Introductions first: for anyone who doesn't know, who are you / where are you from?
I’m really just a low key dude. I grew up across the river in South Jersey, but moved to Philly once I had the means to since it really has always been the only big city I really feel at home at.
What music did you grow up listening to?
I grew up listening pretty much only hip hop. I used to obsessively listen to everything that I could find that came out in the mid to late 2000s through the internet, file sharing, torrents, etc. I was a big fan of a lot of the Roc-a-fella stuff that came out in the early 2000s and then all the soul sampling stuff that followed. Just Blaze and Kanye West were my favorite two producers for awhile. I was a pretty big Outkast fan too (still am). ATLiens is probably one of my favorite albums of all time.
Right now, coming from Philadelphia and producing Grime or UK-inflected dance tracks isn't particularly surprising but it was certainly something that was made a big deal of a few years ago with Rabit's emergence at the forefront of the re-energized instrumental scene. Do you feel a geographical division at all in your musical sensibilities? What were some of your first interactions with UK-based dance music?
I definitely feel a slight division, but with how all encompassing the internet is now with cultures and scenes now existing over cyberspace instead of the limitations of physical space, the division definitely doesn’t feel that large. Not sure if I can really pinpoint my first interactions with UK based music, but I discovered MCs like Dizzee and Wiley through just listening to hip hop and searching for more stuff. I don’t think I really got deeper into UK subgenres until I stumbled on Burial’s stuff though. From there I backtracked into garage, dubstep, jungle, etc.
Your last full release was the Trapped Under Ice EP for the Beatgatherers-affiliated label Holby City. A lot of the melodic heft on that release comes from the vocal snippets that lead the tracks - is there a particular aspect or sound you look for when you're selecting samples? What do you try and express by doing so?
I really don’t know if I specifically look out for anything, I just have a huge library of acapellas and kinda just go with the flow and take what sounds right to me based on the track. I think a lot of that goes back to the soul-sample stuff that I was listening to when I was younger. The difference being that those records sampled the old soul that they grew up with, where I’m sampling the R&B records I grew up with. I think the whole vocal sampling thing really became cemented as a thing for me once I started listening to UK music as well; vocal sampling is very prevalent in dance music.
Who are some of your favourite vocalists (present or past)?
Ah that’s a tough one. Currently, I don’t listen to much vocal stuff, but I really like the way Kelela and Riko’s voices sound. If we’re looking to the past, probably a lot of mid-late 90’s early 2000’s RNB singers. 90’s RNB is an era of music I hold very close to my heart haha.
You were featured on the recent remix EP for LTHL's XXIII out on District Sound and your inclusion made me realise the aesthetic similarities between the sounds you explored on Trapped Under Ice and the ones that LTHL utilizes on the original DS release, similarities that even carry over to their respective artwork. From where do you think you channel that emotive, low end driven sound when it comes to making a track or release?
The low end sound really just comes from the hip hop and UK influences. I have trouble listening to music that doesn’t have a proper low end, and to me I feel like a powerful low end is necessary to make the listener physically feel the music. And ultimately, that’s my goal when making music; to make the end listener feel something when they listen to my music, and I think that also ties directly into the emotive elements as well. A lot of my music just reflects how I feel, and a lot of it is fueled by nostalgia in addition to the somewhat dystopian world we live in today.
Aside from Beatgatherers and District Sound, the musical outlets you've been featured on / worked with could be seen as fairly stark in their differences (Lifted Contigency, Ital Dred, District Sound, Beatgatherers, etc.). When you work with a new label do you construct tracks for them specifically? If so, do you tailor your aesthetic or style at all, given the differing contexts?
Hah not really. If anything it really could be attributed to the fact that I make a lot of stuff with influences all over the place, and some labels have favored some material more than others.
Where / how did you record this mix? Did you set out with a particular idea when selecting the tracks?
I recorded this mix in my bedroom using Ableton. I don’t own any proper DJ equipment, so it’s really all I got for now haha. And there wasn’t a specific idea other than to just throw a bunch of stuff I like together and see what happens. I really like blending modern hip hop with the heavier elements of the underground scene; it really creates an almost frantic, apocalyptic sound.
What do you have planned for the rest of the year? For 2017?
I have a couple of releases coming up in the next couple of months, but I can’t really drop any information at the moment. The first one should be announced very soon, probably sometime in September. Really excited to get some of my backlog out there since I really am sitting on a ton of stuff. Aside from the releases, I have a couple of collaborations in the works, more on those soon as well.
If you had to pick something for people to listen to immediately after this mix what would it be?
HKE/Hong Kong Express - HK... one of my favorite releases of the past couple years... feel like it could flow well from the Mang/Yoshi track at the end of the mix.
Tracklist:
gohda - ryde or die
v1984 - tf x bloom x ashanti
21 savage - savage mode
mssingno - kcal
lil uzi vert - $ub zero
bladee - missing person
ninja sword - persona
movem3nt - tell the truth
wwwings - chimera (eaves remix)
kur - gwanie
svzvki スズキ - tokyo belongs to you
shy glizzy - i'm a star
gohda - grizzy
autechre - second bad vilbel
barla - hold u
waka flocka flame - fell
yung gud - hello
ludacris - phat rabbit
etch - untitled hardcore #7 (psoundboy)
gila - cytokine storm
gohda - neuromancer
mang & yoshitaka hikawa - emvl
