Grand Central mainstay Andy 'Aim' Turner is preparing to release his second full-length album, Hinterland. Largely inspired, musically and thematically, by his Cumbrian lifestyle, it's a collection of 13 stand-alone tracks that again define his subtle, crafted, earthy take on the early nineties beat-making that inspired him. Overload interrupted his festive preparations to discover more about a hip hop sound that could only happen here.

Why do you choose to live where you do?

You're never more than ten minutes from the beach. You've got The Lakes half an hour up the road and I'm only an hour from Manchester. If I need to get there I can get there easily. Maybe if I'd been any farther away I'd have moved by now. It gets me away from the frenzy around [my record label] Grand Central and I can just concentrate on doing the music. I won't be here forever though; I'd like to live in a city for a bit. I'll definitely do another album here and we'll see where we're at then. I tend to go into the city once every couple of weeks and do all my business. Up here there's literally nothing to do. There's no nightlife – well, there is, but nothing you'd be seen dead at, just shit clubs. They fill them but it's just one street and no-one cares about this kind of music. Which is a good thing, because no one cares what I'm doing either so I can stay anonymous if you know what I mean.

Do you think the music benefits from where you live?

It's definitely got a more, what's the word? Not rural, maybe an organic feel to it. It's certainly not an urban sound, even though it's hip hop. I like being able to finish a track and then go down to the beach and listen to it. Just stare at the sea for an hour or two. I just like being by the sea I suppose.

Maybe it isn't obvious to you because you make it, but it seems refreshing that someone is actually trying to say something, and something that's relevant to 'normal' lifestyles.

I think one of the things is that I've been into all these different types of music and I didn't see any reason to forget about them. I'm into trying to write lyrics and that's probably due to The Smiths. He was a genius, probably one of the best lyricists there has ever been. It really spoke to us, I don't want to sound too corny but I could totally relate to it.

The Girl Who Fell Through The Ice is a classic Morrissey situation in many ways. A bit 'Lifeguard Sleeping, Girl Drowning'? It's also extremely wintry. 

Yeah, I suppose it is similar. It's about how things can change when someone tells you that they love you, and the setting is a mid-afternoon from my childhood. The schools are closed due to broken pipes or something, y'know. I like that kind of 'sitting in your front room while it's pissing it down outside and the fire's on' and all that. It's pretty sentimental shit really. I work better too when it's bad weather in a funny sort of way. You never feel as bad sat in a studio when it's throwing it down outside, it's a bit harder when it's red hot. Luckily there aren't that many hot days up here.

With this second album it seems we can really put a finger on an 'Aim sound' now.

The main difference between the first and the second album is that I engineered the second one and mixed it all myself, here. It's as near as I've managed to get to the sound that I've wanted to get if you follow me. There's a subtle difference between the two but I'd say the second is definitely the closest yet to what I'm trying to do.

And you seem able to pick the collaborators you'd want to now?

It's just really good to work with people that made me want to make music. Diamond D is still my reference point for drums and the way he produces... it's the sound that I set out to be able to do.

He mentions the boxer Shane Mosley in the track?

The thing about Diamond D is that he has these certain trademarks, the way he rhymes and stuff. One of them is using names like that. It just sounds cool. I never knew who it was and I just found out later on that he was a boxer. I'm like a kid in a candy shop really, being able to work with people like him.

And with Kate [Rogers, vocalist] you seem to have found someone you can lean on and rely on?

Definitely. She's brilliant to work with and she's really patient because I work in a funny way. We did about a hundred takes of [The Girl Who Fell Through The Ice] and she just kept going and going. I'm a bit tough to work with I'd imagine. I was chopping words out of sentences and putting them into other ones. If she sang a syllable better during another take I was chopping it out and replacing the earlier one. We got there in the end. I'd written 'Sail' for the first album and it was all done with the melody and lyrics all complete. We just didn't have a singer, I couldn't think of anyone I wanted to sing it. Bev (Veber, Rae and Christian vocalist) was around but her voice was almost too confident. It was too bold and strong. It needed something a bit delicate and fragile. And I heard a demo that Kate had done with Mark and as soon as I did I was like 'who's that?'

I'm not sure people know a massive amount about Kate?

Well, she's Mark [Rae]'s cousin. She was over just to visit him and she did a demo, just for fun, for something to do. As soon as I heard the voice I knew it was going to work on that track. She's classically trained, she used to do opera when she was young but I think that put her of singing to be honest. You can imagine how regimented it is, especially at a young age, I can imagine it putting anyone off. I imagine there to be no room for improvisation, just a really strict regime. So Sail was the first thing she'd done for years and I always knew I wanted to get her on the new album. 

It's certainly the track that 'hits' you, but the more you listen to the record the less it stands out in a way.

It's definitely the most instant and I made a conscious effort to try and get a track on there that had the same sort of impact as Cold Water Music on the first album. That kind of stood out and set the album up. There was nothing like that during the recording, then I remembered that I'd heard that string loop ages ago and I just got it going. That turned out to be the one that people pick up on straight away. Originally she was going to sing on Twilight Zone but I did a demo with me singing as a guide vocal. Mark got it and said 'why don't you sing it?' because it sounds all right. I was like 'nah, don't be daft!' But he just kept on at us and I played it to a few people and none of them guessed it was me.

That's always a good sign...

Yeah! So I went with it. 

It's kind of cool to hear hip hop being used like this, because you'd be forgiven for thinking it was all about swagger, and the Rawkus and Adam F take...

The whole thing about hip hop is that, almost by definition, it takes these old elements and creates something new. That's the whole idea for me. I totally bought into the Diggin' In The Crates philosophy and I just try to find obscure, unused loops. But like I say I'm not just going to write off these other influences because I'm doing hip hop. I think you can bring whatever you've been in to into it.

Fall Break is a favourite of mine, a really bitter-sweet, subtle piece.. 

Yeah. I think that's one of the very best things I've done musically to be honest. It came out really nicely and I'm really pleased. But I really like the track that [Baby Bird's] Stephen Jones did as well. Everyone knew that song they had out years ago, You're Gorgeous, but other than that I didn't know anything about them. There was this programme on Channel 4 called 'Barfly Sessions' where they'd get a band on from this little pub in Camden or somewhere. They were just on one night and I sat in watching it. They did this track called Firefly which is off the Bugged album and I thought 'what's this?' I saw him interviewed afterwards and he seemed cool so I went and bought the CDs and was really blown away. I just thought he was brilliant. His lyrics and melodies…I just had an idea that we may be able to do something together so we went with it. It was exciting. It's like when we got the Diamond D thing back we didn't have a clue what it'd be like but you knew it'd be a rap and it'd be pretty phat. But when I got the Steven Jones demo back you just didn't have a clue what he was going to do. It sounds like a proper old soul vocal to me. I love it.

We should talk about DJing too...

Well, it's a lot easier to get gigs when you've had a record out that's for sure. But it was something we made a conscious effort to do when we started the label. We were all learning, we weren't selling any records and I saw it as a way of making some money to be totally honest and ruthless about it. We'd really pushed to get a lot of gigs and it's really paid off, the same with the remixes. We pushed to get them in after the first album and that's what I made my studio from. Every time I did a remix I paid a little bit more off from what I owed and tried to buy a bit more kit, to the point where now I'm just doing everything from start to finish at home.

Will you be going over to the States? It's a bit of a hip hop pilgrimage?

I've always been into America I suppose, from being a kid onwards. Obviously there's a bad side and all that, but what comes out of it is and has been amazing. I always wanted to go to New York and to get there a couple of years ago was a very big moment for me. It was after we'd done the track with YZ on the first album – we went up to meet him in The Bronx and had a bit of a smoke – it was brilliant. We'd love to get a couple of gigs going over there, I think people are starting to take notice of what we're doing so hopefully there will be a chance to get over there. I'm not into this 'let's break America', that's not very us, we're not making hits. But the fact that people are taking notice over there…I think it's great. It's a small world now, and it's probably a bit refreshing. It's almost cynical a lot of the U.S. music that's coming out, the way it's all about the hook and this polished, synthy sound. So I suppose when you hear nutters from Manchester coming out with this weird music it's maybe refreshing. It's not a right or wrong thing, it'd just a personal viewpoint. Using an old sample from vinyl gives things a bit more life than using a synth line all the time. 

Where do you pull from in the DJ sets?

I push it as far as I can really, as far as the crowd will let me. I'll always try a bit of Beta Band or something and I find that if I do then when I play a great hip hop tune it stands out that bit more. It gets a bit dull if you hear the same sound all night. I love hip hop but it gets a bit heavy if that's all you hear.  

There seems to be a very wide range of music that's acceptable in a club these days...

To be honest, with not being in Manchester the only nights I get to are the ones that I'm involved in. I don't see enough other DJs really, but there's some great music around, it's a really good time. Though again, to be honest, I'm not really influenced by a lot of new stuff now. I've kind of got my own sound now and I've been influenced by the things that make that sound. I'll hear certain tracks that'll make me want to go home and make a beat, but for me that period of early nineties hip-hop was the most exciting time and that's where I'm drawing from...

Do you always start with a beat? The Girl... has such a strong melody I'd have thought you'd begun with that.

It's the same process for every track really. Start with a loop, put a beat to it and sit there for days with a pile of records on me knee going through them, building it bit-by-bit. That track was going to be an instrumental but I had to have Kate on there. I think I wrote the last verse the night before we recorded it.

  There's a strong 'horror' streak running through it? Are you a big fan?

For some reason I started watching them when I was eight or nine. It was never a morbid thing – I was into the popcorn stuff, Friday The 13th and Halloween. It was a time before the Daily Mail had begun this whole 'Video Nasty' campaign so we were going in and renting these disgraceful films at the age of eight but I never thought they were real. It was almost like an illusion. I wanted to see how real they could make it. Films have always been a huge part of my life.

Have you a live show?

I wasn't going to. The problem I have is that I don't play anything well enough to perform so it'd be a case of getting a load of session musicians in, them playing m y songs and me just standing there waving. It's a bit more honest to DJ. There's talk of a little PA or something, I may even pick up a guitar.