ANDY SMITH
Andy has always been involved in music, whether it was recording at Abbey Road with George Lucas and his daughter for Star Wars, or performing the official England song on Top Of The Pops and at Wembley Stadium. At around the age of 14, Andy made his entrance into the world of electronic music through the now world famous Grime scene, working as a producer for Boy Better Know founder Jme, featuring on several of his mixtapes and albums as well as releasing a joint vinyl record together on label Boy Better Know, all before his 16th birthday.
In the same era, Andy was taken under the wing of Grime ambassador Wiley, working for over 2 years from several studios and locations across the country. After deciding to widen his musical palette by branching into other styles of dance music under the name Mashepest, as well as touring with a couple of London indie bands, he returned fully to dance music, releasing a single ‘J.A.W.S’ on Ministry Of Sound / Method.
This led him on several European and world tours, being championed by Annie Mac, and receiving vast support within the dance community before coming back home and returning to the studio as a producer. During this period, he co-penned and co-produced the multi-platinum single ‘King’ by Years & Years, giving the band their first ever #1 and biggest hit to date, as well as other tracks on their #1 debut album ‘Communion’.
Andy was also drafted in by Disclosure to write for their Ep 'Never Enough', and similarly for salute, on his upcoming debut album. All of these stamps on pop/pop dance records allowed Andy to continue his trajectory at the pace he wished and not be tempted into crossing over before the time was right.
After this period and an epiphany in 2018, he decided it was time to amalgamate all of his previously earned musical knowledge and make a return to his faster tempo-ed Grime roots of the mid 2000s, putting his mind towards a new stem of dance music he dubs Pulse.
Whereas in Grime, the focus was all on the Mc, Andy decided to give the beats the spotlight, taking aspects of jungle, house, and other styles he grew up with, and including them into 140bpm beats, all the while mixing them like club tunes for club systems.
At his label Gov. he firmly believes in digital being the future. So far, an outlet for his own compositions, but soon to have its first release from a South London producer named Bartlett who has been captured by the label’s ethos and 140bpm manifesto.
Andy recently announced he has dropped terms like EP and LP from his vocabulary, and instead has adopted the blanket term UP (standing for Unlimited Play) for all of his digital releases. After analysing why people gravitate toward hard format items like vinyl, he aims to bring progressive features into his digital projects to unify the consumer and creator.
For his most recent UP, he dropped a notification pack featuring sounds heard across the project. In future he plans to bring the Pulse sound into a live setting, creating and curating a club night called GIFT.