The Royal College of Music may seem an unlikely birthplace for a sound like UK Garage, but then Matt Coleman is not one to conform to type. As MJ Cole, his plush, orchestral, soulful arrangements on the futuristic album Sincere have shown another side to the sound of the moment. As Matt Coleman, his journey from oboe and piano experiments in the Royal College to taking two-step on the road is one tale of the many twists and turns British dance music has taken in the past decade.
Let's start with Sincere, an album which landed the modest London producer with invitations to the Mercury Music Award and Music Of Black Origin (MOBO) dinner dances. Released on Gilles Peterson's Talkin' Loud label, it's a fresh, finely-tuned achievement, the first proper album from the burgeoning two-step movement. Rather than collecting singles and remixes, Coleman and his collective (including singers Elisabeth Troy, Guy S'Mone, Richard Anthony Davis, rapper Danny Vicious, and vocal group Concept Noir) instead mapped out another way of working. From the space-age strings of Strung Out to the precision soul of Sanctuary, Coleman's vision was exquisitely executed.
"I never thought about what people wanted from this album," Coleman says. "I wanted to do a proper album centred around this new garage sound, something that wasn't just a collection of 12-inch singles, something which has a beginning, a middle and an end, and has different flavours and mixtures. I know there are quite a few albums to come from the likes of Artful Dodger, Wookie and Truesteppers - we are going to see at least 10 two-step albums before next spring. I imagine some of them are under a lot of pressure from their record companies to get their albums done quickly. I don't know how successful they will be. Sure, there will be more albums, but there will still be loads and loads of singles being pumped out."
After all, two-step is music for the dancefloor, and with everyone from Victoria Beckham (who guested with Truesteppers on Out of Your Mind) to major record label bean-counters wanting a piece, that pie just seems to get bigger and bigger. Coleman sees this level of attention spawning a confidence which was not there before. "Back in 1997, I thought it possible that the scene would wane and go off. But it didn't, it rose again and it hasn't stopped rising since. That has inspired confidence, the music is getting better, the producers are getting better, the music is selling more. Everyone in the scene has been working hard for four or five years so they know the ropes and that fuels the confidence."
Like many of two-step's leading lights, Coleman has been waiting for this moment. After all, two-step's gestation has involved everything from old-skool outdoor hardcore raves, such as Raindance and Fun City in the late 1980s, to the formative days of drum and bass and the first rumblings of the sound that became the speed garage phenomenon of the mid-1990s. And Coleman was there at nearly every turn.
He believes it was inevitable that he ended up playing music. "I suppose one of my earliest memories was sitting on my Dad's knee messing around when he was playing piano. I've played in loads of bands, right the way through when I was a teenager and when I was in the Royal College. All sorts of stuff - piano recitals, music college outfits, baroque ensembles, piano trios, you name it. I was even in the BBC's Young Musician Of The Year competition at one stage. Then I started to go out and go clubbing, and a whole new lifestyle opened up for me."
Coleman still recalls his first experiences in clubland with the enthusiasm of the converted. "I was into drum and bass for so long in such a fanatical way. I was buying records every day, I was on my decks every night, I was going to clubs every week. It sent shivers down my spine when I heard a great tune. It was the loudest, fastest music around, I loved the samples, the ragga influences, the drums. It was the punk of the early 1990s, my mum hated it, my neighbours hated it when I played it loud. "No one knew where the clubs were, it was so underground. And I was at the age when you're out to discover the world, so it was perfect for me. It was my new world. Then I found out that I could make the music on my computer. I had spent years trying to make it before I found out they were using samplers! I was using a drum machine when they were using samplers!" A career as a studio engineer beckoned, and Coleman began to work with independent drum and bass producers and labels. When the garage scene began to emerge, Coleman was perfectly placed to see its appeal - and to make one of its first anthems. Sincere, the title track from the album, is one of the scene's defining moments, a funky slice of urban soul which pushed Coleman to the top of the pile. Suddenly, the world of classical music seemed very distant.
The reactions from his former classical soulmates to his good fortune were somewhat mixed. "Some of them are envious and some are totally behind me," Coleman says. "Those who are professional musicians say things like `you did well to switch'. I never did it for financial gain, I didn't think `well, that's that with classical music'. I always loved messing around with computers, and it just so happened that I went from one genre to another and made a success of it. Others are dead chuffed for me, they tell me that I'm the only guy they know who has been on Top Of The Pops."
Right now, he is getting used to the acclaim and to the fact that his music is everywhere. "I'm never quite that charged up about everything I do," Coleman admits. "It's when I hear other people reacting to it that I go `wow, that's actually alright'. When you are in the studio and you're right at the coalface, you're so close to it, you don't hear the song, you hear what's wrong with it. It's only when you are in your kitchen and you're making a cup of tea or you're walking past a building site and the radio is on and the DJ plays your tune that you really click and it becomes whole."
Having just completed a UK tour, Coleman is buzzing about the potential realised by gigging. "I'm probably the first person from a garage background to be doing this thing live. It's sufficiently different from the record, I don't use a DAT, we have a live band. It's important because it shows we are real musicians, that I am a producer and an arranger and can put a band together to play the album. And it really does bring the album alive. And the reactions were really good. A lot of people heard about me through the Mercury Awards and even the MOBO Awards, and that certainly enticed people along to the gigs."
For Coleman, the adventure is really just beginning, and he's not sure exactly where it will lead him. "I'd love to do film scores, for example. I think it's another side of being a producer, because a producer has become such a big term. For me, it means that I can write, record, remix, arrange, perform, DJ and so on. I don't want to be boxed-in as simply someone who produces two-step records. I would hope there is a lot more to me than just that."
Sincere is released on Talkin' Loud Records.