Quantic Mishaps Happening

Tru Thoughts, 2004

International super producer, DJ, and label boss Will Holland really cranked up the dial for his third album as Quantic.

Recent additions to his record collection had inspired him to experiment with wilder rhythms, and incorporate more

musicality to his beats than ever before. “I’d started collecting Afro Latin, Caribbean, spiritual jazz and

Afrobeat,” he says. “They were big influences, and made me change things up a lot more, rhythmically.

“I’d made Apricot Morning – the second Quantic record, which started to encompass sampled elements and live compositions, with vocalists, and jazz harmonies. But that was the prototype. And now I was doing it proper.”

With this new blueprint and zeal Mishaps Happening became the best version yet of the Quantic ideal – to find that perfect balance between sampling and live music.

“I was really trying to get a... I don’t want to say ‘fusion’,” he says. “Because I don’t like that word. But, more of a meeting point between those two worlds.”

He brought in players to handle live strings, flutes, vibraphones, and organs. While picking up the sax, bass, and guitar himself. And a move from Fruity Loops to the far more sophisticated world of Logic meant his tracks got bigger in scope, and easier to assemble.

“That upgrade in software let me make far more complicated arrangements,” he says. “As well as being able to quickly bring all the musical elements together.”

Holland was also going the extra mile when it came to recruiting guest vocalists for the album, too.