CV has taken the extent of his creativity from his previous release and taken it even further with the album showcasing a brilliant mix of both hard-hitting dancefloor beats and deeply intricate experimental productions, whilst still carrying the highly energetic and razor-sharp production style that he is known for. It is mind-boggling how, even when you believe he’s reached the highest level of creativity, he seems to have gone one step further. Don’t believe me? Listen for yourself below!

There has been a lot to do surrounding this release, and its production process is certainly a very interesting one. To find out more I've taken the opportunity to ask CV himself some questions to get some very interesting insights about the production of this album and the project that surrounds it.

Hello Tim! First of all, thank you very much for taking out time to have a chat about everything you’ve been up to recently.

Yeah man, sure! No problem.

So, Beneath The Sonics... A number of people will already be familiar with the name as it is the name of your Facebook group, which has been around for a bit. Now that we have the album named 'Beneath The Sonics' as well it seems to me that the name has more of a project behind it rather than just a Facebook page. Could you explain the idea behind it?

Yes, of course. 'Beneath The Sonics' is just something that started with the Facebook group, you know, where people can just post anything and everything Current Value related. And it’s been growing steadily now, I think there are about 1100 users that are part of it. And so over time, I've had this idea that it could actually be called a brand, let’s say. I wouldn’t say it’s a label because it’s not really a label in the classical sense, it’s more like a platform. I have been thinking about doing this for a while but I've never really gotten around to it before.

Indeed, because even though you’ve been producing since the late 90s, unlike quite a few artists you’ve never started your own label or anything. What made you decide to go in this direction?

There’s a time for an artist when he has to ask the question 'Who am I doing this for and what are the moves that make the most sense?' in terms of releasing your own music. And what has always been very important - and still is - is to actually release on labels that you like, that you love, that are actually representing the sound. And also to bring your best, so to speak, even though it is not really your brand… it’s not your label, you know. It’s a dream to actually release on let’s say Blackout, Vision, Critical or any of the other big labels to name a few. But once that box is ticked, right, there is no proving yourself multiple times I think. I mean you could of course keep on doing this and trying your best to fulfil the needs of the guys behind those labels because that’s ultimately what you have to do, you know. They expect a certain thing from you and if you don’t give them exactly that then they just don’t sign the tracks.

There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s totally understandable. But I've had times where there were multiple people involved in the signing process and one of them would really like something but the other would then say 'No, it’s not for me.” And that is what pretty much reminded me of what’s going on if you keep doing this all the time. People are always demanding that you actually bend yourself towards their sound! You’re still doing your thing as an artist of course. You still have your signature sound and everything but you’re not free to do whatever you want.

So if I understand it right, Beneath The Sonics is intended to be more of an open outlet for your music? Almost like a self-release platform?

Yes, you could call it that. It’s a platform for me to release music on and at the same time my manager has set up the music distribution through Symphonic, so I can release anything I want on it whilst still getting the music distributed through the usual outlets. And this is what makes sense for me to do now because working towards an album for instance is quite different of course, because I don't need to try and fit in with something and give it that little bit more so I can actually be me and at the same time be forward thinking and futuristic. I’ve got nothing against doing that but now I can just try making anything I like because I know I can release it! I don’t care! We’ll see what comes out. Tracks like 'Against, for example, which is already out there. If I was still in the mindset of having to do it for a label it would probably turn out to be quite different.

That sounds super exciting! I can understand that after having done this for so long you’d want to end the dance with the labels and start doing things for yourself.

Yeah, it’s probably even the ideal thing to do, because of course the people who run the bigger labels will have said that to themselves as well. it’s exactly the same thing except they did it much earlier. Of course, I’ve been growing my own brand as a person as well. People know who I am, so for me, it’s not that difficult to actually start out my own brand now, except I’m just sort of… doing it for the sake of it.

So this move is one of passion rather than necessity. It’s like a project for you.

Yeah, that’s how you could describe it. I don’t really have to figure out what works, I’ve got enough validation now, also marketing-wise and direction-wise. People go 'Oh, 'Dark Rain', ah that’s the guy, and he’s done this and he’s done that.' Usually, there are two or three things that pop up that people remember. So yeah I wouldn’t say it’s a necessary move but it’s definitely something that makes sense to do and it’s really given me freedom. And also I really like the outcome of this design as well in terms of the colours and the way the image of the head is done. And this really resonated with me, not because it’s my own face, but because there are no shadows on it at all and yet you can still say 'Oh yeah, it’s him.' right?

Artistically I really like it. And that’s how this whole thing came about with the binary and then we figured out the colours. Should they be black-white, or should they be grey-white? And this light red-white thing is actually… yeah, the best. I figured out that’s the one I wanted to go for. It’s simple, but it’s very effective and very good.

So with this new platform in place, how did the production of this album come about?

Originally the idea was to just do an EP or something, a smaller release for the Beneath The Sonics group. A release for the brand, you know. And then as it happened I had made two new tunes, and I was making another one. And before you know it I thought 'You know what, let’s make it an 8 tracker.' Like an extended EP of sorts. And then it happened again! I just had this rush of inspiration - which included this 'Against' track - and I thought 'Well, they all have to be on there I mean, definitely'. This was driving it as well because I wasn’t concerned about someone turning down any of the tracks now… it’s different when you can go 'Fuck it, I’ll decide myself. Against has to go on there!” and I can also decide to make it one of the main tracks, one of the highlights maybe even, where other labels may have probably disagreed with it.

I remember 'Greed' being the best-received track from 'Platinum Scatter' out of all the others, and I thought 'Well this is a direction that you can actually get a bit more out of.' Like, coming back with another track like that. I already envisioned that this was going to be something good.

You seem to be talking about your track 'Against' a lot, is it by any chance your favourite tune of the album?

Yes, it’s definitely one of my favourites because it’s really unique, it’s almost like a genre in itself. And I love playing it out! Whenever I play it live I go crazy, and I don’t have that very often to be honest.

Could you tell me a bit more about it? I know that on 'Platinum Scatter' and more recently you have experimented with constructing synths that play an entire song at the press of one key. Is 'Against' the result of this kind of development?

Yes, exactly. It doesn’t have that classic build. It just starts with that erratic chord step electric piano thing and then just works with that Halftime / Techno beat at 172 bpm, and then it goes into 4x4 and then back to where it was. It’s rather like the old days Techno I think, where the fun is in mixing things in and out and then morphing them through the song. That’s the fun, that’s the idea behind 'Against' more or less.

The production of tracks that play themselves when you press a key… does the challenge of creating such a thing drive you creatively?

Yeah, that’s definitely an element to it, because I like to approach things in the most minimalistic way. For some reason, I've got a knack for that. I have it with everything actually. A minimalistic approach to music-making is amazing. I would go as far as say that it inspires my work because lazily sitting in front of a computer, any computer really, with not much stuff around, maybe a good pair of headphones on and just pressing that one key and out comes this sort of song gives you huge perspectives. It gives you this visual world as well because, of course, you can see all these things happening within this modular synth.

There’s this part in your brain opening up and doing things without there being this huge hardware park around you. This sort of stuff, at least in my case, is what brings you to that point where you think to yourself that you should just try it. I mean, why should you? You could have 60 tracks within a project and make it as normal but that’s just boring, you know? It’s not inspiring. The song itself actually looks really stupid. You’ve got this one track on top which is playing the keys. If you just had a sine wave playing it, it would just be nothing, you know. And then you have about 12-15 automations that go through the song, which change stuff like doubling up the hats, bringing in the claps, enabling filters and changing the unison on these chord elements. And as I said before it’s almost like a real-time Techno song, where you just add and take stuff out, and then you filter other things out and then something else vanishes. After 4-5 minutes you sort of have this construct. You probably couldn’t really call it a song, it doesn’t really have a structure as it normally would because that doesn’t work for that sort of thing. It brings itself straight into the 'hottest' part of the song, it plays, and then it’s over. That’s just how the concept works.

It’s very much unconventional in terms of song structure, definitely when it comes to Drum & Bass which has always been pretty well-defined. This is something that you see more and more of nowadays.

Yes, I do find it interesting that the classic structure of a Drum & Bass song is starting to dissolve at the moment. The new school of Drum & Bass is very much into breaking the rules again, you know? Let’s not make the typical 32-bar intro sort of thing. It still exists, but it gets more and more vague and it seems to just dissolve as well. And what I found as well when I play this kind of stuff in sets is that it actually takes work away from you! Because it already does the things that you’d like it to do in a mix, you know? And you can actually keep playing it because you don’t have to worry about things like where the main bit is, or where the drop comes. Not that I have anything against drops, they’re still nice and people wait for it and then go crazy and everything.

But I think this morphing of music is a little bit like putting different colours on and one moves into the other. It constantly keeps you listening and wanting to hear more. And that’s what I found in sets as well, I just keep playing this sort of thing. Because it’s exactly what I would do now, mixing in a new track, without there being these static parts more or less. It’s nice, it’s fun to experiment with.

That’s really cool. It sounds like you’ll definitely continue experimenting with these kinds of experimental tunes. The album also has quite a few 'regular' heavy hitters as well though. Did you intend to have two sides of the same coin there?

Yeah, what I also wanted to do through 'Beneath The Sonics' is to bring the dancefloor back, definitely. Or rather, 'what people want', you know? Because there's a lot of fun in it, and in people asking 'Ooh what’s that tune, when is it coming out?!” So I picked up this kind of style again and I actually looked at it thinking 'I’m still game for those things”. It’s not like what people believe where after 'Platinum Scatter' I would only do 'weird stuff and never do Drum & Bass anymore. So again, I’m taking people by surprise and saying 'Who says so?” you know? I can do it all! No problem! Let’s just mix it up with something new! Let’s just do some 'Platinum Scatter' part X, you know? Where I develop some of the elements from 'Platinum Scatter' further. Again, 'Against' is a good example, it’s almost 'Platinum Scatter 2.0' you could say. It’s the logical result of going in that direction.

So that experimental element is still being satisfied so to speak. But, there are also just floor smashers on the album. Because we love them, so why not! And people are still demanding them so I'm cool with that. I’m not at all saying it’s all going downhill with this Drum & Bass shit. No, it’s fun and it’s good and if you bring it in the most up-to-date fashion, if you’re able to somehow give it that 2023 feel it’s good. It’s got to be fresh but it can actually connect with the people through the dancefloor element of the music.

Yeah, you can totally hear that in the sound of the album. It’s certainly got a very fresh jacket on, yet it still has that classic CV energy. It does leave me with one final question, however. Hearing you speak about your desire to move away from their restrictions, will you continue to create music for labels in the future? Or is the Beneath The Sonics project going to be your musical outlet for now?

Everything is possible, really. Being open to new things doesn’t automatically mean you have to quit doing the things you used to do before. I’d rather be inclusive when opportunities open up again. Just because I have a platform of my own now doesn’t exclude releasing music on other labels.

Alright! Well once again thank you very much for your time, it’s been very interesting to hear your insights into the album and your new project!

Of course! You’re welcome!

Current Value’s 'Beneath The Sonics' album is available now on all major streaming platforms. If you want to keep up to date with anything related to Current Value, follow his Beneath The Sonics group on Facebook!