"The thing with releasing a record is you just kind of put it out there and what happens happens."

Growing up in Fife, what was your first experience of dub?

My mum and dad listened to it all the time, they were big dub and African music fans. Then working for the soundsystem mainly- I was into electronic music mainly at that time but when I started working there I learnt what dub engineers actually do. Watching people like Mad Professor setting up and doing there thing changed my opinion on dub, opened me up to it. Also after a while when you're doing bands some of them ask you to do the dub which is great, you can just kind of go wild. There's a whole world in that which is infinitely deep [laughs].

And did you ever have any formal musical training?

Yeah I'm predominantly a guitar player - I started about 6 with proper tutored lessons with theory 'til I was about 15, 16 or something. But I found the theory side of it got to a certain point where it was kind of restricting you more than it was actually doing you any favours! That was when I started working with keyboards more and got into electronic music, working on the sound of things more.

Have you done much recording since 'Gold and Green' came out?

Not really, no. I've done remixing and stuff which has been great fun 'cos it's just a different format to play around with. You feel a bit freer to play and try things that can lead to new ideas that I might take on for future LPs.

Are you pleased with the way your album has been received?

Mmm I don't know...I guess so. The thing with releasing a record is you just kind of put it out there and what happens happens. And when you get compliments it's nice and when you don't you just don't get hung up on it.

What's the best compliment you've read?

[Pauses] I don't know....

It seems like you don't take much from it?

No, I don't take much from it. It's funny, I didn't know how I was going to feel when I finished it but I actually feel like I just wanna move on and get on with something else, rather than worry about how it's doing. It's there and if it doesn't something it'll do it itself. I dunno, something interesting might come of it in a couple of years, it might be five years, might be tomorrow, whatever- it's out there and you've gotta leave it. I've seen a few [reviews] but a lot of the time people say the same thing and you're reading about yourself [laughs]. It's kind of a pointless process at the end of the day, it's not very constructive. And that's the kind of conundrum with labels- it's good to get someone who's willing to release your music but it's not worth bending over backwards or changing the way you work for whatsoever. That's the good thing about today- artists are more empowered with the internet, they have good communities of people who know that releasing music isn't that difficult. It's all there if you want it in a way but you can't let it hamper what you do and your creative process. The guys from Tirk have a nice way of dealing with artists, they leave them alone and trust them [laughs].