This week’s Interview & Mix comes from Lossy
Selector Afterdark – Lossy by The Selector on Mixcloud
Introduce yourself and tell us about the part of the UK you’re from?
My name is Lossy and I’m a composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist from Hackney in East London.
Can you tell us a bit about what you’ve been working on recently?
I’m making a real effort to get more music out this year. First up is an EP of dark bass / techno / electro tunes entitled “Perils Of The Sea” which feature in my mix. I specifically chose to ditch my traditional music training on these tracks – no chords or melodies allowed, just beats and noises. This ended up sounding like the mother of all sea battles at the end of a spy thriller novel, and I was delighted to find some like-minded people in Tessier-Ashpool Recordings who released this work.
After this I’m releasing an EP of synthesizer solos, all written on just one layer of a simple synth, the Korg Volca Keys. As you’ll see there’s a theme of restriction again here – I like to challenge myself and get out of my comfort zone as it feels exciting and liberating and can often have instant results. Ignoring my studio computer and all of the infinite possibilities it entails meant that I actually wrote most of the EP in just one day. The EP is called “The River Solos” and inspired by the watercourses of London. It’s out in May on my new label Boot Cycle Audio – my plan is this imprint will represent my more experimental, eccentric and cinematic side in the future.
And can you talk us through the mix?
I put this mix together in a pretty short time, throwing my favourite recent tracks down along side my own work in Ableton Live and then jamming out the mix to see what would work. I didn’t plan it too much in advance, but it’s certainly no surprise to me that I ended up including a fair few tunes from the catalogue of Tessier-Ashpool Recordings who put out my most recent work. I just hope my tracks sound up to scratch side by side with the other producers in there, horrifically talented bunch that they are. It’s a pretty dark mix that would work well at 2am in a sweaty basement somewhere in East or South London.
Nice, give us a taste of some of your favourite British artists at the moment?
I always like to include artists in my mixes who I know or who have been a support – it means so much when you have a personal connection with talented and innovative producers. For example, Sharooz has a studio directly under mine, Roska did a remix for me ages ago and we have kept in touch ever since, and Throwing Snow has also been a big help giving me advice and inspiration in the last couple of years. British music has always been right at the coalface of dance music in my opinion, it’s a constantly evolving melting pot of sonics and grooves supported by globally renowned DJs and club nights. On the plus side this means constant redefinition, transmutation and bustling audio enterprise. On the down side, it can be all too easy to be dragged into “scenes” and second-guessing what the next hot genre might be – my approach now is to immerse myself in it all then make what appeals to me the most as a creator rather than try to chase trends or think of the potential audience too much.
Cool, tell us about some of your British musical Heroes and influences in general?
My teenage years were largely spent playing my saxophone in jazz and funk bands, so acid jazz artists such as Jamiroquai, Brand New Heavies and James Taylor Quartet were top on my list as I played a lot of their tunes out live. Drum n bass, hip hop and trip hop acts also played a big part in my musical upbringing, which would include the likes of LTJ Bukem, Massive Attack, Lamb, Portishead and Morcheeba. In recent times my more muso side is influenced by the intricate harmonic depths of Throwing Snow, Sbtrkt, and Lone, with darker satisfaction provided by more experimental artists like Matthew Herbert, Untold, Mumdance, Jon Hopkins, Pearson Sound, Aphex Twin and Actress.
Great and what is on the cards in the immediate future?
After the “River Solos” EP in May, I’ll then be working towards releasing a collaboration I started last year with visual artist Strangers Are People Too. Entitled “Microverse”, the work was originally inspired by her experiments with microscopes and natural objects, which she films and then “electrifies” using live visual techniques in software. Musically it will include acid techno bass lines layered with orchestral brass, vintage synth sounds blended with overlapping saxophone, along with dystopian warped piano and noise-based sound design. We have performed the work completely live a few times now, and so you can expect a nicely polished video and EP to pop up later in the year.
And finally, where is the best place in the world you have peformed and why?
Recently we performed “Microverse” at IRCAM in Paris, which is a centre for research in Music and Technology, as part of the Music Tech Fest. We were surrounded by some of the best nerds and musos in Europe, who were very open and appreciative of our work. We then headed out into the early hours of the morning discussing the future of music and tech, my two favourite subjects. It was pretty magical to feel so instantly connected with so many people from all over the world in this way, and provided me with the wind in my sails needed for my next few projects. Another recent highlight was a collaboration with British Poet Hollie McNish which included a gig at Bush Hall in West London. She’s an incredible performer and trusted in my choices entirely when it came to the music I composed and performed to accompany her poems. I used a whole mixture of tech on the gig, including my saxophone, keyboards, pedals and quirky electronic controllers for my laptop, plus live loops of me abusing objects stolen from my kids’ toy box. You can get an idea from rehearsal footage here: