Craig Russell Horne has released his new EP ‘RESTORATION’.
The four-track EP from the Scottish electronic songwriter and producer landed in our inbox and instantly had us intrigued thanks to its versatile sound.
Particular LMLL favourites ‘Control’ and ‘If This Aint Love’ made Craig’s music stand out from the rest and left us wanting to find out more about his music.
To celebrate the EP release, we caught up with Craig Russell Horne to discover 5 tracks that influenced ‘RESTORATION’.
Craig Russell Horne – Yama’s Warning | Listen via Spotify
I know it’s incredibly pretentious to say one of my own songs inspired my new EP but, the story around the ‘YAMANTAKA’ album as a whole is pivotal to how we got to this point. ‘RESTORATION’ is an EP symbolising the move away from the darkness of my life expressed on my debut album ‘WITH THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT’ and moving further away from it by my reclamation of the Buddhist faith expressed on ‘YAMANTAKA’. ‘RESTORATION’ is a pop record plain and simple. I’m never usually satisfied by just making pop music. On ‘YAMANTAKA’, I focussed mostly on the sounds of house music and tried to perform it in a more experimental way. Once I got that down, I took those same house styles but looked down an avenue of more popular iterations of the genre such as tropical house and Latin house. If it wasn’t for ‘Yama’s Warning’ and the whole of the ‘YAMANTAKA’ album, I wouldn’t have worked with the sounds you hear on ‘RESTORATION’ and if it wasn’t for the reclamation of my faith, I probably wouldn’t feel as restored as I do now… which would have kind of made the EP name redundant wouldn’t it haha!
Billy Got Waves – Over You | Listen via Spotify
Apart from absolutely loving this track, if it wasn’t for Billy this EP would not sound as good as it does. I have been a produced for Billy on and off for just under a year now and I got an email from him in July last year of an extremely simplistic beat over this crazy good chorus hook with the simple instruction of, “can you try to make this better?”. So I got to work on it and got this extremely bouncy summer sounding track. I thought it sounded unreal. A couple of months down the line, I’m on Instagram talking about making a new pop EP and how much I’m struggling to pull anything together. Billy replies by saying, “Listen mate, if you want that summery track to finish then go for it, it isn’t going to fit with any of the other stuff I’m making so you take it”. That track ended up being ‘This Aint Love’.
The 1975 – TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME | Listen via Spotify
When I first heard this song I thought, thank f*ck! At the point it came out, I had spent the last few months being rejected by reviewers because I was making “auto-tuned commercial pop rubbish”… apparently haha! So when I heard this I sort of felt a sense of validation. I got messages from people saying, “that sounds like your stuff”. For a band as big as The 1975 to make fun commercial pop music WITH heavy autotune just made me feel like, okay my sound actually isn’t complete and utter shite! As well as giving my music a chance to connect with people and a mass-market.
Major Lazer – Light It Up | Listen via Spotify
When it comes to Latin pop-house music, no one does it at the highest level better than Major Lazer. They are a group that consistently make music, though not being experimental or edgy, that is significant. They don’t make people listen to the intricacy of their bass lines or the passion of their lyrics, but emit a feeling to anyone listening to dance and smile. I feel that’s the most cherished power and skill in music. DIPLO who is the leading force of the group is one of my favourite producers and really inspires me. DIPLO has some crazy experimental and jarring music but can also release a pop banger and hit the top of the charts at the drop of a hat. Just extremely talented and an absolute legend!
The 21st State – Shadows | Listen via Spotify
I really struggled with picking a fifth song, but I was lucky enough to have a chat on my podcast, ‘Behind The Mic‘, with my old bandmate Craig McCormick just the other day. We had a 3 hour conversation about when our band, The 21st State, broke up and ultimately how that ended up steering me into electronic music. ‘Shadows’ was the last track we released as a band and the focus on electronics on that song was what pushed me forward into the genre. I was extremely upset when it all fell away but looking now, everything happens for a reason and I couldn’t be happier with where I have ended up as well as the music I’m now making.
You can stream Craig Russell Horne’s new EP ‘Restoration’ below: