Laszlo: Yep the label name does have its roots in that song. We wanted a name that didn’t sound like a traditional techno/electronic label and that had a message of “get a bloody move on” without sounding too preachy. For me techno always sounded like it was rooted in the now, not the future; I never chose to read it as anonymous creations.  Instead I would picture the person operating the machines making the sounds and wonder who and where they were in the world. And I think that sums up Hand on the Plow —  the real person, their tools, the hard work and the journey of getting things done.

Steve: I’ve known Martin (MDK) since I was at school and the connection with Hardy Spymania came out of that. I met Spandex via techno mailing lists in the early nineties... and then Matt bumped into Laz in a record shop in Nottingham one day.

Laszlo: Our first two releases were through Spymania’s distribution and they gave us lots of advice and support in getting things going. I reckon we share some of their behaviour when it comes to release styles too, including a disposition to some very schoolboy humour. Everyone likes a cheap cock joke record, don’t they?

Laszlo: Press releases are just places where you say things that don’t really mean anything. We are quite house. House spills over me all the time, I’d just rather not say that’s what the label is. We’ve had slow stuff, house music, folk, bluesy bits, dancehallesque tracks, organic market techno.

Steve: Yeah I dunno how to explain that. House was a dirty word for me for a long time. It’s all techno to me, I think because all my favourite old American techno sounds pretty housey compared to a lot of European or modern techno.

Laszlo: Nope, I’ve got no idea about new music at all apart from Kode 9’s business, 'cos he lives up the road and we swapped some records. I’ve mainly been listening to John Fahey lately and trying to get in to opera. Please if anyone wants to send me records then I’d really appreciate some new bits.

Steve: I find when I’m making this kind of music it’s not what I want to hear to be honest. Recently I’ve been listening to Phill Niblock, Nurse With Wound, Terry Riley, Touch Records and Table of the Elements type stuff. I love it. About six years ago I was making a lot of droney music but listening to Akufen, Brinkmann, Super_Collider etc. so it goes in cycles really.

Laszlo: No, it is a tribute to the funniest demo we’ve ever received. I think you will all agree Pleated Lemon's version really captures the original's essence and pushes it in a new direction.

Steve: I don’t think anyone has heard the original though, Laz. It was basically a loop off some Radio 1 show where the announcer is saying something about ‘Carl Cox and friends’. Pretty strange.

Laszlo:  We never use the autotune plug-in — I think that's why Pleated Lemon wrote a song in tribute of it instead. Steve makes me sing, I’ve never corrected my vocals with fancy toys and Spandex usually mumbles so there no need to fiddle with his either.

Steve: One reason we use a lot of vocals is that its the easiest way to sound unique at the moment. I think we use vocals like the Detroit guys use synths.

We owe a deep debt to the spirit of Detroit techno — such a well-trodden cliché I know, but it had such a great dual-personality disorder going on with that contrast of machine beats and human synths. It's so rooted in a particular time and place.

Laz, Matt Spandex and I spent many years emulating that Detroit sound but it never really felt real. At first we toyed with the idea of HOTP being a faceless Underground Resistance-type deal; in a way that idea crept into the very first record, which didn't actually have an artist name on it — but it didn’t feel right.

Now we’re just concentrating on producing music that reflects our own mindset and environment, which is a much better tribute to the spirit of Detroit than getting paralysed trying to emulate it I reckon! Like Laz already said, it’s about the journey of doing something within your means, working with what you’ve got.

Laszlo: The only thing I’d ever heard was his Sing It Back remix and the Radio Boy project.

Steve: I thought his Akufen remix from a few years back was brilliant.

Laszlo: Nah, I think what makes us very different from Herbert’s approach to making music from samples is that we often find the sound to fit the job; we let the sample breath naturally without editing it to be a specific thing. We don’t need any supporting context for our sample sources other than its sound qualities.

Steve: In the same way that we ended up using vocals because we didn't want to emulate the way most people use synths, we like to make our own percussion just to get out of the 808/909 ghetto if anything. The technology you need to give randomly recorded clonks and bangs the same kind of impact as a tough drum machine is easily affordable and available now. So I think the approach we and other artists such as Herbert take is inevitable if you want to try and do something that sounds unique. I think Herbert obviously has very similar influences as us. Often you get great kick drums from the sound of a mic just hitting something by accident... I’ve also heard that in tracks by Herbert and Matmos.

Steve: Well the Lemons (The Pleateds?) enjoyed getting reactions to it because, as Matt Lemon put it, “this was the first record I ever made where normal people wouldn’t just screw their face up instantly”.

Laszlo: Someone said my remix sounded like JJ Cale, which was the finest reaction that anyone has ever given my music.

Laszlo: Cash, blah blah blah. It was depressing not releasing, but we are not dead; it will be a gentle trickle of things we like from now on.

Steve: Well we did put out the Soundslike record in the middle of that period. Cash was the real issue, but I think quality control is a big factor — not from the conscious point of view of having some grand masterplan… we’re just pretty slow to be honest. We used to be a bit over-analytical too but we’re in the swing of it now I think.

Laszlo: Baked Goods are distributing us now and seem to be getting them out and about — it’s selling as far afield as Japan, which we could never get done before. My Yakima record made a medium splash for a few people, but I had nothing to do with that label other than that one record so I couldn’t comment. We may re-release some old tracks from us all, that we feel should have seen more light of day, so watch out for some tracks from the “Plow Vault”. 

Steve: Baked Goods have been brilliant — it just really lets us concentrate on getting the music done and not wasting hours with the manufacturing process and artwork and blah. Getting our vinyl cut at D&M in Berlin has been a real ear opener too.

Steve: Caro approached us to do a remix for his My Little Pony record, which we did around the time of the Lies release. It was a real shame that it took so long for the Caro remix to come out on our third release. It’s such a great track and we’ve had a big response to it.

The next Beckett & Taylor record features two remixes by Cristian Vogel, early experiments with the technology that has become his 'Never Engine' system. Cris's uncompromising attitude and dedication to electronic music is unrelenting and his production skills are so finely honed now. He’s out there DJing all the time so It provides a nice contrast to our more insular approach! 

Laszlo: There was the beginning of a live sound and then Steve moved away from London, so it has been difficult to get together often to hone it. I was doing a solo MPC set with decks which was quite fun, and Spandex did a great gig recently with Cristian Vogel which worked really well.

Steve: We’ve found it’s a crazy amount of effort to get a live show even close to where we want to be, which is difficult when we live in different towns… The label is the major priority and we don’t want to spend time practising when we could be writing tracks. We did a couple of Beckett & Taylor gigs last year though, at the ICA on an Accidental night and at one of the Soundslike Werk parties.

Laszlo: Plowtrax Vol. 1 is what came out of my live MPC/DJ sessions. I really wanted to do a trackier record that still sounded “plow”. It’s loads of live recordings of me playing instruments and shouting and then edited into tight bits in the MPC. Steve actually contributed a lot to this record with his usual studio know-how and some fantastic recordings he made of a VCS3 synth. Guitar Beat Track Parts 1 & 2 was the first Plow track to be arranged, edited and mixed live. It is so nice to be away from the computer. I will definitely be adding Vol. 2 to the Plow catalogue soon.

Steve: We can’t find other artists. That’s not to say they aren’t out there, but we’re not really ‘scene’ people and we don’t get really get sent demos. If its not really distinctive stuff like some human or vocal element or a really unique approach... it just doesn’t feel right for the Plow. We’re still looking though. I suppose we should be on MySpace looking for artists but I don’t want to be hanging off Rupert Murdoch’s dick!