There’s no messing about with UK outfit Yard One. Getting straight to the point, Jordan Bruce and Larry Jones have wasted no time slowly slipping singles into the jungle that is electronic music. The pair have gone straight for the jugular, releasing a debut LP in the form of ‘When Elements Collide’ and, to their testament, the risk is paying off.

With supporting streaming in from the likes of XLR8R, DJ Mag and Electronic Groove, it’s clear their unique, instrumental electronic blend is on point. Catching up with the boys this week, they explained the decision behind taking the road less travelled, the conception of the project and the secret recipe to a strong LP.

WWD : Yard One is still very much in its infancy. What influenced the decision to publish your debut album so soon?

Very much so, I think our decision to go in on an album so soon came from a desire to paint a bigger picture of what we’re about, deliver a wider sound palette musically and to tell a story of our musical experiences collectively.

Doing a long player kind of felt like the natural choice for us, we will do EP’s here and there but I think the album format is what really gives us a chance to show our diversity as producers and not have to stick to one particular style to make a coherent E.P. As you’ve heard on ‘When Elements Collide’ every single composition on the project is completely different to the last, there’s no genre to be pinned down to I believe, and that’s exactly what we wanted purely for it to be an ‘electronica’ album rather than be pigeonholed in sub-genres.

WWD : Can you tell us a little bit about how the project was initially conceived? Do you remember the first day you met?

This album’s been a long time coming, we’ve been friends and messing around in the studio together for quite some time now, we did already have lots of music we made together but lots of it got lost over the years or just never saw the light of day. We initially met in Manchester, I (Jordan) moved up to the city from London and straight into the same house as Larry and within days we were talking music, swapping records and clubbing together with lots of other mutual friends. I guess that was around seven years ago now and we decided to really direct all of our efforts into getting this project completed over the past year or so.

WWD : What are the albums to date in the electronic scene that have wowed you guys?

There are so many I could go on for days here, I’ve always found the electronic album to be a very much hit or miss thing though, so many people miss the mark but when it’s good it really can be quite special. Move D & Benjamin Brunn’s ‘Songs From The Beehive’ L.P is a truly phenomenal piece of work that I’ve had in my playlists for years, John Roberts ‘Glass Eights’, Efdemin’s self titled L.P, I really like the Huerco S. ‘Colonial Patterns’ L.P, huge shout out for Jan Jelinek’s ‘Loop Finding Jazz Records’ I’ve never found anything quite like it since discovering that one, Robag Whrume’s ‘Thora Vukk’, Anton Zap’s ‘Water’ both Moderat albums, every album by Bonobo, FaltyDL, Boards Of Canada, Four Tet, Martyn, Jon Hopkins, J Dilla ‘The Shining (Instrumentals)’ or pretty much anything he did when he was alive, I could go on forever but I’m sure you get the picture of what does it for me.

WWD : With that in mind, what are the essentials for a good LP in your eyes?

As I mentioned earlier in what we were trying to portray, a good L.P should tell a story of your musical self, your experiences, history and knowledge of music. It should span styles and transcend genres whilst maintaining a coherent vibe across the tracks to link everything together. I feel like there should also be a gradual progression in both the tracks and the album as a whole, there’s nothing worse than an electronic album which is just a bunch of tracks designed for club play, that to me is not worth doing. I also think it helps to have something universally appealing at some point in the project, for example the collaborations we did with Rachel K Collier have connected with people who may not be particularly into underground electronic music when I’ve played them and that’s a nice feeling as well as a sign of a good record.

WWD : The LP represents an awesome blend stylistically, what would you cite as your influences when it comes to production?

When it comes to production I always want there to be a sense of grit in between the tight-knit aesthetics, I like adding some distortion to drums through some outboard fx units, the synths need to be warm sounding yet equally rough. I’ve always been drawn to this kind of style and aimed to achieve a kind of lo-fi feel to things, we’ve managed to achieve a lot of the roughness in the project through various samples from records as well, processing them to the point where you’d never know where they’re from, for example there’s a sample from a Funkadelic record in there that I’m sure you’ll never be able to find, plus various field recordings add texture and atmosphere as well.

WWD : Where did you put the work in? Was there much of an analogue influence?

Absolutely we used a Dave Smiths Mopho Bass Synth as well as the Mopho X4 across the whole project, this really factored into the depth of the synths but also a lot of the work lied in preparation, me going record shopping and ripping lots of wax, then sitting through them all and chopping away at bits to use when we got together. Sometimes one four bar loop is all it takes to get you on a roll, preparation is key before making music I find personally, some people can just get on with it but I’ve always found the best results come when you’ve got nothing holding you back and everything seems to flow with ease in the studio.

WWD : Now that the LP is taken care of, what are the new goals you’re working towards?

There’s already lots of new Yard One material in the making, we’re thinking a follow up album maybe next year but there’ll also be EP’s and remixes, such as the one for Shaun J Wright (formerly of Hercules & Love Affair) & Alinka on their Twirl Chicago imprint, dropping in-between. We’ve discussed doing a live thing but right now we’ve no plans to jump straight into it without having the proper preparation.

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