'I'm Not After Sales'

For over 25 years now, Lee Coombs has been responsible for a slew of genre-defying, innovative electronic music releases that have cemented his place in the world of house, techno, acid and countless others.

Last year he continued this with two acclaimed releases; one with his revived old-school electro and hip hop project The Freakazoids called In Freakz We Trust, the other a collaborative effort, Kaleidoscope, featuring up-and-coming producer Kostas G. Coombs says the freedom to move between sounds on each album provides him with a creative freedom not many new artists get to experience. “What gives me the freedom I think with the Freakazoids is that I can do whatever I want and just be as nerdy or old-school or whatever. I’m not sort of trying to please any genres, I’m not after sales, and I mean I’m just doing it purely because I think that is what that music should be. And the Kostas G stuff that I’ve been working on, that really is like trying to be forward-thinking, so it’s nice to have both.”

"I’m not sort of trying to please any genres, I’m not after sales, and I mean I’m just doing it purely because I think that is what that music should be"

For Coombs, knowledge is a big part of what keeps him inspired and motivated as an artist and he says this was what led to him enrolling in the prestigious Berklee College of Music to study film and TV orchestration. “It’s really intense,” he admits. “I’m doing two courses at the moment; one is music theory 201 and arranging one, which is rhythm section, and it blows my mind every day. I’m thinking how the hell am I going to do it but every day you learn a bit more and you get through it so it is quite special. It was a big move for me to realise that I wanted to go and do that but I want to do more work in the film and TV world; I think that’s the future of me. I don’t see myself DJing in clubs all my life or at least I can’t do it forever.”

For now though fans will be able to catch Coombs in action when he returns for a Valentine’s Day show at Ambar. After that, Coombs says we can expect more releases with both The Freakazoids and Kostas G. “I am going to release an album of remixes from Kaleidoscope so I’m just collecting them now and that will be probably coming out in a couple of months. I’m going to do some more Freakazoids after that but not another album; I might do another piece for vinyl because everyone really loved that but we’ll see. I have the freedom to do whatever I want so whatever looks like it’s going to be good to do I can just do it ‘cause nowadays it’s all in-house. I don’t have to rely on record labels or distributors or anybody like that and you don’t have to fund this giant project. Everything’s reduced down to a one-man band now so you can just pretty much feel your way through.”