You've caught Adam Freeland at a crossroads. After pioneering Britain's breakbeat scene and practically inventing nu-skool breaks with 1996's seminal Coastal Breaks, the man created his own band, Freeland, with whom he's just finished recording a new album.
Along with a heaving 2009 touring schedule, the five-piece outfit have a live drummer and a synthesised-cum-organic sound that you're going to start to recognise as distinctly Freeland.
'I'm making the transition from DJ to artist,' he says. 'I've released plenty of tracks over the years, but I think this DJ-producer thing is on some level different to being an artist. Not in terms of creativity ... but it's not a DJ project, is my point.'
Slated for release early next year, it will be the second album from the band, whose debut was the hugely successful Now and Them LP that spawned chart-topping lead single We Want Your Soul (2003), a manically catchy electro-breaks diatribe about consumer culture where synthesised vocals demand the core of your spiritual being that may or may not exist.
Considering that Freeland's last album as a DJ, a compilation mix for the Global Underground series, spanned breaks, techno and electro-pop all overlaid with buzzy guitars and textured riffs, you might be forgiven for wondering whether this is just the first step to indie rock stardom, skinny jeans and artfully tousled locks.
'I'm not over dance music - I just like dance music with loads of guitar sounds,' he says. 'I'm a rocker trapped in a DJ's body. I have an eclectic taste in music and I try to get that into what I do as a DJ. I don't like putting everything into some niche genre; you have people who play the same sound all night long - that's what I'm over.'
The album was three years in the making and had Freeland working with many of his heroes and veterans in rock, including punk band the Distillers' Brody Dalle, Devo's Gerry Casale and even Joey Santiago of the Pixies. Freeland hasn't quite flung off the shackles of his DJ body, however; mastering a live instrument still evades him.