One of the peculiar things about interviewing DJs, musicians and producers is that you often talk to them when they have a new release on the market, but rarely is there a chance to do much follow-up. It's a rather distorted portrait of an artist - who isn't full of optimism at the end of a long and tortuous process, such as that involved in putting an album together?

A year ago, I interviewed Andy Caldwell (facebook, podcast, label, myspace, twitter) about Obsession, the LP released on his Uno Recordings imprint. This month, before getting to news about the release of some previously unheard Soulstice material and more recent projects, I had one of those rare opportunities to ask an artist how he felt a year after his last great project was released into the world.

(It should be mentioned here that long after going to press, a remix of his track "Funk Nasty" on Uno was nominated for a 2011 Grammy Award. And here's the vid for his latest track with Alexander Sky, the Robert Smithish "Don't Go Home Tonight":)

Going over some unreleased material from Soulstice, I realize that good songwriting is something to aspire to. This material is 10 or 12 years old and you think, "This still sounds good."

I haven't talked to you since the media blitz when Obsession was released. Were you satisfied with the overall reception to the album?

I put a lot of work into Obsession, and since it was self-released, I put a lot of my own money, money from savings, into it. I did everything - a big radio push, a big PR push, singles - but didn't recoup my investment. I had some licenses come through and that helped - it nearly pushed it to the point of parity or pretty close to it. But I did everything myself and it's incredibly hard both running the label and dealing with the business end as well as being a creative artist - or at least do it at a high level. So on that level, no, I wasn't really satisfied.

Well, I guess that since you're the label boss, you can treat yourself like crap for not "recouping".

Yeah! But honestly, being on their side of it with my own album this time, I understand now where labels are coming from. I get it now. I sort of always did and was sympathetic to the argument about the investment they put into an artist and not getting it back. It's just so difficult to make money on an album. I don't think I'll be working on an album again for while.

I think one major thing that has changed is that there used to be a huge market for compilations. Every corner boutique had their own branded mixed comp and the OM tours were huge. But I read recently that Ralph Lawson from 20:20 Vision said a comp these days might sell 2000 copies.

You know, I have a deal on the table with a record label now to put out a compilation. They'll take care of the business side of it, but I have to ask myself - is anyone really buying them? If I release a podcast every few months as I've been doing, will that hurt sales even more? It's a tough question.

When Obsession came out, I regret that we didn't go into how different the sound was compared to work you did in the past. It seemed like a definite break from what people had known of your career before then.

My album before Obsession, Universal Truth, had been in development for years - there were four, five, six years of songs in there. Obsession was more current and more what I was into at the time as far as my path as an artist. I put down that sort of schizophrenic musical direction on the album because the time frame was so different.

The promo sheet for it talked about breaking out of the "Deep House..." I think the term was "prison" or...

"Shackles," maybe? [laughs] Yeah, I'm not sure if I alienated fans from my first album or not, but I feel like Obsession sort of cleared my plate and got it out of my system.

I can speak personally that after about the 100th Masters at Work rip-off, I felt much the same way. Not even Louie and Kenny have that sound anymore, but people are still copying what they were doing 10 years ago. Is that why you felt that way?

No, not really. I just couldn't feel inspired by it anymore - I felt tapped out. I feel like now I can kind of go back to it and get some interesting things from it again.

A couple of songs from Obsession are objectively great songs, regardless of production style. And you've been nominated for a Grammy for a song you co-wrote. Do you ever feel like this kind of involved songwriting is not appreciated in dance music?

I do take songwriting seriously, and write or co-write everything I release. It does sometimes seem that for all of the effort you put into it, you might not feel like it's appreciated. It's just a fact that not everyone in dance music gives a jack about songs - they might just notice a catchy melody or a hook, and I'm not really a hook kind of a guy. I approach it like any songwriter would - each verse supports each chorus, one leads into another and so on. A lot of people aren't involved on that level.

On the other hand, I think it enables people to tune into the songs on a deeper level at some point. When you put that kind of effort into it, the songs will stand the test of time. Going over some unreleased material from Soulstice, I realize that it's something to aspire to. This material is 10 or 12 years old and you think, "This still sounds good" and can imagine someone covering it or reworking it and making it their own.

Andy Caldwell ft. Gina Rene: Fear My Pride

Is there anything forthcoming from those unreleased Soulstice tracks?

Yeah, OM will be putting out a package of previously unreleased material from Soulstice.

What are you working on now?

I'm working on a new project with Mac [Clark] from Low End Specialists. We have three tracks so far but we're not sure what we're going to call it yet.

For my own stuff, I've been working on some new material. I did a collaboration with Morgan Page for his album, a remix of Scanners' "Baby Blue" for Steve Aoki's label Dim Mak, and I've been working with Morgan and Dave Dresden - we have about five or six songs that we'll be shopping in Amsterdam next week.

Andy's latest single, "Don't Go Home Tonight" featuring Alexander Sky, was released on November 16. For more info, hit up andycaldwell.com or unorecordings.com.