Interview: General Midi talks new album Operation Overdrive

How do you win new fans while keeping your breakbeat credibility? If your name is Paul Crossman, you switch things up and start taking risks. thisisbreaks.com tracked the globe-hopping producer and DJ down in advance of his LP launch party at London's Supatronix on Friday

• Click here to listen to the Operation Overdrive album sampler

"We were never really thinking about being commercial, but we also wanted to rise above the idea that anything with a vocal was automatically selling out. And we knew we could do the dancefloor stuff, so this was a case of trying to push ourselves a bit."

General Midi is outside his comfort zone. Breakbeat's premier producer of dancefloor-friendly, techy yet accessible wax is about to unleash something rather different on the waiting hordes. New album Operation Overdrive, four years in the making, is no cheap collection of past singles, cobbled together to look like a deliberate selection, this is an LP whose songs slot in alongside each other like pieces of a carefully put together puzzle, and which go together like Sailor Jerry's and ginger ale.

It may just be 12 tracks of top notch breakbeat, with the odd foray into 4/4 along the way, but it also makes sense as a collection of work, something that so few dance music albums manage. That goal has been achieved via the recruitment of an army of vocal collaborators. Foreign Beggars' Orifice Vulgatron gets involved on the current single 4 Million Ways, while breakbeat princess Odissi brings her sassy vibe to Back for More. Elsewhere New York singer-songwriter Sean Gill brings an indie edge to Absinthe. Variety, it seems, is the spice of life.

"All the vocalists we worked on the album with were brilliant," says Midi, aka Bristolian-turned-Londoner Paul Crossman. "They mean that every track has a personality and an individuality and I love that about the album. It's not just the same track 11 times.

"The guy we did Absinthe with was introduced to us through out publishing company, so we never actually met him. In fact 90 per cent of the tracks were actually done with the vocalist working remotely. We'd send off a couple of ideas or in some cases a whole song, they would add their vocals and send it back - it's so easy these days, and I like the whole DIY ethic. Everyone's got their favourite mic that sounds best for them, so it's a good way to work."

The sheer number of collaborations involved on the LP perhaps explains the four-year gap between the new album and debut Midi Style. That and the fact that since 2005 Crossman has zig-zagged the globe, playing to crowds across the world and confirming his reputation as one of the standout DJs on the scene. While he keeps in regular contact with studio partner Eelz - often working on new tunes via Skype when he's out of the country - there has never been quite enough time in the day, and Crossman admits the gap could have been even longer had the pair not eventually decided it was time to show their hand to the world.

"It's been a bit like the painting of the Forth Bridge: it's very difficult to say: 'right, that's enough, it's done'," he says. "We started writing it straight after the last one. I just headed off on the road and then other things in life got in the way."

The four years have been well spent. Operation Overdrive sounds honed and polished, but crucially, full of spark and life. Most importantly, the vocal tracks don't sound contrived, or forced, something Crossman is delighted to hear.

"I guess people might say: 'Oh I'm not into that vocal or this vocal,' but we think it hangs together well as an album," he says. "One of the reasons we went for 4 Million Ways to Die as the first single was because I didn't want us to go too far from what we were known for in the past stylistically. I didn't want people to think we were trying to reinvent ourselves, and I think putting out one of the poppier tracks first might have given people that impression.

"I hate using words like organic but the album really was put together that way. We didn't sit down and say: 'let's go for a certain style here', because I don't think people respond to that."

Before its release there was some talk that Operation Overdrive might represent General Midi's departure from breakbeat realms, but acolytes will be pleased to hear that the broken beat quotient is present and correct.

"It wasn't a conscious thing," laughs Crossman. "We didn't sit down and say: 'Right, we've got to write a breakbeat album - oh no, breaks is dead, etc etc.' I get why people want to identify themselves with a certain style, for tribal reasons or move away when they no longer think something's fashionable. I don't really give a fuck whether people call what we have done breaks or broken beat, or even alternative house, as long as people get it and judge it on its own merits.

"I sometimes think breaks is its own worst enemy when it adopts a sort of siege mentality. It puts people off who just want to dip their toes in and see what it might be like, because the attitude is that you have to be really into it or not at all. Music should be inclusive and people should be able to enjoy it even if they know nothing about it.

"I try to keep as open a mind as possible, but I'm not capable of it all the time: sometimes I'll hear something someone on the scene has made and it will get me really angry.

"There is one house track on the album - Get It Down. It just seemed like the right vibe for that particular track. Some people will call it a fidget track and others won't even notice - that pleases me no end.

"At the same time there are plenty of tracks on there which are as breakbeat as you can get. We have a style of our own and we wanted to keep to that, while pushing it forward at the same time."

It's this sense of breaking down boundaries, advancing into new territories but without losing the General Midi identity which is at the heart of the new LP and the Midi vibe as a whole right now. Outside his comfort zone? Well who wants to be comfortable?

• General Midi plays Supatronix at Herbal, 10-14 Kingsland Road, London, on Friday, May 29. Click here for more information. Operation Overdrive is out on June 29.