SU: For our readers, tell us who you all are and what each member brings to Firecracker.

FC: Linkwood, Fudge Fingas, House Of Traps, Vakula, Intrusion. I head up the label, record and DJ as House Of Traps. Linkwood and Fudge Fingas bring the musical genius here at home and Vakula and Intrusion (from Ukraine and Chicago respectively) have releases pending.

SC: I first heard your material a good few years ago whilst in Vinyl Junkies. JP and I were talking, and I noticed ‘Miles Away’ in the racks. I was instantly drawn to it because of the excellent artwork. As I pulled a copy down, JP was playing it, I asked him what was playing and he said what I had in my hand! Suffice to say I bought it straight away. Going back to the artwork, who designs the covers and is it all original artwork?

FC: The OG copies of the first three firecrackers were designed by Tim Moore at ‘nth creative’ and myself. Tim is brother of Nick Moore (Linkwood) and records together with him as Discreet Unit on Prime numbers and as The Complainers on our EP2.  Two of the inner sleves (EP1 repress and EP3 OG) were illustrated by Tim’s wife Xiao. Recently I have been solely responsible for the design (see repackaged ep2) and new projects include screenprinted Intrusion 12”, EP4 and Vakula 10”.

SU: I have to ask this, just because I’m not sure

what it is. The ‘untitled’ track second on your mySpace player. What is it, and did it get a release?

FC: Look out for this on EP4! It’s basically a heavy dub house version of Dennis Parker’s ‘Like an Eagle’. It will appear as ‘Barely Eagle’ by Linkwood & House Of Traps. There’s already quite a few enquiries about this one! Linkwood has another boogie-style track called ‘Who La La?’ on the b-side as does Fudge Fingas called ‘ Situation Diminished’. I’m very excited about the release of this as the feedback has been even stronger than the previous ones!

SU: Many years ago, I worked with Dean Thatcher and The Aloof amongst others. The style of your tracks is something that reminds me of stuff Dean would play. How do you manage to retain such a wealth of soul in your music, whilst also just crossing into the realms of techno? I know the question’s an ambiguous one, but it’s something I’m interested in as a fan of your productions.

FC: In a word, analogue. We don’t touch Ableton or any of these programs that dominate the sound these days. Linkwood has a studio that can be best described as a synth museum and he, Fudge Fingas and myself see the golden era of techno