B&F: For the person listening to your music for the first time, what’s the lasting impression you’d like them to take away?

Lone: Hopefully a melody would get stuck in their heads, like when you hear a good pop song. It would be nice to imagine someone humming one of my tunes and thinking to themselves “where the hell did that come from?” Hopefully not in an annoying way, but I like the idea of planting hooks in people’s heads without them realising where it came from.

B&F: You’ve got a new album about to release, what can you tell us about the development of your sound since Lemurian?

Lone: More structered and drawn out this time I think. Lemurian was all about little snap shots to soundtrack imaginary places. That’s why the songs are all so short on that one. This time I guess the tracks are more leaning towards proper ‘songs’. Also the inspiration is from real people and real places this time.

B&F: Do you follow a typical procedure when making music? Is it a planned process, or do you only get down to it when the moment’s right?

Lone: I think I’m getting better at preparing myself these days, as in, I rely less on good accidents happening. I can pretty much make whatever comes into my head now and most of the time it sounds pretty close. Having said that, it changes all the time. Some of the best tracks come about when I’m just jamming around and some wicked accident happens that creates ideas, like a snowball effect. I love it when that happens actually, way more fun.

B&F: The cover art for Ecstasy & Friends is very different to Lemurian. Can you talk us through the changes?

Lone: This one was designed by Davin Gormley who handles all the artwork for Werk Discs, I think he summed up what I was trying to do with the music perfectly. There was no intention to make it totally diffrent or anything, we just went on instinct I guess. I’d like all my sleeves to be completely different every time though.

B&F: Do you think you are nostalgic in your tastes and interests?

Lone: Yeah I’m totally nostalgic, to the point where I think it’s slightly unhealthy. I spend way too much time looking back and not enough looking forward. That always comes out in my music. I guess I’m obsessed with holding on to memories which are fading away. It’s quite sad really, that beautiful memories from childhood are slipping away as we get older. Making music is a good way for me to hold on to those things I guess.

B&F: Do you view Lone as your chance to make the sort of music that you couldn’t with Kids In Tracksuits, or does one feed into the other?

Lone: That never entered my head to be honest. I was making Lone stuff years before K.I.T. so this was always there in the background. Doing the K.I.T. stuff sounded the way it did because there were two of us – with Lone I get to dictate exactly how it sounds because it’s just me. That’s the only way I can explain the difference in style really.

B&F: Where did your interest in music production begin?

Lone: Listening to bootleg rave tapes and the altern8 album. I could tell that stuff wasn’t created by live instruments or anything and was fascinated by what exactly it was made with. As I grew up, I started to find out how it was all done. I’m the sort of person that when i get interested in something I want to make my own version of it, so I think I was probably always going to end up doing this.

B&F: How’s the music scene in Nottingham? Does the City play a part in the music you make?

Lone: The music scene is wicked at the moment to be honest, there seems to be more and more producers coming up and parties which are a lot of fun. The beauty of it is it’s a small city so all the producers, DJs and promoters know each other which I think is totally healthy. The actual city itself doesn’t have an effect on my music – its more the people and the atmosphere.

B&F: Name an album or artist you like that people wouldn’t expect you to be into?

Lone: That’s a bit of a tough one because my music’s pretty strange at times so I guess people wouldn’t be too suprised to hear I’m into all sorts of shit. Last year there were two pretty commercial albums that I liked a lot. I kinda suprised myself with getting into them actually. The Horrors album I thought was wicked, Geoff Barrow’s production was nuts. I also liked the Friendly Fires record – genuinely good pop music on that one I thought.

B&F: What do you get up to when not involved in Lone projects?

Lone: The usual stuff really, hanging with my girlfriend and my mates, going out and talking shit. Talking shit is a big one for us actually – I think it’s healthy. We’re pretty much constantly trying to make each other piss laughing, almost like a competition. It gets pretty surreal at times too. To be honest though I’m pretty much thinking about tunes the whole time, so in a way, the Lone project is ALL I do. Ha!

B&F: Where can we see you playing live in the next few months?

Lone: I think there’s a Werk Discs night happening in London soon, but I cant really go into that right now. Other than that, I’ll be DJing in Nottingham quite a bit then doing a load of live shows for festivals in Summer. Check the Myspace for details.

Ecstacy & Friends is out now on Werk Discs and is available from Cargo, Boomkat and Chemical amongst others.

As an added bonus, Lone has provided [Back and Forth] with this exclusive free download of an unreleased track.

Lone : Douche

Mirroring some of our favourite products available on the Japanese market, there’s an abundance of quilted tweed and waxed cotton. Presented in a fresh style that’s neither contrived nor too flashy, it reflects well on these jackets as an investment rather than a statement. The great use of traditional fabrics like British Millerain waxed cotton and exclusive Scottish tweeds to make jackets produced with real provenance deserves respect, wouldn’t you say?

For those of you wanting to take a closer look, Lavenham will be showing this range at the (capsule) show in Paris from January 22nd, where they’re sure to go down a storm.

One product that always puts a smile on our faces is the driving shoe. This is a real marmite style of footwear, you either love them or hate them. We’ve yet to meet someone who’s simply indifferent to them. There must be something about brightly coloured suede that really elicits a response. And the Eurotrash jibes belong to the same school of dumbfuckery as sailing and lumberjack taunts about boat shoes and work boots respectively.

For us the real draw is that driving shoes seem so contrary to most of what is being championed in footwear right now. Admittedly there’s a seasonal consideration to that point, but even things like camp mocassins, desert boots and dirty bucks seem rather earnest in comparison. Driving shoes can be considered a luxury for luxury’s sake, but when they look so good we’re struggling to see a downside. They might not quite as long as a double-soled brogue, but putting a smile on your face and a spring in your step is money well spent.

This market is dominated by two of the biggest Italian names in leather goods and craftsmanship. If you’re buying your driving shoes from anyone other than Tod’s or Car Shoe you’re doing yourself a disservice.

Car Shoe from Matches. Tod’s from tods.com

The loafers, brogues, moccasins and mountain boots are no surprise to fans of the understated looks purveyed by the likes of United Arrows and Nonnative, but their New Balance choices have always caught us off guard. Why are the Steve Jobs friendly 99x series and other models like the 1700 more popular with these brands compared to more minimal styles like the 576 or 670? I spoke to Tetsuya Shono (Men’s Lifestyle product manager at New Balance Japan) to try to gain some insight into the tastes of this section of their market.

As you may know, the Japanese customer always pays attention to detail and the quality and story behind the shoe is important to them. They recognise that New Balance products have all these points.

In New Balance’s golden age of the 80s and 90s, we had many UK or US made heritage shoes like the 99x series and 1700 released. These models built confidence in the brand at that time in Japan and that has been maintained today.

It’s difficult to explain, but I think of it like the phenomenon of certain Japanese denim brands that have a similar following with trendsetters around the World. Denim is denim but has nice detail, silhouette and quality.

Or you could view New Balance the same way as traditional American brands like Ralph Lauren, J. Crew, Levi’s and so on. The product itself is normal, like just general clothes, but still has good profile in the fashion market because they keep their history and quality.

If you ever wondered, now you know.

United Arrows 20th Anniversary New Balance 1700:

Nonnative New Balance 1700:

TRG: I was born in Romania about 28 years ago. I still live here and it’s a bit surreal. I grew up to classical music, jazz and disco, the only son of a single mother, I was a handful and I still am. I’ve written a few books when I was about 15 which was well weird but I moved on from wunderkind to ghetto lured by wet basements and bass booming out of warehouses.

B&F: How did you first get into DJing and production?

TRG: They both happened virtually at the same time, I’d been wanting to produce since about 97 but I had very little knowledge about how to approach it. I was pretty certain I needed software but I didn’t have a computer until about 2004. I did install a copy of Cubase on my work computer and tried to make music on its Nokia speakers. Didn’t go very far but I learnt the basics. I started DJing at a pub, me and 5 mates put on a night, its peak was when we had about 15 people inside. We were playing breaks, jungle, most people hadn’t even heard of that music (Polar, Intalex, Uberzone, Koma&Bones). The scene then went Warp 10 and escalated so quickly, I was kind of caught in that vortex and ended up playing huge raves in less than a year.

B&F: What’s the music scene like in Bucharest? How does it compare from when you started out to how it is today?

TRG: I moved to Bucharest around 2000 from a small town and I tried to find places and people who were into my kind of music (generic electronica). Things were just picking up. The biggest scene was generic house and techno, it basically still is but I find it’s much more refined. It’s a quirky scene: sometimes it feels really retro and people seem a bit out of touch, but then someone puts on a night that makes Resident Advisor drool. I guess it takes Bucharest a bit of time to catch up and adjust, but then it’s bang on. There’s good techno, good house, dubstep, drum and bass, electro, much more happening than in some slick European cities I’ve played.

B&F: Do you think coming from Bucharest has helped or harmed your music making? Do you think things would be different if you lived in London or Berlin, for example?

TRG: I’m sure it would’ve been different, if for the better or for worse, I wouldn’t know. It’s certainly helped being a little out of the loop in my early years. I was just doing my own version of the sounds I liked in a pretty organic way. What I do miss and wish I experienced more is underground club nights like FWD>> where a tune can literally change your perception of music. You listen to stuff online and think yeah, I’m there, I know what’s up, but it’s in the forward thinking clubs that savvy DJs tell the world what time it is. I have some blurry plans of moving to either of those two cities soon, if only just to absorb their electronic culture and bring mine to the table.

B&F: Your sound has evolved from drum & bass to dubstep and garage, with a recent house flavour thrown in. Do you feel you’re following the influence of other producers, or just trying to make the music you’re most interested in?

TRG: I’ve always been fascinated with novelty and I’m genuinely just trying to make music that I like, that moves me. I do follow other producers, we all do, whoever says they’re not following is a liar. Sometimes I’d sit backstage before my set and go like: I don’t wanna play my set, I wanna play this guy’s disco set, I love it to bits. So whether you like it or not, you borrow from other people and maybe give something in exchange to others. With house, I cannot claim I’ve invented a new sub-genre or whatever, I’m just bringing my own interpretation of it, my idea of what’s so cool about it. And I just want to write things at that tempo these days. It’s a very marmite thing, people love it or hate it with equal amounts of passion.

B&F: Do you have a set procedure for making music, where you sit down and say “today I’m going to spend the whole day making a new tune”? Or is it more spontaneous, taking inspiration from people you’ve seen or music you’ve heard and making something new when you can find the time?

TRG: I do wake up every morning with beats in mind, this is my day job now, I make music, so I kind of devise my schedule around it. Sometimes I’m maniacal about it, I work like a robot because I like to get things done and I might take a few weeks on a tune then bin it completely. It used to take me 4 hours to make a tune. I take a little more now because I LOVE to build tunes. I never have a very clear idea about what I’m gonna make. I just sit down with the idea and then sounds fall into place and I get a groove and I build upon that groove.

B&F: Do you have any regrets in your music career? Or any missed opportunities that you’d like a second chance with?

TRG: Everyone has regrets, but what can you do? You can’t go back and change anything so you might as well do your best for the future. There are people I ignored or hurt, sets that I’ve ruined, opportunities I missed, tunes I wish I didn’t put out, but they’re all a part of me, of who I am. I’m just warming up and finding my voice. If I was going to list any specific regrets, I’d only end up regretting it and wishing I’d gone back and deleted this interview.

B&F: Is there anybody that you’d really like to collaborate with or remix, but haven’t had the chance?

TRG: I’d like to play in a rock’n’roll band with Dorian Concept. Like proper rock’n’roll. I’d like to remix Chinook by Boards of Canada.

B&F: What releases and remixes do you have coming out that we should look out for?

TRG: My first EP for Tempa Recordings is coming out soon, I haven’t really remixed anyone lately since I wanted to work hard on this one. I think it’s gonna turn a few heads, it’s probably the first record on Tempa that’s 80% house and techno. Sinden, Mj Cole, Zed Bias, Zinc, Brodinski, Headhunter, Untold, Roska among others are supporting this one so I guess it’s an interesting record.

B&F: Last question, I really like that Shakira “She Wolf” song, but I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it to my mates. Would you be able to remix it to make it more acceptable?

TRG: Mate, I’m just as embarrassed to admit it but it’s a brilliant tune. Seriously, the instrumental is wicked, and the words? Ever paid attention to the words?  Any pop tune with ‘lycanthropy’ as lyrics should be good. The part I love most is the vocoded bit, I’d use that in a remix. But if you like the tune so much, why not admit it. You know it says ‘coming out, comin out, coming out’ repeatedly. If I were you I’d do it man…

B&F: Thanks for the words and this excellent mix..

http://www.back-and-forth.net/audio/october2009.mp3

Trus’Me : Good God [Prime Numbers]
A Made Up Sound : Wire [Clone Basement Series]
Claro Intelecto : Above [Modern Love]
Mike Dehnert : Umlaut 2 First Version [Clone Basement Series]
Hardrive : Deep Inside [Strictly Rhythm]
Kentphonic : Hiya Kaya Rocco Deep Mix [Stalwart]
Chris Carrier : Get Down [Robsoul Recordings]
TRG : No Way Instrumental [White]
Tiger Stripes : Heat [Toolroom]
TRG : Since Last Night [Tempa]
MFor : Thief [Reincarnation]

Cosmin TRG