How was 2018 for you?
Tim Garbutt: A mixed bag – not the best of years personally or globally. However, musically there was a lot of great music to celebrate!
Highlights?
Three major highlights for us, all live gigs.
The first was a festival called Sunflower in Ireland – we were closing the main stage after a wet weekend, so we wouldn’t have bee surprised if everyone was a bit exhausted. The exact opposite happened and it really went off (a brief clip here).
The second highlight was playing the city centre of our hometown Leeds with a 60-piece orchestra. There is a legendary club in Leeds called Back to Basics, who have been going 25 years, and been a key player in the development of dance music over that time. Dave Beer is the head of the club, and we used to work together and have known each other a long time. They were putting a concert on with a full orchestra playing dance classics for 5000 people in the middle of Leeds – we only played three tracks over 10 minutes, but it was such a moving 10 minutes for all involved – crowd, orchestra, everyone in the same moment – amazing!
Finally, we are honored to be able to curate a stage at one of the best festivals in the world, Beatherder in the north of the UK. We program three days of music, and it is as eclectic as we can make it. This year we had everything from a Lindy Hop lesson to full on drum and bass from Rene LaVice, via house, techno, glitch funk, bass funk, beatboxing, disco and garage. It’s an honor and a complete blast.
Oh, and having our second album featured in Future Music as Classic Album of the Month – that means both our albums have now had that honor.
Lowlights?
Where do you want to start? A lot of bonkers stuff politically round the world. If you want to be upset, check the news. But being out in clubs and at festivals, we are really optimistic that the new generation are super savvy, clued in, driven and have soul – they will sort everything out eventually!
Song of the year?
“Prayer by Prospa” (Stress Records). This track has blown up toward the end of the year – the sound of now with a nod to the last three decades of dance. They are a duo from our hometown of Leeds UK, which makes it all the sweeter.
What’s your New Year’s resolution?
Spread the love, reconnect with why we started the Utahs, make some new music as our sound still fits everything, then start planning our 25 years anniversary tour (which will be late like everything else we do!),