Looking Ahead to Love Supreme 2018: Alfa Mist

In many ways, Love Supreme has been extremely lucky. That’s not to suggest that it isn’t a brilliantly organised festival, it is, but the increasing strength of the line-up year-to-year has been fed by a new wave of jazz and jazz oriented acts, both here in the UK and overseas.

Ahead of the 2018 edition (with a lineup featuring Earth, Wind & Fire, Portico Quartet, Steve Winwood and George Clinton with Funkadelic), we thought we’d take some time to speak to some of the younger, emergent artists who will be making their debut appearance at the festival this year.

First up is Alfa Mist. Alfa (his real first name) came to prominence as a part of a small collective of London-based producers, alongside Tom Misch, Barney Artist and Jordan Rakei. While they all play around with a range of styles, they have become an accepted component of the London jazz explosion.

“I used to make a lot of sampled hip-hop beats, so I used to do a lot of digging, and through that I listened to a lot of the music I’d been chopping up. That kind of allowed me to move towards just listening to the music in general,” Alfa tells me, “I got into a lot of classical music through film soundtracks, and I got into jazz through listening to people like 9th Wonder and Dilla and Madlib. Madlib’s Shades of Blue was an important record for me, he released it on Bluenote so he had access to all their stuff, but generally I don’t know if there’s any one definitive thing, I listened to so much different music, looking for different sounds that it’s hard to pin things down.”

Following his transition from hip-hop into other genres, Alfa also began to learn how to play the piano. “I’m still making that transition, it’s a completely different.” He reflects “I don’t read music, I was learning it as a production tool, rather than learning the language, it was an asset. I taught myself a lot of non-traditional approaches, not cutting corners, but it’s very much my own approach. When you’re making beats you feel your way through everything, which is how I approached piano.”

His most recent release, Antiphon is by all counts a jazz album, full of variations and experimentation, but still very much rooted in hip-hop. It’s a wonderful example of the reverse engineering between the two genres which has presided over this new resurgence in jazz music. Speaking on it, Alfa says. “I took to jazz because of the freedom, whichever strand of it you’re talking about there’s so much room to explore. It’s a feeling, and when you think about it you realise you really can do whatever you want, as long as it’s responsive.”

“I know Barney Artist from primary school, we’ve known each other for a long time. I came into contact with Tom [Misch] and Jordan [Rakei] through Soundcloud. Back in the day Soundcloud was such a great tool for putting yourself out there and discovering other artists. They both messaged me and we connected from there.” He continues. “I’m not sure if we’re necessarily part of the same London jazz scene that everyone is talking about now, I’ve met a few of them now and they all have these very direct links. We don’t share that link, but we’re all from London and it’s gradually coming together, they way we came up followed a different route.

For us, coming from the producers side, we’ve been able to connect with artists through things like YouTube, but there’s definitely a convergence. Our work is always interweaving, it’s just that comfort of knowing you have all these talented close friends, so you don’t have to look further away, unless you choose to. It’s all a big mix of producing, featuring and mixing, but we’re all doing our own thing, which is enabling to discover other, more varied material through us. We’re all moving forward together, whilst also moving apart in terms of our musical approaches.”

Certainly all four of them have found success in somewhat different areas, drawing on a multitude of influences. In Alfa’s case, film music played a key role, something which is evident in the layered, mesmerising imagery of his work. Tom, meanwhile, has navigated more towards soulful RnB, and Barney Artist has continued to refine his approach to weaving gorgeous rap lyrics around jazzy, melodic beatmaking. “That’s probably why everyone is being put into that box, even though Jordan, Barney and Tom don’t really make music which fits into the traditional jazz framework,” Alfa says, “They’re jazz, because they’re exploring and experimenting. It’s good knowing that I don’t have to compromise.”

Three out of four of them will be appearing at Love Supreme this year, representing something of a watershed moment for this ‘movement within a movement’. For Alfa, seeing his friends’ names alongside the other heavyweights on the line-up has been uniquely exciting. “It’s a huge pool of talent, all the other artists I know who have gone are just blown away by it. Barney, Tom and I are all doing it, which makes me really happy, seeing all of our names on there. The idea of there being rap there is exciting, and it’s been hard to see my friends recently because of touring, so seeing them in that kind of environment, that’s what it’s all about man.”

Love Supreme Festival takes place just outside Glynde in East Sussex from the 29th of June to the 1st of July. Get your tickets here.

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