Interview with Karoshi's Beres Jackson

When and what got you into making music?
I’ve been involved in music my whole life. I used to play in a few bands, playing guitar, but was pretty frustrated by the limitations of the instrument, or maybe my limitations as a player. A few years ago I ‘discovered’ electronic music in a big way and this changed everything for me. I basically listened to a lot of stuff from labels such as Morr Music, Warp and 4AD and realized there was so much interesting and different music out there. Bands like Sigur Ros, Mum, and Bjork were early influences for me (funny they are all from Iceland).
I decided to start messing around with different programs and basically taught myself how to write beats and mess around with synths. The result of that initial experiment was my first EP which came out a few years ago. Lately I’ve been spending time writing and remixing for other artists which has been a really great learning experience. 


How do you make your music?
Karoshi as a project has taken a few turns over the last couple of years. I started out just writing stuff at home by myself which was kinda cool, but I definitely craved having the input of other people and especially in the live side of things. So with the new album, Sleepwalker, which comes out this month, I decided to spend more time in the studio, recording live drums, guitars and vocals, and kinda expanding the sound in a big way. I still tend to do a lot of the writing myself as a first step in the process, but I am really reliant on the feedback from Dave (drums) and others to finish things off.
In terms of writing, I use a mix of software and hardware etc. The staple of my setup would probably be Logic, running Ableton Live and Reason. I am really loving the flexibility of Ableton in manipulating samples and time warping – especially in the live show. It gives us a chance to improvise a bit more and mess around with plugins on the fly. It is such a powerful program. Very cool.
I come up with ideas in heaps of different ways, but I mostly start with a beat of some kind – something I had in my head, or something just by mucking around. I will then spend a lot of time searching for the right sounds for the feel I am trying to create. I guess the structure of the song is probably the thing that comes last as I try to turn the different ideas into a cohesive song.
Although the album probably sounds very electronic, we have a bunch of other instruments on there, including melodica, piano, guitars, drums and percussion. Some of them are unrecognizable by the time they are on the album, but I did really like playing around with audio a lot more. It was really cool recording live drums too. We booked a studio for the day and laid down a bunch of takes for each track, and then Jordy (Producer) and I painstakingly went through each take and mixed and matched the best ones. 


When do you best make your music?
I just spent a couple of months in Berlin in the depths of Winter, checking out the music scene there and writing during the day. I was holed up in my room in Kreuzberg with my laptop and a controller for hours on end, just getting different ideas down for later use. I really need that lack of distraction to get things moving creatively. Summer in Sydney has too much going on – I can always procrastinate by going to the dog park in Newtown or going to the beach! So Berlin was a really cool way to start working on new stuff.


You have a new album coming out soon, can you describe how it will sound?
I guess it is pretty different to what I have done in the past. My EP had a kind of cohesive sound – downtempo IDM I guess. But I wanted to try other things with the album and get a much bigger sound overall. There are some tracks on there which could be called ‘post-rock’, and others that are straight up electronica or pop. I’m really proud of the range/dynamics of the different tracks, and I think it marks a pretty important step for me in terms of my composition and production skills. Let’s hope others think its good too!
The live show is going to be exciting too. At the launch we have 3 singers, a marimba player, a guitarist, and me and Dave on laptop/synths and drums. I cant wait!!


How does it feel getting played on the J's?
Oh man. It was a bit of a dream come true really. Growing up listening to Triple J I always thought it would be so cool to get a song played on there. I’ve now had a few different tracks played on different shows and hopefully when the album comes out they pick up one of those tracks as well. On one hand I am just so happy with what I have achieved already, but there is also so much I want to do from here. At least I can say I have fulfilled some of my childhood aspirations.


Is karoshi your only music project?
At the moment it is, especially with the album coming out, and preparing for a live tour among other things. But I have some plans in the pipeline for another band, and some other collaborations. I like a whole lot of different music, so I guess its only natural to want to express all these things in different ways. After being in Berlin I am kinda hooked on the idea of DJing too. In fact, I’ll be DJing at a music festival in April for the first time which will be real cool. 


Which local Sydney acts are you digging at the moment?
There are so many amazing producers and bands at the moment coming out of Sydney. It makes me feel quite inadequate actually, knowing the standard. I am really into what Collarbones are doing. I was hoping to get them to play at my album launch, but one half of the group is stuck in Adelaide for the time being, so we have Marcus (one half of Collarbones) coming to do a thing with Cleptoclectics. That will be cool to see. I have been listening to the new Peon album heaps. Cool wonky synth laden beats with some nice sampling. And of course, Ghoul – love those guys. They are really talented guys and I know they are going places.


Favorite place to eat in Sydney?
Anything in Newtown – which usually means Thai.


Place/thing you would most like to see/do in Australia? 
I keep getting drawn back to the far north coast of NSW. I love it up there. I would love to be able to spend some time up there, writing music and exploring the rainforests and beaches. I particularly like Bellingen and Byron Bay (of course). If anyone out there ever wants me to play in Byron Bay I would be there in a second!


What is the future of you and your music?
Doesn’t everyone say ‘world domination’? I don’t know really. We want to promote this album, and tour a lot, and then think about the next album. I can really see it going in a post-rock, synth heavy, distorted drums kinda feel.
I’m really keen to play to bigger audiences though – or at least new audiences. That’s why we will probably try and get some support slots and maybe a festival gig or something. But in the meantime, we are going to keep playing, and hopefully people like what we are doing. I’m going to keep remixing and writing and see where it takes me…


How has the Internet helped get your music out there?
I guess the internet is good for more music business type stuff – I mean, it helps with booking gigs and finding other bands and promoting your stuff, but nothing beats playing live and also people hearing about you through community radio and the like. That said, I have always had people contact me randomly on myspace or last.fm or whatever and say they discovered my music by chance and so that is a really cool aspect of the internet and music. Also the ability to sell your music on your own is invaluable, especially being an independent artist up until very recently. It is pretty easy to find ways to sell your music or get it out there if you aren’t on a label, which I thought was pretty cool when I was writing music in my bedroom!




If you were to design a music sharing website how would it look?
I want to see musicians/artists taking more creative risks. I think streaming your music or whatever on a myspace page is ok, but it does seem a little boring or passé these days. I just heard about a certain band touring here soon who is releasing a thumb drive with 100 tracks, heaps of videos, photos, and other stuff – I think that is the future of music sharing. Really returning to the idea of adding creative value to things and giving the listener a different experience. That’s what I want to see, and something I hope to be able to explore in my own music in the future.


Details:
Karoshi Album Launch – March 12 at Tone, Surry Hills. Tickets through Moshtix.
Supported by Telafonica, Jack Colwell and the Owls, Scissorlock vs Cleptoclectics
Debut album ‘Sleepwalker’ in stores and online through Other Tongues on April 1
Other gigs:
March 11 – Croatian Club, Newcastle
March 24 – 303, (Northcote) Melbourne
April 8-9 – DodgeFest, near Goulburn

Seekae

Seekae - Gnor by FBi Radio
Great new track from the soon to be released Dome album by Seekae.

Tickets to the Oxford arts show are still available here.

Interview with Trent gill a.k.a. Galapagoose

shades of summer by galapagoose
The track above is an edit of Galapagoose's track Summersun.

Galapagoose is a great name. Where did it come from? Back in high school i was huge fan of tortoise and was listening to a remix of a tune of the name Galapagos (after the islands).  Was trying to piece together an aesthetic and concept for my own musical endeavors and the imagery of those islands really gelled. I was having recurring dreams of godzilla-esque mutations and somehow everything fell together into a genetically mutated creature with an electrified brain bubble. My friend bonnita recently made a lovely rendition of the otherwise faceless creature.          I saw on your facebook that your off to New York soon, what's happening there? I've just got myself set up over here in new York, living out in Brooklyn tucked away from too many distractions. presently I'm producing my friend Young Magic's new record coming out on Carpark, and playing in his live band. Also spending time with my friend and collaborator % working on some software projects and crafting tunes together. Amidst all of this I'm writing new tunes and preparing for a couple of releases coming out later in the year. I'll be sticking around the states until late April when I'm coming back to Melbourne to play some big shows and hopefully launch one of my upcoming releases. Your music is built on samples and beats, how much time do you spend on the computer editing samples and working with effects compared to jamming with a live sound? At the root of most of my tunes is a live jam which I'll bang on for up to an hour trying out different patterns, tempos and feels until i hit on a number of ideas that resonate. From there i sequence out a rough edit of the tune with different sections and then start building up all the complementary sounds around it. My computer editing process is generally quite quick as I've been working with the same setup for a number of years now and feel pretty comfortable. the hardest part is simply imagining which parts should fit together and structuring the thing into a cohesive whole. What do you use to make your music? My setup is pretty basic especially at the moment as I'm traveling. I carry my laptop, mpd drum pads, monome128, rme audio interface, and a little synth called tetr4. From here i've been borrowing guitars and keyboards and whatever other instruments i can find and just recording them directly through the computer's mic or a usb condenser mic. on the laptop my live setup is based around some software i've been writing called mlrv2 which is freely available and open-source. this program allows me to chop up longer samples into fresh new compositions with my monome controller, though it's probably best explained through one of the many videos online. When I'm producing tracks I'll run the audio outputs from mlrv2 into ableton where I'll capture my live jams and then build up everything around that using overdubbed parts. I don't use a lot of plugins or virtual synths but have an absolute love for audio damage's dubstation which i drip all over everything. Regarding samples, i don't use a whole lot these days, and have been trying to focus more on recording my own parts and using these as my initial samples to slice up. still i've been unable to find a way to create as rich a sound as you can pull from vinyl, and a number of samples off cassette have provided thick textural backdrops to my more recent pieces. i'll continue to use samples in the future, but probably more for the warmth and dirty textures than melodies or harmony. How long have you been making music? I got my first guitar when i was about 7 and played all through my school years. i picked up saxophone at around age 13 or so and started my multi-instrumentalism from there. these days i'll pick up most instruments and be able to bash out a few ideas. I started recording my compositions around age 16 and finally discovered beats and the monome in my first year of university. So i guess galapagoose has been around for about 5 or 6 years now though i didn't really start making anything i was terribly proud of until 2008. How long did it take you to start putting your music out there and playing live shows and how did you get your music heard when you first started? I was playing in an electronic duo called luvtek which introduced me to the whole world of samples and crafting drum beats. The monome came along at the perfect time for me to start using it to perform with that band, and I guess the galapagoose beats came out of the dust of that project when i wanted to make more abstract instrumental pieces. I started listening to the whole LA beat scene around the same time and it was maybe a year of working on my own sounds before i played on a friend's radio show. My friend mikekay had my play a couple of mini-sets between bands at a show in late 2008 and from there it was just the luck of having different influential people happening to be around the shows i was playing. I think the whole idea of seeing someone play this kind of music live really excited a lot of people and i think that's been one of the greatest influences in how i've progressed with my live shows. When do you best make your music?   The essence of my sounds are created in my bedroom either early in the morning or late at night. I don't particularly prefer the rest of the environment but try and let it affect the sounds that come out. that being said I often find I'm far more prolific in warm weather, but my attention to detail is heightened when I'm rugged up on a cold night focussing on the sounds. recently i've been making tunes in cafes and on trains and planes which tends to lead to completely different sounds and ideas. Keeping the location fresh has been really helpful to not get stuck in a rut, and this trip to NY has certainly been helping on that front too. What do you do right after you have finished a track you are happy with? Probably just run around like a giddy little child and high five anyone I can find. Then turn it up as loud as the stereo will go and jam out. After that though i'll probably turn off all music and give my ears some time to relax and recover!! You're playing a gig, you're building up a song, the crowd is loving it....then you computer crashes. What do you do? Is this a fear when playing live with computers? I guess some kind of hand-clapping game or maybe get on the mic and beatbox a little (I'm really bad!). Generally though my whole setup is super stable and i've never had any issues with crashing in a live set. Also because I run ableton in the background for shows i have a couple beats that are ableton only on the drum pads and i can use those if something were to go catastrophically wrong with my own software. generally I've prioritised a stable system in my setup though so i don't have much to worry about. Your live playing is very finger intensive, do you get RSI? Has it helped to improve your video games (if any) of vise versa? Injuries are definitely a concern with any instrument and i've certainly had my share of finger problems. Not so much RSI in my wrists but i have had a number of issues arise from hitting drum pads too hard and pulling nails away from fingers.. nasty stuff. Working on my technique to avoid injuries is also something i've been talking about with a number of people and thanks to Daedelus i've now got some hand warmup exercises. I also play a pretty mean mortal kombat... scorpion ftw! Was it hard to get the hang of playing beats on your mpc with your left hand and then samples on your monome with your right? This is an interesting point as I so frequently get asked if I'm left handed due to the layout I run with. personally though it was just the natural way of setting everything up once I had the tools at the ready. I think I tried both ways, but felt my right hand was better at the intricate chordal passages on the monome and left for the raw feel. their must be some brain chemistry science that explains this better than i can though! It certainly wasn't an easy transition to playing in this style, and i've only been at it for right on a year now but slowly I can feel the coordination becoming more and more solid. What do you think about other artists sampling your music? I strongly encourage it as long as they are doing something interesting and not just ripping me off! It would also be pretty lovely if they let me know too so I could have a listen! What are you listening to at the moment? Last.Fm tells me i've been listening to plenty of lukid, lone, dimlite and wooshie. I try and keep my listening habits pretty fresh though and I'm always looking for new unreleased, undiscovered bits and pieces too. I'm hearing a lot of good music coming out of Melbourne. What's happening down there? Melbourne is a really interesting place and there are so many talented cats just getting their feet firmly settled in the ground. there's a pretty strong scene that seems to be building and all kinds of electronic and sampled music is pouring out of the place. A number of shows and events have popped up where people can play their newest tunes to an attentive audience and generally get to know one another. there's definitely an air of import right now and i can't wait to see what 2011 brings for Melbourne beats! keep your eyes out for mikekay, wooshie, and electric sea spider in particular! What do you think about websites like soundcloud and bandcamp? I really like soundcloud and it's been a great way to get in touch with producers from across the globe — something about having tracks available for only 100 downloads is kind of nice too and feels like a cool limited edition even in the age of everything being available for free anyway. bandcamp is an interesting one for me as it provides a nice system to build your work into, but they take a pretty substantial cut of any payments and i personally prefer to distribute things via my own website and keep donations on a direct level rather than trying to outsource to yet another piece in the online puzzle! I'm really excited by the age of the microblog that we're in right now where anybody can setup their own website to deliver music (which can be stored for free with tools like dropbox) and other assorted goodness with just an evening of tinkering. If you could see one change in todays music industry what would it be? I think one change is far from enough, but the most important thing i would love to see would probably be radio djs on commercial stations that actually got to do their original job of finding new and unheard music, rather than being the mouthpiece for endless repetition that we hear these days. it's happening out there on so many great independent and community stations, but I think we need to see a shift in the mainstream presentation of music as art and less of a product. If you could ask someone you don't know a question who, and what would it be? Stanley Kubrick. were the shadows in the moon landing video deliberately askew to encourage skepticism? You can check out Galapagoose on his Soundcloud, tumblr and facebook.

Saint Surly

Plenty of chilled out  hip hop beats are contained within Saint surly's new beat tape. The beat tape can be download for free from his soundcloud.
Lo Fi Emporium - SP1200 Beat Tape by Saint Surly
Check out his site saintsurly.com, he works together with another beat maker known as monstermonster.

Interview with Jeremy Malvin a.k.a Chrome Sparks

Blackbird Blackbird- Hawaii (Chrome Sparks Remix) by chrome sparks


So you have a lot of music on the internet under different names and in other bands, is chrome sparks going to be sticking around for a while? 
     Definitely. I have an obsession with keeping a consistent musical aesthetic, but I love making different kinds of music. This led me to create a bunch of different monikers for the music that I make. Other than Chrome Sparks, I make music under the names Professor Purple, I So Garden, J. S. Rokk, Promises, DJ Norf Pole, Roommates, and my own name. I also perform in Our Brother The Native, Stepdad, The Hood Gang, and a band with no internet presence that changes names with every gig (fronted by Lou Breed). Chrome Sparks is easily the solo project that I’m most passionate about.
     
When do you best make your music? 
     I love late nights. That’s when I’m most emotionally affected. Before I go to sleep, I generally work on music for a little bit. Rarely, a tune will keep me up all night, but that’s when I end up with the best stuff. Whether it’s my best cause I’m staying up very late or I’m staying up very late cause it’s my best, I’m not sure.


How does your live show work? 
     As much as I hate using a laptop, it's kind of the central part of my setup. I don't use backing tracks and record everything live using keyboards and drum pads through Ableton, but I’m slowly but surely making the switch to more analog equipment. I’m doing a show this week that’ll be pretty different. I’ll be using only a Sequential Circuits drum machine and a Juno 60 synthesizer with some effects, but I won’t really be doing the Chrome Sparks tunes for that.



Will you be dropping some new Chrome Sparks tracks in the near future? 
     Definitely! I'm working on an EP that I hope to release within the next couple months. A few remixes are also in the works.


From what I can see you are pretty active in the music scene, what is your musical background?
     As an attempt to stop me from banging on everything the dinner table had to offer, my parents got me a drum set for my 2nd birthday. It backfired, to say the least, and I'm currently a percussion major at University of Michigan. Over the years, I've studied my fair share of instruments, but percussion is where it’s at for me, and I hope to be an experimental percussionist in the future.


What do you use to make your music?
     As far as creating music goes, I use Ableton and Reason together. I have a soft spot for glockenspiel (who doesn’t?). I record a lot of different things through school that I’m putting into my music more and more. A lot of percussion ensemble rehearsals are going to be on the next EP. Also, I love vintage drum machine samples. Lots of tapey 808s.

What are you listening to this winter? 
     Some artists that are keeping me warm are Com Truise, Toro Y Moi, Purity Ring, James Blake, and lots of tropicalia along the lines of Gilberto Gil, Caeteno Veloso, Os Mutantes. And Yellow Magic Orchestra. Always Yellow Magic Orchestra.


What do you do when you're not making music? 
     Spending time with people I love, reading wikipedia, or studying astronomy. Outside of music, my greatest fascination is with space. If for some reason I could never have anything to do with music, I’d do whatever it takes to become an astronaut. Dead serious.


You also do some stuff with the band 'Our brother native', what do you do with them? 
     Our Brother the Native is masterminded by Josh Bertram, a musical and artistic genius. The way that he puts together his music is by recording his many friends playing tons of different stuff, then piecing it together in the way he sees fit. I’ve added various sounds to the album we’re currently working on, and have played a few different parts in the live shows, but mostly drums.


You have your single up on bandcamp to be downloaded for a nominated price and tracks up on soundcloud, What do you think of these websites and how are they helping musicians? 
     I’m all about bandcamp. Along with soundcloud, it’s one of the best platforms for listening to bands and downloading their music. I’m a fan of anything that makes the artist to listener path simpler. These sites are doing it really well and inspiring people to get their music out there. Most other sites are too cluttered and unnecessarily complicated.


What's happening in the Ann Arbor music scene? 
     The Ann Arbor music scene is pretty interesting because Ann Arbor is such a college town. With a completely new batch of 40,000 students every four years, it’s always changing and evolving. The current new wave of music makers in the area are making quite a killing on the blogs (Kohwi, Lou Breed, Sad Souls, Macklin Underdown, Subvader), but not really playing too many shows here. I’ve been really inspired by these guys that I know churning out such great tunes, but, as with many solo and electronic acts, shows aren’t happening enough. I hosted a show with a few of these guys at my place last night, and it couldn’t have gone better. Hopefully these keep happening and inspire some bedroom producers to get out and perform.


What do you think about other people sampling your music? 
     No problem whatsoever. Just let me know so I can hear the final product!

What do you know about Australia? 
     I know that I met a couple of Australian girls in Hamburg last summer who invited me back to their hotel room for a romp in a blowup pool, but I had a train to catch to Denmark. Whenever people say that they have no regrets, I would say that I totally agree but then I remember this. Also, the Life Aquatic is a stellar blog out of AU.

     Jeremy's newest project is the lo-fi sounding Promises. Check out Chrome Sparks at  soundcloud and bandcamp. Some of his other stuff Professor Purple, Our Brother Native.

Seekae

These guys have a new album coming out towards the end of March. They are supporting Mount Kimbie, the first Sydney show at Good god small club on the 9th of March has sold out but there has been a second show added for the 10th at Oxford Art.
You can listen to a preview of their new album +Dome on their site, check it out.

John Hassel from the band has a bangin' side project you should check out called Peon, you can download his album for free here.
Sundog by Peon

Mesita

Can't remember now whose blog I found this on, but thanks for posting. This song reminds me Whitest Boy Alive but a bit more chilled out. Mesita is a guy in his early 20's from the states, he has just released a new single and he has more than few records you can download for free at mesitamusic.
  Somewhere Else by Mesita

antitune

One of antitunes new tracks, he's always posting new tracks on his soundcloud and he has something you can download here.
j tee by antitune

The Townhouses Toro Y moi remix

The chilled remix of still sound by the Townhouses.
Toro Y Moi - Still Sound (the Townhouses Remix) by The Townhouses

Filthy Ingredients

I great tune from Melbourne's Filthy Ingredients. He has some music you can download here, here and here.
boat by filthy ingredients

Hot Sugar

A cool  little video showing some sample recording and playing by Hot Sugar. Its nice to see how people make their music. Found the link on the Townhouses facebook.
 Hot Sugar has a free ep to download at his bandcamp.

HOT SUGAR: MAKING MUSIC from Creative Control on Vimeo.

Oscar + Martin video

A nice new music video from Melbourne's Oscar + Martin's single Recognise.
Check them out on the two bright lakes site or their Myspace.

Oscar + Martin - "Recognise" (Dir: Josh Aylett and Mahmood Fazal) from two bright lakes on Vimeo.