No Regular Play: House Inventors

We speak to the latest act to come from the bowels of Wolf + Lamb's Marcy Hotel, No Regular Play AKA Nick DeBruyn and Greg Paulus.

For those in the know, No Regular Play have been bubbling under for a while. After first appearing on the radar with a great podcast for fellow New Yorkers Wolf+Lamb, their improvised and instrumental slo-mo house productions have attracted more and more attention on the classically trained Brooklyn duo as 2010 has gone on.

Fusing the free-form nature of jazz, the crackle of Dilla-esque hip-hop and the tasteful trumpet of Paulus with lazy, de-constructed house grooves, the No Regular Play sound is rich, organic and spacious. The pair manage to craft luxurious sounding, well balance and perfectly paced compositions which, in their restraint, sound a whole lot classier than a lot of the overly hurried, plastic sounding competition.

Most recently came their 'Doesn't Matter EP' for the aforementioned W+L (something we very much enjoyed) and there are plenty of plans afoot for more music - though not all of it for the club sphere...

Read on to hear the pair's story in their own words, to hear about Greg's pet peev and to learn about the No Regular Play writing process..


From early roots in jazz and having studied Afro-Cuban rhythm in Cuba… how did you make the switch to electronic music… what was the inspiration/catalyst?

A close friend/bassist from Minneapolis, Adam Linz, exposed us to music like Autechre, Funckarma, Tim Hecker etc. and then brought us to the decibel festival in Seattle where we heard everything from ambient to house. This was key for us. The other main thing was a party in Bushwick, Brooklyn that ended up being a Wolf + Lamb party with Matthew Dear. This party blew our minds so much we actually moved as close to the venue as we could.

How important were those studies to you as producers/musicians? Do you think more people should study theory/history or production before releasing music?

There’s no specific way anyone should make music, but as with any trade, studying and advancing your understanding helps exponentially. Music history is really important to us because it really helps one have a solid foundation in the lineage. However there are countless instances where someone dives into something with little or no prior history/knowledge and makes something amazing.

And what is it about jazz that you love so much – anything you can transfer into dance music as such?

The freedom, improvisation, the attitude and the diversity.... all this can translate into dance music or any other art form.

How important to your development has the relationship with W+L been?

The relationship with the W+L community has been crucial to our development. it’s so inspiring when someone believes in your sound and your ideas and can see through imperfections or let’s say engineering issues, and pull you up to make better music than you thought you could. Also if it were not for the surrounding community we’d be doing something else because we both thrive on the energy and creativity of those around us.

Working in such a close community of artists, how do you all keep your individuality do you think?

I think we all came together with such different styles and musical upbringings that it’s pretty easy to keep our own individual sound. All of us have different touring schedules and outside projects, so there’s plenty of time to develop on our own.

So how has your year been? What have been the highs and lows?

So far this year has been amazing. The highlight for us has definitely been touring and doing the Wolf + Lamb experiences with the other artists on the label. Also being able to, day after day, get into a nice groove in the studio again. The low is always when someone comes up and demands to play Greg’s trumpet during the live set ha-ha!

Has your style/DJ sets evolved this year? If so what influenced that? (In fact do you actually DJ or just play live? Can you explain the set up if so?)

We’re both very new to DJing but have been doing more and more of it out. I think what’s most influenced our style has been playing with the other guys on the label - Wolf + Lamb, Soul Clap, Slow Hands. They’re all amazing DJs and constantly introduce us to new music. We mostly play live, which is basically mixing all the elements of our tracks (released and unreleased) live in Ableton using an Akai APC40, an X-Session controller and a memory man delay pedal for live trumpet and vocals.

Tell us about your writing and recording process… what kit do you use… do record the instrumentals live?

We mainly use Ableton when starting a track - creating a loop, recording in instruments, and editing the tracks. We also use logic for effects processing and mixing whenever we can. Our set up mainly consists of a Juno 106, Jomox 999, Korg Electribe, trumpet with memory man delay, vocals, and any other instruments that might be lying around.

Are your records reflects of certain emotions/times in your life or just ideas that come to you at the moment of writing/recording?

Both... there are some emotions, especially lyrically that are definitely lifted from particular situations in our lives. And some songs are stories told with a little extra panache ha-ha

How do you know when to use the trumpet and when not (you certainly do, and that’s not easy I don’t think) Do you just ask each other or do you look for the opinions of others, too?

I think it’s something we have to be very careful of because it’s totally inappropriate to have somebody noodling all over the track in dance music. It just doesn’t make sense and it sticks out. But if you layer trumpets recorded into the live set then I can play a harmony part and it blends nice. The idea is mainly to blend it into the overall mix and then only when it’s absolutely perfect use it in a more traditional way to get the crowd a little more hyped up. It just ends up sounding crazy when everyone is knackered in the club and all of a sudden this clear brass sound cuts through the club. We have almost identical taste for when to do this, cause we’ve been listening to music together for ages, so we really don’t have to consult each other during the set except for high fives ha-ha just kidding

Does one or both of you work at Brooklyn Phono? What do you do there and what influence does it have on you/how you make music? I assume as a result you’re fans of vinyl rather than digital?

Bboth of us haven’t worked there since April when we started to tour a bit more extensively. When we did work there we were basically involved in all aspects of the production of the record, from when it comes off the presses to when it goes out to the distributors. I wouldn’t say we are crazy vinyl purists, but we definitely really love the medium and try to support it in any way possible.

Can you tell us anything about a 25 minute piece you’re working on to be performed with the Minnesota Orchestra in 2011? How did that come about?

It’s going to being really an amazing experience. The idea is to combine full symphony orchestra, luckily one of the most accomplished in the world, and combine improvisation and electronics into this format. My father, Stephen Paulus is a classical composer and we had wanted to work together for a long time. We came up with the idea together and pitched it to the conductor after a concert... they absolutely loved the idea. It was originally just going to be jazz based but as NRP grew we decided it had to play a part in the piece.

What else have you got coming up? What can people expect from you in the future?

We have an EP coming out on the no.19 label out of Toronto that we're really excited about. We're also putting out an EP with our good friend Connor Whiriskey on his new label Cut&Mistake, and have upcoming work with Hallucination Ltd. and Supplement Facts. There is also a record coming out on Double Standard of remixes of Greg's DS EP that came out earlier this year. As for the future, we are just going to work as hard as humanly possible to explore as many avenues as we can and bring you the highest quality, most forward-thinking music we are able to make. We’re aiming to re-invent instead of duplicate.

And finally, can you tell us here your name comes from?

We’ve decided it’s too filthy for interviews, if that’s a good enough hint?

Kristan J Caryl