Hello! Your influences are all over the place but “Riff Raff” doesn’t sound like any of them. How do you make something that feels that original?
It’s more or less trial by error and letting the rhythm lead itself through to a plausible narrative speaking volumes along the way; more like a tidal wall of sound engulfing the auditory fuses. I enjoy experimenting a lot with varied techniques, be it music theory or breaking the same at intelligent intervals.
That sub bass hits like a physical thing. Was that always the plan or did it just happen in the studio?
I use sub bass as the base note and bass as the middle note. It’s mostly intentional to fill in the blanks and let the next thought be a riff or a shred. Processing the same as a listener makes for a refined music taste covering decades of avid listening.
You played and produced everything yourself. Does total control help or does it ever get in the way?
Being original sounding obviously needs freedom of expression and working the music to other inspirational greats by merely listening to their great art helps in reconciliation of where the track may be heading.
The track keeps shifting when you least expect it. Do you map that out or just follow where it goes?
It’s slightly to go by the white space induced and the tangent that is most expected, or least expected in most cases, as you may have heard; more like offtracking the entire concept for the tune to be melodious, yet at the same time be more or less unpredictable as a style. Anyone can listen and practice along to actually break from a normal groove thus.
No vocals, no safety net. How did you know the music alone was enough?
I go by instincts mostly and let the direction the tune takes be random, for the same to be layered on top of the fused beats rather than the majority sounding linear tracks out there masquerading as post prog or nothing similar is ever produced!