Liverpool‑based Tarek Musa caught his first major break, circa 2016, as drummer and vocalist of Manchester band Spring King, an outfit assembled originally as a vehicle for his solo work. Musa’s production career has since taken in the likes of Circa Waves, the Big Moon and Gengahr, and he continues to release his own music as Dead Nature.

At the moment I can’t stop listening to

I’m in a real nostalgic place right now. Listening to a lot of music that’s pre‑1980s, generally from the world of jazz, exotica, tropicalia and surf: Marcos Valle, Haruomi Hosono, Martin Denny, the Four Freshmen, Quarteto Em Cy... I’m all over the place. But all of that music has this soothing affect on me. A million miles from the kinds of music I work on as a mixer, producer or songwriter, which tend towards being guitar‑ and drum‑heavy in nature. But all these artists have a few things in common that I think appeal to me right now. It’s something about the arrangements, beautifully composed harmonies and perfectly imperfect vocal deliveries. Or simply the way the music was recorded back then, the dynamics, rarely saturating to listen to for long periods. Whatever it is, I’m hooked at the moment.

The project I’m most proud of

I have been across a ton of projects that stick out, for obvious reasons, but none of them would have existed if it wasn’t for the confidence I discovered in myself from working on my own music. When I was a student, I always saw myself as an engineer, someone behind the glass, and never a songwriter. But that all changed in my final year when I had the opportunity to write a couple of songs. One took off quite well back then and sent me on a path that has definitely helped me understand every single artist that walks through the door on a totally different level. That project was called Kankouran, the song was ‘Rivers’. It somehow landed quite a big sync moment with Skins season 6, and became the main song across most commercials for that series. Following that I went back to the drawing board, and that’s when I started Spring King.

I’m forever grateful for my years on the road, whether with indie or major labels, sat in the back of a van or in a meeting of some sort. Without that experience, every artist that walks through the studio doors would just be slightly more alien and unfamiliar to me. But as it is I can completely relate to their situations, because of where my music took me. That might include the frustrations that they’ve got to try to forget when writing a song, the emails they have to get back to whilst tracking a vocal, the lyrics they’ve got to write when they’re burnt out from touring and have to record a new single... My artist career has helped me immensely in understanding the emotions and driving factors of the people I now work with.

The first thing I look for in...