Influences: Maricopa

Listened to this a lot when I first started tooling around with production in 2011. The whole thing is so subtle and hypnotic, it just washes over you. I try to create that same sense of immersion if I can. Jaar has been a bit hit and miss for me since then, always interested to hear his latest work though.

Altrice was the first producer I was kind of fascinated with. His remix album of Caribou’s Swim made a big impression on me but he’s been all too quiet since, only resurfacing to drop this classy Radiohead remix and a couple of other contributions to compilations.

The sound of hip hop around this time represents a golden age. Jazzy samples (I discovered Stan Getz via this track) coupled with playful, catchy and clever rhymes is a formula perfected by The Pharcyde. I’m often only interested in music, but acts like ATCQ, The Pharcyde, Gang Starr et al have me listening intently to the words too. Labcabinacalifornia is one of my all time favourite LPs.

Stan is the man. He clearly thought about, or rather intuited, the way to channel a feeling in to and out of his instrument. The melancholic atmosphere his music evokes is a quality I try to incorporate in my own tracks, albeit in a different way. I probably listen to as much jazz as anything else these days, and like a lot of people it started with Kind of Blue, but I was on to Stan pretty quick too.

Some people said my Tusk Wax EP sounded influenced by BOC, who I’d never even heard of at the time, so I fell down that rabbit hole and – like all their fans – never returned. I’m a complete fanatic. What they evoke in their music is stronger and more intense than anything I’ve ever heard. It’s hard to put into words. ‘Universal nostalgia’ is my attempt to describe what they harness.

In their ability to create a melancholy vibe and marry it to the structures of dance music, Paradis are unrivalled for me. Soon after hearing this track I went into a soft synth on my computer and messed around until I got a bass sound close to the one on this. I still use the ‘Paradis’ preset all the time. Their album recently dropped and it’s amazing.

I’m embarrassed to say I hadn’t even heard of Fragile State until one half of them got in contact to say he liked what I was doing. I have rinsed this album ever since, and it’s been the personal highlight of my time making music to have someone who made this seminal LP reach out and take an interest in what I’m doing.

Among other things, Grails create vast, expansive vistas in musical form. This track is a good example of that, and one of my favourites of theirs. For anyone in interested in music that sounds like dusty plains, frozen tundras and brooding skies look up Black Tar Prophecies Vol’s 4, 5 & 6.

This kind of simple, beautiful music is what it is. Words are superfluous.