Written interview with Riccardo Papacci, 26.10.2022
You were half of Vex'd. Can I ask you what your listening was that period?
So that was the probably end of 2003 to 2007.. Broadly I was listening to comparable stuff that I do now, just narrower and shallower I suppose since I had found less music at that point. The main difference was I was focused on London pirate radio, especially in 2003 - 2004, when the garage sound had changed into something more like grime but hadn’t found a formula.
I had become jaded about organized UK music scenes, because jungle drum & bass had become very commercial & grotesque. That music had been my big love, it meant everything to me, and I was broken hearted about what it had become. That spurred kind of anti-genre, anti-scene approach we had with Vex’d.
But outside of UK club music, my home listening was centred around hiphop, proggy cosmic music, romantic pop, early library electronic music, some r&b, some shoegaze indie, some jazz etc.. pretty similar to know. I think being in Vex’d and playing with a more abrasive sound lead us to explore some heavier metal & experimental drone type stuff. We aspired to bring in more of a melodic spacey synth sound into the project, but we hadn’t really figured out how to incorporate it. It was easier to keep it dark and aggressive. When we started branching out of dance music influences, the vision kind of fell apart, as often happens. I was really tired of the dark industrial hole we’d fallen into, we both were really unenthusiastic about dubstep, and our music was just way too disconnected from the music that I most loved. I didn’t hear much of myself in the music we were making, so I couldn’t justify continuing on with it.
Can you tell me your impressions of the rave scene of the pre-dubstep period - that is, the final phase, in my opinion.
We missed rave proper but we caught part of drum & bass where it was still fairly new club music. We saw some of the earlier Metalheadz & Full Cycle nights. Not all of that dated so well and it definitely felt that the golden period had already passed, but that mid to late 90s jungle period still feels unparalleled now, socially. That such radical, ferocious experimental music felt like part of the high street in every town, and suburbia, so omni present, so integrated into normal life, genuinely inclusive, in retrospect that was what was amazing and seems so impossible now. Like boundary-pushing dance music is much less accessible now, very closed, small, snobby really. It definitely shaped my sense of club music, it started and grows out of jungle for me, not house or techno. Jungle was also the first major way that hip hop integrated into club music, in the UK at least. Otherwise, I don’t know what i can say about it, it’s very well documented now.
Are you nostalgic for that period?
No. Not unless I come across a youtube video or rave recording, but I think a lot of gen Z kids feel a similar nostalgia when they encounter that footage. I do those times feel grateful to have seen some of it first-hand.
Would you like to tell me a little bit instead about your impressions of the dubstep scene and that period?
We felt uncomfortable within it, if I’m being honest. We intended to be a non-genre project and to be quite anti-scene in that sense, that was really core to us starting and being excited about our project. We were also hugely inspired by that fleeting post-garage, pre-grime phase, that 2002 - 2004 period. When a large part of it broke off and settled into dubstep as a brand almost, we quickly became really uninspired by what that was and where it was heading, and we felt trapped in it. But we were truly appreciative of those artists and DJs being interested in our productions, and inviting us to DJ at their nights & radio shows etc, generally being encouraging to us. We wanted them to do well too. We also realised that we would be responsible for taking their embryonic scene off-course if we got too identified with it, because we were using influences that they were carefully avoiding. And we really didn’t want to fuck up their careful scene-building efforts. So there was tension in being it, it was awkward, and despite all the mutual respect & well-wishing we had, we just weren’t very happy becoming situated within it. It’s one of the reasons we split up. We never really identified with the slow rigid half-step dub-influenced music, neither of us really listened to dubstep for enjoyment or inspiration at the time, and not at all since. So my impressions are a bit, they’re kind of thorny, difficult. I became interested in the space around it when it started to fracture apart, when people were trying to find ways out of it and it became tied up with the hip-hop beat scene,, when Hyperdub artists like Ikonika started making off-kilter more freeform, melodic music, which is when I started Kuedo. That was a fun moment, but most of those artists were deliberately pointing themselves away from it at that point. It was a thing to escape from.
Then you made Severant, which is one of the most important and especially beautiful records of the last few years. Had you gotten tired of dubstep? The record is very reflective and less dance. Did something particular happen or were they simply pieces you had been carrying around inside you for a while?
Thank you. So yeah I had entirely disconnected everything to do with dubstep for a few years already.
Some personal events happened in the years previously, my daughter was born very ill, her mother and I broke up. Severant was in large part me processing that, hence the reflective tone. It was all very domestic in that sense.
In Severant there is one reference point that seems to be constant: Blade Runner. Can you explain why that film is so important to you?
Not sure, is it constant? For me it only comes up a couple of times in the record, like I was never intending it to be a big musical reference point, definitely not any kind of homage. I was trying to write a slow disco lento vibe track with “Flight Path”, somehow it ended up like the Bladerunner outro theme. But there’s a lot of breezy almost summery pop influences there too. I had the soundtrack on an itunes playlist, that was an influence but then so was the 80s plastic street soul, hypnagogic pop, 4AD indie and mixtape coke rap that was on that playlist. Like I’ve watched the original film once in the last 11 years, I think there’s a risk of overstating the film’s importance to me. I really disliked the sequel. What I think does hold true is that I’ve been drawn to the idea of very human-centric near-future stories, where the sparkly sci-fi is just distant background ambience but the human experience is really close to the camera. Alien and BladeRunner 1 are two of the only films that really do that well. They’re intimate, set in small spaces. I think that’s what made it feel thematically relevant my music, for me. It’s just old-style film noir really, I get a similar vibe kick from films like Chinatown or Manhunter. Bluesy.
In an interview you were talking about the future in a very interesting way. You were saying that we think of the future as something abstract and distant, but only at certain moments do things happen that make you realize that you are inside the future, you are already immersed in it. Can I ask you what were the events or discoveries for you that gave you this feeling in the last decade?
I think we’re also all now very aware of the future not being separate & distant from us. That weird post-millenium early 2000s “end of history” moment, where an unfamiliar future felt like something that would never plausibly happen, I think that’s passed. There are obvious technological aspects like artificial intelligence, but I think more so the threat of system collapse with the climate crisis, and even the pandemic. Everyone feels Black Mirror’d now. But futurism, as an impression, is not something I very often chase with my music. I have done on occasion, like the “Assertion…” EP, but it’s not an integral or consistent part of the music.
For your records there has also been talk of retrofuturism, what do you think about this concept?
Yeah, it’s not a beautiful word is it? I don’t have much positive association with it. I’ve described retroism as a cosplay that I don’t want to get be part of. But I think it’s really interesting how the idea of the future is always changing, and seeing the visions that people create around it. Whether that’s previous generations of artists, or those being created in the current time, or those visions of the future that will be created by future generations. It says so much about those people in their time and place, and there’s something about that straining to imagine that carries a yearning affect in the artwork. I think religious art often carries a similar feeling. I think that sense of yearning is caught up with our idea of the horizon.
So it would miss the point if people think I'm making retro music. But I do think it’s honest to carry the past with you. I don’t relate at all to futurists who think everything should be new and unheard. I find the retro position and the futurist position to be similarly empty basically, they’re too far-orientated away from now. I think it’s real, complex and knotty, how we always carry the visions of the past with us and how that affects how we see the now. That I fully embrace.
It seems to me that in your albums, and in Infinite Window this is evident to me, there is an attempt to make technology something human and sensitive. Can you tell me something about that?
Yes, I mean musically I think I’m only interested in technology in how it affects our human experience. Personally I find some computer science fields interesting, like human computer interaction, empathetic technologies. But musically I’m only really writing about human experience, if there’s a technological aspect to my music then I mostly want it to be a background ambience to that. Philosophically I’m not a technologist in any sense.
Are you interested in philosophy? In general, what do you usually read and what has influenced you the most from a literary point of view?
Tried many times to find a philosophy book that grabbed me but I never really succeeded. One book that really left a mark was “Godel, Escher Bach”, although I definitely I understood very little of it. It shaped how I thought about systems and the emergence of meaning. There’s a book called“Star Maker”, it’s pretty boring and self-serious but I found something haunting about its description of the universe.
In 2011, thanks to people like James Ferraro, Daniel Lopatin, Arca and others, and especially thanks to a record like Severant, this genre called Hi-Tech Electronics - a term coined by Adam Harper - was born. Is it a genre that you were passionate about and felt a part of, or is it something that didn't involve you too directly? I mean: do you think that something new has happened in recent years from the point of view of electronic music, or do you think it's simply a revival of years gone by and that maybe the last big revolution was really dubstep?
I’ve never heard that term before. I mean I think a lot of my music could be generically described as contemporary electronica or something broad like that. That seems to be what he’s describing? I think probably only that journalist could tell you. I think electronica is quite a functional term for describing loosely formulated electronic music that sits adjacent to club music. I’m not really closely following electronica or club music in that “what’s next” neophyte way anymore, I think part of starting Kuedo was to get away from that. There comes a point in your timeline as an artist that you need to hone in on what you have already taken in and your own direction, rather than be chasing emerging forms. UK drill doesn't fit into the typical understanding of electronic or dance music but in terms of UK music history, it feels like musically it synthesised and advanced so much of what dubstep, grime and jungle were separately trying to do, on a music production level, the rhythm and shapes of it. Different countries still have their own local club music developments. Electronic music as a broad wide thing, I don’t know, I’m not sure it ever really created its own advances, it’s too broad & diffuse of an idea perhaps. Maybe it always pulled from club music or pop or hip hop to move forward anywhere. I think genres need to be somewhat narrow and tight in their cultural definition of themselves to evolve. And I think a lot of the perceived musical developments in electronic music really came from people quickly exploring newly affordable technology products, and the racing into the uncharted territories they afforded. That’s not going to be a linear or even reliable process of evolution, it's more like explosions. And streaming collapsed everything into a single point where it’s hard to identify the social dynamics that created musical evolutions. Venture platform capitalism and cost of living has stripped away all the cultural propagation networks that drove music culture forward - club spaces, record stores, magazines, radio. So yeah sitting at home listening to the entire archive curated by Spotify, that’s having some effects on cultural production.
Can I ask you what you like musically about the last few years?
I mean in terms of new music, that jungle revival was fun, especially for younger kids applying giving a loose shoegaze emo impressionistic haze to it, making it as floaty headphone music rather than functional, stiff dj music. UK and Brooklyn drill was kind of spectacular as a production evolution. There’s been some really good new ambient artists with a collage approach, that kind of ambient Burial style. I really liked Sky H1’s album. I mean it seems like the artsy side of electronic music got a bit stuck didn’t it. In terms of my own listening, Ive been mostly listening to more traditional music this year, like indie bands, singer-songwriter music, pianomusic this year. I’m so more much interested in harmony and melody than production at the moment. I can imagine the pandemic had that effect quite widely. Like anyone in the streaming music era, have random rabbit holes that I go into for a short period, like a quick dive intro stoner rock, academic sound art, or whatever. Ryuichi Sakamoto, HTRK, and Frank Ocean are artists I’ve been returning to over and over in the last couple years.
I know you really like the R&B of The Weeknd, Frank Ocean, and Solange. How do you position yourself with mainstream music? Would you like to do something more pop? For example, last year I really liked Jam City's record, Pillowland, which at the end of the day is a pop record in its own right, although he has a background in some ways similar to yours.
I guess I don’t really write music from a self-aware idea of where I should positioned on the musical map. Perhaps if I did I might make more definite efforts to move to a particular place? I don't know, I have been thinking about this recently, since I’ve been pretty surprised by the genres that have been used to describe the last album, but then that’s been the case for previous albums too. I think partly, my output doesn’t closely match the inputs, and perhaps it shouldn’t do, or it would be all over the place. If I were to deliberately close that gap between what I’m most inspired by musically and my actual production output, then yes there probably would be more vocal songs, recorded instruments. But also people’s expectations also guide how they process something, and so the pop inputs that are already there are instead misunderstood as IDM references or something. That can be, a little frustrating. After Infinite Window I am starting to feel like maybe I should communicate the inputs more deliberately.
I know that in addition to making music you also work with brands like Huawei. Do you do this just for "work" or is it something that also gives you input artistically? I mean, seeing certain Huawei commercials with super tech products and your music kind of give me that future feeling I was talking about just above.
Yes, it’s day job work. Commercial design obviously has creatively rewarding aspects, and I enjoy the technical challenges that often come along with sound design work, like when there’s virtual reality or game technology involved. Aesthetically there can be some really nice moments like you mention, especially when working with talented visual designers who are pushing their tools. But no one reasonably expects brand-driven work to create the same depth of experience as standalone music or artwork. Everyone accepts that it’s advertising.
Would you like to give your thoughts on the current political issue? I would like your take on the contemporary. I know it's a silly question: where do you think the world is going?
I mean does anyone have an upbeat answer to that? I guess I was thinking about that when working with the artists on the Infinite Window cover. Even in the most post-human scenario, most likely there’ll still be something growing, some continuation of the story.