RA's Ryan Keeling heads out to West London to talk production with the key Hyperdub artist.

Streets of Rage is a shout.

Bassline on this is pure Kompakt.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-3oBI-uNuA

Interesting interview, with a talented artist!

Ryan Keeling

Cheeses for Jesus.

remembering that song "please" from back in the day

too many ex-dubstep producers getting hyped about house and techno...boring

Why do people bandy about according to whats "hot"? Why can't people just evolve their sound, not drop and change?

yeah maybe you're right

people continually complaining about other people broadening their tastes in music.... even more boring...



maybe because if theres lots of discussion of certain key figures at a certain time then youre more likely to hear their music/mixes and/or check them out? seems logical.... how long theyve been "doing there thing" for seems irrelevant. you cant exactly argue theyre not getting more coverage at the moment than at any previous time before? hence them being drawn to peoples attention...

its just you.... being a bitchy bitch bitch bitch bitch

not sure it necessarily has to do with "whats hot", it could be to do with whos contributing significantly at the moment and whos being discussed heavily at the moment and is therefore influential

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Yeah I get that, but it seems to me ( and I am no expert, I am only 18 haha), that there is a substantial number of signed producers who seem to follow the same paths in terms of music taste and output. Then again, many are doing the opposite, so I guess my points pretty invalid. I suppose I just like to see artists pushing their sound in new directions that is influenced by current trends, not dictated by.

i find it sort of sad to hear artists saying "i don't like the technical aspects" or "i don't have any traditional music training" (which is to say no knowledge of basic chord/harmonic theory). i remember reading that ben sims had to have an engineer help him put the stems of his tracks together for him. for me recording music is 90% engineering/technical and 10% expiramenting. i spend a small portion of time making sound, and months if not years just trying to make the jumbled mess come together.

it is incredibly hard to approach things from a technical angle, but if you spend long enough at it you will MASTER it. all these reason/fruityloops/ableton folks are going to push modern music hardware to Kaossilator-like interfaces (aka noone will need to see or know what tones/chords are being played, just that the preset they chose has what they want). it seems sort of lazy to me. i'm not hating, just a little confuddled by how new generation producers are out of touch with even the simplest of music/synthesis theory.

really good read. her set here in perth a few months ago was one of the best i've heard.

i still don't agree,and also i don't understand how being "heavily discussed" isn't the same as being heralded as "whats' hot"...usually the "discussion" stems from an article on the press or the web.

but yeah, it's just me being a bitchy bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch (helping you a bit here)

so basically youre surprised that people who are currently popular, across the board, with enthusiasts and producers alike, are being name-dropped and are also influential? should people not like them because they are popular...? are you surprised that producers that are popular are doing something that seems to click with a lot of people? something that is interesting and thus inspiring, influential or whatever? or does everyone have to be some revolutionary subversive to be considered or validated?

i dont think i explain myself very well sometimes and, in hindsight, the choice to talk about who or who isnt being discussed frequently was obviously a poor one, as plenty of artists are discussed on the regular and not necessarily because people are lavishing them with praise. RA being a good example really as everyone on here seems to have all the fucking time in the world to spew hate-filled, opinionated diatribes all the fucking time...

whatever pal, i quite like both omar and levon so i wasn't slating them at all.....all i did was provoking, you need to understand that discussing isn't necessary the usual "wow, such a great artist" that you find everywhere : this is what the internet's for, you want to call it beef you want to call it hate, it's my opinion.

and you look like you have loads of spare time, you almost wrote two essays ffs (with the extra bonus of the bitch loop)

Love this interview, thanks !!

great feature. i think she has a nice set-up & i think it is cool that she in-dephtly explained her music-making process & methodologie.

yeah, fair fucks. i havent got that much spare time to be fair n i aint got time for silly shit like hating on people for pathetic things. but sometimes you just cant let it slide.... anyway, i just get distracted easily and have been procrastinating too much recently haha. i usually try and avoid arguing with idiots on the internet cause no one ever seems man enough to admit when theyre wrong. the internet gives too many morons a voice and for that reason it annoys me.

regarding hate. id say theres more of it on RA than love. especially pointless flippant hateful comments with no real depth or value. would be a lot more interesting if people added a bit more insight into their comments rather than the same old shit but whatever. wouldnt it be amazing if peoples criticism actually made sense??? we can all dream

Dance music circle jerks are hardly a new thing. Success has always been a few parts talent, a part or two, promotion, and a few more parts hype.

Nice!

Nice set up, simple but effective. Love the lead sounds from her last EP.

I have one of those of those Yamaha Portasounds from when I was a kid, and the outputs do sound dusty as hell. Might find a use for it one day.

I'm totally with you on that one - this interview actually made me feel a bit sad as someone who is a synth geek, producer and electronic music teacher. If someone has no musical background, doesn't really care about learning it or any of the technical aspects of music production then I kinda feel like it belittles what they create, and ties in with someone following trends rather than developing their own sound. For me, producing electronic music is an inherently geeky endeavor.

whilst i can completely relate to what youre saying and though i found myself focusing on that same comment quite a bit as well, i dont think - and im not sure its entirely healthy to - tie musical experience and expression, in whatever guise it appears to someone, to formal training. music does not have to be - and shouldnt be - fixed to the confines of musical training. this immediately creates segregation and marginalises elements in free, natural expression and creates elitism; an us-and-them culture. when music should really be about so much more than that. yes, it should and can encompass music theory, formal training etc but it should also, in the same stroke encompass natural expression. something almost intuitive, something that shouldnt be put in a box. neither is more true to form but both are essential in harmony. theres so much to music (so much so that i wont even begin to try and list everything it touches upon in terms of culture, the self etc) and i cant help but think some of it shouldnt be restricted in any way, over-analysed or whatever... i have many friends who are musicians and/or classically trained musicians and our experiences and perceptions of music are completely different. whilst we agree on many things, if/when we listen to the same piece of music, we simply do not hear the same thing and that is one of the truly amazing things about music....... how do you even begin to try and put that into words?!

You know what would be sweet, if a list of all gear including mixers etc, was posted at the end of these articles.

Thanks, Interesting interview!!!

electronic music is no different from any decent music - it has to sound exciting - all the technicality in the world won't help if you have no ideas - there are too many technically profiencent talentless producers around already - nuff library music fodder/ well produced genre exercises - ikonika clearly makes exciting music regardless