Sonic Router

SR Mix #112: Knowing Looks [WNCL]

Posted in Sonic Router Mixes   

Without delving into an epic end of year list that will undoubtedly bear little or no relevance to anything other than the frantic, prolonged stress over what should be included and how to numerically order it; there are a lot of people, labels, collectives and artists who made 2011 super fun to experience the highs and lows of. We’ve made no bones of our love for them here but one person who has continually made the year that little bit more interesting through his polite and informative email updates, wandering e-conversations and his continual curation of 10” single releases is Bob from West Norwood Cassette Library. This year he found the time to release music quality music from Milyoo, Don Froth, and Ultramarine alongside some of his own work on the ‘Get Lifted’ single.

Each release has seemed to fit the pithy realm surrounding the archaic kick drum punch he made prevalent late last year with a duo of his own productions ‘What It Is’ and ‘Mrs Fingers’. It’s also quite telling that his A&R ear has managed to find and bind together artists and work that is increasingly different from each other (a point that FACT raised with him in an article from a couple of months back). Despite the differences, when you listen to it as a whole, the label’s discography makes complete textural sense – it’s never overtly or purposefully gritty but there’s definitely an element of organic crunch to the material. Though Bob’s probably the first guy to admit that there are no real processes producers have to adhere to release on his label; they just simply have to make music that excites him.

The latest person who’s set his world into a spin is Canadian producer Knowing Looks, aka one Jason Hopfner. His ‘Abandoned Skip’ b/w ‘Last Kiss At The Plains Hotel’ 10”, which came out earlier this year, helped the WNCL label break through to the record boxes of respected DJs like 2562 – who undoubtedly picked up on the hefty splat of that kick drum that hits heavy like a lot of 2562’s work as A Made Up Sound does. And whilst the A side ‘Abandoned Skip’ helped KL’s music reach and impact upon the dancefloor, the flip, ‘Last Kiss…’, gave people more of an insight into his processes (given that it is such a deft exercise in sampling and tapestry arrangement). Building the whole tune out of found sound sources gives his work that dusty, humble texture and that Entroducing kind of familiarity from the get go, enabling your ear to latch on and follow it through the cascades of evolutions.

Knowing Looks – Last Kiss At The Plains Hotel [WNCL]

His latest release, out this Monday just gone, further embellishes that approach. On ‘Listen To My 45’ Hopfner excessively samples and chops vocal phrases, horn refrains, sirens and strung chords into weird and wonderful shapes. He’s got an uncanny ability to drive his tracks home; the breakdowns levitate with crackly chord drones and then, he runs headlong into the drops, throwing all kinds of doo wop harmonies at it. Both ‘Last Kiss…’ and ‘Listen to My 45’ are epic examples of his cut and paste mastery; breathing constructions that evolve way further than a selection of cleverly layered stock loops or pre packaged intertwined phrases ever could. But it’s also worth noting that on both releases there’s been a total floor-kicker that comes with it.

Yep, across his two WNCL 10”s Hopfner’s kept us captivated, marvelling at the intricacy of how he toys with samples and arrangement one minute, he then goes and blows you away with the raw power of his dancefloor material the next. Where ‘Abandoned Skip’ sauntered through that harem where techno and dubstep intersect, ‘Ghost Baby’ squalls like something you’d expect from producers associated with that mêlée of rudeboy techno inherent to Nottingham (and people like Hizatron or Morris Cowan). It’s brutally fast beyond its tempo and incessantly colourful, like an extended version of that bit in Stargate where James Spader and co. fly through the wormhole.

Following on from his WNCL009 VIP Xmas present to the world, his giveaway of ‘Never Gonna Get Charlie’ last week, we caught up with the Toronto based producer to learn us a lot about him as a human being and grab our 112th Sonic Router Mix.

Sonic Router: Before I sat down to write the questions, I asked Kevin McPhee what I should ask you. Knowing that you two are acquainted, he gave me a few pointers and then, later in the conversation, I joked that he loved Burial a bit too much, and he just went idle on the old AIM there. Still… I figured you guys know each from round the way, with Toronto being the common place. What’s the scene like there? When Kev did a mix for us back in January he alluded to there being a like minded bunch of people in the city whose pursuits in music support each other. How do you see it?

In the interest of not boring people to death straight out the gate I’ll try to be brief… I’ve largely felt like a bit of a musical outsider since I moved here… I’m not sure if it’s the proximity or history with Detroit but things in the past tended to be a bit too fast or too hard or generally too serious for me to connect with. The techno gigs felt too techno, the house gigs were also too housey… in that sense I’ve always felt more of a kinship to Montreal musically, it’s hard for me to put my finger on what it is exactly, I just usually heard records I liked more on nights out in Montreal.

However, things locally at the moment are great and seem to be getting better all the time. Promoters seem to be finding really interesting spaces and taking chances, there’s new blood out there making music and putting on events, and the old guard is keeping it interesting at the same time…..people are doing their own thing all over the map musically, it’s just a shame we lose our best and brightest artists to Europe constantly! It must be what it feels like teaching Oncology in Pakistan…

In terms of your own music, are there outlets there where you can hear it loud or push yourself? I know you played at Mutek in Montreal like…

I’ve been playing live infrequently for a few years now, it’s been a massive learning curve and a constant work in progress, but I’m at the point where I’m nearly happy with it.

Knowing Looks – Ghost Baby [WNCL]

Can you tell me a bit about your live show? Kev mentioned it…

Content wise it’s always shifting, with old and new songs being added or taken away. I’m always trying to find this unattainable perfect flow between the weirder end of my songs and something easier for the dancers to get down to, in general it starts around under 120 [bpm] and ends up in the high 130’s.

It’s your standard laptop and controller setup, though I don’t say that self deprecatingly. I enjoy being entertained as much as anyone, but I like to think people going to see underground electronic music are savvy enough that the artist doesn’t need to pull out a saxophone or hardware synth and jam alongside the laptop in order to justify the performance as ‘live’. The music I make is pretty uncondusive to extended jams, and mixing/triggering all the tracks on the fly in a way that doesn’t musically implode is still enough of a challenge to keep me sweating throughout the whole thing…I’ve been working on bringing things in to make it more interactive, but it’s yet to really coalesce.

He also mentioned that you work in sound for TV and film outside of your productions as Knowing Looks. How did you get into production and or sound design?

Yeah I’m a location sound recordist/mixer by trade, meaning I’m on set doing the recording rather than in the edit suite tweaking things after the fact. I got my start in audio post, but realized straightaway that making music with a computer as my fundamental source of joy and editing sounds on a computer for a living couldn’t co-exist… I’m a bit of a studio hobbit, so a job that gets me out into the real world is a good counterbalance.

Do you think that [work] stuff influences how you approach your tunes? Like in a cinematic way? Or are KL productions just a jam around in down time? I’m interested in whether you see any correlation between the two tbh…

I don’t think my work overlaps with my music so much, they both feed a love of how audio and technology interact, but besides that they are fairly different beasts. Making films and TV is all about collaboration and compromise, and as a soundman I focus on just one aspect of that process. I love my job, but it’s not particularly creative outside of the need to solve problems quickly. I’ve always had a soft spot for cinematic music, but what I do for a living is 90% about capturing people voices as clean as possible with minimal background noise.

I do think it’s a bit of a shame my music is so sample based as I own all these beautiful microphones and preamps that could capture such lovely musical sounds if I was so inclined… but they just sit in the work bag while dollar store records get beat up in studio KL.

Both your WNCL records have had some like, awkward sampling on them (the choppy vocal on ‘Listen to my 45’ or the strings on the first one)… Do you have particular processes you undergo when you’re making KL stuff?

Sampling is definitely my first love, once I discovered that instrument and what it could do; it was game over for interest in pretty much anything else. There’s not really a particular process per se, though there are definitely old tricks I try again with new sounds. Working with samples often leaves you subject to the original composer’s/artist’s vibe, but that’s the fun of it I guess, seeing how many disparate things you can stick on top of one another without having the whole jenga structure collapse on you.

If I had to boil down what I’m trying to do in my music, it’s taking songs, sounds or phrases that created some kind of emotion in me upon first hearing them, and seeing if I can use the same sounds in a new context that creates a heightened or completely different emotion. It’s usually just playing a bunch of stuff together in a jumble until something pops out and gets me excited.

Knowing Looks – Listen to My 45 [WNCL]

How did you hook up with Bob and WNCL?

Bob was one of the very few, if not only people to contact me out of the blue in the myspace days to tell me he liked this unsigned song I had up on my page. I checked out some mix of his after he got hold of me, this killer mix of house and old jungle, the usual Bob mash up I’ve come to know and love now… I wrote him back excitedly going on (and on) about how great his mix was and how much jungle breaks and basslines influenced how I tried to write my 4/4 minimal house stuff, which all seems rather quaint now, but at that time those were still pretty separate worlds. A couple years passed, he contacted me again saying hi and that he was starting up a record label and was that old myspace song ever released? It was due to come out with someone else, but I sent him some other music that became WNCL004. In the meantime the other label decided they didn’t want the song, so I told Bob it was up for grabs and lo and behold, the first point of contact between us, ‘Listen to my 45’, is now part of the WNCL stable.

Have got any further records coming out soon? What’s going on for you in the first part of 2012?

I’ve got a couple releases on Montreal labels up next. An EP with Monsieur Musique is due any day now, and a second EP with Musique Risquee should be out sometime next year too… I think a few of the tracks in the SR mix will be on that one.

Can you tell us a little about the mix you’ve made for us?

It started off with me dusting off my vinyl, playing some songs I hadn’t heard in ages and getting nostalgic and excited by them all over again. I wanted to put together my favourite songs in a mix, but the flow wasn’t so good the first go round…then I started wondering how some of my own stuff would sound in there. It’s ended up being some songs from my favourite EPs paired with a bunch of unreleased Knowing Looks stuff that was fun mixing alongside them.

Do you have any words of wisdom for our readers?

If the DJ/Producer hustle isn’t your cup of tea, music is still fulfilling and a pleasure when it’s a passion instead of a career path.

::

DOWNLOAD: Knowing Looks – Sonic Router Mix #112

Tracklist:

Tinkertoy – I Understand Why You Want to Move to Montreal [Lautmaschine]
Jurgen Paape – Triumph [kompakt]
Jicheal Mackson – Piepe [Hartchef Discos]
The Per Eckbo Orchestra – Kodo Verano [Oslo]
DeepChord – Electromagnetic Dowsing [Synth]
Farben – Love Of Love [Klang Elektronik]
Da One Away – Trash Da Junk (808 dub version) [Main Squeeze]
Jackmate – Male-isms [Philpot]
Knowing Looks – All Of You
Anna Kaufen – Who Cares [A Touch of Class]
Stephen Beaupre – My Old Lady [Musique Risquee]
Knowing Looks – Mental Trip
Noze – Loving All People [Circus Company]
Knowing Looks – Mora The Explorer
Stewart Walker – Star Machine [Mosquito]
Pantytec -Maybe [Perlon]
Knowing Looks -Harry the Horse & Hennes die Geißbock vs. the World [Monsieur Musique]
Studio 1 – Silver [Studio One]
Knowing Looks – Poisoned Apples
Stephen Beaupre – Ficidin Flop [Musique Risquee]
Knowing Looks – Cytal Fink
Joe – Claptrap [Hessle Audio]
WNCL – Say What [New Kanada]

Knowing Looks’ latest 102 on WNCL is out now.