Built upon excessive communication, deep friendship and infectious creativity, the project Forum consists of three members. Julien aka SKS, Nicolas aka Opsen and Julien aka The Clamps all live in Toulouse, France. Yes, two Julien because apparently, Julien is a very widespread name in their home country. With all three members deeply intertwined within the Drum & Bass circuit their endeavours have led them to a debut album on RAM's sister label ProgRAM.

Clearly focussing on the more progressive side of Drum & Bass, ProgRAM has always been a jump point for many respected names. Whilst RAM champions a more commercial angle ProgRAM gives a platform for underground acts such as Forum, Resound, AKOV, and many more.

With its sinister and brooding opening, 'Okha' got me right away. Add some heavily distorted top end, growls and fluttering percussions and you got yourself a steamy roller.

As the concept of Forum interested me, I decided to call them all together to talk about the album. We spent a lovely 30 minutes chatting about their friendship, artistic freedom and of course 'Symposium'. Two of the members are called Julien so I went for J with their respective artist names at the end. Enjoy the read!

Hello guys! Thanks for participating. For our readers out there who are not

familiar, who are you and what do you do?

Julien SKS: I’m Julien also known as SKS. I’m running Vandal Records and have been promoting parties in Toulouse for close to twenty years now. We have this big event called Dirty for instance. Additionally, we’re doing the label events. Sometimes other labels as well like Critical, Outlook Festival or Eatbrain… I used to release music but I’m not as crazy as the other two.

Julien The Clamps: You are, you are! From my side, I’m Julien also known as The Clamps. A second Julien because it’s a common name in France. I’m producing Drum & Bass under the Clamps moniker but also as Burr Oak together with Nicolas. With my friend Yan, we’re doing electronica-ish music as Third Colony. You know him, right Umut?

Yes, I love him!

J The Clamps: He’s a really nice guy! I also help out at Kosen Prod and Karnage Records as they’re pretty close. It’s like a family job.

Nicolas: So, I’m Nico or Nicolas and I’m also known as Opsen. The latter is my side project. Like Julien said, we’re doing Burr Oak together. I have another project called Cecil Hotel and used to release music in a collaborative project called Signs.

With Lionel right?

Nicolas: Yes, he’s a good friend! And of course with Forum, both these guys!

J The Clamps: That’s a long journey! I came to Toulouse like roughly twelve years ago. Originally, I’m from another part of France. I met both at different parties. Julian, I met at Koalition or something along those lines. It was a big rave back in the days with multiple floors, various kinds of music (Hard Techno, Hardcore, Drum & Bass or Breakbeat) That must’ve been like fifteen years ago. Nico, I met roughly ten years ago because he and I are both close to the Kosen Prod family. A bromance started.

Lovely to hear!

J The Clamps: That’s it from me but I’m sure the guys can complete it.

J SKS: Yeah, I was running a floor at the event Julien and I met. We actually found the flyer of the event some time ago. It took place in 2008. With Nico, I don’t know how long we’ve known each other seems forever

Nicolas: Also like ten years ago. I was just about to start my journey into Drum & Bass. At a party in Terre Blanque which is close to Toulouse. We talked about the music of course, planning parties and

J SKS: having you signed to Vandal and being remixed by Billain. But yes, we all met at different times and parties in Toulouse.

Nicolas: This was before Signs, right at the beginning of everything.

I take it you’re all involved in a lot of different projects. How do you work

together? Do you share a studio?

Nicolas: Sometimes we come up with ideas on our own but generally, we work at Julien The Clamps‘ studio.

J The Clamps: Yeah, we’d like to sit in the studio together because it’s more fun that way.

Yeah, I think it’s more lively compared to doing everything remote or in bits.

J The Clamps: That’s true. When starting something for Forum we automatically think about what the others would say, do or add. We know how to work together. Still, there’s always a lot of talks involved on how we want to achieve certain things when we start a track.

J SKS: When we meet up for our sessions, we usually have a talk about the week and everything that happened. Have some food together. Especially when we made the album we did some sports and Nico was our coach. Every time we’d meet up Nico would take us to a park nearby to do at least an hour’s worth of sport. This kinda routine we really enjoyed. You see, it’s also life not only music. We have the same spirit for music, true. But we also share a lot of stuff.

It’s more than a musical collaboration then?

All together: It’s true friendship!

Nicolas: We have been friends before Forum which makes all this a lot easier.

J The Clamps: We’re definitely good at what we’re doing but at least with Forum there are no specializations for no one. Sometimes I start the drums, Julien sorts out the bass groove and Nico comes up with some weird sound design. Other times it’s the other way around.

J SKS: There’s also a lot of trust involved. We trust ourselves in what we do. Forum is also not only our name but also a place of communication where discussions on problems or questions are guaranteed. Sometimes these discussions feel a little bit pushed on one end or the other but most of the time it works really well. We almost every time arrive at a mutual pinpoint. Also, creativity wins every time.

In regards to conflicts generally, we agreed that two votes win. When two of three of us are for it we do it!

Nicolas: We keep it democratic!

I was about to say that!

J The Clamps: Yes, we do that. Although, I have to admit I’m a bit of a dictator *laughs*. Just kidding! We spend a lot of time talking about where we want to go with these tracks.

I mean it works. The album sounds fabulous! All the talk is worth it.

All together: Thanks, man!

J SKS: For me, it was the first time working on music in a group. Yeah, we made some stuff together with Signs on Critical but it was not the same process as waking up every day like going to the office to write music at the studio. We eventually started doing collaborations as SKS and Forum but I wasn’t that invested and had some personal things to deal with. But with all this Covid stuff and the free time I got from it they proposed I fully commit to the project.

J The Clamps: Suddenly we had all this time at hand. So it was a good idea to make something together. And we spent some great months together, still do. I think you can hear that on the album as well.

J SKS: During this awful time for promoters around the world, it was a glimpse of hope. Even if my hopes were shut down multiple times between 2020 and 2022, this us strength. I also felt it with the label. People stopped sending demos or producing at all.

Yeah, a lot of people thought it was pointless to release club-focused music or even stopped entirely. I’m glad that you guys persisted! Let’s talk about the album though. A full debut album on RAM’s sister label ProgRAM speaks volumes!

J The Clamps: Definitely. The thing is that it was never supposed to be an album. We produced a lot of different tracks together, sure. We had been releasing with both RAM and ProgRAM before and sent them like 14 or 16 tracks.

Nicolas: Yeah, something like that!

J The Clamps: They wanted to do an album and we thought to ourselves why not. We know we’re good enough! And the end result is great. I mean great, come on. We love the tunes! All of them work well together. Obviously, they’d been made around the same timeframe so everything is cohesive and correlates very well.

J SKS: We never intended to do an album. That was all them *laughs*.

J The Clamps: Surely, 16 tracks for an EP is a little bit too much.

The title of the album seems to be even more fitting now. As a collection of impressions, opinions and experiences.

J SKS: For us, the symposium is also that moment between evening and dinner tonight and the party. Social, vivid togetherness. Parts of it are Liquidfunk, some deeper bits and bangers of course. It’s a colourful palette from which each track finds a home in many sets. We’re certain of that.

I get that!

J The Clamps: We’re always doing some kind of symposium when we’re in the

studio. That’s why it works so well with the Forum name. It’s a collection of life

moments. 'Jouvence‘ is the way upwards, for instance.

J SKS: Like every time we go for dinner, it escalates into a symposium. Quite

fitting, yeah! We can’t have normal dinner *all laughing*.

Wonderful! It’s great to have things like this! It there a certain goal for Forum or do you just play it along?

J The Clamps: That’s a good question. I think the main goal still is to have fun making music together. Because we started doing it because of that. It’s the main drive. Why not top it off with being the best of the scene?!

J SKS: Another thing is we have this musical freedom. We’re not exclusively signed to a particular label and if things are too slow for us we can always put stuff out on Vandal!

There’s no pressure with deadlines or anything like it. Also no boundaries in terms of subgenres. Sometimes we do Liquid, sometimes Rollers, and mainly Drum and Bass you name it.

Nicolas: We can do what we want which is really cool!

Except the album, what’s coming up on the Forum?

Nicolas: Nothing much is planned. We’re currently waiting for the release of the upcoming LP… Also, there’s an EP coming on Vandal with our friend Bob White and some music done with P4van. We’re just waiting to see what’s coming off the back of the album. And enjoying it’s fruits of course!

J SKS: Also after the summer break, we’re back in the studio cooking things up.

Julien and Nico had lots to do with their Burr Oak album but now we have time to work on some more Forum stuff!

Awesome, thanks for taking part in this guys!

Forum's album 'Symposium' will be released on Friday the 23rd September.