Ross From Friends returns to Brainfeeder under his new Bubble Love alias

Ross From Friends (aka Felix Clary Weatherall) returns to Brainfeeder under his new Bubble Love alias, breathing fresh life into two classic RFF tracks: “Love Divide”, from 2021’s ‘Tread’ album; and “The Knife” from his 2017 debut ‘Family Portrait’.

On “Love Divide (Bubble Love Remix)” Weatherall retains all of the emotional heft of the original whilst ramping up the four-to-the-floor elements to deliver a peak-time remix that elevates the track from its worthy status as one of the highlights of his live shows to something equally at home on a packed-out dancefloor — as evidenced by its use as the opener on his recent Boiler Room show.

The release comes backed with “The Knife (Bubble Love Remix)” — recorded live in Newcastle, UK — which sees Weatherall taking a more radical approach to the reworking, transforming the downtempo original into a 160BPM  Jungle-infused roller, which also references vocals from another Ross From Friends live show fan-favorite “The Daisy”.

Originally conceived as a way of bridging the gap between the energy of the Ross From Friends Live shows and the late-night club DJ sets Weatherall was enjoying playing, much of the initial music that would eventually become Bubble Love was written spontaneously and fast — in stark contrast to the meticulous production that goes into the mainline Ross From Friends output — and often played out to fans the same day it was written. “This was super fun initially, being able to just fire stuff out at the last second and watch people go ape,” says Weatherall. “That pure fury and rawness is, to me, what a lot of dance music is all about.”

At the same time though, he found himself struggling with what he felt was the “hollow” nature of making music this way. “Quite a massive part of me eventually found making things disposable like that really meaningless,” he says. “I felt like I was abandoning a side of me that loved spending time working on details, and loved to try and think really hard about certain parts of tunes.”

Fortunately, he found a way to reconcile these conflicting feelings whilst whiling away some of the hours on a long train journey: “I came up with an experiment,” he explains. ”I told myself, ‘Let me try making a tune as if there was a digital character instructed to carry out the very first idea that came into my head.’ For example, if I had the idea that I wanted a horn section, seeing as that was the very first idea that came to my head, as per the rule, I had to carry it out without any judgment. It might sound far-fetched, but I love coming up with these kinds of games when I’m in a bit of a creative rut., and eventually I found myself just absolutely firing away making tunes like this. It was almost like a total epiphany – I realised I could bypass any self-doubt and confused voices and replace them with this character who was just mindlessly carrying out all of these tasks for me. Like I could just set up this algorithm and let it run.”

“As I started making more and more stuff like this, that digital character started to become clearer and clearer. It started gaining actual characteristics, a voice, a personality. Whenever I’d make a creative decision I’d quite literally imagine this little character carrying out these tasks for me,  and it just became more and more vivid. As the character kept growing, that hollowness associated with making music in this disposable way started to lift, and it actually started to gain all this meaning. It’s like I could now allow myself to enjoy making music in this way if I imagined it wasn’t me doing it. It’s easier to picture this digital geezer just pressing all the buttons instead.”

“In a nutshell, that digital geezer is Bubble Love. He’s extracted all of that drunk, decisive, hedonistic energy I’ve got somewhere in me and spat it into my music. He’s what’s been the main driving force behind my DJ sets lately, and he can be a proper troll so watch out.”

“Love Divide / The Knife (Bubble Love Remixes)” are out now on Brainfeeder, and keep an eye out for Ross From Friends / Bubble Love touring throughout 2024. Stream / Download here

The post Ross From Friends returns to Brainfeeder under his new Bubble Love alias appeared first on Decoded Magazine.