in which horsemouth and howard are interviewed separately

From an interview by Emma Stroud.

- Tell me a little bit about the music you make? Any major musical influences? 

Howard - I majored in sound on my arts degree. I was really into the New York minimalists. Very influenced by them. Over time I managed to cobble together a studio in Brixton with a friend. We made very experimental electronica which can be heard on Bandcamp. This is a long time ago. My current musical projects involve working with horsemouth... We bonded over Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. How we have managed to do anything over the last few years with my crazy work schedule has been a minor miracle. It’s pretty much acoustic based, we sing, we play, we write together, I record, I mix. We then release it and virtually no one listens. But that’s fine. As a band, we share a love of Alice Coltrane, Pharaoh Sanders, Ali Farka Toure, Drum and Bass, John Fahey, and dub reggae.

Emma - ...What is your story as a musician?

horsemouth -Well I really wanted to get a band together since I was about 15 but I didn’t manage it until 1990. Basically we were trying to invent Brooklyn afrobeat 10 years too early (and in the wrong place) - so that went nowhere. The singer went off to become the actor Noma Dumezweni. I played guitar on Lush 3.1 by Orbital (if people remember them)… and then (defeated) I gave up for a few years. When I came back I decided it was just for fun. In the co-op I met Howard, we collaborated on two CDs of music by co-op members (there were always lots of singers and players in the co-op), and then we started making music as musicians of bremen which is ongoing. Peter Holmgren played bass on one of our songs, and later on I played a gig  with him at the Phoenix Social and a few years later we played a gig there, Peter and Myself,  with Enza (of 'the Fall of the house of Fitzgerald') on vocals.

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yesterday howard was round. they sat in the sunshine on the front steps and drank beer (3 bottles between them). horsemouth cooked (butter beans, quorn, onions, chillis, pasta and peas). howard pronounced it tasty. they listened to (thelonious) monk's greatest hits and LTJ bukem's fantazia 2  set from 1994. horsemouth is trying to live quietly until he has been jabbed. 

thereafter he suspects his life will have the same unsatisfactory texture as before. 

the q-tip pause tape beat for nas's 'one love'? 

yes...

it's lifted from this song by philadelphia funk crew the heath brothers.