Higher Estates of Consciousness: Gabe Gurnsey Interview

Gabe Gurnsey talks to Stewart Gardiner about early nineties DJ mixtapes, the continuation of Factory Floor and his new synth pop acid house LP

Factory Floor’s Gabe Gurnsey is reminiscing about early nineties DJ mixtapes. “My brother used to go clubbing and buy loads of cassettes,” he tells me. One of those tapes was Sound Waves by Vertigo and it caught the attention of the younger Gurnsey, becoming his gateway drug into electronic music. That was “when I was 12, summit like that. But he’s a few years older. He used to go out like proper young, [to Leeds club night] Ark and all that kind of stuff. It started with my brother really, introducing it to me.”

My own fond but hazy memories of mixtapes by the likes of Sasha, Grooverider and Billy Nasty seem relevant here. “Yeah, all that kind of stuff”, Gabe agrees. “My brother was a big Sasha fan. And John Digweed as well. He used to go into Leeds – there was a Corn Exchange, which sold all these mixtapes from what I remember. Or he used to get them off mates or do loads of recordings off the radio of Essential Mix and stuff like that.” It’s these sort of rave artefacts that I certainly wish I’d kept. “I think I’ve got a few Northern Exposure things knocking around,” he says. “It’s quite mad, a lot of it man. Some of the productions are insane.” (I later find a Sasha at Shelley’s mix from 1991 online and get a proper rush as The Man Like lays the acapella of Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” on top of Leftfield’s “Not Forgotten” before mixing into “Belfast” by Orbital. Ooft!)

Rave time machine momentarily deactivated, we return to the video call present. It’s another too-hot-for-me summer of ’22 scorcher in North London, although Gabe informs me it’s a more reasonable sounding “nice and sunny” where he is in Macclesfield. We’ve got together to talk about Gabe’s ace second solo album Diablo for Erol Alkan’s Phantasy Sound label (according to Gabe, I live near Erol). He describes it as a sister record to his debut Physical, and Diablo is indeed a further instalment of superior synth business, although it leans more heavily into club culture and is all the better for it. 

Gabe is of course half of Factory Floor (alongside Nik Colk Void), an outfit whose distinct sound world naturally infects his solo output. I ask whether Factory Floor remain an ongoing concern. “We’re still active. We didn’t split or anything,” he says. “I’m in touch with Nik. She’s doing her thing, I’m doing my thing – which has been great. It’s been a real learning curve for the pair of us, I think we’ve both progressed in how we write. We’ll come back with a bit more knowledge. Now it’d be more shared – we were very much in our corners, doing our own thing in Factory Floor. I was predominantly the drummer, but I think on the second record me and Nik were messing around with synths and Nik’s definitely moved more into the modular side of things with her solo stuff. So it’d be interesting.” 

Factory Floor’s ~(Real Love) 12” for Optimo Music is a personal favourite of mine and Gabe tells me that it was a great experience working with Optimo’s Keith McIvor (aka JD Twitch). “He was really supportive and that was a real good match.” As good matches go, the “Optimo (Espacio) Mix” must be right up there: an irresistible slice of industrial disco dancefloor action. “I’d love to do some stuff with him in the future – or more Factory Floor. He was blinding, I love Keith. The pair of them are killer DJs,” he says. “That was a real hard track to make, that was. I’d kinda like to revisit it. Maybe slow it down a few BPMs, you know what I mean?” I do – the original mix is like a speed freak’s fevered take on TG’s “Hot on the Heels of Love”. The implication of slowing it down being that we are all a bit older now.

Returning to more youthful times, I ask when he started making music. “When I was 11, something like that. Self-taught,” he adds. “I was drumming along to me dad’s records and then me brother brought back those tapes. So I started drumming along to those, which kind of locked me into doing a 4/4 beat. And then I started messing around with some kind of Roland D-5.” After trying an early version of Cubase that wouldn’t record, he has gone on to make his own material at home over the years. “But it’s only when I’d got signed to Phantasy that I was really honing it in and pushing what I do personally.” 

When asked how he would describe his current solo output, Gabe tells a story that draws upon an outsider for assistance. “I got off the train the other day and there was this lad, he’d been DJing at his mate’s house down in London or something, and he got off and he goes ‘I heard your track the other day.’ ‘Sweet. How would you describe it?’ ‘Like Italo disco.’ And I was like, yeah maybe.” He laughs good-naturedly. “It’s a tricky one. I’ve got so many influences that I’ve put in there, you know? Even like the early stuff my brother was playing me and all the Sasha stuff is influential. I’ve got, obviously, New Order, Human League, all that kind of stuff. And I just like mixing it up with influences from what me brother brought in or even Factory Floor – Nik’s been an influence, how she does synths and stuff. It’s a melting pot.”

Dance music used to be put away in very particular boxes, but these days it’s a rather more open affair – something that DJs such as Optimo led the way on. “Yeah, that’s what I always loved about Keith DJing, he fucking proper mixed it up. And Erol, he’s another one. I think that’s been a massive influence on writing this record, because the record for me is meant to be a journey. So I want to put all those things in it. That means summit to me. Not just 10 tracks of techno bangers. It’s got to be a bit of a curve.” Where does he think would be the ideal listening environment for Diablo? “I always imagined people listening on the tube in London or walking around, driving. So not just specifically for clubs.”

In a lot of ways, it’s not really a solo album.

Gabe Gurnsey

Gabe’s girlfriend Tilly Morris stepped up as a key inspiration and collaborator on Diablo. “Obviously she’s on the cover. She was on two tracks on Physical and I wanted to extend “Night Track”, that track off the first record, which was one of my favourites. I wanted it to follow on from that kind of story, so I wanted Tilly to be a lot more on the vocals this time. But synth-wise as well and basslines – I always run stuff past her and she’s got a really good ear. It really works. I really like her vocals, I like processing them and then presenting them back to her and see what she thinks. So in a lot of ways, it’s not really a solo album.” 

Were there any other influences on the record? “Anything else? Well, it was done dur…” – Gabe checks himself. “I’m not going to mention lockdown, because it’s fucking boring.” Although he quickly resigns himself to the idea that it’s probably worth mentioning after all. “That was a massive part of it,” he admits. “The frustration of not being able to go out and venting that through writing dance tracks. That was a big influence, being stuck indoors.” Diablo notably positions itself in the nightclub lyrically. “A lot of the record’s about love and lust and sex and fucking – that always comes through in club music, dunnit? That’s my favourite way of approaching lyrics. In a lot of ways the simpler – the more simple for me the better – is more profound, you know?” It leaves room for listeners to dream inside of the track, I suggest. “Yeah, it’s like presenting a painting or a piece of art for their interpretation,” he agrees, before immediately detracting his comment to avoid accusations of pretentiousness (I’ll take the blame for leading him to it).

Two of the standout tracks – the icy acid house evangelising “Blessings” and the transcendent, blissed out “Higher Estates” – were written relatively quickly for live outings. “Higher Estates” is of one Gabe’s own favourites. “That was literally about going back to the high council block with someone. That’s what I had in my head and I feel like I’ve put that across. Again, it kind of harks back to what my brother was doing when he was young, like fucking about and not being around and just going and doing loads of shit.” 

He tells me about the joys of doing extended mixes (check out his 12″ version of “Push”) and I ask if there are any remixes or collaborations on the cards. “I’m going to do some work with Sid from Working Men’s Club. Sid’s energy’s great man and he’s just in Todmorden.” I mention Gabe’s remix of Confidence Man (current favourites in our house) and he enthuses about them and new album Tilt. “That ‘Holiday’ track, it’s a banger. They’ve got such a broad audience as well, like massive.” He’d love to collaborate with them properly and that sounds like a dream combination to me. “I’m really into the pop side of stuff at the minute,” he explains. “Even Confidence Man, you could say’s going down that road. To me that’s just fascinating. All that stuff is just absolutely insane. And it’s not easy to do, you know.” 

I just want to write music, to be honest. I want to start another record.

Gabe Gurnsey

We exchange record shop and DJ recommendations, and I also make sure to ask what’s next for Gabe with the album released. The live iteration was just him and Tilly, but he’s considering putting a band together to take the record out. “I’d love to have a drummer in there,” he says. But the idea arrives with a caveat: “I don’t know whether I’ll be able to cope because I’m a bit OCD about me not drumming, if you know what I mean.” That’s something only he can wrestle with, but it’s not his immediate concern, as he admits that his heart is really into getting back to the studio. “I just want to write music, to be honest. I want to start another record. There’s that whole thing, isn’t there, when you release a record a lot of people just leave it for quite a while before they do anything else,” he says, as if trying to understand a life form from another planet. “I just can’t personally do that.”

Gabe Gurnsey Bandcamp

Main image credit: Tilly Morris