Isaac Dunbar Takes Our Pop Quiz
office gave Isaac an impromptu pop quiz where there are no wrong answers... except, of course, the wrong ones.
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office gave Isaac an impromptu pop quiz where there are no wrong answers... except, of course, the wrong ones.
Watching A. G. Cook behind the strange, glass wall of the Viper Room’s green room in Hollywood, the phrase “A. G. Cook is making the impossible possible” kept repeating in my mind. Conspiring against the short attention spans that dictate music releases, Britpop is A. G.’s three disc, 24 track, sci-fi world that collapses boundaries in what feels like an earnest attempt to ensure pop music survives. The show and album alike live beyond the structures of time, simultaneously transporting listeners to the past, present, and future versions of A. G. Cook’s music. Throughout the performance, he transcends genres, livening the dance floor like a rave, bumping tracks like “Out of Time” and electrifying the stage like a rockstar with distorted guitar during “Bewitched.” Although I’d seen him DJ numerous times and witnessed his experimental opening set for Charli XCX, the way he commands his own headlining stage is otherworldly.
For his interview with office, we brought on his collaborator and friend, Caroline Polachek to chat with him about Britpop. If A. G. Cook were the omniscient, Holy Spirit of pop music, Caroline would be one of its major prophets, writing the scripture and deconstructing the presence of pop itself. From her iconic debut album, Pang, to her recent masterpiece, Desire, I Want to Turn Into You, Caroline delivers fantastical tracks imbued with sentimental lyricism. After subsequent nights playing Dungeons & Dragons and attending multiple Caroline and A. G. shows over the years, it’s become pretty obvious that A. G. and Caroline have a friendship that transcends their professional collaborations.
Caroline Polachek— Hey Alex. Where are you right now?
A. G. Cook— I am in LA, but I was recently on the Roadshow which took me to London and New York, very predictable. It’s funny because LA is so abstract, I feel like I’ve moved here 4 or 5 times. I often feel I just landed for the first time even though it’s been about 5 years.
Yeah there’s no connective tissue in the LA mental map. There’s all these islands that aren’t connected to each other. It takes 10 years before they start becoming one map.
And then by that point, I might not even be living here. That would be perfect.
Also, they say that people’s perception of time has to do with how much change there is, so by living in 5 different LA’s you’re just living longer.
Yeah, it feels like that honestly.
Long live A. G. Cook! Length is a really good place to start because this is a long album.
I know it is technically a long album, but it feels shorter than the other albums somehow. When I’ve gone back to listen to it myself occasionally, I think the three sections have such a clear goal and being 8 tracks, they’re these three mini albums that speak to each other. I was so aware of the idea while finishing the tracks. With 7G, it was done by organizing a graph by instrument or something. I really just let 7G happen. Apple was trying to be intentionally confrontational with U-turns and such. This is the first time I tried to make an album that flowed within its sections, and I can imagine someone enjoying specific parts. It’s somehow my most listenable album in a non confrontational way.
It’s three big bites.
Yeah that’s a nice way of putting it.
I want to talk through them chronologically. The first time I listened to the album, I didn’t know if it was a literal chronology of past, present, and future. I trusted that you’d be tricky and mix them up somehow, but listening to it in its own right, I was struck by how pure IDM Disc 1 is.
It’s basically all vocal chops. Charli is the only person who sings in “Britpop,” and she’s essentially singing a vocal chop. “Heartache” sort of has a vocal line, but that was done synthetically. Disc 1 definitely has that IDM influence and it’s represented by vocal chops. No lyrics allowed.
“Luddite Factory Operator” is such a huge flex as a track.
Why do you think that? I’m sometimes worried about that one.
It has so much scope, in how playful it is. From a listener’s perspective, that’s the most rhythmically complex track.
Yeah well “Luddite Factory Operator” is even sadder. A lot of the track names are quite emergent. You know what’s funny? For a while that track was called “Butterfly Net” but then I realized you have a track called “Butterfly Net” which actually didn’t scare me from naming it that.
No, no that would have been perfect. That’s great.
I had this idea of it in a completely different way. In my mind, butterflies are a useful symbol for the past, present, and future. There are so many puns you know like symmetry, butterfly effect, all that stuff. It’s kind of a folkloric creature that has all these other insinuations. We do use it in the “Soulbreaker” video. The magic is represented by these butterflies as they get spliced open.
Also butterflies have three distinct stages in their life.
Exactly that’s the other one. I kind of had it as a sort of allusion, and I ended up calling a different track “Butterfly Craft” The original idea of "Butterfly Net" turned into the World Wide Web, Witchfork, Wandcamp, and Wheatport. As I was making the ideas more and more intricate, I was already wanting to have something with assembly line chops and luddites in it. I wanted something that also stood for LFO from a synthesis point of view. I just let these things happen. I have a ton of personal references and eventually it becomes overbearing. Musically, I was worried about it at some point. I DJ’d it a while ago, and I had it as part of my set. I made it at a time when I started to enjoy making longer tracks as well, so songs like ”Silver Thread Golden Needle '' needed to be longer while others didn’t.
Well “Silver Thread” I was lucky enough to see you play in a different incarnation when you were making source material for the Eckhaus Latta fashion show.
It was mainly made in its entirety for Eckhaus Latta because the brief is a 10 minute walk. I knew it wouldn’t be thrown away. Whenever I have to do a commission, support slot, or a DJ set, I always make edits of songs. Actually, when I was doing my DJ support stuff for you in the Pang era, I remember doing an edit of "Click" by Charli which became “C2.0” on how I’m feeling now. “Britpop” also came from edits of other stuff. Usually if the track works well, I’ll just keep exploring the tracks until it’s given a life of its own.
I hear this especially hearing Cecile [Believe]’s vocal chops and not exactly being able to identify what word from “Show Me What” it is, but feeling the emotion from the song in it. Also, feeling a bit of “XCXOPLEX” and listening to all the synths go back. It’s the DNA rather than the form from your past works.
Exactly that’s why vocal chops are interesting and synthesis is interesting to me. It’s about making the tracks not feel like solid tracks, but closer to a performance. That’s why I like DJ edits and covers. All of these things make a track feel a little more alive. I use this idea of tracks being in conversation with other tracks. It’s a big part of why I’m interested in music in general. Not only is it time based, but there are so many other considerations. It’s a little memory you have to put into context. That’s why so many songs I’ve worked on have these wild outros. I think by that point in the track, it’s so satisfying to see how far I can push a listener by the end once we’ve gotten to know each other.
Yeah there’s definitely a bit of time travel. I almost had a reverse thought when listening to Disc 1. Obviously there’s a bit of a joke when petitioning for all this high tech music as the past, but I felt really emotional about it. Maybe there was a subtle implication of aspiration. Maybe the texture of technology is something that’s been sort of a siren song. I was recently looking at the Solomon seals. On a purely graphic design level, I was thinking how they almost look like charts of cells or different kinds of scientific diagrams.
Someone brought in the Lesser Key of Solomon to the shows in London to sign. I did my most elaborate signature on it and did a sigil seal on the front page with the words “Britpop” in a ring, but yeah that’s so true, I’m so interested in those anachronisms, when you see something from an older era that has a trace or DNA from something contemporary. It’s how these things communicate across time. It’s very real.
Beyond the synchronicity of it, it’s recognizing how delicious the look and feel of the future is part of innate human desire. I wanted to ask you what your relation to aspiration is in general — do you consider your music aspirational?
Yeah, specifically with Disc 1, on top of the past always feeling shiny, it’s quite literally because I was thinking of when I was making tracks in 2012 - 2014. Just before PC and as it was sort of happening in its early club nights. I was really wide-eyed and genuinely trying to make music that I thought was danceable pop music. In a nice way, I was more innocent, not knowing about the music industry. It was fun for me to see if I could explore the language without doing it in a purely nostalgic way. In a nerdy way, more synthesis techniques, doing things without a computer, or even doing it in a way that’s better executed. Can I take some of the old and show that there has been some passing of time as well as showing tribute to it?
I see people bring up one of my very first interviews I ever did, and loads of what I’m saying is really similar. Even though I had a lot to learn about the mechanics in the industry, in terms of the zoomed out ideas, I was talking about the ambiguity between bedroom production vs slick pop stuff and the performance and theater of these things and also the complexity of it. So much of my attitude, even with PC, is trying to engage with the present. It’s not futuristic or retro. I’m using things like nostalgia as a tool to try and come to terms with what’s going on right now with music. It’s a tool for me to deal with post-streaming landscape and a world where there’s 150K track uploads a day. Is there something I can learn from my 23 year old self when none of that even existed?
I really like what you said about being so fixated on the present because that kind of unlocks something about Disc 3 for me. That’s actually my favorite. It feels like a piñata that’s being cracked open at the end where there’s a real fusion of the ideas introduced in the first two discs.
It’s funny because I’ve seen people say things such as: “shouldn’t ‘Pink Mask’ be on Disc 2?” and that’s kind of the point! The songs aren’t meant to be severed from other discs. There were so many times I thought songs could get moved around, but in the end, I would decide to change things up production wise to lean into the idea of which disc it would live in.
It all points back to the cosmic joke that the future is actually the present. Any conceptions we have about the future are actually just total portraiture of where we are right now.
That’s why it’s interesting reading sci-fi from different eras. It feels a bit futuristic, but sometimes there are objects in it like a payphone. Psychologically, it is a window into that exact time it comes from. Any kind of future / sci-fi stuff is a representation of the present. I was trying to summon something futuristic with those tracks because each one of those makes me a little uncomfortable or unresolved.
I’m not saying Disc 1 and two are nailed, but Disc 3 has tracks that are more experimental and genre ambiguous for myself. Disc 3 I had to question myself and in the end finished most of them not being 100% in the knowledge that it was the right thing. It reminded me of moments in 7G. “2021” or “Crimson and Clover” did the rounds and resonated with people, but I had no idea what to do with them. “Out of Time” was finished last. I was still making it while mixing Disc 2 in Mike Bloodpop’s studio. He has so many modular synths that I don’t know how to use. I really hate sequencers especially when they’re connected to other sequencers. The sounds coming out were genuinely so out of time and I was recording it not knowing its BPM. That process in itself, became so fascinating. I wanted to wrangle this out of time material and give it a four to the floor thing and create tension.
I hate sequencers too and I think it has something to do with commitment. I think I’m a classic millennial that likes to have as many options until the very end as possible. There's an interesting philosophical relationship between the kind of commitment that a sequencer would put you in, and also how it is being a dungeon master in Dungeons & Dragons where you have this narrative that you’re stuck with and you have to sequentially add to them. With everything provided, you just have to work with. I’m outing you, by the way, as a killer DM.
I know I need to get a game going again. There’s a lot of talk about me being sort of the master of dungeons but I’ve been really busy. What’s been nice about D&D and the scene around it, aside from the fantasy, memorabilia and some of the videos and lyrics, is this idea of letting go of control in some way and having faith in it just being interesting. I'm not someone who's constantly improvising in my music, I'm not always jamming. I love the idea of embracing a bit of “yes and” kind of chaos into something. I think the Disc 3 tracks really have that.
I was really feeling while listening to this album, mostly in the car, that although it uses so much of the electronic language of club music, it's by no means just a club album. Obviously, you're going to do all sorts of edits of this material that are going to rock out so hard on festival main stages, throughout the whole summer, but the record feels like it's built for journeying, like for driving in a car or for gaming. There's a kind of thrilling discovery, and wonder. Going back to the live show, by presenting it in this format, where it's hybridized with rock, it stays very true to this idea of journeying.
The live show is all about the extreme dynamics. It started to feel good in rehearsals when I thought, “Is this setlist even possible?” There's moments in the set, where it feels a bit risky, but I like that. It's a really nice thing to do with an audience. I'm DJing my own weird edits of things I've made. I'm not traditionally mixing or using headphones, the audience hears what I hear, but that doesn't stop me from trying to go straight into something else. That's genuinely what I enjoy when I see electronic music performed. It's also why I struggle to get into something like techno, but at the same time, I'd find the use of the exact same materials thrilling because it's chaotic.
I think you sort of just hit the nail on the head. Something that I think is special about how you work: In all the times I've had in the studio with you, you don't really tend to use the words good or bad. You don't think about music as objectively good or bad.
I think that's a trap, isn't it? When I'm even listening to random music on the radio, I feel I can always pull from songs I hear. I can find almost anything interesting, basically. Yeah. So that's really a blessing.
Yeah, I was gonna say that to you. There's not a good or bad spectrum. It's an interesting versus interesting spectrum.
I saw this guy, Graham Harman, talk about object-oriented ontology, whatever, I'm going to fast forward. But what he said that interested me is that the opposite of beauty isn't ugliness, it's the literal, right? If something is just posited as one thing, you know? And I really agree with that. I don't see the spectrum of good or bad in that way. Music that is overconfident or slick can be a bit dull to me. On the contrary, anything that is about layering or questioning is objectively beautiful. It's why we can find nature beautiful, because all this stuff is going on. Beauty is actually related to this layering. A kind of battle against the literal.
This also brings me to very selfishly ask about my favorite song in the album, which I think has a lot to do with what you're just speaking about. I also find it in very non-literal terms, the most beautiful song, which is a song called “Pink Mask.” It kind of gives me goosebumps, because I think it's one of the only songs that you've made that gives me this really strong sense of arrival and maybe it's that the lyrics are really describing this, this encounter of arriving and asking someone to remove their pink mask. There's something terrifying about asking someone to take the mask off because on one end, there's so much risk in that question and so much anticipation in what you're gonna experience. It feels kind of religious and also so theatrical and the tactility of the frost on the glass. I just wanted to ask you about that song in general.
It's so over the top that one and I think I've always liked it, but I remember it felt like a bit of a risk. A lot of the inspiration also comes from spending time with Alaska and seeing her write lyrics first. She has a song describing being trapped in amber. “Pink Mask” doesn't sound to me at all like an Alaska song, but I remember being in Montana seeing her assemble things lyric first. I think that was a real experiment for me, because usually lyrics to me are a big afterthought. I really wasn't overthinking it, but I was trying to see if I can do something by writing first.
Yes, nusar3000 embodies a familiar, yet multi-faceted motif: just let the damn music do the talking. Since he was old enough to count the hairs above his lip, he’s immersed himself in the expansive world of FL Studio, conjuring up self-produced rap songs that predate his eventual ventures into some of the most ethnic genres the world has to offer: baile funk, jazz, salsa, flamenco, kuduro, garage, guaracha, shoegaze. He prides himself on being a sponge to the array of cultures the internet has exposed him to, treating his enigmatic digital footprint as a vessel for passion projects of different kinds, under different names. It wasn’t until the aftermath of the pandemic that he settled on his current moniker, nusar3000 (he says “tres mil” rather than “three thousand,” which sounds a lot cooler), a fittingly cybernetic label for a self-proclaimed internet baby.
nusar giddily speaks on his inspirations and outlines his manifesto as he smokes hash and laughs into the camera while Pelayo acts as his translator. English is a second language to them both, but it’s still so easy to tell that nusar is a genuine admirer of music both as a creator and a consumer. I can picture a 60-year-old version of him still plugging away at FL even if he couldn’t make a living from it. When you listen to “NASKAR,” the lead single to his new album, 3000, it’s like you’ve been thrown into a coliseum with raucous lions. The sound of pitched-up woodwinds, guitar distortion, and frenetic, blood-pumping drums are layered behind nusar’s chipmunked vocals, all while supercar engines and pixelated blips leak onto the canvas. It’s an exhilarating intro to a concise firecracker of a record with major roots in Mediterranean culture. Just days before his second-ever live performance (at Primavera Sound no less), nusar3000 takes me through the earnest intentions and spirited upbringing behind his blossoming career.
Olivier Lafontant— When did you start making music and when did you realize it was gonna be your career?
nusar3000— I started to make music when I was like 12, 13, more or less. I started to write lyrics… and in that era there weren't “type beats,” so I had to produce my own music to be able to compose and record songs. I realized that I can live and I can get money and make a living [from] this like three years ago. I started making rap songs as a kid and then I discovered salsa music because my grandma used to listen to it in the car. And then I discovered psychedelic rock and progressive rock and jazz, and I give [thanks to] this music.
Which artists and which bands were some of your early influences?
nusar3000— Nowadays Death Grips is a big influence. Ariel Pink… hmmm. There’s a music group that is not [that] famous but [they’re called] Strawberry Alarm Clock, it’s like psychedelic jazz rock. Thom Yorke, Fania All-Stars… Machine Girl too.
And do you still write your songs or do you only work on production?
nusar3000— I make everything. Writing lyrics, producing my music, recording my stuff, doing the artwork, and uploading it to Bandcamp.
Pelayo— He probably has like 20 albums on Bandcamp, other names and deep stuff. [nusar3000 laughs]
You mention other names being used, so when did you settle on nusar3000 being your name?
N— That was like three years ago. I had other projects and suddenly I realized that music is the tool I have to express myself and to explore my feelings. I realized that I cannot make music that is based on the rules of the industry––with the intention of [engaging] people. I started making music with another name, nusar3000, because I decided to make music for myself, to myself.
You wear these masks sometimes that kind of remind me of Kanye West on the Yeezus Tour. Everything is very grand, elaborate, and specific. Why do you think it’s important to have strong visuals to go with the music?
N— It’s divided into parts for me. When I mask my face, this is not for a performance. I don’t want people to have an idol that’s [just a guy]. I think that when an artist [presents themselves openly], good feedback or bad feedback can affect the person. And when a person makes bad decisions it can affect the project. I think that all the visuals for me are a way to [present my imagination] and the universe. “NASKAR” [depicts] people who live that life.
Are you familiar with MF DOOM? Is he a source of inspiration?
N— Yeah, for sure. That’s the perfect example: a guy who focused on making music, and he [didn’t] want the fame or the consequences of fame. I want the recognition of the artists I admire. I don’t want the recognition of people in the streets giving me good or bad comments. Burial [doesn’t wear a mask] but the way that [he] managed all his career, I like it. I feel less pressure if I don’t have to expose myself. It's like when I make music and I don't have to think about myself as a person… I [can take] ideas from [anywhere] and [act as] a channel.
Is there a fear that comes with getting famous? Do you feel like this is something you’re gonna do for the rest of your career, separating yourself from the music?
N— It’s more because I appreciate my space. I love [getting] a coffee with my grandma, and going on vacation with my friends, and being hungover in the street coming from a festival. I can be focused on myself. The fame is good, I think, at the beginning when you start to gain self-confidence and when you feel [actualized]. But I think long term, almost every person that gains viral fame [ends up] suffering or with mental issues or anxiety. I wanna be like a surgeon or a doctor. The doctor that does good work gets the recognition of the other doctors that are better than [them]. It’s not [like] a good doctor has people in the streets saying “Wow bro, you did so good on that heart surgery!”
P— We just arrived in Barcelona for Primavera Sound, and when you are backstage with other artists, sometimes people get fake because of the person you are. This way he can be around there and most of the people won’t know he is, so they will treat him in an honest way.
N— I don’t want to live a plastic life.
I was at home playing FIFA the other day as I listened to your upcoming album, 3000, and the amount of different sounds and influences you put together sound like they come from someone who grew up on the internet. How did the internet influence your style of music?
N— I’ve had conversations about music and the internet, and there's a lot of people that say ‘No, music was better before and was purer before.’ But for me, the internet is everything because it's the only way that I [could] connect with music. At home, my parents didn't have hundreds of vinyl records. I discovered music on the internet. And I think that the internet democratized the music. A guy from Bolivia who has no resources to get a guitar and go to a record label can make music with a DAW [and] discover music from Paris. Two weeks ago, I was talking with my father about music and I was thinking to myself like, ‘Wow, thirty years ago you could only discover the music that you could buy.’ If you don’t have a store that takes music from Africa, from Asia, you cannot access this music, so [it] doesn’t exist for you. Nowadays, the internet is my home, my country is the internet. It’s where I’ve spent the majority of my time [spent] alive.
I feel like that makes sense for us who were raised on the internet because like you said, music is so democratized. Now I can listen to rap, and I can listen to a Radiohead song, and then a nusar3000 song right after ‘cause that’s how we grew up.
N— Twenty or thirty years ago, [there were] the heavy metal guys, the rappers, the emos, and the musicians. Nowadays it’s mixed. I have friends that listen to salsa and Detroit rap. I think [putting a price] on the music limits the music and the experience. Sometimes I feel the same sensation when I listen to Mozart [as] when I listen to––
Playboi Carti.
N— [laughs] Playboi Carti!
What was the inspiration for your new album and where did you go to record?
N— The heart and the main source is the Mediterranean sound and the Mediterranean spirit. I am from Spain and [have spent] all my life around the Mediterranean Sea. Ten years ago, I started to listen to music by myself, and I discovered music from Iran, music from Morocco, music from Egypt, from Greece, from Turkey. I realized that this music makes me feel the same [as the folk music] of my country. There is something magical around the Mediterranean Sea. And I’m trying to reinterpret and give a space of importance to the cultural heritage of all these ways of living. And this is mixed in with the different places I’ve been traveling to around the world. I’ve been to Argentina and I connected with the cumbia villera from the more dangerous hoods. And then I went to Portugal and I connected with the guys from Cape Verde and Angola, and they showed me kuduro. Then I go to England and I discovered UK garage, drum-n-bass, jungle. I tried to mix my cultural heritage with my experience going around the world and try to make, for me, what [the internet is]. That is, the mix of everything that we have. It’s far away but we feel so close.
P— Morocco [was also] a big influence for this, so we said ‘Maybe we should go there and stay with people there and record the videos and the sounds —
N— And eat the food that they eat. When we were there, we were in the car going through the desert, listening to the album, and the [driver] who was a 60-year-old guy was like ‘Wow, bro I love this music, what is this?’ And I was like ‘It’s my music!’
I think a big part of your story is that not only do you listen to new music on the internet, but you go to the source of the music. Can you describe the places that you go when you visit a new country to find new music?
N— I want to go to the clubs that are not the mainstream [ones]. For example, when I went to Lisboa, I had Latin friends that were living there and I met Brazilian and Cape Verdean guys… And when I was with them in their homes it’s like, ‘Bro show me the music that you listen to.’ I don’t want the tourist life. I want to go to your bar, with your friends, listen to your music, see the vinyl [you got from] your mom.
I saw recently that you joined Rusia-IDK, the Spanish collective of DJs and producers. How did that happen and how do you feel like you fit in?
N— That was crazy because they are friends of mine and friends of my friends. We used to hang out and we used to share music [we’ve produced]. And Manu, who is the manager, is a good friend too. I respect his work a lot and his vision, and I love the way that these guys are reinterpreting pop music and giving it sauce and personal love. It’s good taste and honest intentions.
How do you feel going into Primavera? What are your emotions like?
N— It’s your first time doing such a big festival. Wow, it’s crazy because it’s like Inside Out. I feel like there are different people pushing buttons like boom, boom, boom. I feel so happy. I feel proud too. It’s an honor for me, being part of it because [there have] been a lot of crazy artists that have been at Primavera Sound. And it’s my second live gig, and the first one was two weeks ago. *laughs*
P— They called us from Primavera like three weeks ago and [at first] we thought that maybe we were not ready for this. But like with everything we've [done so far], we were like ‘Oh fuck it, let's do it.’ It's a great opportunity.
N— I feel so happy and disassociated with it, it’s like what the fuck! It’s like I’m the same day as Arca or Sega Bodega. It’s crazy that people have to choose [at] festivals. You cannot go to everyone so if there are people going to your [set] it’s because these people are deciding to give you this time. For me that’s a pressure that I love.
EKKSTACY wears JEANS by DSQUARED2, BRACELET by MARTINE ALI, BOOTS and BELT are TALENT’S OWN.
Jason Nocito— So what should we start with? Do we want to be really basic?
Ekkstacy— Have you ever interviewed somebody or is this your first time?
JN— This is probably the first interview I’ve ever done. Okay well, when I first hit you up on Instagram two years ago with the disbelief that you were from Vancouver, what was your response?
E— There was no response. I didn’t want to respond because you were a fucking photographer.
JN— Because I was some creepy old photographer sliding into your DMs?
E— Yeah, I told you I used to have a strong dislike for photographers.
JN— Why did you hate photographers so much?
E— First of all, I just don’t like being on camera. I do now, kind of. And, photographers are annoying.
JN— I agree. Photographers are the type of people who constantly need something from somebody else all the time.
E— Yeah like, “Can I have a photo pass? Can I have this? This? All I need is this...” but Andrew said I should meet you and then we met and I was like, “Damn, we’re boys.” Then we went on tour and we became best friends.
JN— I wouldn’t say we’re the same person, but we do have more alignment than less alignment. Any chance I get to hang out and talk with you, I’m happy.
E— It’s funny because we only spent two weeks in a car together. Two weeks is not long.
JN— We’re pretty good for people who don’t know each other.
E— I was also in a dark hole most of that tour... everything was tight and then it got bad. I was too drunk. I’m sober now. Kind of.
JN— Dry?
E— Yeah, I’m not binge drinking. I couldn’t even tell you why I was doing that.
EKKSTACY wears JACKET and PANTS by OFFICINE GÉNÉRALE, TOP by Y-3, BRACELET by MARTINE ALI (left)
EKKSTACY wears COAT by DAUPHINETTE, GLASSES by FLATLIST x OFFICE (right)
JN— It’s hard to stop once you start.
E— Yeah, but I felt so awful.
JN— Maybe you were just nervous in New York.
E— New York wasn’t even the first day of that. I did it, every show, up until that day.
JN— Okay but let’s reel it back, how did you end up in music anyway?
E— My dad made music.
JN— What kind of music?
E— Bad rap music.
JN— So your dad’s the first white Canadian rapper?
E— Yeah, my dad has unreleased records.
JN— Did he produce them?
E— No, that fool had me producing music for him when I was 13, 14 on GarageBand.
JN— No way.
E— I’m so serious. I started on my grandma’s computer then leveled up to iPad GarageBand and upped to GarageBand on my own computer where I was making full-on rap beats.
JN— When did you start making your own music whatsoever?
E— The first time I sat in front of my computer with a microphone was December 26th, 2018.
JN— That’s insane.
E— My first song came out sometime in January 2019.
JN— The first song that you put up on SoundCloud?
E— Yeah, it might’ve even been December 30th, or is there a 31st in December?
JN— Yes.
E— Then, it might’ve been the 31st.
JN— But you had been spending time on SoundCloud before then right?
E— I was producing lo-fi beats and uploading those. I remember one got 800 plays and I thought that was super goated, but the SoundCloud algorithm is so shit now. We used to just blow up on there without anything else. You know what I mean?
JN— So at what point did you cross the line?
E— I crossed the line with “i walk this earth” March 2021, so really I was only in the mud for two years.
JN— How many songs versus beats had you put up on SoundCloud by then?
E— I only ever put out probably five beats, and then I probably put out maybe 45 songs on SoundCloud before “i walk this earth”. Maybe more like 50 to 75.
JN— Did you make them with other people or were you just cranking them out in your bedroom alone?
E— Always alone, or I’d have my homies in there, but always on YouTube beats, bro.
JN— Really? You weren’t making beats?
E— No, I wasn’t good enough. I could only make lo-fi shit. I couldn’t make good trap beats.
JN— That’s when you were working at Amazon and living in Vancouver.
E— In Langley and downtown at that point, in garages and shit. I would leave home for months and just couch-surf downtown.
JN— So you were just bouncing around for three years.
E— After my parents divorced, I would go back and forth between their cribs. Then I started blowing off school and eventually dropped out.
JN— In 12th grade?
E— Yeah.
JN— When did you get the face tat?
E— Right after I dropped out. I never went to school with a tattoo which I regret.
JN— What did your mom say when you came home with that?
E— I didn’t fucking go home. I FaceTimed her and I can’t remember exactly what she said, but she cried.
JN— What about your dad?
E— I don’t think he saw it either. I was staying with him at the time and he just told me not to come home.
JN— Do your parents see you now? Are they proud?
E— Yeah, dude, for sure. We’ve done a lot of fun shit since everything’s happened.
JN— And that brings you...
E— That brings us to today, where I live in New York City now. I was in LA for six months and in and out of LA for the last year and a half.
JN— So New York City is your favorite city?
E— Second. Vancouver is my favorite city.
JN— Right. And that’s what we have most in common. Except for the reverse. New York’s my favorite and Vancouver is what New York is to you.
E— Yeah.
JN— So when you make something, when you made “i walk this earth”, did you know it was going to blow up?
E— No clue. No idea. It felt good, just like every other song feels good.
JN— At that point, what were you listening to?
E— Only Current Joys and The Drums.
JN— How did you go from the triple X world to—
E— I stopped listening to the SoundCloud shit a while ago.
JN— But what was the first thing you got into outside of that?
E— In high school, I wasn’t just listening to SoundCloud. I was also listening to really basic indie stuff. That’s what got me into Mac DeMarco, The Drums, Mild High Club, and shit like that. Me and the homies, we always liked indie and punk and all that shit, but we just didn’t know how to play instruments. It wasn’t band culture in high school. We thought it was tight and we liked it, but impossible for us to do.
JN— It seemed for a long time that it was just SoundCloud rap.
E— When I grew up, it was a punk scene, and you would get fanzines and write letters to people, staying in touch and creating a community that way. SoundCloud’s community and the internet obviously operate in a totally different way. SoundCloud’s dead now.
JN— So this next record then? How do you even start?
E— It’s so easy. You just do it. I don’t take much credit for anything I do. I feel like it just happens, even from the beginning—from the second I sat at my computer in 2019. It just comes to you and you get lucky. Sometimes, you make a big song, you blow it, and sometimes you make a shitty one. Usually, whatever comes to mind first is going to be the best thing you make.
JN— Is anxiety a motivator for you? Do you ever feel paralyzed?
E— No. I don’t think anxiety is present in the creative process at all. I mean, I’ll get a little nervous whenever I’m making a song and it’s going too well, like if we’re speeding through something, the riff is amazing, the drums are amazing, the bass, everything. But that’s how I’ve done every single song I ever made. Instrumental first, vocals after.
JN— And you aren’t going to do that anymore?
E— I have a band now. We’re going to demo now, just write as we go.
JN— You’re not going to be doing it with your friend, the German guy anymore?
E— I’m sure that Mango will be in the room and play with us, but it’s going to be us making the record.
JN— When do you plan on releasing your trap record then?
E— Dude. First of all, it’s an EP. When do you plan on shooting all the videos?
JN— When you’re in New York.
E— But yeah, we’ve been sitting on this shit for a long time, but this genre is dead as fuck, bro. It’s not going to change. We can drop this shit anytime. It doesn’t matter. If it comes out in a year, it’s not going to be more dead. It’s going to be the same.
JN— But how can you say the genre is dead when there are legends still making insane songs?
E— No one’s making insane songs, bro.
JN— How does genre play into what you make now and what genre is your music? Is it emo?
E— I don’t know what genre my music is. It’s pop music, it’s emo, it’s indie, it’s punk. It’s all those stupid things. At the end of the day, now I’m just going to be doing rock music.
JN— What if you hate it?
E— I know, I’ve been thinking about it. I don’t even know what it’s going to sound like. Am I going to blow it in a rock record setting? Am I going to sound like shit? Who knows?
JN— Sometimes when we’re convinced that something’s a bad idea, it’s the best way to go in.