Johnathan Cilia catches up with the FDM Crew ahead of the local boat party that heralds the crew’s participation in Outlook, one of Europe’s premier UK bass festivals.

J Sparrow

As far as an underground scene in Malta goes, the dubstep scene has seen its fair share of ups and downs. When the UK bass scene hit Malta over a decade and a half ago, the Maltese underground had never experienced music like it. The incessant drum kick found in the popular trance and techno scenes was replaced with a breakbeat or a half-time tempo, forcing revellers to learn how to dance to a beat that requires more than a hand in the air and a shoulder shuffle from left to right.

When the dubstep scene hit Malta, various crews and organisers took to the new sound from south London and started promoting it. One group that has truly taken the dubstep scene’s ethos and made it their own, irreversibly fusing their names and lifestyles to the UK bass scene, is the FDM Crew.

The FDM Crew – made up from DJs/producers Depth, Volume A, and Mist – have been flying the dubstep flag since 2003 and they haven’t gone unnoticed. Outlook Festival, one of Europe’s premier UK bass festivals annually held in Croatia, has invited them back again to play at the festival this September after their raucous sets in previous year’s editions.

“The first year the FDM crew went up was in 2011 and it was just unbelievable,” says Volume A, reliving the memory. “I had never been to a festival in my life and it was the first time going to a festival with all the biggest artists and names in the scenes. And you get to hear these artists for four days. I had never partied with people from all over the world on the same vibe as me; you feel at home, it makes it very comfortable.”

Promoting an underground genre in Malta for over a decade to little growth has become taxing

Depth most definitely concurs, especially in expectation of Outlook 2017. “People from all over the world will be there together and it’s like nothing I have ever experienced in my life: they have been the best days of my life,” he says. “I’m feeling excited, because I’m feeling like this year I am going to bring the best to Outlook as my production has gotten better by time, and this year I’m going to exclusively play my own works.”

Depth has played twice at the festival, and Volume A once. They will both be playing there this year again. Alongside their sets at the festival, they are also hosting the official Outlook launch boat party, Malta’s best dubstep boat party, where they’ll be bringing over Leeds-based producer J. Sparrow to captain the dubstep ship.

“This year we are getting J. Sparrow, he’s got some killer tracks. He’s one of the originators, creating deep meditation dubstep music,” explains Depth. “We’ve also got Bass Culture on board; we’ll be heading to Comino, where you can swim, play games and win tickets for Outlook Festival. It’s going to be six hours of pure positive vibes.”

While the boys from FDM are constantly gigging around Malta – just this weekend, they performed at Zion and Funky Monkey on the same night – and constantly receive messages of support from foreign artists and fans, promoting an underground genre in Malta for over a decade to little growth has become taxing.

A major issue, and quite an ironic one, comes from Maltese clubbers happy to attend events set up by local crews. Yet when these same crews bring over a foreign artist, attendance drops. FDM themselves would know – they’ve brought over some heavy hitters, such as Sukh Knight, Kahn, Tonnage, Leon Switch, Joe Nice, Thelem, LXONE, Congo Natty, Radikal Guru, Numa Crew, Jay Kenzo, Blazin’... the list goes on.

“The fact that in previous years we brought really big names over and the crowd didn’t attend the parties puts you off, and it makes you realise if you should do anything else that big you might face problems. We will all die making music after all, but the effort will be different,” says Depth. “I’m not going to put 100 per cent into a party and then I bring a foreigner who can show what the scene is all about but you still end up getting less people than you do for a local event. It doesn’t make sense for a promoter. A good artist comes to teach us and bless us with his music, and no-one cares.”

For FDM Crew, who hold dubstep music in the highest regard and only want to promote what they see as incredible music, seeing all these artists come and go with little noise hasn’t been fun. Yet, they are still dedicated to the scene. “We’re happy to keep on pushing the local scene here in Malta, make some dubstep, grime, drum ’n’ bass parties once in a while. And if those go well, then we will consider bringing more foreign artists.”

Having said all this, the two artists add that they will soon have “an incredible announcement” to make soon. They just enjoy bringing artists over too much to stop. And with a dubstep sound system rocking the high seas again this weekend before sets at Outlook Festival, the hype is real.

“The boat party is always something special because you know that the people who really love FDM are going to be there, that special crowd who crave that hype,” Depth and Volume A say, beaming.

Volume A breaks into an even bigger smile and says pointedly: “The best feeling is when people come up to me a week or two after and still mention how much they enjoyed the boat party... that is a great feeling!”