£3.99
A1 Bassline is the work of Christian Sibthorpe, a producer from South London, and the bassline/ electro tracks he made with a girl who lives round the corner from him called Saffie.
Christian began writing garage/grime as a kid when he went to college, having grown up on a heavy dose of the genre. He would go record shopping with mates every week in places like Big Apple and Swag. As he got older he started listening to more house and electro, and with the revival of the garage sound influenced him to start a little project. What he didn’t know is that the bedroom project would blow up on the blogs, see his mixtape downloaded over 50,000 times and take him back and forth across the Atlantic.
Christian met Saffie at a local festival where she was doing a PA. He was so impressed by her voice that he took her number down to hook up and do a few tunes together. After penning some R’n’B/hip hop tracks, Christian started writing garage and bassline house again, and the acapella to ‘Girl Thing’ seemed to fit the song so well that it stuck.
All of the A1 Bassline material was written, recorded and self-produced in Christian’s bedroom just outside Croydon. Saffie was only 15 when she sang ‘Girl Thing’ and her mum sat on Christian’s bed the whole day whilst they recorded. As he muses, “I guess it’s funny in a way that I’m called A1 Bassline, seeing as A1 is the soft synth which comes with Cubase and I do use a few noises from that programme”. The whole EP was written with more childhood music memories in mind - “It’s music that everyone can relate to down my local pub, so I guess that means something to me ;-)” As one fashion magazine journalist put, with more of an old skool garage edge to the productions, “A1 Bassline is one for the ladies as well!”
From hereon, Christian aims to continue writing the music he enjoys, to travel the world with it, and to produce other acts. Americans and the LA dance scene have clutched A1 Bassline to their hearts.