Part 2

Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work, please.

I do my best to wake up. That is essential. So far so good on that front. I eat food that seems better suited to birds than a human but I’m in my 30s and I’ve been told that’s how I have to eat now. This is my fate. Bit of a walk. Get some sun on my pale skin before I lock myself in the bunker(upstairs room with plenty of natural light).

From there I sit at the computer, usually hoping something good comes out of me, musically or otherwise (thanks to the bird food).

Self-management does a good job of eating into my mornings - the ever exciting world of email awaits. Music is the tasty treat that is dangled in front of me while I sift through all of the ‘kind regards’ and ‘hope things are well’ entries in the inbox.

At this stage, I’ve accumulated so many starts on things, I try my best to fnish them. Could be my own work, could be that of a producer I’m putting a melody on. This is often more challenging than starting a song, defnitely less exciting. It’s a lot of sitting around, then getting distracted and trying to regain composure.

Whack another meal break and some exercise in there and you’ve got yourself a day in the life of me. It’s not much, but I’m pretty content in that I have the option to do it as a job so I won’t complain.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece, live performance or album that's particularly dear to you, please?

Let’s take “Secret”, from my upcoming album.

The mindset was to basically write my version of a pop-song as though Burial had produced it. The muted, dusty clicks and clacks, nothing particularly shiny, everything a bit wonky. I feel like when I listen to Burial, I’m inside this dark, amorphous cloud where everything is imperfect and somehow it just creates this yearning beauty. So this was the end goal and I feel like I succeeded. I think it’s my favourite song from the album and probably opened the door for where I’m headed next.

So it was sample heavy - the main verse synth just a splice sample I degraded further; the drums fltered, distorted thumps and thunks with an off-grid shuffe. Formant shifting my voice was a given, trying to give it the impression of having been resampled, and further entrenching it in the mystical, almost subterranean world I’d envisioned when creating the instrumental bed.

For me, the string samples are my favourite. Maybe the most rewarding because of the time I put in sifting through sample after sample, layering them, pitching them, stretching them, to create this enveloping soundscape that’s dark and beautiful and uplifting. Sounding like it’s from the past.

This song is the closest I feel I’ve come to taking people on a journey, so many different phases. Light and dark. Nothing really grounded in the real world. I feel like it elevates me when I listen to it and when I play it live. I hope it affects people the same way when they get to fnally hear it.

Listening can be both a solitary and a communal activity. Likewise, creating music can be private or collaborative. Can you talk about your preferences in this regard and how these constellations infuence creative results?

My inclination is to be a lonely boy, I think I do my best work on my own. I’m not rushed, I can tinker without any implied pressure. I’m not the kind of producer who ‘whips’ things up. It takes a bit of tinkering for me to get anywhere.

Something about the pride in saying you created something from the ground up as well has its appeal. It’s probably selfsh but it’s a motivator. Though there is something to be said for having a ticking clock in the form of another person in the room. Sometimes it harnesses focus, but when it doesn’t, it’s quite stinky.

Over the years I have opened myself up to more outside infuence, and ultimately I think it’ll be for the better. Living on a (figurative) island is restrictive. A one man echo chamber doesn’t seem like the best environment to constantly be in so I have made the effort to bring others in, let them make their mark on the foundations I’ve laid. It’s exciting.

How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?

Me personally, not a heap directly. I’m sure the world is in there somewhere, seeping in from my other infuences but it’s not something I consciously implant. Music itself is just a great unifer of people. In the moment, witnessing something, it removes the outside noise temporarily. It’s a great feeling to be a part of that.

For me, sometimes it contextualises things. Where I’m at in my life.

Art can be a way of dealing with the big topics in life: Life, loss, death, love, pain, and many more. In which way and on which occasions has music – both your own or that of others - contributed to your understanding of these questions?

I’m not a big lyrics guy, not sure why - they just don’t compute when I listen to a song, so most of my favourite songs, I still don’t really know what they’re about. It’s more the emotional vibe, and then I put my own meaning on it. One song can feature a million purposes this way, and I usually fnd ways for them too if that’s what I need.

In my own music, it helps me process these things. Admittedly my life hasn’t had a heap of turbulence that other people have had to endure. Not a complaint obviously but it means I sometimes have to lean on the stories of others rather than draw from my own life where things are relatively constant. But on the occasion I do have something weighing on me, I have that outlet, and those are the songs that always come out that much quicker.

How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two felds reveal about each other?

I’ll leave that to the scientists. I still barely know how music works.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

It’s just an outlet. There are many. I have other things I like to do outside of music that keep me from spiralling into madness, so yeah, I think they offer the same thing depending on what people want from them.

A lot of it is purely habitual, music is like that for me. Just something I developed over time. Same could be said of someone’s morning coffee, cigarette, sitting in their car screaming, and so on. Whatever brings you peace in that moment.

I don’t give a heap away otherwise so music is where it comes out for me, and sometimes the battle of getting it on the page is where the real catharsis happens.

Music is vibration in the air, captured by our ear drums. From your perspective as a creator and listener, do you have an explanation how it able to transmit such diverse and potentially deep messages?

We’re in science land again here so I don’t have a particularly profound response.

If you remove the lyrics, I suppose there’s something inherent in us that takes cues from music. Tension, elation, melancholy - you can usually pinpoint these as themes in a particular piece of work but it’s hard to know what part preconditioning plays in that now we’re hundreds of years down the track of associating certain music with certain emotions.

In short, I don’t know, I’m a simple man.