After an eventful weekend working/playing at Paradiso Festival, I’m back with new Disco Droppings features. A big thank you to anyone who checked out my set. If you enjoyed it, I’ll be playing at Space with Sphyramid for an afterparty (6/30). Unfortunately, the boys over at Space are moving to a new location. After this last string of shows for theirGentrifest, they will be on hiatus. Space has had me play more times than any other venue, and I’m happy that Sphyramid and myself will be there to represent 7 Deadly Records and Disco Droppings.
Now, thiscompilation from Ed Banger Records came out in February 2011. I was listening to it over the weekend and realized I never posted about it. If you’re unaware, Ed Banger Records is a highly influential, majorly badass french label run by Busy P. Their pro roster includes Justice, Mr. Oizo, Uffie, Feadz, Breakbot, Mr. Flash, SebastiAn, Kavinsky and the late DJ Mehdi among others. Instead of going the route of their previous Ed Rec volumes, the label changed things up, including Skream, Flying Lotus and Zombie Nation in the L.T.C.T compilation. The diversity of artists in this release is very refreshing. Get hyped..
Been reppin’ Acid Unicorn for a little while now. Take a look at this one man organization..
DD Whatsup Joel? I first met you when I opened the Boys Noize Records showcase. You were in the artist lounge giving out Acid Unicorn clothes. All of us dug your stuff, I remember giving my hoodie of yours to Djedjotronic who was hyped on the design. How often do you get involved with shows like this?
AUI never go to shows and give stuff away. I’m usually selling my merch or I’m wearing it. The BNR show was something different because I was really excited about the music, as a fan. I would have been there with or without t-shirts, but when I can, I like giving back to the artists who inspire me. I think BNR has a great sound right now, as a whole. Kinda crossing over between Nu-skool acid and German techno (stuff I really like) with big room electro house and fidget that the kids are into, and it works. I respect the music. The funny thing is; I kinda got the feeling that Housemeister thought I was some opportunist duche bag, just trying to get exposure.
DD Eh, he seemed like a jokester, wouldn’t take that too seriously :] A lot of times when I see nightlife inspired clothing it’s kind of cheesy. Your work stands out as a wonderful exception. The glow in the dark element is done in a classy way, and your designs have a distinct feel. How would you describe your aesthetic for Acid Unicorn?
AU Thanks, and now that you mentioned it, I think aesthetics alone is what sets my brand apart from novelty items and souvenirs. It’s not just a neon t-shirt with a catch-phrase, I put a lot of thought and emotion into each design, and the inspiration is sincere. I started listening to Techno, Industrial, and NewWave music around ’93 and I still do, along with tons of amazing new styles currently. I take elements from my past, growing-up in the ’90s, and blend it with the future. I take a lot of risk in doing that, but it’s genuine, and I think more people are starting to get it. I’m not trying to target the rave scene, per se, I’m just being me, and some people identify with that. I’m not a business man, I’ll never be rich and I don’t really care. If all I wanted was money, I’d make shirts that say “Dub Step”, or something else popular, that I don’t really care too much about.
DDThe shopping site you have is very well made, and I see lots of designs going up on your Instagram. It may look like a factory of workers at Acid Unicorn, but you do it all on your own. Could you explain how much time and effort are devoted to Acid Unicorn?
AU I started this on Halloween of 2009, and got fired from my job at a restaurant on January 2nd 2010. Since then, I’ve devoted my life to making t-shirts, and I do it all by myself. The design, the printing, the website, I even sew-in my own labels and stitch letters on hats. It’s a struggle everyday, but I love it, and it keeps me off the streets and out of trouble.
DDI’m happy to announce I’ll be modelling some of your new clothes for your site soon, with Ivan Lesko doing the photography. I’ve also been wearing one of your tees at almost every show I’ve played at since we met..come see my set at Paradiso Festival this Saturday on the “NW Favorites” stage from 2:45-3:30, I’ll be rocking Acid Unicorn. Do you hope to increase these kinds of collaborations with artists in the future?
AUYeah, thanks for your support and I look forward to finding the time for that shoot, It’s been a rough month. DD Last words?
AU Yeah, RAVE is dead; so I invented a new word. Cut and paste this word into your search engine: ΓΔVΣ
This guy brings the party. Such high energy music, I love it! Astronomar has releases on Top Billin and Mad Decent Jeffree’s, which are ace. Grab his recent mp3 ” courtesy of XLR8R– Interview below
DD Whatsup Astronomar? I believe the first time we talked (at the Rye Rye show?) you connected me with Michael Grunden of George Bashington Productions. I helped promote a few of his shows and ended up opening his Boysnoize Records showcase in Seattle. First off, thank you for introducing us! What are you up to?
A No problem, Mike is the guy! Recently I’ve been working on music and trying to eat lots of fruits & veggies, haha!Trying to narrow down my remix work , though I am always experimenting on original tracks and also have a couple collabs in the works. June 25th my colab EP titled “Horse Code” with Swick (Australia) comes out on Enchufada, J-Wow from Buraka Som Sistema’s label.
DD Your first release “Had To Move On” is rad. I realized that I included that track in my tribal set for my label, 7 Deadly Records release party last December. Were you expecting such a positive reaction from this release?
AThanks man glad you like it! I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I was definitely hoping for the best. Though I was blown away when I saw a video of Crookers playing it at I Love Techno. its extremely inspiring to get support from any of your musical heros.
DD There are so many Astronomar tracks and remixes on your Soundcloud. Going back to your first attempts at producing, did you have a period when you thought you’d never get the hang of it? Were their certain producers and/or tutorials that helped you along the way? I bet their are some new producers reading this..
A Yeah, I think we all have those moments when we feel stuck in some way or another, but as long as you think it out and continue to work, you will progress. I didn’t really watch tutorials to learn techniques, the way I do things is a bit backwards and is mainly a result of trial and error.
DD You’ve had some very innovative producers feature your tracks in their mixes, including Crookers, Diplo, A- Trak and Cedaa. Whose done your favorite mix with a production of yours?
A Yeah man it feels great to get their support! I can’t pick a favorite tho, I really enjoyed all those mixes and not only because they featured my tracks. Those are all guys I respect and would be happy to check out their mixes anyways.
DD From your experience playing shows in Seattle and getting to know the electronic community around here, is there anything you’d like to see more of? Certain styles getting more attention and such?
AFrom my observation, there are a lot of talented people doing electronic music in Seattle, in a multitude of genres. It actually seems as though the artists outnumber the audience most of the time. So I’d have to say Seattle’s electronic music community would greatly benefit from having more open minded folks on the dancefloors.
DD The “Ya’ll Know EP” you put out on Top Billin is very very cool. I saw a funny ep teaser video for the release, did you have any input on the direction of this video?
AThanks man, happy you like it! Yeah my good friendTimbremade that video. I sent him a few silly clips to give him an idea of what I was aiming for, and he took it to a whole new level!
DD Brenmar, Four Color Zach yourself and others will be playing at Lo-Fi in Seattle on July 13th, 2012. How would you describe the overall feel of this show, for those thinking about stopping by?
AIt will be really dope! We have a very musically diverse & talented line up, and its at a cool spot with cheap drinks. We just had Jubilee last month and that was really dope.
I came back from North America’s largest electronic music festival frustrated and inspired. EDC markets itself as a “one of a kind, full entertainment experience”, but from my observation this year, more effort was put into the size of the stages and the number of lights, and less on booking innovative, forward-thinking artists. The first strange call by EDC, was booking Michael Woods first on the main stage, from 7:00-7:30pm. Festival goers were not able to enter the festival until a little after 7, so everyone missed most of Woods’ set. With huge tracks such as “I Said (Michael Woods Remix)” and “Oyster (Michael Woods Remix)”, I was disappointed to see him placed at the very start of Day One.
After wandering around the grounds, my wonderful crew and I got to the main stage early to see Hardwell (Knife Party was playing right after). After listening through his set, I noted a bland delivery and songs with such similar drops, some of them sounded almost identical. The crowd enjoyed it, but the set was incredibly underwhelming in my opinion, a big step down from the sets I saw last year at EDC Las Vegas. One of the most anticipated artists of the festival this year, Knife Party played next, and I was so hyped to see what they came up with. Unfortunately, it appeared that Knife Party didn’t plan their set out at all, with several sloppy mixes and an overall presentation that was forgettable. Big letdown..I do have faith that they just had a bad night and will arrive at Paradiso Festival this weekend with a stellar set.
Just when my buddies and I were getting pissed about the mediocre sets we were experiencing, Afrojack takes the stage. Last year I had crazy memories of Afrojack’s 2 sets; I was in an elevated state and imagined Afrojack’s set killing audiences and opening up another reality. Ha. Now in 2012, he showed why he’s one of the top DJ’s on the lineup. An epic intro teased the crowd with bits and pieces of his biggest tracks, and from there out, we were hit hard. A solid vision held the set together, with productions that came through fuller than many of the other artists performing on the main stage. One small note to MC’s and DJ’s, talk less, your music speaks loudly on its own. After he finished, many of my frustrations from Day One subsided, Afrojack had delivered. I didn’t feel like I was going broke on this festival for nothing.
On Day Two, I caught Digitalism’s DJ set. Had a distinct groove throughout, and I was refreshed to hear something different. The most memorable performance though was hands down, FEED ME. The stage set-up featured his trademark “teeth” rig, which lit up in perfect sync with his thrilling productions. The crowd was rabid during “One Click Headshot”..I had fingers guns pointed at me from all directions, with friends screaming the words “..I mean my heart’s beating, my heart’s beating My hands are shaking, my hands are shaking but I’m still shooting, and I’m still getting the headshots. It’s like BOOM headshot, BOOM headshot BOOM HEADSHOT!”. Fucking cheers to Feed Me, you were everything I hoped you would be and so much more!
An epic bummer for Day Two happened when all the music in the festival suddenly stopped. We soon found out that because of high winds, the stages were shut down for fan safety. Due to this event, I missed Richie Hawtin, and was very sad. Part of me understands the dangers of stages collapsing, people have died in the past. But this is the biggest electronic festival around, generating millions of dollars, and they can’t invest more in securing their stages? After standing around for a while, wondering if the music would come back on, one set of Funktion-One speakers turned on. A massive crowd was treated to a spacey, dubbed out set from a mysterious DJ, it was quite magical.
The energy on the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for Day Three was electric to say the least. After losing half a night of the festival, everyone seemed ready to go out with a bang. No one solidified this idea more powerfully than Porter Robinson, who played from 3:00-4:00am. This 19 year old spanked so many DJ’s on this years lineup with ease. The visuals were some of the raddest, most trippy displays I’ve ever seen, and he played a staggering number of genres (including 2 hardstyle influenced tracks). He had the crowd entranced, and confidently delivered a godly set. Porter Robinson is what an event like EDC is all about, and I just wished I saw such effort from more of the other performers.
Huge numbers of fans spent every cent they had to attend this festival (like my friends and I), and they deserve to have something innovative and utterly mind-blowing. The lowest point of EDC Las Vegas was the Q-dance hardstyle stage. Complete joke. EDC invested so much into that stage, giving it a monstrous look, and had DJ’s play some of the most under-produced, shitty dance music I’ve ever heard.
I normally spend my time writing about things I like on Disco Droppings, but was so shocked by some elements of EDC Las Vegas 2012, and felt someone should present some constructive criticism. I also wanted to congratulate those who brought their A game. If you have the cash and want to do something nuts this August, head down to LA for HARD Summer, the lineup is everything EDC Las Vegas failed to deliver.
Released this month, XI presents his Joy/Fear EP on New Kanada. As you’ll see in this interview, I’m quite fond of this guy’s style, and had a fun time getting to know him.
DD Welcome, XI. You’ve easily become one of my favorite artists to feature on Disco Droppings. How’s it goin’?
XI Maxin’ and relaxin’ all cool, just shootin’ some b-ball outside of the school.
DD Before I read into some of your past interviews, I listened to your music and noted a similar reaction with Actress. In both instances, I get the feeling that I’m in some alternate, almost alien environment, and I like it. If you’ve heard Actress’s R.I.P album, how has it impacted you?
XI I take that as a massive compliment because I don’t try to parallel my own productions with his, but I find his music massively inspiring and consider him probably my most favourite electronic music artist of all time. R.I.P was one of the albums I was eagerly awaiting this year and the circumstance under which I heard it for the first time was as wonderful as the album itself. His is some of the only stuff these days that puts me into an alpha state, much like you are describing. The divergent reality effect. Since 2006 his music has been the soundtrack to much of my life. Current favourites off the record are title-track “R.I.P”, “Tree of Knowledge”, “Uriel’s Black Harp”, and “Ascending”.
DD What video games have the best soundtracks, in your opinion?
XI There are many classic soundtracks that spring to mind, one that sticks out (due to the emphasis on the music itself being part of the package) is Quake 2, another is EVE Online (which I’m open to admit playing semi-regularly). Video game music is a unique breed that sits somewhere between movie scoring and just free writing. Games like Katamari have soundtracks with music that simply wouldn’t go outside of the game environment. Some classic NES titles (some of which I have sampled) that I love are games like Shadowgate, Mega Man, and of course the Final Fantasy series (Jenova boss music ftfw).
DD What would a game, with a soundtrack by XI, look like?
XI I think I would do best scoring a future-fantasy epic. Something that takes forever to finish with a twisting story line, probably to do with the origins of the universe and involving some bit where the main character is in some extra dimensional plane contemplating the nature of reality. I’m talking plate worlds, sub orbital strongholds, loads of spacecraft, innumerable star faring races, plenty of chronicled inter-galactic lore, large-scale wars. Oh yeah, and it would also have to primarily be a love story. But the main character doesn’t get the girl at the end and the bad guys win.
DD Your new “Joy/Fear” EP on New Kanada has an incredibly distinct atmosphere. The track, “Nightlif” creates such a confident mood, very deep and emotional. What was the most rewarding thing about making this release?
XI Putting out this latest record was great. I was really happy with the tracks and could feel that they really suited where I’m at artistically and express exactly what’s going on in my mind currently. Working with Adam Marshall has been a great experience, and all the tracks on this record have been directly inspired by my new found life here in Berlin. Over the last year the way I make music, the way I think about it and how it actually ends up sounding has changed drastically, so I’m glad to have some of this new stuff see the light of day AND be received so well across the board. Even the free promotional give-away track Glythe was something I was really excited to get out there.
DD Going way back to a release you did in 2008, Smoke Signal/Strategyon Off Road Recordings..”Smoke Signal” is a mammoth track dude! Wow, was not expecting a track like that. Was your mindset much different back then, or is this just a different approach to making beats?
XI Back then, comparatively, I had no idea what I was doing. So long as it had complex rolling drums and a huge baseline I was satisfied. In ’08 I was primarily concerned with writing tracks for my DJ sets that would get people moving and work out the sound systems. I am still cognizant of sound system workouts in my new stuff, but I’m personally getting more satisfaction out of making more expressive music, some might say I’m moving more into listener territory these days, and whether or not that is true, one thing I can say is that I’m much happier with my output lately than I have ever been.
DDWhere do you plan to take XI in the rest of 2012?
XI Live set, longer records, more story telling, more trance inducing melodic sojourns, more Bill Withers appropriation, getting slower and slower, and taking over the world by sword or subterfuge.
dd 