Thanks for joining me. I feel like this has been a long time coming.
Yeah we’ve definitely been like ships passing, so this is the one.
It’s funny because I was sitting here waiting for you to join the call and I realised I have no idea what you look like or how you sound. We’ve been speaking for a few years, but I’ve never seen a photo of you, so it’s good to put a face to the name.
Yeah, man. I try and just keep everything a mystery. Kinda like Aphex Twin.
Yeah well it’s working. I was going to ask if the anonymity appeals to you as a producer and is it something you manage to maintain quite easily?
Yeah, definitely. When I started with the Earmint stuff years back, you know I’d meet people and go around and shit. But then when I started the midlife crisis Spectacular Diagnostics stuff, I said to myself I’m not going to tell anyone I’m doing this, I’m just going to do it all online and just kinda go from there. So it’s funny that the SKECH185 show is coming up in Chicago, because I’m going to go there with some old buddies and finally meet some of these people I’ve been working with, who are even in my own city.
That’s mad. So the new album is out and the first thing I noticed when I was listening, was that it’s a lot heavier on the UK features. Was that something you had been gearing towards for a while?
Yeah, I think when I started working with Kid Acne on things, he started putting me up on people. He was just like, “have you heard Lee Scott? Have you heard Trellion?”. I was pretty familiar with all the Low Life UK stuff because the label I worked with, we were actually the US distributor for them, so we got the Jehst album, the Braintax album, the Rodney P album… we had them in the studio and we were all listening to them. So I’ve always been a fan of UK hip hop and I always wanted it on this one.
Well it’s worked out really well. I’m always impressed by the selection of guests you get and on this one in particular, there are some pairings that you might not think of as being the first choice on a track together. Is that part of your vision when you approach a new project?
If you’re going to get someone on a song, you might as well make it into something that someone else probably won’t replicate. Like Immi Larusso and Bruiser Wolf, I just thought they’re both so unique that it might work. And it did, so maybe it was a risk?
No but it worked and I was going to say the same thing for Sonnyjim and Kid Acne.
Kid Acne always liked Sonny and that was originally going to be for a new project from him. But then when he saw I was working on this project and getting people like Lee involved, he said why don’t we use it for this.
And it turned out well again. So do you get the features in your mind first and then work on the beats, or have you already got beats that you think somebody specific would sound good on?
It’s probably about half and half. Some features I’ll reach out to someone and I don’t know what they’re going to say, I don’t know if they’re going to be way out of budget. So sometimes I don’t have anything ready. But then other times, I’ll have a beat and I’ll think so-and-so would be really good on this. Now it’s better because I actually talk to people and I have a working relationship with them, so I can make something for them and know they’re not going to come back and say they want thousands of dollars.
You’ve worked with multiple artists on a number of releases, but you’ve also done projects with only one artist, like with Kid Acne for example. Do you have a preference?
It’s just so different, you know? Like when I work by myself, I get to pick everything, but when I work with Ed (Kid Acne), I let him handle quite a bit of it. Then I’ve got quite a bit now that Bisk has recorded and he’s kind of an anomaly, like I’ve just let him do his thing. He’s used beats that other people have used and now I’m like what am I going to do with it? So I just kinda let him run with it.
So do you think we’ll hear more single artist projects from you in the future?
I mean yeah it’s going to happen, because it’s already going on. Ed and I are working on new stuff, Bisk has got an EP and album’s worth that he’s recorded. I don’t know when that’s coming out, but we’ll see when it happens. So I’m definitely up for it. I don’t make as many beats as a lot of other people do, so for me that’s harder, but you know I’m pretty open.
Is that just down to how you work?
Yeah, I’m just way pickier than I used to be. Also I work on Logic and I think when you work on a computer in some ways it’s a bit more rigid than if you’re just tapping away on pads and you sample something. That way I think you can make a lot more beats, whereas I’m just watching it loop, adding stuff and saying I don’t like that one, or I like this one. I think Madlib made everybody think that they could make 60 beats and every one of them would be good, but you’re like, hmmm not always [laughs].
I think quality over quantity needs to come back into fashion.
Yeah but people just can’t afford to do it, because if you wait a couple of months, it’s like they forgot about you now and it kinda sucks.
I know you’ve varied your sound over the years – Raw Unknown was a lot different to Natural Mechanics, for example. Is that important to you, to keep switching things up like that?
Yeah I think so. I always go into a record with an idea of what I want, but because I’m not a traditional musician it shifts along the way. I try to keep it in one spot though at least. I just finished another Group BraCil record and it’s very mellow, it’s a lot slower, and that was definitely the theme. With Natural Mechanics, I knew it worked and I knew what Morriarchi liked, so I definitely try and group things together.
Do you have a preferred style, or a preferred sound?
I think I’m very seasonal. Once it gets dark out, I start making darker beats cos it’s the winter and I’m listening to techno in my free time. I mean Chicago is very grey, it gets brutal here…
So that’s all reflected in the music.
Yeah, it changes month to month.
And are there any other genres you would like to explore?
I definitely like more uptempo music, but just the way that I work, because I’m so sample elated, I’m never going to make that level of dance record that I can really stand by. Like I can make one or two songs and they’re okay, but beyond that… I also don’t want to start over with pitching. Now that I’ve done it for so long, you kind of get into the role and you think well I don’t want to start a career all over again.
Yeah, I understand, but also if you want to do it then you could just try it. I’m working with a girl who started out in hip hop and now she’s doing a UK garage EP, because she’s been exploring that genre and she just wanted to make that EP.
Yeah, you can definitely do it. I did a bunch of electronic tracks, using analogue gear and I released them under Spectacular Diagnostics. They did okay but in hindsight the mixes weren’t as good… So I’ll definitely end up doing something different at some point, I just don’t know when. I mean some of the tracks I’m working on for future records, there’s definitely some quicker ones in there, which are almost like a sort of slow house song. But I also like hip hop drums too much, so it keeps it a bit more live sounding.
Well, I look forward to hearing them. And what about different artists, is there anyone left on your wish list?
It’s always kinda morphing, you know? The thing with BraCil, we’ve got AJ Suede on it, SKECH just delivered a song for me, Joshua Virtue… I’m going to try and start including Chicago people that I haven’t worked with. Like I think Joshua Virtue and the UDABABY guys are all really good, Rich Jones bought some beats off me…
I was going to say I think you two would make a good fit.
Yeah, I talked to him around the holidays so I think he and I are definitely going to do some stuff.
That sounds like a good plan. Do you ever do live shows? Do you think the music would translate into a live setting?
I don’t really have a good setup for it and then it’s like, well I don’t want to just be standing there pressing play. I’ve definitely done some beat things like that before and I dunno, if it’s in a bar and it’s more of a DJ setting then I think it’s fine, because you’re not the focus of what you’re doing. But if I have to be on there with like lights around me and shit then I don’t see it being very entertaining [laughs].
What about if you could have some of the artists who have featured on the tracks, like a showcase with a live PA, would that work?
That would definitely be better. We’re kind of in talks about Ed and I doing a show this summer in Colorado. It’s only in the early stages, but I’m going to do that with him and try to work out how we can make it not boring from my side. I mean he’s going to be rapping so the focus is on him, but how do we keep it more mixed and engaging, you know?
We keep mentioning Ed / Kid Acne, so how did you guys first connect?
I’d always liked his artwork and then when I did Avant RAW I wanted to get a bunch of different artists to do drawings that I could render and make into a collage. He was one of the people I reached out to, to do some tags and some little doodles for the background. Then from there I shared the music with him and we were both like, well why don’t we do an EP together? He really gravitated towards the beats and it went from there. It was the same with Gangster Doodles. I got him to do a drawing, I kept sending him the music and then he asked if I wanted to be on the Gangster Music thing. So a lot of this has been based on longer relationships, where I’ve reached out to see how people are doing.
I like how it’s been established through one medium and then moved into another. And I also like how the dots connect, because I know King Kashmere is on Raw Lessons and he was also on the last Gangster Doodles release. I like those little connections.
Yeah, I’ve got a beat coming out with this guy in Russia, Yeyts, who was also on the Gangster Doodles thing as Igory, so it’s like all these little micro connections.
Yeah, it’s a small world. The album is out on Rucksack Records, which is Danny Veekens’ label. How did you guys first meet?
Through The Find Mag initially, then he said he was starting a label, so I shared some stuff with him and we kinda just hit it off from there. We’re both definitely making stuff for an older target audience, you know like 34 and up [laughs].
Well that’s obviously why I enjoy it so much then. And so how did you start making music? Was that something you came into on your own?
I think it was just early music fandom. I always liked electronic music, growing up and hearing the stuff that was in the late 80’s, whether it was hip hop or stuff like Depeche Mode. Anything that was kinda like machine music, I always thought that was the coolest thing. Hip hop, electronic, industrial… I think I just grew up at the right time. MTV had 120 Minutes on there and this was back when The Smiths and The Cure were still producing music. I was getting exposed to that by my older brother and then all the good rap records were coming out, from the first De La album to stuff like EPMD.
I just wanted to touch on AI before I go, because I know you’ve been playing around with Midjourney recently. What’s your view on AI in terms of its impact on art? Do you think it’s a good thing, a bad thing?
I think it’s both. It could be really bad, but then if it’s used interestingly then it could be good in terms of a tool to be an idea platform. But with Midjourney right now, the stuff it gets wrong is where it’s interesting. When I was putting in prompts for these puppet rap videos, if it did it perfectly it’s boring. But what it got wrong was interesting [laughs]. So I’m saying, “give them gold chains”, and it doesn’t know what to do; it’s putting gold on the ground, chains all over the place. That’s what makes it cool, not it doing it perfectly. But replacing everyone’s jobs and getting rid of the idea of learning a craft? No, that’s just awful. So it’s a mixed bag.
Yeah, I think it has a risk of devaluing the creative process. If you can just type in a command and produce the ‘perfect’ image then…
I think what’s going to save the artists is that a lot of people have really bad taste. So if you go on the message board and see what people are doing, most of them just want to see themselves as a king or a hot anime girl. You can see how you could get to the better results but they have no interest in it!
Yeah you still need some sort of creative instinct.
Either creative instinct or just like if someone puts eight things in front of you, you know which one is the most interesting. You still need to have a good eye for it. So in some ways maybe the best stuff will rise to the top, but the nature of things like ad agencies, that’s where it’s bad. They’re so cheap and they’ll just cut people on a whim, so if they can get a computer to do it, they will.
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Raw Lessons is out now – get it from Bandcamp here. Follow Spectacular Diagnostics on Twitter and Instagram.
Gingerslim has been a hip-hop fan since 1994 and has written for various blogs and websites since around 2006. During that time he has contributed to The Wire, style43, Think Zebra, Headsknow, Front Magazine and more. His main interests in rap are UK hip-hop and the underground movement in America, with a focus on Rhymesayers Entertainment and the once mighty Def Jux label. He lives in Bristol and has a beard. All other details are sketchy at best. Read his own hip-hop blog and follow him here.