CRYSTAL CLEAR - UNFINISHED BUSINESS

There are some things in life you just can’t quit, give up or grow out of. Sugar in your tea - easy. Social media - doable. Wearing a hoody for every occasion - ok, if we really must.

But leaving drum & bass behind? Pretty much impossible.

D&B isn’t something you can just stop obsessively loving or listening to… This music, this culture; it gets under your skin. A fact Andy Haeffele - who under his Crystal Clear moniker, has recently returned to drum & bass after a 13-year absence - reflects on as we catch up for a chat ahead of the release of his four-track ‘Selector’ EP for V Recordings.

“There’s something about it that gets to you. Once that sound is in you, that energy of the music, it doesn't go anywhere. It stays with you.”

“It's funny; when I came back and I sent Brian Gee some tunes, he called me saying ‘Where have you been?’ I told him the story how I'd been away and felt the need to come back and he was like; ‘Once it's in you, it's in you, isn't it?’ And It absolutely is. It’s part of what makes me as a producer and a man.”

Little over a year since that conversation, Crystal Clear has moved himself firmly back into the drum & bass spotlight. We say back, because he’s been here before - as a integral part of DJ Hype’s Playaz camp, pumping out high-energy dancefloor D&B for much of the 00s, before setting off to explore other musical territories most notably as one half of highly-vaunted techno outfit Melody’s Enemy.

“I went away and stretched my legs… I had to explore and see if I could make other stuff.”

“I worked with the Playaz camp for eight or nine years and then I got the opportunity for a sort of pop/D&B crossover act called Major Look for one of the Universal labels; so I decided to see where that rabbit hole went. We released a few singles and played a load of festivals - it was fun for a while.

“That project ran its course and I was getting very much into house, techno and electro, so I wanted to explore that. I went off and made a bunch of different stuff, latterly making music for a lot of the big techno labels. It taught me a lot about sound. But there was always part of me that wanted to come back and make drum & bass again, with the knowledge that I now have.”

Despite his success in the house and techno world, a musical territory often relocated to by stubbornly ageing ravers and artists looking for a gentler, more abstract space to dance and express themselves, Crystal Clear’s formative years listening to jungle and early D&B etched a deep groove in his artistic - and personal - ambitions that he couldn’t resist coming back to fill.

“It’s what I grew up on. I was probably about 13 or 14 when I first started listening to tunes, when the first jungle records were out. I was an indie kid. Then I remember, my mate’s brother started going to the early World Dance raves and he had the ‘AWOL’ album. I remember there was a tune called ‘The Hunter’ by DJ Biggs.

“It was the live recording; you heard GQ going ‘Make some noise’ and all the whistles and horns. I just remember listening and thinking, ‘I want to do that. That sounds good.’ I went to my first World Dance at 15 and that was it. I was hooked. So I grew up in this music."

Those now legendary 1990s days were special times for drum & bass music and culture - the moment that many of today’s most legendary producers and record labels set their legacies in stone, breaking new sonic ground with seminal music that still sounds astonishing almost three decades later. V Recordings was at the forefront of it all and, like anyone involved in the music in any way at the time, Crystal Clear was a massive, massive fan:

“One of the first tunes I ever bought was ‘The Burial’ - “Big Fat & Heavy” - on Philly Blunt.”

“For me, it started off with labels like V Recordings. I was buying tracks like ‘Maintain’ and ‘Angles’ and the stuff on Chronic - Chronic 009 was always in my sets. Brian Gee and Jumping Jack Frost were DJs I’d always go rave to, along with Hype, Andy C and Zinc.

“I loved the early V Recordings stuff, the artists were visionaries. Dillinja, Roni Size… they were making music that pushed things forwards. Without them, I wouldn’t be doing what I am - or doing it in the way that I am.

“I was trying to work out how long it's taken me to get a release on V. It's only taken about, well, 25-plus years”

Despite hitting as hard and clean as any modern D&B tracks you’ll hear, Crystal Clear’s deep respect and reverence for the roots of the music can be heard right across the ‘Selector EP’ - most explicitly in the Bryan Gee-sampling title track that hears the V Recordings founder explain the foundations of sound-system culture.

“I believe in looking forward. I don't want my own sound to dwell in the past.”

“There are nods to the 90s and the ‘golden era’, but I believe in looking forward. I don't want my own sound to dwell in the past. I can do elements of it, but I like things to be forward thinking and cutting edge. I want it to sound like it’s a tune made in 2025.

“I'm not about making stuff old school unless it's supposed to be. I made a tune when I first came back that was an homage to hearing ‘Acid Track’ for the first time at Metalheadz in the Blue Note. I sent it to John B because I saw he was playing a Headz night at E1 - and he played it there, then he was like ‘Can I sign this?’. I wanted to make a tune in that particular old-school style; but my sound now, I want it to be more current. It takes elements of funk and depth, but I want it to be hard hitting and very much built in the current style.”

One listen to the ‘Selector’ EP leaves no doubt Crystal Clear has achieved his objectives, with the four tracks impressively balancing elements from almost every style of D&B, both old and new. Beyond the aforementioned, dance-floor primed title track, there’s the heads-down roll out of ‘Earthquake’ with Amoss, the toughened-up, classic V bassline workout with Minor Forms on ‘Bones’ and the peak-time hard soul of ‘Slow It Down’ with vocals from Kathryn Brenna.

“Something I've been trying to do is walk that fine line of not being too jump up, not being too rolling, too mellow; trying to hit that middle ground where everyone plays it because it's just a really good tune. As a label, V gives that room for meandering to either side of the line.”

The good news is; this isn’t a guest visit to V Recordings from the newly inspired Crystal Clear; with more music set to come on the label over the coming months and years.

“Myself and Sweetpea have written a track called ‘Ten Minutes’ that Bryan is hammering at the moment - that might be a single, or another EP. It’s nice; I had tunes out last year on Love For Low Frequencies, 31, Sofa Sounds and now the EP on V… I keep getting messages from people at festivals saying they’ve heard my tunes. Hopefully I’ll be at the festivals myself this summer to hear them, but it’s great to know that DJs are playing the tunes and they are going off.

“Because, to be honest, it was difficult when I was deciding to come back; there was a certain amount of trepidation. I thought ‘Is anyone going to care?’ And there are so many new people that have no idea who I am from before. So it’s good that it has resonated with a new, younger audience.

“But now, I need to write a bunch more music, which is kind of difficult when I’m being woken up in the night with a teething baby and feeling basically brain dead most of the time. But then; my son was in the bath last night, he had his playlist on the iPad and one of my tunes came on. I said ‘What are you playing that for?!’ He just said “It’s one of my favourite songs!”

A new, younger audience for real.

Crystal Clear’s ‘Selector’ EP is out now on V Recordings.

WORDS: JONATHAN COOK