On the arrival of his ninth album 'Lifeblood', we caught up with Dan Curtin for a quick chat about the release, his own label Metamorphic and what you can find digging through his record collection ... "The "Lifeblood" is the flow of life energy, emotion, and consciousness that is constantly in motion between all life, and I wanted to tap into this and draw on it as my inspiration for the music on the album."

You have just released 'Lifeblood' on mobilee records, what was the thinking behind this title?

The "Lifeblood" is the flow of life energy, emotion, and consciousness that is constantly in motion between all life, and I wanted to tap into this and draw on it as my inspiration for the music on the album. I thought of the concept before I started, it was the whole point of the album. The tracks work with the title, or better, the concept of the Lifeblood, because each one was inspired or drawn from this flow of energy. Listen to the words and feel the melodies in 'Breath' for example, this is clear example of what I am talking about.

You have your own imprint Metamorphic, how are things going with the label and what do you have in mind for the future?

Metamorphic has been my baby for a long time! I release material on Metamorphic when it comes to me. I don't really seek it out or try to maintain a release schedule, so I only end up releasing a couple each year. But that is OK, the whole point of the label is to release exactly what I want from a small roster of artists without any restrictions or worry, Metamorphic is all about the love of the music. Next release coming this spring is an EP entitled 'Entanglements' produced by myself under my Planetary alias, and after that...well, we'll just have to see what flows my way!

It's your ninth album, which is an incredible feat! How would you say this album, and the making of it, differs from your previous full length releases?

To be honest making the music for the album is the easy part because it comes naturally. The feat is all of the work involved in producing, promotion, and releasing the album in a changing market and thankfully the mobilee team are very good at what they do so they make this all happen smoothly! As far as the differences between this album and others, well that is hard to describe because they are more emotional than technical, something better felt than described!

If you could collaborate with another artist who would it be and why?

It would have been J Dilla because he was a master at translating sentiment into something audible, to make the machines come alive, and to witness this first hand in the studio would have been something special.

Can you take us through your record collection and tell us a bit about it?

My oldest purchases go back to early hip hop from when I was 12 or so, Marly Marl, T La Rock, stuff like that, then you'll find a small-ish goth/ new wave/ industrial/ synth-pop section from bands like The Cure, Front 242, Cocteau Twins and lots of the Factory Records material, I tended to favour the dark side of those styles, then it goes into house. Starting from about 1987 on it's all house and techno, and since then I never looked back until a couple of years ago when hip hop started becoming really important to me again. The other big part of my collection is the vintage section that I accumulated when digging for records to sample, I have a lot of funk and soul and disco in there which is mainly what I look for when digging, but you never know what you will find! My newest purchase is the new Omar S remix EP on FXHE. If I want to chill with music I'll throw on some ambient, deep house, or instrumental hip hop.