Gold Artist 014: Spectrasoul

Some of your album launch parties have seen you playing three-hour sets, longer than the usual one-hour slots. Tell us some of the pros and cons of that.

D: The norm for drum 'n' bass is one-hour sets which, for me, is too short. It's never enough time as you're always rushing to put in so much new music. It means you're not too sure where to go and you always end up not playing anything you want to play. Whereas, as soon as you get to play over an hour - 90 minutes, two hours or three - it's great. You can really stretch it out and mix it up.

We did our show in Cardiff in May and it didn't feel like three hours at all. It went really quick. Obviously there's two of us as well. When we play together, we play three or four tunes on and off. That means you can play your tunes, have a breather and go into your music and think about what you'll play in your next section.

J: Not to moan about drum 'n' bass but I think there's a problem with the thing about hour sets. If you go anywhere else, people play three hours as the standard. That's a real way to get an idea of the artist and what they play over the course of three hours. Obviously you've got a lot more scope to dig really deep and it's a lot more satisfying. There's that saying about nothing being worth doing unless it's difficult or challenging.

Why do you think drum 'n' bass promoters have a thing of putting on nights with so many DJs?

This isn't a good or a bad thing, it's just a statement. The d'n'b crowd [in the UK] is quite young and this is just symptomatic of young people in England - I think they've got quite a short attention span. They need shit loads of eye-candy on a flyer and after an hour they think 'oh, it's been going for an hour, I need someone new'.

To a degree it can be good because of the dynamic it creates over the course of the night. You could have someone like us and then Calyx & Teebee and that gives you a different dynamic. I also think with drum 'n' bass clubs, it's become the norm to bring four headliners, whereas in others you can have one DJ to play the whole night. It's part of the reason we've done this tour together. To try and see if we can get back to that - play at a 300 or 400-capacity club, fill them out and see if we can create that vibe.

Finally, now the album's complete, have you got any producer collaborations lined up?

D: There's nothing planned. What we've found from collaborating with other producers is that the end result will either sound more like one person or the other. It's really hard to get a fine-tuned balance between the two. It also depends on the reason behind it, too. We have got a few remixes coming out, though.

Shogun Audio releases 'The Mistress' digitally on June 14 and physically on June 15. Pre-order it on iTunes or on the Shogun website here and here