You’ve played at both 2022 and 2023 SWAGFEST, how has your approach to making sets changed? What did you do in 2022 that you grew from for your 2023 set?
I didn’t have alot of original material I was proud of in 2022. Most of my material was shitposts. I know dariacore (jumpscare) is controversial to even mention, but that’s the sound and type of artists that were inspiring me at the time. I had just finished the single “salem” and it was the last track on the tracklist. It was my best work up to that point in my opinion. I approached 2022 as more of an easy going fun set. 2023 I wanted to bring up the intensity, I love horror movies and I wanted to make it creepy, eerie, dark. I’ve been experimenting alot more with vocals and original material, I wanted to make my 2023 set thematically and aesthetically cohesive as possible & I wanted to surprise people. One thing I think I improved alot on is my transitions
You recently dropped a new album, splinters, which explores a lot of different sounds and styles. Who are some of your biggest inspirations for this project? Some feel kinda obvious, is there anyone that people would be surprised to hear inspires you?
Long answer: What artists do you guys hear in my music? I’d genuinely love to know. /nm Sometimes you don’t realize who has inspired you. Niztopia’s chat apparently heard death grips and simultaneously gla*ve somehow. That made me reconsider my career a little. I am a big injury reserve fan. I love their compressed clicky drums, their ridiculously loud kicks that duck the entire mix, and unusual metallic percussion noises. Ritchie's passionate vocal delivery. Like how kendrick uses weird inflections sometimes to add an extra meaning and passion to his lyrics. The way I mix my vocals depends, sometimes I try to go for a mac miller, navy blue type of mix, raw, intimate, upclose, vintage, clear. Other times I go for something grimier like earl, jid, denzel. I listen to mostly exclusively rap artists besides the stuff I listen to on soundcloud. This community very obviously does inspire me every day with their fancy saw waves and beeps and bops. I also try very hard to be unique. It often annoys me seeing new upcoming artists only being understood through something audiences have already heard. “Sounds like ___”. I like being absolutely terrified by new music. Most of the time the more taken aback by it I am, the more likely I am to return to it later to understand why it made me feel that way. Short answer: 2manycolors is my biggest inspiration.
A lot of tracks on splinters have a very raw and personal feel to them, talk to me about that. Do you use your music as a way to work through things or process feelings?
I am a very spacey person. I have terrible anxiety and ocd, intrusive thoughts. My mind is a tornado all of the time. I’m in the backseat. When I can finally sit back and press play on a finished song, it is so cathartic for me. It’s like seeing myself when I haven’t in a long time. Because often times I don’t process my feelings in the moment. I use music as a way to check in with myself. It is my right. It is my privacy. It’s the one thing that no matter how hard people try, it can’t ever be taken from me. It’s mine, forever. I unpack a lot of religious trauma on this record. My mental health issues were never taken seriously growing up. Instead they called in an exorcist. I now live with the ramifications of that. But my friends think it’s cool. People’s eyes light up when I tell them I’ve been cleansed of all my demons. It is kind of raw tbh
You have a few features on splinters but most of the tracks are all you, is there anything reason for that? Like do you prefer working alone, are you picky with your tracks, or anything like that?
I wanted more features on the album. I won’t name drop, but I reached out to an artist whose music is a big inspiration to me and while they declined due to being busy, they actually ended up sending me some much needed words of encouragement and validation. I won't ever forget their kindness. Alot of the people who I reached out to were busy unfortunately. But I respect that. Because these songs require alot more attention and time then your average feature normally would. And they knew that and were upfront and told me that they couldn’t do the track the justice because of lack of time. But thank you to everyone who took the time out of their day to support my ideas and everyone who wishes they could have been a part of the project but unfortunately couldn’t be. This community is so full of amazing talented people who I not only look up to musically, but as role models. Hard working, kind, talented, intelligent, funny people.
What’s something you’ve learned from splinters that you’re going to bring forward to your next project?
Every day I hear MF DOOM’s voice saying “Keep doing what you’re doing and people will come back to it later.” or something along those lines (I don’t know the exact quote lol) but yeah I’ve just learned to experiment, that it’s okay for tracks to be imperfect and to let your audience witness you grow as an artist. I’ve gotten alot better as a producer and vocalist in general. I will definitely be experimenting with weirder vocals. I’ve learned also that each track calls for something different, for example, I am not happy with some tracks until they are 13 minutes long. But if that’s how long it needs to be then so be it. A track could be 2 minutes long. But they all have different purposes and value depending on the vision you’re going for. I’ve really just learned to trust myself. I’ve learned how to project my voice much more confidently. I’ve also gotten a taste of the kind of work it truly takes to complete an album cycle. Promotional videos, graphics, teasers, art, mixing mastering vocals, like. wow. I don’t understand how these other artists do it without a team of people.
Who needs the most support in 2024?
Gaza! The children there. It isn’t something I shy away from speaking about. Call for a ceasefire. Donate. Share. Amplify. Protest. Don't stop talking about gaza! We must all do whatever it takes to end the genocide. If there are ever any physical copies of splinters made, or merch, all of the proceeds will be donated to gaza. I’ve emailed around, but no response yet. Visit Pcrf.net. We all have to do our part.
You were one of the few people to make your own visuals for SWAGFEST 2023, is keeping a cohesive look and feel for your art important to you? If so why? What vibe do you try to evoke with the support project?
I was just talking to a coworker who also makes music yesterday about how we used to listen to alot of brockhampton growing up and their albums have such distinct different eras. The merch, the music videos, the music, it all fits together. Everything is an era now. To sell you stuff. To profit on nostalgia that hasn’t happened yet. But truthfully, long, intimate projects like Mac Miller - faces, where every single sound fits together, and flows together into one journey inspired me alot too. I love long records. I see so much of my peers doing 2 minute tracks because that’s their tiktok ticket. And those are fun no hate. But I wanted to make something that demanded your attention. That was meant for headphones. I wanted to create a feeling of unease. I wanted to capture that same feeling I felt when I listened to faces for the first time, front to back. I wanted to make this album feel alive. I wanted to make a project that the length of it rewarded you. Similar to the structure of a movie as well I suppose. I don’t know if other artists do this but when I’m producing it helps me to have a picture to look at and think about what it would sound like. I stared at the cover of splinters for hours, listening to the album over and over again in full length, not even realizing it. It wasn’t productive at all however lol.
You’ve talked about how splinters is 2 years in the making, which song from splinters took you the longest? Did any come together super quick?
Without a doubt, by a landslide, how a house works took me the longest. Easily hundreds of hours. It’s the best track on there though. I tried structuring the album in a way that eases you into the sound of it. Salem and fetch are easy to digest tracks. Then the hey em interlude introduces the themes of a dysfunctional family. In how a house works, two narratives, opposite of each other, clash to create one overall message. About being responsible for your own happiness. That's the best way I can phrase it. It's difficult. The lore gets so deep. But that’s the fun of it being 12 minutes long. I get to create this whole universe. in the main story, We are gezebel, floating through space on a ship named wanderer and we think we are the last human alive tasked with restarting humanity. But for years we have been floating through empty space. Until the track descends into horrifying chaos as our ship (wanderer) drifts into a massive planet known as planet crimson. Wanderer, our ship, has a motherlike personality implanted into the ship’s control system to protect gezebel. But gezebel doesn’t want to float through space any more, living a life she never asked for.
“Gezebel, we can’t land here.” is kind of becoming my favorite tagline for the album.
This is going to get personal, but the record is personal. I’d say the quickest track I made on the record was probably the interlude. I made it in one day. It was actually the first track I ever posted on my soundcloud account over 3 years ago now. I felt it gained alot of context, and added alot of context to the record, about the birth of my little sister. the following tracks, like “Hollywood girl” is alot more devastating when you contrast the two tracks. In one, I’m taking my little sister home from the hospital, in the next, I’m at her mothers funeral for reasons that could have entirely been prevented had she had the access to the right kind of mental health treatment. I really wanted something good to come out of the devastation. Sometimes it's just devastation. I really wanted to tell people you can break the cycle of dysfunctionality in your family by being responsible for your own happiness. Not saying that was the case here. Or blaming her or anybody. But when you feel weighed down by responsibility, you’re depressed, and don’t want to be alone, but also can’t stay in your current situationship because it’s killing you from the inside, what do you do? That’s what “How a house works” is about. That it’s okay to go your own way. To differ from your family, to be alone. even though it hurts. Self preservation at all costs. You are just as important. It should be normalized. But to circle this back to the question, these events unfolded in real time in process of making this album. So I kept having to go back and really ask myself, why is this track important to the album and the world I’m trying to make? Some of these songs I’ve had on my hard drive for years, but I find they kept gaining new context as these situations unfolded in my life, constantly having to revise them.
When people listen to splinters what do you want them to walk away with?
A sense that they aren’t alone. To feel alot better about where they are at in their own life and to question what's important to them. Ultimately I hope to have provided a fun experience. I still have big plans but I’ve been looking for a new place to live and haven’t been able to do much music wise. I got kicked out.
you (listener) are on a journey. You have been wronged. It is never revealed what, or who or how. But you really want to be fixed. And so you ask around. You end up speaking with a man at a bar, big, one eyed, drunken, but self aware. His clothes covered in grease stains. His beard white and long. He tells you: What you are searching for exists: A myth: The remover. An entire underground eco system, in a far inaccessible, unpopulated corner of the world, almost in it’s own separate time period. Biblical beauty. A difficult treacherous journey that few can make. You dedicate your life to prepare. You can’t remember what you lost, or gained once you go through the river. On either side of the river, are bubbles. They are souls trapped in loops until they learn, or unlearn what they need to. They have no clue how they reside in these bubbles, for them, they come out as if they had never left: but somehow slightly different, with no recollection. However, you become so much happier. Recipients of the treatment report blissful ignorance. Peace. That's why people search far and wide for it. But the remover does not treat you the same: the remover lets you take a trip down the river, to the very end, witnessing what it does. Witnessing its responsibilities, it's so called crops to manage. Everyone in their own bubble, waiting to come out. Could take an indefinite amount of time. Years. Centuries. The songs occur inside of these bubbles: each one their own “splinter” I fell in love with the idea of giving the title meaning. Things that need to be removed? Like pulling a splinter out of your thumb, it plucks it from your mind. Grateful you had made the trip: But a trip you can only make once. You are never the same after. Whether you realize how, or not
What’s next for support?
Quantity and quality. Single after single after single. Maybe a small ep. I’d also love to get my first producer placement this year. That’s my personal goal. I Plan to produce for a bunch of other artists this year mainly, meet new people, and start building my discography. Consistency is hard.