Sonic Router

SR Mix #108: Two Inch Punch [PMR]

Posted in Sonic Router Mixes   

Sometimes you have to listen to music in relation to a lot of other music for the good stuff to really jump out. It’s no secret that the intersections where dubstep, house and dance congeal has produced a lot of incredible music and likewise it’s not a new thing for people in my position to lament about the homogenisation of a soundset, style or idea but sometimes when you’ve arranged a playlist to score a morning you really do get to noticing artists and works that stand out.

Two Inch Punch’s debut EP for the PMR label (those who’ve worked with people like Julio Bashmore, Jesse Ware, Javeon McCarthy et al) is one of those speaker bullets, a collection of tracks that positively leapt out from the fringe of house tempoed uniformity. Obviously mine is an extremely objective point of view, undoubtedly drawn from the mindset and the collection of tracks that preceeded it’s entrance to my headphones on that morning, but ever since that original lightning strike, the Love You Up EP reveals a little more about itself on each listen.

Populated with these short, full bodied jams like ‘Up In Your Mix’ and the eponymous track ‘Love You Up’ the EP is split into two pieces either side of the piano crackle weep of ‘Winterlude’, which feels like the most primitive of recordings captured through an internal MacBook or busted mic then overdubbed with vinyl crackle. It signals a sort of deepening, as producer Ben Ash opts out of the vocal led anthemization with the more contemplative melody of ‘Her Heart Moves’ and the slow brooding introspection of ‘Forgive Me For Messing Up’. Alongside these emotion signifying track titles Ash seems able to capture mood totally, whether ominously soundtracking a new face’s presence in your life with a heady rush of bumbling low end and rising pads on ‘Up In Your Mix’ or through the stop start torment and distortion of evident mistakes on the hindsight loaded ‘Forgive Me…’.

“Beautiful harmonies with strong chord progressions are what move me,” Ash tells us from his London base. “Unlike a lot of amazing contemporary producers where the sonics and depths of say, the snare drum, or the attention to detail on the punchiness of the kick drum is the key to the track, it’s of less importance to the melodic structure of the song which will always lead in my work.”

Two Inch Punch – Up In Your Mix [PMR]

That’s not to say Two Inch Punch work is not meticulous in it’s production, it’s just that the message of what he wants to convey constantly gets refracted, bouncing off instruments and layers of awkward EQ or reverberation with the vocals sitting hidden underneath the interference of the thousands of love songs that have come before him.

“Again with lyrics,” Ash offers by way of clarification; “they take less of a role as long as the textures and melody come through. I don’t mind if the lyrics are hard to pick up on – you can blame D’Angelo for that; I cant understand a word he says when he sings but his music touches me so much.

Channeling a lot of himself through his instruments, making a very present connection through the subject matter or his mood points, Ash’s work is emotive and personable. There’s introspection presented alongside the kind of top end synths that squall away in skweee like bursts on ‘Love You Up’ and there’s pure heartbreak embedded in every lick of the closing guitar solo on ‘Forgive Me…’, so we caught up with the producer to find out a little more about his motivation and grab SR Mix #108, his ecclectic instalment in our ongoing mix series.

Sonic Router: Let’s start with an introduction… Can you tell us a bit about who you are and how you started making music?

Two Inch Punch: I started making music a few years ago writing for other artists and bands, trying to work on their sound but wasn’t until I started TIP last November where I began to work on exactly what I wanted to do, with no restraints from artist tastes and direction. I suppose I started to develop my sound properly then because there was no vocalist or artist to hide behind and luckily this was when it all started to connect.

How would you describe the music you make?

Soulful, melody driven, short, (mainly) love songs.

You’ve been compared to people like The Weeknd and James Blake. To me there’s more of an R&B edge, a sense of a half smile than what Blake does; like it’s not all super serious sound design. How do those comparisons sit with you? Do you think you can draw similarities at all?

I think they are cool and I guess the similarities are drawn through influences we may possibly share whether it’s anything from Aphex Twin to Bobby Valentino. This seeps into the music of course. I think it’s slightly down to lazy journalism that those comparisons come about though. Instead of looking into the roots of where your sound comes from, comparisons of what is current and around this week on the top blogs is what is expected.

Everything is kinda short, especially on the Love You Up EP. Why do you think that is? Like, do you think you get what you want across succinctly, without over egging ideas?

Well I never liked tracks that went on and on, like a lot of electronic and dance stuff does, to me it always felt so self indulgent. I like that feeling of immediately wanting to reload a song again. The Beatles early love songs are great examples of that. The two minute love songs such as ‘This Boy’ and ‘If I Fell’ were so important to me.

Tell us about the EP. What inspired it? How did it come to be released on PMR etc?

PMR are my favourite label at the moment and are so new with a lot of energy and incredible drive, which excited me. When I had the chance to work with them, It was the easiest decision I’ve had to make.

Birdy – People Help The People (TIP’s Sunken Hearts Rework)

What else have you got coming up

I have just done a remix for Birdy, I am going to LA & New York to do some writing with a couple of artists, have to see how that develops before I say more and I’m working on some new Two Inch Punch stuff for my second EP.

Can you talk us through the mix you’ve made for us?

It’s a throw back to when you used to make mixes on cassette tape. Not particularly original I know but I had a mixtape that was quite important to me, that I found again recently. When I played it, it chewed up during playback on my old cassette player which incredibly sounded like a chopped n screwed mix when it started to slow down & crunch up. I thought I would use this idea to create my own chewed up/chopped n screwed mix.

Got any words of wisdom for our readers?

Never trust a man with a purple bow tie.

::

DOWNLOAD: Two Inch Punch – Sonic Router Mix #108

No tracklist given.

Two Inch Punch’s Love You Up EP is out now on PMR Records.