The main thing I want to do is make people feel more connected and more active.
I just wanted to make a record that wasn't escapism. Like, I didn't want to write another record that was devoid of meaningful content.
I need to start honing in on projects that I want to devote my time to and not put my energies into the unattainable ones.
I think there is going to be a large paradigm shift in a few years, and it could either be to a new age of enlightenment and unity and we'll be raised to a new level of consciousness, or it could be a return to a dark age of kings and mass, open oppression followed by a die-off of human culture.
It's weird how people hate getting older.
I wanted to start working on something that had a lasting effect.
If you've become a huge act and you're still doing the same music you wrote with your friends when you were making zero dollars, you're lazy.
I think living in Baltimore and being a part of the community and trying to be part of as many communities as possible within the city, the best thing that anyone can do in Baltimore is just to be a part of it and contribute to it and to not see it as...A lot of people from outside the city see this city for its blight and I feel like people who live within the city do the opposite and see this city for what defines it as, in my mind, the most beautiful place to live.
It was never the goal to be a solo performer. It was just something that made the most sense at the time.
I've since become really good at overwhelming myself.
For the last three years, I've been working on 'Bromst,' and that's all that encompassed my brain. And now that it's out, it will change the way that I think musically.
Live performances make music important. Recording is cool and fun, and it's nice to document the thing you made, but the goal in my mind is to perform.
I throw ideas out into the open when I really should just be writing them down in a journal.
You know, most people called rap stupid when it started, and it was one of the most innovative music forms of its time.
I think the best live shows take you out of the moment into somewhere else and I really...This can be true of recorded music too but my favorite live experience is sort of this transcendendent - is that the word? Transcendental?
I always want my mouth to be like two steps ahead of my brain and I want my hands to move without thinking. I want to be able to dive into my computer or use my controllers without having to be, like, "Hmm, what would be a good choice here?" You just want music to happen like the same way the sweat's rolling off my face.
The smaller the instrument or more hidden it is such as electronics, the more esoteric it becomes and in my mind becomes boring watching someone go like this and that has no direct... It's just a complete abstract motion, not attach to any sound.
I don't think there's anything wrong in being an entertainer because if at the end of the day people want to forget about their problems or to process their problems through something joyous, I think that's ultimately what my role in this is.
To get large groups of people to dance, there needs to be something accessible about the music. The beat can't be too esoteric, but unless we're talking about prog or etherealist composition, I think there's something simplistic about most music. What's completely insane to me is that people would consider music that's simple to be dumbed-down. Couldn't simplicity be a deliberate, smart choice? Those people aren't really listening; they're judging a song off of a beat, off of a pulse.
When I went to school, it was really just to immerse myself in listening to, studying, and making music. I came out like, "How is this going to be more than a hobby I'm always paying off debt for?" I could've sat at a desk and written pieces for orchestras that never would have been played, or I could've written music for me as a performer. I play electronics, and the places I was gonna be playing were bass clubs and house parties.
I really do like seeing other people perform my music. It's one of the most rewarding things for me, so it's worth the extra work.
You can have a table full of gourmet food, but the minute you put a box of Entenmann's doughnuts out, that's all people are gonna talk about.
I often envy a filmmaker or a playwright or an author where people are like, "Yeah, I sat down every night and read your book and it was beautiful." Or, "Yeah, I went to the movies and all I did was watch the movie because that's all you could do at the movies." Where with music, it's like, "Ugh, I love your music. I listen to it while I'm jogging thinking about how I hate my body." But it is also the privilege of being a musician is you can have your music in this documented form and play it live and that's, I think, what draws me to it the most.
Finishing a song is definitely the hardest part. It's, you know, you can polish it forever and then whittle it down into something it wasn't and be like, "I need to build it back up," which is why some tracks have 400 versions. But I guess you know when it's done when...I have a maximalist approach to sound when I can't find any more space to put new sounds.
When music becomes a job, you all of a sudden have other jobs and you become like a manager of time. If you have no ability to do that, your job gets very hard very quickly.
