Straight Forward _ Interview With Ashley Borg

For those that dont know you, would you mind talking a little about how you got into DJ’ing? Was it Drum & Bass to begin with?

Yes, my best mate who I met at 16 in art college had some decks. Back then we were both into UK Garage but had roots in DnB. At this time in London DnB was a dirty word. We were both listening to it again on the sly and then started buying records, having a mix around his house. Then at Uni, I spent my first loan installment on my Vestax PDX2000 decks (still going strong) and just threw myself into it. I think after one month I was able to record a mix with no mistakes for an hour which was pretty impressive I reckon considering it was all vinyl back then.

We have an amazing Drum & Bass thread on subsekt and you’ve posted a lot in there, but would you be able to give us a few links to 3 or 4 stand out tracks?

I’ve always had quite eclectic tastes in whatever I listen to, I usually gravitate to the harder stuff, but there’s a musical melodic side to what I listened to. So this pretty much sums up my DnB tastes. My fav artists were…

Raiden:

Tech Itch:

Loxy

and lastly one of my fav tunes of all time. The track name sums it up, well ahead of it’s time, and still sounds proper fresh even now.

Goldie _ Timeless

Ah great! Thanks very much for those. Do you still keep up with Drum & Bass Ashely, or has Techno taken over completely?

Not as much as I did. I’m an all or nothing kind of guy. Techno is full time for me musically, but I do have the odd spell of listening to DnB mixes. My tastes have actually mellowed a little bit, and have gone a bit more Tech Step, rather than the all out Amen assaults I was into around 8 years ago. I’ve been meaning to buy Tech Itch’s triple LP. Progression Threat (https://soundcloud.com/techitch), since I’d like to do my own compilation mix.

However the best mix I’ve heard in a while has been this from Mark (Planar) from the forum.

Yes! Absolutely agree on Marks DnB Mix. I’ve listened to that now SO many times. Great stuff. He’s got another one thats a mix of Techno & DnB on his soundcloud (I think) which I really enjoyed too.