Big Up 19 - Selfiessue

ISSUE NINETEEN

# S E L F I E S S U E

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#SELFIESSUE

BIG UP NINETEEN #SELFIESSUE 6 BRANDON KIDWELL 16 HODGE 24 CANSU GÜRSU 36 PEARSON SOUND 45 MICHAŁ MOZOLEWSKI 54 FALTYDL 66 BAYO HOUSE OF BLACK LANTERNS 76

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In 2011, a crested black macaque stole a wildlife photographer's camera, and when the camera was later recovered it was found to contain hundreds of selfies, including one of a grinning female macaque.

The earliest usage of the word selfie has been traced to 2002, when it first appeared in an Australian internet forum (ABC Online) on 13 September in a comment written by Nathan Hope: "Um, drunk at a mates 21st, I tripped over and landed lip first (with front teeth coming a very close second) on a set of steps. I had a hole about 1 cm long right through my bottom lip. And sorry about the focus, it was a selfie."

The earliest known photographic selfie was taken by Robert Cornelius in 1839

SELFIE : AN IMAGE OF ONESELF TAKEN BY ONESELF USING A DIGITAL CAMERA, ESPECIALLY FOR POSTING ON SOCIAL NETWORKS.

According to a study performed at the University of Parma, selfies by non-professional photographers show a slight bias for showing the left cheek of the selfie-taker.

This is similar to what has been observed for portraits by professional painters from many different historical periods and styles, indicating that the left cheek bias may be rooted in asymmetries of brain lateralization that are well documented within cognitive neuroscience.

SELF : A PERSON'S ESSENTIAL BEING THAT DISTINGUISHES THEM FROM OTHERS, ESPECIALLY CONSIDERED AS THE OBJECT OF INTROSPECTION OR REFLEXIVE ACTION.

BRANDON KIDWELL Mobile photography (or iPhoneography) is a relatively young form of art, which makes Brandon Kidwell a groundbreaking pioneer with only three years in the field. The award-winning iPhoneographer redefines instagram #selfie and elevates it to a beautiful art form with the majority of his doubleexposure photos created entirely on an iPhone.

interview by Katya Guseva

Stillness of Mind, Peace at Heart 9

Validity is always in the eye of the viewer and will forever be argued.

You are the master of iPhoneography, with numerous awards and accolades. It was through your work that I first heard the term. When was the first time that you’ve realized that you can create more than just a “selfie" with your phone?

Wow, thank you for the kind compliment!

It really just evolved over a period of time. I saw my kids using forums like Instagram and sharing photos, so I joined on (reluctantly).

I come from the pager generation, where you could send coded messages with numbers, and screen calls because you "weren't near a phone". I was late to jump on the mobile technology train but caught up quickly. I found over time a worldwide community sharing scenes and creativity instantly. That amazed me and I became involved in a few photo communities, learned a lot and just captured and created images in my down time.

What would you respond to people who argue that this particular genre of iPhone art is not “valid”, not "real art” and “anyone with the right app can do it”?

I think it's like anything really - it's all about what you do with it. You can buy a fast car but it doesn't make you a race car driver. Validity is always in the eye of the viewer and will forever be argued. But to the point of your question, the iPhone and other mobile devices made those tools to create easily accessible to all. Honestly, I think it's a great thing. It's an over abundance of information flooding everyday now, but as an artistic community we now have people

that found creative avenues to make great art, not only just inspire their creativity, because it was made accessible to them. You just have to search through all of the static now.

Do you always have the latest iPhone with all the latest updates and the newest apps? Ever considered working with any other phone?

I used the same phone I started with for two years - an iPhone5 - and generally used the same basic apps. Some apps had horrible updates, so I reverted back to the original.

Others have great updates, so it depends. I've since moved to more expensive mirrorless and full frame cameras, but I worked on a project that we used the Nokia Lumia.

It has a great camera, but the platform was awful and you really had to export the photo to do it justice. That made it just an accessible camera and not my tool of choice.

A mirrorless camera would be a comparable price purchase and give you better controls.

Your Wisdom For My Children pieces are stunning.

Can you talk a bit about the story behind them?

Thank you very much. They simply evolved over a period of time, a year or so. These were all experiences that I tried to help my kids with. I carefully worded each image to encompass the overall advice I was trying to convey at the time. The issues that brought about that advice are all things that all parents tackle, and I tried to form the image as a visual story to accompany that message.

Harness The Spark 10

Wisdom For My Children Sometimes what we fear the most is only something we haven't grasped an understanding of.

What do you think of the selfie sticks? Have you tried them? Do you have any cool ideas how to use it for your art?

I've never used a selfie stick, but anything can be used creatively. I use my timer a lot in my photography as my pictures are mostly taken en 12

route to some place and I see something, jump out and capture it, and off to what life event or work I'm on my way to. A selfie stick would be pretty cool for video. I'd love to see a selfie stick compilation of people filming themselves and running into stuff not paying attention to where they're going. Their faces would be priceless.

Wisdom For My Children In order to follow your heart, you must first find your mind.

It’s amazing that you’ve started your journey with the iPhone and then on to a DSLR camera.

What challenges and advantages did that bring?

Do you work with Photoshop?

The main challenge for me is to simplify.

I get more out of the process than the

finished result, so trying to create my images in camera instead of adding layers in the phone or in Photoshop is challenging, but it's really fun playing with the scenery, poses, lighting and camera controls to get that image with no post production other than some light adjustments in Lightroom.

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I don't feel I created anything if it's just a pretty picture. The story means everything to me.

You use your own photographs for most of your artworks. Is that primarily because it’s the simplest way to experiment (with yourself as a model), or is there a different reason?

I don't have any friends. Haha, not quite, but I don't have a lot of time for photography, so it literally takes place on the side of the road en route to someplace, or around my house or garage after my family goes to sleep. I take photos of friends and family, portraits and such, but I keep those private.

The captions for your pieces are usually meaningful phrases or philosophical thoughts. How important are they in a piece and do they come after the piece is completed or before?

Thank you, I always want each piece I create to have meaning. I don't feel I created anything if it's just a pretty picture. The story means everything to me. I have a love of philosophy, and that tends to bleed through when I title my images. I try to make them vague enough that they're open to interpretation, but clear enough to understand the original intent.

Most times they are born of an idea in my head, a current event, or feeling I have going on at the time. It kind of makes a visual diary when looking back. I can see each image and know what was going on at the time. There are instances where I just create, what I think is an interesting image, and it inspired me to find an intriguing title, but more often I have a general idea of what I'm creating, I just have to see if I'm capable of creating that visually. So far I have a long way to go to create it how I see it, but that keeps me going and keeps it challenging and fun.

Mental Spiral Notebook 14

Awakening

HODGE There comes a moment in everyone's life when you realize: to move forward you may have to start over. For Jacob Martin, a.k.a.

Hodge, this moment of clarity was manifested as a beer bottle to the face one night at a local pub in Kent.

This defining moment landed him in Bristol to pursue his musical interests. Learning and working with talented producers in the community, such as Facta and his Outboxx partner Matt Lambert, and drawing influences for his music within cyberpunk novels, Hodge now finds himself as one of UK's most exciting new artists. One that will never stay still and will continuously perfect his craft.

interview by Joe Aycox

photo by James Clothier

Let’s talk about your early life in Kent. What kind of music did you grow up with?

A lot of hip hop, UK garage, drum and bass, stuff like Task Force, Jehst, Jedi Mind Tricks, and stuff like that. On the other side of things I was into the bouncy UK Garage, you know like Craig David remixes, proper tacky, like “I’ll Bring You Flowers” kind of stuff. Really poppy garage, I used to love it. I still love it now. My dad was really into The Cure, so I listened to that, also Joy Division. That’s some of the music I grew up with, but the bouncy stuff and UK garage has definitely become the influence.

In a place so small you’re constantly being subjected to different kinds of music, and I think you can hear that in people’s music that comes from here.

I know you’re a big fan of Parliament. How did you get introduced to their music and why did you stick with them?

I don’t even know... There is so much groove in there, and so much basic good feeling in it.

It’s hard not to like it, yeah?

Do you like any other funk artists?

It was kind of one off with them, 'cause everyone knows their stuff. I am more into boogie stuff from Gwen Guthrie to Midnight Star, but it's only recently that I started to buy boogie vinyl. I got a little bit obsessed with the ‘80s. The whole music scene back then was just incredible. The best dancehall came out from that era too. It was the time when everyone was very creative and nobody gave a fuck.

What made you move to Bristol?

When I was living in Kent, I was thinking about going to Uni to study, and some of my friends lived in Bristol. And I kept hearing good things about the music there.

Massive Attack came from Bristol, Roni Size and Portishead. Seemed like all these scenes created quite a bubbling place, and I heard it was a really happy place as well.

And then one night in a pub in Kent, some bloke smashed a bottle and stuck it in my face. I woke up the next day, after a night at the hospital getting my face stuffed back together and I was like “I just need to leave”.

The next day I applied for Uni in Bristol.

Jesus Christ… well, that’s one way.

Yeah, I haven't really considered leaving since. It’s such a good place, so creative.

When I got here, there was so much dubstep.

I couldn’t write UK garage, which is what I enjoyed. I was somebody like “Oh, so you can take that and make something dark and edgy, and I don’t even have to dance to it. We can all go and listen to it in a dark room. That’s sick!” It was such an exciting time. When I started to go to clubs here, there was always someone like Pinch or Peverelist playing. Always some dubstep night, whether a big night like Subloaded, or someone would bring Goth-Trad over…

For people who haven’t been to Bristol, what is the city like? You mentioned the music is very dark and brooding, but you say it’s a very happy place. So paint a picture of Bristol for me.

One thing about Bristol is it’s very small. That breeds its community vibe. In a place so small you’re constantly being subjected to different kinds of music, and I think you can hear that in people’s music that comes from here. No one makes music in one set genre.

photo by James Clothier 20

Time

It’s always got a mix of things. For example, RSD − part dub, part dubstep. Peverelist − part techno, part dub. I think that’s a result of being in a small community place.

Everyone is hearing what everyone else is doing − it’s like a big mixing pot.

A lot of my tracks have references to the books I’ve read.

And I think it’s a happy place, but maybe it’s just the way I look at it. I’m sure some people are pissed off here. But for me… For example today I got up and walked down the road, went to the gym, on the way back popped into Idle Hands record store, asked to recommend me some stuff, as I’m playing FWD>> on Thursday, Chris pulled five or six records out, I listened to all of them and every one is banging. I thought this is amazing, this guy really knows my music taste, so he can sell me vinyl that I really love. So I bought them, went back home, and back to the studio. That’s a happy day for me.

Another thing about Bristol is that you can walk everywhere, you don’t have to take public transport at all. I could walk from here to town and back in like an hour, so I never board buses or trains, I walk everywhere. I think that’s really good.

There’s lots of people out, walking around.

It’s a nice community vibe over here.

Do you have any rituals before you go into the studio?

I always read before I go to the studio. I’m obsessed with sci fi books, like cyberpunk genre: authors like William Gibson, Philip K. Dick. At the moment I am reading a book called Capital City and it has direct references in my music. I get the best studio sessions if I get up, get some air,

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read a book for about 20 minutes, and then go into the studio. Then you’re in the studio with ideas in the back of your head that come from whatever you’re reading at the moment. A lot of my tracks have references to the books I’ve read. Sometimes I’m reading a book and I’ll open a page and find three words that will affect the track I’m making, and that will become a title.

So reading books is big part of my ritual of making music.

Which passage or which book influenced “Prototype Fear”?

That was William Gibson. In Neuromancer there are some passages and quotes that I absolutely love. One was about him taking drugs and freaking out. He's talking about his spine being aghast and tingling and stuff like that. And at the same time I've got loads of anxiety myself and I used to get a lot of panic attacks and I wouldn't when I wrote this tune.

So The "Prototype Fear", to me is a new type of fear, new type of freak out that I’ve learnt to deal with.

Cool. What's your favorite book?

The author is definitely William Gibson.

I really like his stuff. But it’s so hard to pick just one book. The Bridge and Sprawl trilogies were so incredible to me. They opened my eyes up to some tacky kind of sci fi rubbish that I loved. I didn’t read books until I was 21. My ex-girlfriend got me into reading again when we went on holiday, and from there it had a profound impact on my music and my life. It made me into a more confident person, it helped me realize what I knew I liked, even more than my music.

Very cool. This issue of Big Up Magazine is about “Self”, so a lot of these questions I’m asking you are personal, but this next one goes in between.

How do you feel building a track solo differs from collaborations? What are the pros and cons?

Ok, the pros of a collaboration: you can always learn something from someone else. What is really important to people, and it’s important for me as well, is you have your process, and once you find your process, you can get trapped in that. It’s cool for a couple of records. For example “Renegades”, “Resolve” and “Blood Moon” have a certain similar sound I was exploring back then. If I wasn’t writing music with anyone else, I could get trapped and make all my music sound like that forever. Going and writing music with someone else, or hearing what someone else does, helps open you up to changing your process, which is a hard thing to do. Once you found something that works you just want to peddle that, because you’re like “this is sick, I’m enjoying it”. But it’s very important as an artist to make sure you’re constantly trying something new. Working with other people makes you do that. That’s a big pro.

It’s very important as an artist to make sure you’re constantly trying something new.

As for the cons… sometimes it can be frustrating if you really want to take a track some way and the other person wants to take it another way. But that ends up in a pro, because you can always take it to your personal production afterwards. So there isn't many real cons to collaborations, I think it’s a very good thing to do.

Is Outboxx a release or another side of the coin of expression for you, instead of just doing Hodge stuff?

The way it came about was a friend of a friend came over my house, when I was chilling in my room making music. He introduced himself, saw my keyboard set up, and asked if he could come in and play. He played a couple of chords

So I looked at this guy and was like, “I know we just met, but I’ve got someone who wants to release a track we just wrote”. and I was blown away. He’s a high grade keyboard player and I’ve never had that kind of musical knowledge, so I asked him if I could record it. We ended up writing a track together, and at the end of a 3-4 hour session we suddenly had like two tracks finished. One was completely finished and I sent it to Adam, who worked at a record label, which is no longer running.

He heard it and instantly asked me if he could release it. So I looked at this guy and was like, “I know we just met, but I’ve got someone who wants to release a track we just wrote”. And he was like, “yeah, let’s do it, but we don’t even have an alias”. So it all just happened in one day, it wasn’t a big thing that we planned as a release or an alternative expression. Outboxx is all about being spontaneous and having fun, we just set up the hardware and jam out together; while Hodge is completely different. It’s a solitary project, so that’s where the artistic expression comes in.

As Hodge, where did that name come from and what do you want to express through that moniker?

With the Hodge stuff, I just had to attach the name to the music, and I didn’t want to use my actual name straight away when I just started releasing music. Because say in 15 years I wrote some album, which I’m really proud of and it would really define me and my sound. I wouldn’t like to have had my actual name attached to my work already, because then I would have already used it. You know what I mean?

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That’s why I think having an alias is really good, because it’s a nice way to say: look, this name represents this set of sounds and this kind of idea. I really love aliases in general for that.

It’s funny I was just in Berlin yesterday talking to someone about the name Hodge and how I didn’t really like it. I think any name you pick, you end up hating it, because you've picked it yourself. You always wish you would have come up with something better. And they were saying “No, no, in Germany we really like it, because it’s a masculine word”, which cracks me up. I never thought of the word being masculine. To me it’s just the word which represents what I do, just a name, but I didn’t put much thought behind it.

The name actually came from my friend's dog. I wish I had a cool story about why I came up with that name, but I just needed it for a release, and my friend was like, “Call it Hodge, it’s my cousin’s dog”.

When I started I never thought I was going to do this professionally, and that’s why I think I’m still so excited. There are people who are complaining about having to catch a plane to do a gig, there’s so much to do, they’re so tired… That’s not me. I’m so fucking excited about this, it seems so surreal.

Yeah, it’s like would you rather be working 9-5 or play music?

I actually still work three days a week in a National Autistic Society School. And that’s great, because it’s like a break for me. I work a lot better when I don’t do the same thing all the time. Like when I feel not inspired, I sit down and write a bunch of grime.

Did you have any aspiration to go back to 140bpm?

Well, I’ve never released a 140 tune. I love dubstep, but I never released it. I’ve never really wrote at that speed really, apart from playing around in my room. I really respect people like Kahn & Neek, who are still writing in 140 and making it sound good. But when I write in 140, it sounds like I’m copying someone. That’s why I have no desire to do it, because to get your own sound in a genre that was so prolific in such a short amount of time is extremely tough.

How did you end up linking up with Facta for the Tempa release?

I heard his Keysound stuff, and I really liked it, and we’ve been messaging each other and sending each other tunes. We always do that in Bristol, it’s very important. And one time got together and had a little jam. We wrote "Tungsten" and he put that out on the flip of his Idle Hands release. And then we wrote a new track and sent it to Youngsta.

And he was like "Tempa would sign this.” I literally have every single Tempa record in my collection from Horsepower, so for me that was absolutely surreal.

When I write in 140, it sounds like I’m copying someone.

Do you have anything you would like to say as an artist about what you’re gonna do in the future or how you’re feeling about what you’re doing now?

Yeah, I would say I am feeling very confident right now about what I’m doing. Never try to pigeon-hole me, because I will change.

Don’t ever think that you will hear one sound that I will stick with, because you’re gonna get disappointed. I’m gonna be constantly changing, because I’m a hyperactive person and it wouldn’t make sense not to be in my music. So that’s my message right now. I’m feeling good.

Never try to pigeon-hole me, because I will change.

Is a label a future aspiration? Or is it too early to say right now?

Yes. I’m not there yet, but I’m definitely gonna do it. People send me music and I’m biting my knuckles, 'cause it’s not being released. So I’d love to do it, it would be such a fun project to work on the packaging, coming up with the artwork... But right now I’m gigging every single weekend and I don’t have the time. For the past three months I’ve been to so many places, meeting so many nice people, and when I come back I just want to go back to the studio. But when the gigs calm down, and they will - everyone has these bursts of gigs, and then they calm down, and then burst again, so when it calms down, I’ll start working on a label, but I can’t say anything concrete now.

Who would you like to Big Up? Big Up Bristol! Big Up Chris Farrell, who runs Idle Hands, it’s a hub in Bristol and it’s really nice to have someone run a store with good records in the middle of the city and help bring everyone together.

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CANSU GĂœRSU Istanbul based young painter Cansu GĂźrsu creates art as a way to resolve her painful and frustrating emotions. Her self-inspired pieces are more than just artwork, they are a way to self-control, understanding and simply staying sane. With a pacemaker in her heart, beautiful Cansu spends days and nights in her studio, looking inwards and painting away.

interview by Nihan Dinc and Katya Guseva

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As Frida said: “I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.”

A lot of your art pieces seem to exhibit your self-portraits or other very personal expressions of your own image. Why do you chose yourself as a subject?

When I was studying at university, it was hard to find a model for my work and I was living alone in a single room attic. I tried to work with photographs, however it was kind of hard for me to catch the right

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expression, and expression means everything to me. So I started to watch myself in mirrors and started to work on my self-portraits. This continued on for a while, and later I decided that it was a very good way to explain my feelings and thoughts precisely. As Frida said: “I paint selfportraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.”

Look

Pacemaker

Open

Each piece comes as a way for me to solve a hard daunting problem, and that is very rewarding.

Do your self-portraits become more than just artworks for you?

When I paint a portrait about my memories, I draw a camera lens like a circle around the eye in order to explain that these personal experiences were lived through and recorded by me.

They could also be compared to the tunnels that Alice In Wonderland falls in - they open the doors to the past.

Each piece comes as a way for me to solve a hard daunting problem, and that is very rewarding.

I know that Pacemaker (left page) is a self-inspired piece. Can you talk a bit about the story behind it?

As soon as I realized that my dizziness in 2013 continued longer than an acceptable period of time, I decided to visit the hospital. On that day I found

out that I couldn’t just walk out from the hospital, because the dizziness was caused by my heart: it kept stopping. After many difficult surgeries, I was left with a cardiac pacemaker. I stayed at the hospital for a long time and everyone was worried about me, but I kept on smiling in order to make them feel comfortable. As soon as I was able to use my arms easily I started working on this piece.

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Settling Down It Takes Time

Pain and hopelessness were the feelings that took over my mind. My heart was like a bird - it was pounding really fast - and describing it as a completely separate bird looking over my ribs was my best depiction.

On that day I found out that I couldn’t just walk out from the hospital, because the dizziness was caused by my heart: it kept stopping.

Untitled is a very interesting piece. It looks almost painful: the color of blood, disjointed body parts…

What is the inspiration for this one? How long do you take to create such a piece usually?

It was about managing a struggle of thoughts and feelings in a single body. I moved to live in another city and my new room was invaded by insects.

All the time I was just trying to stay sane and control myself, and that became the main idea of the Untitled piece: a “me” that is controlling, and another “me” obeying. The whole of me seemed to be very tranquil with insects all over me.

Untitled

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Let's Leave

Then it all stopped for a while and I couldn’t add anything on top of the piece, but I knew that it wasn’t finished. Therefore, it took a few months to finish that portrait. I turned the canvas around and when I felt that I could continue, I finished it completely.

All the time I was just trying to stay sane and control myself, and that became the main idea of the "Untitled" piece.

Cansu in her studio

Painting is the best thing I do for myself.

What is your work environment like? How much time do you spend there?

Single eyes are seen repeatedly in your whole body of work.

What is their meaning in your art?

I live in a very old district of Istanbul. I turned one of my rooms into an atelier which has a garden view.

Whenever I’m not working it is pretty tidy, however when I start to work it is a complete chaos. I work fast and messily. Most of the time I prefer to work with my hands instead of cleaning my brushes. And if I’m not even at my atelier, my mind is always there.

I stay there as much as possible and sometimes I even sleep there. If I don't feel good to leave the atelier, I keep on staying there. Painting is the best thing I do for myself.

Eyes are the most beautiful way to understand and explain everything.

What kind of music do you listen to? Anything specific you put on just to work to?

Rhythm is an important element of my work. It's like a self control mechanism to either work fast or slow. I don’t have a specific choice; Alt-j, Tame impala, Interpol, Müzeyyen Senar, Terry Callier, Ayyuka, The Shins, Alan Parsons Project, Hooverphonic and Telepopmusic may be the first names that come to my mind.

Cansu with her self-portrait

Eyes are the most beautiful way to understand and explain everything.

photo by Dan Wilton

PEARSON SOUND It’s not every day you meet a guy like David Kennedy. The fresh faced, blue eyed (and very humble) Brit from London has been making music, deejaying, and co-running the Hessle Audio record label for almost a decade.

For those of you who have been following him from the beginning, you might remember his first release under the alias of Ramadanman back in 2008. Or maybe you happened to stumble upon him as Pearson Sound when he released genre blurring tracks like “Glut” or “Work Them.”

Either way it doesn’t matter when or where you first heard of him. What matters at this moment is that he’s just released his first full length self titled LP, and after all that work in the studio he’s been kind enough to take a break and sit down with us here at Big Up to talk about his new album, traveling the world, and even baking his own bread. interview by Chris Ward

photo by Maxime Chermat

Okay, let’s get this started, so why don’t you give a brief introduction about who you are and where you’re from.

I’m David; I make music as Pearson Sound. I’m from London, and I co-run Hessle Audio. I think that’s about it.

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settled. I didn’t get a space to make music settled. And then about a year later I hadn’t really written any music, and I just needed to take some time out and kind of feel settled again. So yeah, once I did that I started to enjoy it a lot more. Now I’m really happy being in London again. It’s nice when you’ve been living in a city for this amount of time, and you feel like you really know it. You feel comfortable there.

You’re based in London, but before that you were in Leeds (attending University) for a few years.

What was it like coming back to London? How has being back in that environment impacted you?

With Pearson Sound being your first full album, could you talk about how this project came to fruition?

I’m originally from London, so it sort of felt like coming home, but also when I moved back I was so busy I didn’t really have time to get

It really came to fruition after taking time to switch up the way I had been working and buying some new studio equipment.

It's more of a summary of what I’ve been up to the past couple of years with a cohesive sound and aesthetic, rather than being a particular concept behind it.

Some of my material ended up being more experimental and I started writing a few of the early tracks on the album.

Then I began to have a better idea of what I wanted it to sound like, and from then onwards it sort of started to write itself more and more. So in 2014 it came together a bit more quickly. I booked in the mastering a few months in advance, so I had a nice little deadline to work towards.

Yeah, that’s pretty much how it came about. It’s more of a summary of what I’ve been up to the past couple of years with a cohesive sound and aesthetic, rather than being a particular concept behind it.

Cool. What about the artwork for the album?

Could you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah, the art! I wanted something that played on having a self-portrait on the cover. I’d initially thought about doing something digitally glitched, but that didn’t really work out, so I got in touch with an art director/set designer, who had heard of my music, and we collaborated on it. I actually settled on shooting my portrait into some mirrors he made, and the cover is just a photograph taken from a few different angles. It’s sort of this warped, stretched and sinister face on it, and I’m really happy with how that came together in the end.

Going back to your studio, you said you picked up a few new things. Was there anything in particular you acquired that was really inspiring, or allowed you to be really creative?

I think the main thing was having a mixing desk for the first time, which enabled me to have everything plugged in at the same time. That sped up the process of making music and that meant I was able to record lots more audio. It was just a lot more fun and less of an effort to get everything plugged in and go around behind the back of the computer before you even want to make any music. That changed things quite a lot. Also doing the actual mixdowns [analog mixdowns] and having to commit to a particular mix of a track and then maybe redoing it a couple of weeks later was quite an enjoyable process, but obviously took a long time.

Did that force you to change your approach as to how you make music?

Umm, a bit. I mean some of the time I would have these really long live takes that I would have to edit down. Sometimes I would do a live take and want to add some more detail and then chop into it, or rebuild it from scratch. So I guess the main thing it changed was adding a live feel to my stuff, and also having more grit and character in the mixes. It was tougher and hard, which is something I wanted to do for a while.

Yeah, in comparison to your earlier stuff there is definitely more grit and “character” (or layers) to the sound of this album. Where did this idea come about? Were you just experimenting?

A lot of it is feeding machines − some of my synths and drum machines − back into each other; back into different effects units, and sending delays into flangers and reverbs and having the whole thing build and build... and sometimes going out of control, like on "Rubber Tree".

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I’d like my next stuff to be a bit more tracky, clubby, something for my DJ sets. Maybe something a bit more fun as well.

Other times it’s about restraining it with little glimmers of it going out of control, like on a track "Glass Eye" for example. There are quite a few similar sounds that run through the tracks as well, so when I found some textures and samples I was really interested in, I wanted to use them in a couple of different tracks.

You know, it makes it quite cohesive I think.

In terms of experimentation were you moving away from making tracks for a dance floor? Is that something you’re doing in DJ sets too?

I think quite a lot of the tracks we’ve been playing in our DJ sets as Hessle for a while can be played in clubs.

If played at the right time, even tracks you might think are not dance floor friendly, can go off really well. I wouldn’t say it’s strictly a headphone listening record, but also I feel like I’ve always done quite lots of different types of music. I’ve always made music at lots of different tempos, and I’ve done some beatless film music before. I’ve done some faster drum & bass stuff...

Pearson Sound self-portrait

Yeah, something I’ve always done is work at different styles and tempos. But I guess in the last few years my music has been more focused on a particular sound, so it might come as a surprise to people who have only recently heard of my stuff.

Where do you see your music going forward from here?

I’d like my next stuff to be a bit more tracky, clubby, something for my DJ sets.

Maybe something a bit more fun as well. I’m looking forward to getting back into the studio as soon as possible. I’ve got some time in the next couple of months to get started again and hopefully buy a few new bits of equipment and freshen things up a bit. Maybe sell some gear as well. I’m always trying to force myself into new techniques and ways of working.

And I have to ask what’s in the future for Hessle Audio? Whether you can reveal anything is of course a different story.

We don’t have anything currently confirmed that we

can announce. With stuff like an album it’s always nice to give it some breathing space and allow people to absorb it. And if you’re following up and album with a single a few weeks later it can be a bit confusing sometimes.

We’re taking our time and not rushing into anything, which is how we’ve always done things.

You've had a pretty exciting career over the past eight years since your first release on Bare Dubs.

What are some of the moments or experiences you've enjoyed most throughout this journey?

I’d say some of the things I enjoy most are making connections with likeminded people all around the world, and going to places I’d never dream of actually deejaying in and playing music to people who are so appreciative.

When you’ve got people who have been listening to your music for years in their bedrooms or on radio shows, and then you get to go and visit that place to play, and you can see how happy people are that it all comes together, that’s a really special thing.

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Also meeting promoters and people who if you visit a city again you can hang out again and stay friends with. Forging connections between different countries and different scenes − that’s really special about being in music. There’s not many other ways of making those connections, and that is something I really enjoy. I also enjoy the traveling and visiting new places, eating different food as well.

Forging connections between different countries and different scenes − that’s really special about being in music.

There’s not many other ways of making those connections.

Out of everywhere you’ve been is there a particular place that stands out?

I always really like coming to America, just because from city to city, state to state there is such a big difference in culture.

I also enjoy coming to places where I’ve been four or five times. You know, if I’ve played a club several times, it’s less like going into the unknown. You end up enjoying it more, if you play somewhere regularly, because you know what works well in the room, or you know if you can play your records in that club.

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If you play somewhere a few times a year you can take more risks, because you know that you’ll be back there quite soon, so maybe one time you do something different, or if you play a longer set you go through a few different styles of music, which is always nice. I always enjoy playing places like Berlin and Amsterdam, and cities in Germany.

Those are some of my favorites.

If you go slow and steady, and focus on writing really good music, and playing really good DJ sets, then in the long run it will be a lot more beneficial rather than having a crazy couple of years and then burning out.

Speaking of favorites, what are some of the artists you're digging at the moment or have been following?

Quite a lot of new guys coming out of Bristol and Bath; guys like Batu, Lurka, and Beneath are all making some really interesting stuff. This American guy Neuroshima, he’s doing some really cool music. Then more established people like Jam City. I’m really enjoying his new album.

Guys like Objekt and A Made Up Sound are still going strong. As always there’s so much new music, it’s really hard to keep up with everything, so I like to focus on particular things rather than try and absorb everything being released.

As for those younger guys out there making music, if they were to ask you for some advice what would you pass along to them?

Well, I’ve been doing this for quite a long time since I was quite young, and I think one of things

I’d say to people is take your time. There’s not really a rush for these things. There’s often a lot of hype, and you should steer clear of that and take your time to do stuff you believe in. Don’t get sucked into making a quick a buck. As soon as you get recognition there will be people who offer you management, agents or stuff like that.

Whereas, if you go slow and steady, and focus on writing really good music, and playing really good DJ sets, then in the long run it will be a lot more beneficial rather than having a crazy couple of years and then burning out, or people moving on to the next thing. I think it’s important to think of the long game, if that’s what you want to do.

Cool, and lastly when you’re not making music what else do you enjoy? Give us a glimpse into the lesser known side of Pearson Sound.

I’ve got two cats that I hang out with, who are very understanding, so I spend a lot of time with them. I spend a lot of time on my bicycle, and I also really enjoy cooking. I really enjoy deejaying as well, obviously, but you know, sometimes when you’re at home and just want to mix something together, it’s always nice to use a different part of your brain.

So what are you cooking at the moment?

Haha, I’ve got quite into baking and making my own bread. Although I haven’t had a kitchen for a few months, so I’m a bit out of practice, but I’m trying to get back into a good bread making routine, because it’s one of the most satisfying things to cook I think.

I’d have to agree. When it comes to music or cooking, those are two things you can recreate, but it’s never exactly the same every time around.

Yeah. There’s a bit of magic in it.

MICHAŠMOZOLEWSKI In the past eight years, the Polish self-taught artist Michał Mozolewski has created hundreds of portraits by manipulating photographs and combining traditional media with digital processes, and none of them look the same. Every one is charged with an individual striking emotion, often translated as pain or fear. However, the artist himself leaves it open for interpretation, only slightly hinting to the nature of his creative process.

interview by Katya Guseva

386 model photo Rodica Bunea

First question is right on the surface - your art pieces titles. You seem to simply number them. Is that so? How many pieces have you created?

Yes, I just number my art works.

For several years now I've been numbering my portraits. The whole process is an ordinary numbering of pieces from the first one to the latest. During the past eight years I created more than a few hundreds of pieces. And because I wanted to keep them in a specified order, I started numbering them.

It's very interesting to manifest my "vision" from the beginning to the end.

You use other people’s photographs as well as take photos of people yourself.

Have you tried using yourself as a model?

The work can be a mirror reflection of the mind. I meditate. interesting to manifest my "vision" from the beginning to the end.

What is an easy way to describe your latest acrylic process? So you start with a photograph….

Photograph or a rendered 3D model is used as a base, which is then digitally imposed with acrylic or other layers, creating the so-called "painting effect".

The acrylic layers are painted by hand on paper, and then I make scans of them and use them in my work creating new kind of layers.

So it's a combination of analog and digital processes.

Yes, I do both: I collaborate with other photographers and models, as well as use my own materials. Although I haven't tried using myself as a model yet, I am open for collaborations.

Some of your earlier pieces look ghostly, almost sickly or deformed. “Possessed” could be another word to describe the unsettling feeling when I look at them.

The newer pieces seems to be more aesthetically pleasant, uplifting and you use more color. What could you attribute such change to?

Last year I started using rendered 3D models created in ZBrush. It's very

The work can be a mirror reflection of the mind. I meditate.

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What is the ideal setting for you to display your work? Let's imagine the money and bureaucracy are not an issue.

I've never thought about that actually.

Maybe some proper exposure and friendly people, with good music in the background.

We like to analyze art and speculate artist’s intentions and symbolism for a specific tool, brush stroke, or choice of color. Are you one of those artists who embed a hidden meaning in your artwork, that could potentially be decoded by your audience?

It is an intuitive matter. The reception and interpretation of work depends on the state of mind of the observer.

You can focus on your inner voice and thoughts or just get a feeling from it.

I like to leave understatement in my works. So that everyone could see how they understand the image according to their own perception when looking at my art.

The learning process never ends; it's such a little "never-ending story", because we learn new ways of looking at things throughout our whole lifetime.

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The reception and interpretation of work depends on the state of mind of the observer.

It is rare that we can see your model’s eyes in your work, they’re usually covered with the textures leaving the face almost unrecognizable. What is your intention behind that?

This is not done on purpose. I don't plan to hide the eyes, but sometimes I just like the way it looks. My creative work is always made spontaneously.

Being a self-taught and self-made artist, you seem to be very prolific. Do you feel like you could give any advice to young kids aspiring to go to an art school?

Thank you. I haven't finished my art studies. I am self-taught since 2006 to the present day. The learning process never ends; it's such a little "neverending story", because we learn new ways of looking at things throughout our whole lifetime.

To the young starting in art and design I would recommend to always look for their own solutions. Don't be afraid of your own perceptions and find a way of expressing yourself which is both effortless and gives you joy of creation.

332 photo by Marian Wodzisz

337 photo by Marian Wodzisz

367 model photo Barbara Florczyk

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DREW LUSTMAN - FALTYDL From early on in his musical career, Drew Lustman has had his boosters. His first 12” single as FaltyDL for the esteemed Planet Mu label featured remixes by two of the biggest figures in the history of electronic music, namely Mike Paradinas and Luke Vibert. Better known as Mu-Ziq, label owner Paradinas has since released a number of FaltyDL albums and shorter releases, though his last two full-lengths have come via Ninja Tune, another highly regarded imprint. Enamored by the dance

photo by Carme Boixadera

music of the 1990s, intelligent and otherwise, Lustman has spent the last six years drawing influence from his forebears while rarely sitting still. From his Brooklyn, New York home studio, he’s produced everything from an outsider’s take on British dance music to last year’s radical electronic patchwork In The Wild.

Returning to Planet Mu for the first time since 2011, Lustman has retained his unique yet nonetheless real name for a brand new record

entitled The Crystal Cowboy. I met with him at a cafe in Greenpoint to discuss this accessibly retro sounding album, his slightly ambiguous yet prominent place in electronic music, and how it all makes him feel. As it turned out, we quickly surmised that we’d attended some of the same nightclubs in the mid-2000s, including one that specialized in dubstep back when Skrillex was still post-hardcore kid Sonny Moore. interview by Gary Suarez

When dubstep first made its way across the Atlantic, were you in New York at that point?

I moved here in ‘06 and the person who turned me on to your writing was Dave Q, the promoter of Dub War. Did you go to Dub War? I used to go to Dub War, yeah.

We were there together, I’m sure. Now that I see you, I feel like I’ve seen you in the room.

It’s entirely possible. What was that place right off of 8th Street? There was that loft space inside.

Club Love. The declining nature of that club can probably parallel the declining nature of dubstep. It became a sports bar. I would go in there and I would deejay. The monitors were from the Paradise Garage, the old Bozak, that was all from the Paradise Garage. And every time I’d go in there in the last two years, a piece of gear would’ve been sold by the owner. The last gig I played there was on the promoter’s computer with monitors from home, like $300 monitors. But I think that’s my entry point for going out. I’ve been into electronic music since I was like 13, 14, so like ‘94, ‘95, ‘96. Moving to New York in ‘06 and going out, that’s when it all started for me. And that was the night I went to because it had a few artists from Planet Mu that came over, like Vex’d. That was my first one.

I hugged the wall in the back. I was terrified. I was like, what is this?

They were one of my favorite artists at the time.

Degenerate was such an amazing record. I really liked dubstep, the DMZ stuff, I’d enjoyed a lot of what I was hearing. But I heard that record and was like this is where they merged.

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A lot of people had that moment with different artists in dubstep. It’s probably generational too, where you were at the time, but that was my first - the Vex’d show. I hugged the wall in the back. I was terrified. I was like, what is this? At the time I was sober, some hybrid of sober and straight edge-y. So I was just there drinking water and geeking out. And I’d go home at night and I’d just track out. I was making tunes ‘til like 4am. The first year of living in New York is when I shut everything out and just became a producer and dedicated all my time to it.

The first year of living in New York is when I shut everything out and just became a producer and dedicated all my time to it.

Love Is A Liability, the first record you did for Planet Mu, was the first record of yours I heard.

Oh really? Wow. There’s a bit of blissful ignorance, I think, in the production of that album. I was learning what I was doing as I went along. With the first track I sent to Mike Paradinas, he was like there’s something here; it’s not there yet. There’s five versions of that track, including an edit he made. There are really weird mistakes on that album.

What do you mean by mistakes?

Okay, maybe not mistakes. More like I had less of a capacity to call myself out on where I was being lazy in production. It’s not mistakes. Imagine someone just making club music from their idea of what it is, at the beginning of everything going streaming and getting most of it from the Internet, not from a firsthand experience. But also making it on pretty crude old-school versions of software and hardware.

photo by Danny Durtsche

What were you using at the time?

It was Reason, which I still use, including a bunch of standalone programs for specific editing-type things. An old MPC-1000 and a turntable. People would tell me it sounded a bit like jungle, the production style of jungle and garage sort of mixed. It just wasn’t as clean as everything else at the time.

Everyone was getting really clean with their productions and I was, like, mixdown? Fuck a mixdown. I’m just gonna export this out all in red and press it.

It was also the Burial album [Untrue] that had come out in the middle of me making that album. At the time, I wouldn’t have admitted what a heavy influence it had on me. I listened to it the other day and it’s still so fucking good. You can play “Archangel” in the club and it’s emotional and it also bangs.

That record was so huge for me. Prior to that, everything I was making was Squarepusher-y, AFX-influenced, very fast drill n’ bass. I liked all the breakcore stuff Mike Paradinas was putting out. I liked Venetian Snares a lot, Datach’i. I loved all that stuff. It felt like it was made by guys that didn’t go out much.

photo by Carme Boixadera

That defines a good bit of Planet Mu’s output, at least up to a certain point. Now there’s more of a connection to dance scenes like footwork.

He is so on it. The JLin album is ridiculous. To be that on it, but be able to switch up. It doesn’t feel like reappropriation when Mike switches to something and goes into a very urban sort of sound. He’s there before a lot of other people.

You’ve hardly stayed in one place sonically for long, which I imagine is intentional. You’re trying different things, but it also makes what you do kind of hard to categorize. It means you don’t necessarily reap the benefits when something is identified as a trend.

The people that I have modeled my career after, the ones I look up to, like Mike [Paradinas] and Luke Vibert, have really touched on a lot of

things, but it sounds like them doing it. That’s always been very attractive to me. I want people to know it’s me within the first few seconds of the song.

That’s a conscious thought I have. But when I sit down, I have no idea where the track is going to go. I hear a sample that sounds good and I follow that rabbit hole. So how do I feel? I’ve never made a garage record as direct as Disclosure’s was. I’ve never made hip-hop tracks as direct as Hudson Mohawke. I’ve always felt like I was drawing from lots of things at once. I’ve never thought of consequences, of will I be thought of as one genre or another. I’ve been really lucky.

The press has been really nice to me over the years, barring a few shitty reviews.

You have a critical history. You have a discography. Critics have a frame of reference when approaching your music. Do you think that plays into favorable reviews?

Yes, but I wonder if it’s the actual music or the fact that I have a discography that plays into it. "Veteran Drew Lustman comes back with this". I wonder if it’s because I’ve made a lot in a short amount of time.

With your last FaltyDL record In The Wild, a lot of reviewers didn’t understand it.

Who has that patience anymore? Am I writing it for an older crowd? The less amount of time I spend in a club, when I’m only there playing gigs, I actually feel untethered from the dancefloor and the

I want people to know it’s me within the first few seconds of the song. That’s a conscious thought I have. attention span of a 21 year old raver. In The Wild was designed to be played out of order and in order. That is a lot to ask of anyone these days. It was 67 minutes. It plays to me like a Boards Of Canada album, but a Boards Of Canada album made 15 years ago. So I wonder if a lot of my points of reference are old, and I’m moving forward, while my points of reference remain mostly in '90s electronica, I don’t know if it’s shooting myself in the foot but rather stapling my foot to that era. The sounds change and the production techniques change, and obviously I’m hearing a lot of current music, so it’s not that much the same.

But my points of reference have been in the past, and I think that, out of everything, has been my biggest hindrance. I hear new sounds and I like them, but I don’t really jump on them until they’ve been around for awhile.

I really love nostalgic things and I get into them. The idea of an album format is a romantic thing to me.

An artist like Aphex Twin reaches back to the past and is hailed for it. Being a comparatively younger artist, do you think those who were there are more rewarded than those who grew up on or were heavily influenced by it?

So much depends on how it’s approached, who releases it, the context of it all, and the

artist itself. I generally have been received favorably for doing that. The way I’ve released music is largely a response to other people’s music I’ve been hearing. It keeps you in the position of being an afterthought, not the auteur of it. Let’s say from Day One I had a manager, someone who was really going to curate where things went. I wonder what sort of position I’d be in now.

Still, one of the biggest conundrums of your project is that you aren’t easily categorized.

I can’t hate on it, because I feel like I’m doing it to myself, but not in a sabotaging way. It always feels like the right thing to do.

It’s hard to call it sabotaging when you’re releasing for well-respected labels. If you were toiling in obscurity on Bandcamp, I could see that argument. You’ve got Ninja Tune and Planet Mu. You’ve got a tastemaker like Mike Paradinas listening to your stuff, playing a significant role in your career.

See, I forget all of that. Here’s where the ego comes in, the artist part. I think, none of it is enough, none of it is received well enough. I get wound up very easily just by turning on the Internet. I don’t care about Jamie xx or the color of his shirt when he was mixing his last album. That’s the 24 hour news cycle.

Set up tracks very sober in the morning, go back and resequence it stoned in the afternoon. It’s fun.

But I’ve had some moments of positivity recently that’ve felt so transcendent above all that. Not checking the Internet for a day is so good. Once you get a taste of the press, and it goes away a little bit, for me it was tricky. After Hardcourage it was good, and then In The Wild was like, fuck, there goes it for Drew. It was such a silly thought to have.

The relationship between artist and critic is a tough one. What critics determine is worth talking about is based on a variety of factors, several of which have no relation to you as a person or your music.

A lot of times it’s so out of your hands, but you can still take it personally if press attention drops off.

I’ve remained in the album cycle for three years in a row, which makes it much harder to pitch something. I realize that. The most important part is: what do I take back into the studio?

Am I reacting to press? Am I reacting to other music? Am I reacting just to myself? The best is when I’m in a good mood and I’m not thinking about any of that stuff. That’s become a skill I’m trying to hone this past year or so. Pot’s helped that, naturally. Set up tracks very sober in the morning, go back and resequence it stoned in the afternoon. It’s fun.

Some people are going to take The Crystal Cowboy as a reaction to the critical response to your last record. How do you reconcile this?

The key is to make your next record before the press comes out on the one about to come out.

Always be one ahead of the cycle. I have a new EP that’s ready. I’ve always gravitated towards producers who consider themselves music producers, not a garage producer or a house producer. If you ask Theo Parrish, he’s a music producer. He’s done so much different stuff.

To me, I’m sacrificing a bit in the moment that I would be gaining on a much more streamlined career direction for hopefully a body of work that will look like a legacy that I’m just proud of.

A lot of my friends, they don’t say to me “Drew, this track is amazing.” They say “Drew, your work ethic is incredible.” That’s the compliment I get from a lot of people. That’s the sort of compliment people gave to my dad as well.

I think we’re all acting on a lot of subconscious levels on why we make things, at what rate and quality. I’ve been happy to try and get a lot out there and view it all as a whole body. But that’s a lot to ask of somebody, because most people aren’t going to listen to all of your music. They’ll just listen to one and that’ll be the first and maybe last thing they’ve heard of you. It just hasn’t really stressed me out so much.

Once I started making a living from this, things changed a bit. I started worrying a bit more about that. With gigs, how many months am I booked out? Job security. What are my releases? A few esoteric records in a row and you stop getting club offers. And then it’s going to take awhile to get the Oneohtrix Point Never type gig offers. I thought that’s what I wanted, but I don’t know. I still don’t know.

Why is “Hyena” so short?

There was a version of The Crystal Cowboy that had about four or five ambient interludes like In The Wild has. Then I said to Mike, “Let’s not do a 55 minute album; let’s do a 40 minute album.”

And he was like, “Yeah, I agree. Let’s leave one in.” "Hyena". It’s a lift off an old jungle record, a couple of things I put together. One of the samples is from Blog To The Oldskool. One of the samples is from an old Reinforced record. I have no shame in where I sample from.

Nor should you, given who your influences are.

“Angel Flesh,” the third track on The Crystal Cowboy, the whole time is D’angelo’s voice from

photo by Carme Boixadera

the GZA [“Cold World”] remix. It’s pretty flagrant.

Ninja Tune could not do that. Ninja would not release something like that, or they’d try to pay for it.

This new record is under your name. Artists often do that for one of two reasons. One is contractual.

I want Ninja to take that second option for FaltyDL. The other reason people do it is because there’s something personal, sentimental. Especially for someone who’s been using a pseudonym. Why did you do it for this record? You conceivably could’ve put another name out there.

I started a name last year called Shanghai Den, and then quickly afterwards realized it was kind of a reappropriation. The connotations I was putting on it was opium den style things. I used to smoke

I was wondering if people would think, oh, is he singing now? But no, it’s just eleven more dance tracks. opium as a kid and get high on opiates. So I felt like I owned that enough. I did one single on R&S for Shanghai Den, a crazy single. I started sending Mike demos like “What do you think of this name?”

FaltyDL almost never happened. Love Is A Liability almost came out under Drew Lustman. He’s always wanted me to put stuff out under my own name.

Fans of FaltyDL have already read my name a few times, and they might make a connection there. So there is a bit of a business strategy. I was wondering if people would think, oh, is he singing now? But no, it’s just eleven more dance tracks.

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photo by Carme Boixadera

That’s interesting, in light of the culture of electronic music and so-called faceless techno.

Cultures in dance music crack me up. I’ve been to Berlin. I’ve played the Berghain at 6am and seen some dude getting fisted in front of the booth.

That’s cool. I love that that can happen there. You don’t hear a snare until 3am, just like a hihat and kick for five hours.

Success for me is living off this, supporting myself, and respect from peers. That’s it.

I’ve had more fun at a cheesy jungle night than at one with headier, austere techno meant to stimulate my higher brain functions.

In the beginning I played all these dubstep nights. Then it became more house-y nights.

Now I feel like the doors are pretty open for the bookings I get and the lineups I’m on. If it’s small clubs, I’m headlining with local support from DJs playing crazy great sets.

get. So it’s taking a little less of a chance, in some way, by not focusing on one point to get to. I think there’s a level of acting on fear, gauging all of these different things, and there’s a level where it feels like the right thing to be making at the time.

Okay, the real question is this: have I not wanted to do one thing because I’m afraid of not succeeding completely at that thing? If I’d put all of my energy into Love Is A Liability garage for six years, five albums of music like that − hopefully getting better throughout the time − I would just be in this one position and this one scene. That would feel very strangulating to me. The other level is: the bigger you get, the more hate you’re going to

Do you worry at all about where that leaves you? You used the word before: legacy. It boils down to what your definition of success is.

Success for me is living off this, supporting myself, and respect from peers. That’s it. And I have that, not from all my peers. Like Hudson Mohawke, he’s a guy I’ve looked up to musically for years. We played together a lot, in the beginning. He doesn’t follow me on Twitter.

We’re not boys; I don’t think I get respect from him, so to speak. That’s something that I’d like.

But I’ve got it from Actress and these other singular guys I’ve looked up to. That’s important for me, to get it from these guys. I think I operate better when I don’t care about it as much. It’s more important for me to turn these guys on than an audience.

I’m going to use your words against you, but that kinda seems like that’s culture. That’s where you stand within that culture. Am I the biggest DJ in the world, or am I the one that all these producers and DJs hugely respect?

I’d rather have that.

What about the future? You want to continue being a music producer and professional. How do you see the viability for that, given the field and the fickleness of listeners’ tastes?

A funny thing happened in like 2010, 2011.

This is the biggest namedrop I can do. Thom Yorke hit me up. He was like, “I love what you’re doing. Come open for us.” I did that. It was amazing. So the next year or two I wanted to do a track with Thom. I haven’t gotten that email.

Bjork hasn’t tapped me. These things haven’t happened to me that I’ve seen happen to other people. It still could happen, and some of these things I realize I have to build on my own. I’m making an album with Le1f right now. It’s going to come out on our time, and probably not with XL because they’re probably not going to like it.

It’s going to take a couple years because he has other things that are important.

I feel like I’ve hustled. With the exception of Ninja Tune, I’ve basically hustled every record I ever put out, to the extent that I’ve sent the demo. Mike didn’t hit me up first. All these other labels like Rush Hour never hit me up. Ninja was

I can’t relate to people that are just bubbling up on their own. I always feel like I have to shout about myself, which is a very transparent action. In retrospect you wonder how that looks, but I think it’s been okay. the one that asked if I wanted to do an EP and I came to the meeting and said I want to make multiple albums. I can’t relate to people that are just bubbling up on their own. I always feel like I have to shout about myself, which is a very transparent action. In retrospect you wonder how that looks, but I think it’s been okay.

Since you’re continuing to do this professionally, what about the live show?

The biggest hindrance is that I have not done a live show. Agents are always asking when the live show’s coming. I got my Ableton thing, my little controller, and I’m still DJing other people’s tracks. I’m terrified of really getting it together. There’s been budget for it, there’s been tour managers that want to help, loads of opportunities. To make the separates of my tracks would take me two days, to tear ten tracks apart. I could get out there with a live drummer, a singer, some crazy visuals. I just don’t want to do it for some reason. It’s too easy for me to say I’m scared of failure. If I did it right, then I wouldn’t fail. I don’t know if it’s laziness or if I’m just protecting myself by not doing it.

It’s interesting.

With the live setting are you worried about it potentially restricting your flexibility in a set? I saw Flying Lotus two nights in a row on his last tour.

The visuals were tremendous and timed with the music, but it was essentially the same set.

To be honest, for my own safety I’d choreograph the hell out of it. The way I’d do visuals is some sort of reactive thing, so I wouldn’t have to worry about being on cue.

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The New York-based rapper Le1f is on The Crystal Cowboy. “Onyx” is very different from what I’ve heard from him before.

There are verses we didn’t use. His flow is incredible. One thing I want to work on with him is changing the timbre of his voice, to explore different ways of him talking. I love his voice. It cuts through in a mix in a really interesting way, because there’s a lot of baritone there. Without that I have him randomly counting to five. Some of the things we’re working on for the album will have verses and choruses. I want to get Donchristian and a lot of his friends on it. I’m one of Le1f’s many Jewish producers. We have this joke: it’s Jewish synth nerds and gay black rappers. Did you see Supermensch?

I didn’t, but I know Mike Myers produced it.

Great movie, about this legendary Jewish nerd manager guy to Alice Cooper and Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. A guy that would make shit happen. I love pumping Le1f up on the phone and getting him excited. I love playing that role with him, telling him he’s really great and getting good results. That’s what’s fun for me in that project so far. I honestly don’t know how it’s going to end up.

I could spend a lot of energy worrying about if I’m going to do a track with Thom Yorke or I could send tracks to a lot of other incredible locals and make things happen. So that’s the future.

photo by Carme Boixadera

I could be in a ditch with a needle in my arm. That’s where I was headed when I was 17. I have to get grateful really quickly and realize that I’m doing this for a living. It’s ridiculous.

One of these things in my Twitter feed could just set me off and I have to realize that I’m grateful. I could be in a ditch with a needle in my arm. That’s where I was headed when I was 17. I have to get grateful really quickly and realize that I’m doing this for a living. It’s ridiculous. Somehow I’ve made a name for myself. It’s incredible. I can’t believe I have that sometimes. And then other times it’s not enough.

Liar's Ink

BAYO Mexico City native artist Eduardo Flores − Bayo − aims to illustrate "the fundamental quest for turning individuality into a delusional existence" - the struggle so familiar to many.

Bayo admits that his highly impactful drawings and paintings of troubled characters are partly autobiographical, but to which extent is what we tried to find out. interview by Katya Guseva

It is a chain of consequences that affects us directly and indirectly, altered by the weight of the reality, it is to say, the human condition.

The theme of this issue is “Self” and in a lot of your drawings and paintings it seems like you’re touching on the subject of the interior struggle with some voices or demons. Am I reading this correctly?

What I’m trying to portray is the struggle and the hope to maintain the mind in a balanced center between the real and the unreal, the conscious and subconscious, and the constant instinctive battle for the individuality that sometimes conveys a catastrophe, if the extremes are reached.

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The Keeper

Your piece "Voices" made me think about the theory that thousands years ago people heard voices in their heads all the time, and regarded them as gods. Do you yourself hear voices in your head? And what do you think about that phenomena?

I guess we all hear those voices, some of them are more stronger than others, and it is a matter of how we see things and categorize them based on own experiences. It affects each individual in a unique way, and as individuals we are involved in many different realities. It is a chain of consequences that affects us directly and indirectly, altered by the weight of the reality, it is to say, the human condition.

Voices

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When you paint (or draw) do you see the image in your head? Or is it a stream of your subconsciousness that results in something unexpected?

It works both ways I believe, but I would say that the ideas that have had more impact are those that come from the subconscious. Either way, what I see in my head is not always as accurate as the final piece, since it’s been molded throughout the way.

Some of your pieces seem to have the same character in them, like the guy from “Voices” looks similar to the guy from "The Keeper". Are these characters autobiographical?

Some of the people I paint or draw are people that I have seen randomly, others are just a reflection of my conscience, but I can’t deny that I always leave a part of me there. When I have a concept, I have to find the right character for that specific situation for a better result of the equation.

There are some interesting features that would be interesting to bring to life from time to time.

Some of the people I paint or draw are people that I have seen randomly, others are just a reflection of my conscience, but I can’t deny that I always leave a part of me there.

You stopped posting any new work updates in 2012, only on Facebook sometimes. What is the reason behind it, if you like to talk about it?

After the last show I had (Cave Gallery), I felt that I needed to polish a lot of things, so I decided to focus on the things I needed to improve. I haven’t stopped working; in fact, I’ve been working a lot and now I’m about to start a new body of work. I can say that in a way, there is going to be a big difference with what you will see next.

Your work seems to hint on some dark drug experiences. Or to put it in other words it doesn’t come from a “happy place”. Do you need to be in a specific state of mind to create?

That’s funny because I get that a lot. I also get comments that sound like I have some real issues, or that I am a depressed guy, or that I have a tormented

life. And this is not true at all. I tend to take those ideas as far as I can, in a way that I think would make a bigger impact. I don’t think I need to be in a certain state of mind, I think it hits me out of the blue. The truth is that does not come from a happy place, but that is because there is a direct influence of the chaos out there and everything is affected by that.

Koi fish and elephant seem to be reoccurring symbols in your work. What do they mean to you and what do you want them to translate to for the audience?

I admire animals. All kinds.

Each one of them has a unique way of facing life.

The Koi fish are well known for their powerful life force and ability to swim against the current. I find that interesting, but I also find them extremely beautiful and with elegant moves. In the case of the elephants, their strength is what I find very interesting.

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I get comments that sound like I have some real issues, or that I am a depressed guy, or that I have a tormented life.

And this is not true at all.

What music are you listening to? Do you work with music or in silence?

I think that 60% of the day I’m listening to something, but there is a point when I have to work in silence, otherwise music would be a distracting factor. With so many genres out there it would be hard to say exactly what, but some of my favorite bands to listen to when I do listen to music are Tobacco, Gonjasufi, Timber Timbre, Torngat, Beck, Radiohead, Mars Volta, and Cornelius, just to name a few.

Hell's Door 74

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Hallucinations

HOUSE OF BLACK LANTERNS I think it was some time around late 2008 the first time I heard about Dylan Richards (back when he was producing music under the moniker of King Cannibal). Upon first listen to his productions I found myself reconnecting with the nostalgia of my teen years, when I first discovered drum & bass labels like Metalheadz and Moving Shadow (we’re talking early noughties here). Then in 2013 I stumbled upon his new project House of Black Lanterns after hearing a remix off of the Truth & Loss EP. Under the HOBL moniker Dylan’s production has continued to evolve.

So I was really excited when I had the chance to sit down and pick his brain about a few things like his musical progression, production style and the new modular techno set up (jk... read on).

interview by Chris Ward

listen to the exclusive HOBL mix on bigupmag.com

It's my job to explore or do something different every time I make a new piece of music, people can choose to follow that progress or not.

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Where did the idea for the moniker House of Black Lanterns come from?

They are four words that fitted together nicely and seemed loose enough that it meant one day it might be one guy deejaying and the next day it might mean a five piece live show. It isn’t specific and that’s something I wanted: room for interpretation. The name came after a lot of the Kill The Lights album was written, and it seemed to fit the general aesthetic of the work. That album took three years and a lot of label complications to navigate before it saw release, so I wanted to make sure everything I could do, whilst sorting that out, was as good as I could make it. And I liked the idea of lanterns rising to the sky after being kept down for a long period. Plus I’d been living in Brighton and enjoyed sitting on the beach at night and watching people trying to set of Chinese lanterns in to the sky.

Is your production style or process different now from when you were going by King Cannibal?

The last King Cannibal thing I worked on was a number of years ago now. I use the same equipment, the same process, the only difference is what has happened within the time that has passed in between the two names. How everyday life has changed, who I am, and the progression I’ve made as in taste. That’s not to criticize what I listened to four or five years ago, but

doing something, maybe based on an idea, maybe not. If you are doing your job as someone who explores different avenues of creativity, then people might not be able to follow you through all the twists and turns you take, but that is not my responsibility as an artist.

with each day you hear new things, see new things and re-evaluate something you had previously dismissed.

The same music informs what I make now and what I made then, it just comes out differently. My production style is obviously different now, which can be heard by anyone who listens to a King Cannibal and a House of Black Lanterns track.

But that’s been a slow progression over a number of years, you wouldn’t have heard the hundreds of tracks I’ve written in the meantime that has got me from K to H.

If I hear one more comment about someone’s new modular techno set up, I’m seriously going to puke.

The main thing that has changed in that time has really been my attitude to making music. I’ve made a decision to focus on why I started messing around with sound in the first place. It’s my job to explore or do something different every time I make a new piece of music, people can choose to follow that progress or not. Everything past that point is the business of music, packaging it and creating a narrative. Even in my brief time at art school I realized that I’m not good at showing my process. I just enjoy sitting down and

I started making heavy bass music (actually that’s a lie, I made weird lo-fi hip hop initially), but last year I spent writing a continuous hourlong, often beatless synthheavy concept album. It was really enjoyable and I learnt a lot from it. It might come out, it might not, but I made it because I wanted to. And while it would be nice for people to hear it, and for me to get some gigs off of it, I ultimately did it for me. It’s not my style of process, and that’s the biggest difference between now and then: not thinking about a career and simply working on material I feel like doing. It’s more fun and more rewarding that way.

As a producer are you more of an analog gear kind of guy? Or are you producing mostly "inside the box"? What’s your favorite piece of gear at the moment?

It’s a mix of things. Everything eventually goes through the desk and back in the computer.

I like to add lots of extra noise and hum to recordings. I had a decent amount of gear, but I’ve sold most of it recently, as I wasn’t really making use of it. I’d much rather someone else used this cool stuff, than it just collecting dust sitting in my studio.

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Ignore everyone and everything, ignore your doubts, ignore bad press, ignore good press and most of all ignore this advice.

The general trend for producers seems to have swung the way of analog, but modular set ups really don’t interest me at all. I’ve got tools in my computer I’ve not learnt how to use yet. So why embark on spending a lot of money on new things, when I’ve not exhausted what I have now? Plus it’s all so super cool, and where is the fun in being super cool? If I hear one more comment about someone’s new modular techno set up, I’m seriously going to puke.

How has relocating to Berlin made an impact on you (in any way, shape or form)?

I understand less and puke more.

Who are five artists you digging right now for music?

Mumdance, Logos, Wen – they all offer unique takes on sounds I’ve grown up with over the years. Logos is making some of the most awe inspiring sprawling music around. Their music continues to surprise and go in new directions. I have a lot of respect for Mumdance. Louisahhh!!!

Her style is so fucking noir, you can cut through it with a knife. Superb classy music couple with that cold, detached female vocal delivery; I’m a huge huge fan of that approach: always have been, always will be. Hodge, because he just seems to do whatever it is he wants to.

Have you ever had a bad bout of writer’s block? And if so how did you overcome it?

Well, I’ve not been able to finish anything in the last five months, due to different reasons like family illnesses, break-ups, my monitoring set up dying twice… I’ve had it all fixed this year, but it takes a while of trying to get back into the zone.

It’s that perfect amount of focus and relaxed vision that is required to make music, to think both completely on what you are doing, and on nothing at all. I work every day in the studio, it’s rare I take days off, and if I do, it’s probably because I’ve been out at a club, and my brain is a complete mush. That perfect zone you need to be in can come and go, I just want to be in the studio to catch it when it does come. That’s my way of dealing with it, maybe take a day off but keep trying to push through.

Revisiting old material is always good, something you may have dismissed might suddenly click into place, now that you aren’t caught up in the small detail of it.

As an established producer what advice would you share with all the young guns out there making music?

Be yourself, everything else is just compromise.

Ignore everyone and everything, ignore your doubts, ignore bad press, ignore good press and most of all ignore this advice.

LISTEN UP Ok, here's what we think about music reviews: fck'em.

Chances are if you're holding a real copy of Big Up and reading these lines, you are into the same music we are into, and you somewhat trust our taste.

Here we are sharing our favorite releases of the season. We hope you check them out and discover you new favorite tune.

Second Storey & Appleblim Also [R&S]

Release date: May 4, 2015 For the fans of: Machine rhythms, heavy studio / live loose jams sessions, emotive electronic music.

Standout tracks: "Formation", "Arpegmonger", "PGs".

They say: Never content to take the easy route, Appleblim explains "if that means broken rhythms, and untraditional melodies then so be it. There's so many people making sonically 'correct' or refined 4x4 music, we just wanted to explore everything other than that, whilst still keeping the dance floor moving."

Rudeboyz Rudeboyz [Goon Club Allstars] Release date: May 18, 2015 For the fans of: Gqomu, uncompromising and stripped back music, pounding beats, angry chants, music as a full body experience.

Standout tracks: "Get Down", "Mercedes Song".

They say: Rudeboyz are Massive Q, Andile-T and Menchess from Durban. They make Gqom (or Gqomu or Igqom); raw, dark and hypnotic South African house music rooted in the townships of Durban, and shared with the world via the internet and social media. Gqom blares out at makeshift clubs, taxis and shopping malls; it is THE music in Durban.

Gqom roughly translates from Zulu to ‘Bang’ or ‘Hit’.

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Ekoplekz Reflekzionz [Planet Mu] Release date: May 19, 2015 For the fans of: Dirty analogue textures, dubwise production.

Standout tracks: "Seduktion", "Tremulant", " Canon's Marsh".

They say: As the album title suggests, Reflekzionz is a record that unapologetically dwells on past experiences, like flicking through an old album of bleached-out photos from days gone by.

LTO No Pasa Nada [Injazero Records ] Release date: March 30, 2015 For the fans of: Old Apparatus, merging of music and art, found sound.

Standout tracks: "Rebelarse", "Hundirse".

They say: A solo electronic producer based in Bristol, LTO first garnered attention and praise in 2011 as part of the Old Apparatus collective with their abstract experimental bass-driven music, submerged in swirls and fragments of otherworldly static and interference. The No Pasa Nada name and track titles - common Spanish verbs - are informed by LTO’s backpacking travels through South America, as much a field recording excursion as a cultural tour.

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Fink Horizontalism [R'COUP'D]

Release date: May 18, 2015 For the fans of: James Blake, lush vocals, beautiful ambience, dub.

Standout tracks: "Fall Into The Light”, “Music Won't Save You", They say: Presented as a collection of dubs from Hard Believer, the reworked material takes on a decidedly more mysterious turn: vocals dangle and loop precariously over raw edges of murky sound, lasers oscillate and waves crash, percussion click-clacks somewhere far away, and the listener somehow draws nearer to the core from which Fink draws the sonic intimacy for which they’re so well-known.

Night Musik Transit [Mind Records] Release date: April 20, 2015 For the fans of: techno, dark ambient, industrial, long winding tunnels.

Standout tracks: "Between", "Theme".

They say: Insomnia music for restless nights. Reflections caught in dance floor mirrors. What began as a way to pass time in dark hotel rooms and airports (“non-places”) was guided by the nature of life on the road: a musician who was winning classical guitar competitions at the age of 10 was suddenly limited to making music with little more than machines. The cinematic atmospheres of the resulting LP distill shades of techno, industrial, ambient (while never falling back on the conventions of just one) and even conjure the repetitive, mechanical rhythms and hums of vehicles themselves.

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Actress DJ-Kicks [!K7 ]

Release date: May 5, 2015 For the fans of: Chez Damier, Ron Trent, Autechre, PAN label and contemporary avant-garde.

They say: “When I’m selecting music I’m not always thinking about the music alone,” Cunningham explains. “I’m thinking about the names of the artists, tracks, and labels, and what they mean to me. I often base my tracklisting purely on how well the track titles work together in a poetic sense.”

Inner8 Inner8 [Undogmatisch] Release date: May, 2015 For the fans of: Dadub, esoteric motifs, IDM, experimental techno Standout tracks: "Violence”, “Exploitation”, “The Irony Of Karma Part 2".

They say: Inner8 is a 12-track journey, a piece of art that, beyond its unique sound signature, provides a heady mix of both contemplation and action, of esoteric and exoteric elements.

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Submerse Stay Home [Project: Mooncircle]

Release date: 26 May, 2015 For the fans of: Soulful footwork, slow jams, hip hop beats.

Standout tracks: "Take It Slow”, “Bokeh”, “Gloom".

They say: Taking in the smooth silky feeling and textures of 90’s slow jams and R&B music videos, Stay Home converts these into Submerse’s unique style of beats. Aiming to work as the soundtrack to urban scenes of life, whether you’re roaming the city streets at night or by just staying home and capturing these moments from a window.

Iglew Urban Myth [Gobstopper Records] Release date: April 27, 2015 For the fans of: Audio textures, proper bass, soundsystem music.

They say: "I guess my music sounds the way it does because it's a product of my environment. I didn't grow up in a city and there's no underground electronic music scene here. When I started listening to electronic music, it was on headphones. It's only in the last couple of years that I’ve heard soundsystem music in it's intended environment. I'm hyper aware of how effective bass can be because I only really heard it properly recently." - Iglew

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Glenn Astro Throwback [Tartelet]

Release date: May 25, 2015 For the fans of: Circo Inverso, instrumental hip hop, jazzy disco house, experimental beats, anything left field, tape hiss and vinyl crackle.

Standout tracks: “4 My Peeps”, "Computerkiller”, "Ødland".

They say: For every house beat you hear, you'll also dip into juicy, 90’s-style beat science, toasty ambience and buttery chord progressions. Expertly paced but never hustling you along, Throwback begs to be heard as a whole but explored at your own easy pace—a record for hazy mornings-after, vibey nights in and endless summer afternoons.

Lucy and Klock War Lullaby [Stroboscopic Artefacts] Release date: May 4, 2015 For the fans of: Epic collaborations, non-dance techno, drone, white noise.

They say: This new release makes good on each producer's talent for working with epically unfolding tracks, maintaining a strong command of both 'drone' and melodicism, and envisioning sound as a kind of inter-dimensional mass transit. As the record indicates, things can get very interesting when the two working methods superimpose perfectly, but can be just as interesting when the two fall slightly out of phase with one another.

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Recondite Think Twice [Life and Death] Release date: April 20, 2015 For the fans of: Life And Death material, hypnotic state of 'inbetween'.

They say: "An ever advancing urgent reminder of the transitory nature of the eternal now, it graces us with her beauty and leaves us with a shaking sensation deep in our bones... A sequence of sounds sent like a fishing line to the depths of the psyche, it returns with a portentous melody that winds and wanders until exploding midway thru the piece in a burst of restrained emotion."

Die & Break vs. Mad Hed City 40 Hurts [Gutterfunk] Release date: May 3, 2015 For the fans of: Sam Binga, hip hop/reggae blends, jungle, basement.

They say: Deep in the Gutterfunk lair, Die & Break have been hard at work forging dub plate alchemy. Meanwhile Trinidadian artist/vocalist Mad Hed City is on a mission to intercept their plan. Minimal kicks, finger clicks and sub low 40 Hurts bass weight provided the foundations for Mad Hed City’s explosive vocals. The result of this combination is total dance floor devastation!

Cosmin TRG Uzura/Vitriol [Fizic]

Release date: April 27, 2015 For the fans of: intense hard hitting techno, rabbit holes, drone, industrial and dark wave.

They say: Dragging you ever deeper down the rabbit hole, this is an arresting EP of hugely textural techno that will surely dissociate and dislocate minds and bodies whenever it is dropped.

Spec Titan [Uprise Audio] Release date: May 11, 2015 For the fans of: dubstep, chest rattling growling bass, Eastern flare.

Standout tracks: "Fibre”, “Unidentified”.

They say: The New Zealander Spec has been patiently waiting for the moment to unleash his first collection of tracks, all reserving space for total impact. His Titan EP contains four inclusions, all being as weighty and bursting of energy as the others. They collectively hit the slopes like a Trojan, taking every listener on a dramatic audial experience.

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#SELFIESSUE

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