xxxy – Against The Clock

We relaunched FACT TV a year ago this month, and if it’s taught us one thing, its that our readers (or, erm, viewers) like to see how musicians make things.

Egyptian Lover playing his Roland TR-808 live through a hotel alarm clock is the most popular episode we’ve uploaded since our relaunch, while MPC demonstrations from AraabMUZIK and FunkinEven and a remix tutorial with MK aren’t far behind. This prompted us to launch a new series, Against the Clock. The rules are very simple: in each episode, we’ll take one of our favourite artists, and get them to build something there and then. They have 10 minutes to do so, and have to start with a blank screen – though naturally, pre-made samples and patches are allowed.

For the first episode of this new series, we headed to xxxy’s Hackney Wick studio. xxxy has been behind some of FACT’s favourite singles of the last few years, including the masterful ‘Ordinary Things’, and on April 15, he’ll return to Ten Thousand Yen (the label that released ‘Ordinary Things’) with a new single, ‘Progression’. Watch him go Against the Clock above.

Filmed by Pawel Ptak, Anoushka Siegler & Kamil Dymek