Sonic Router

SR Mix #116: Pixelord [Hit & Hope]

Posted in Sonic Router Mixes   

Question: If silence really is golden, would a producer’s art suffer in this new age of internet over-saturation if one didn’t shout about it at every possible opportunity?

Savvy artists like Joy Orbison seem to be able to irk the most anticipation out of his music by physically choking the hype around it. He’s been doing it from the very beginning, truly thinking about every move before he makes it, and by simply spreading his music only to a trusted handful of tastemaker DJs, he’s managed to repeatedly create a frenzy between musically inclined internet dwellers and club goers alike. Take for example a track like ‘Swims’, his recent Swamp81 collaboration with Boddika; unfortunately for canny label managers and world weary PR officers, interest like that just isn’t possible to replicate if that level of maddening demand isn’t there for the music in the first place. Overzealous listeners (one could also read, self important here) ripped the track from online radio sets and studio mixes and put it up there in the public domain for others to obsess over, and as a direct result of that action, its popularity grew completely organically. It’s like ‘Sicko Cell’ all over again, only this time, you’ve known who orchestrated it from day one.

That extreme and criminally unresearched theorem is often refracted through artists that are hell bent on repeated [over]exposure though. For the laymen there’s a finite line between being everywhere because you simply have all the right connections and being omnipresent because people are talking about you and following you for the music you make or the label moves you’re making.

Pixelord is someone I’d definitely put in the latter half of that last sentence (even though his music is wildly different from anyone mentioned), because he’s managed to hold my attention with his slew of releases to date – morphing from proto-skweee infused hip hop, to steppier climes with his debut EP for Leisure System – but partly because his English just isn’t that great. I’ve been in touch with the Russian producer since his early work on Error Broadcast, an EP that focused purely on beats that “manage to really perfect that vital snap”, and since then he’s popped up at odd intervals, simply sending links or recommendations through; quietly building up his portfolio of music that, despite its somewhat limited sound palette, has a depth and originality to it.

Take ‘Keramika’, the title track on his forthcoming EP for the Brighton based Hit And Hope label. Melodically it’s light; serene pianos float around and his bitcrushed distortion is even pitch conscious, but he manages to inject something completely different into the track with his drum work and his production. I’m not saying that ‘this is the first time ever someone has mixed light and dark textures and it’s absolutely blowing my puny tunneled mind to shit’. I’m saying that Alexy Devyanin manages to repeatedly make that dynamic combination sound interesting and I think that’s what I’ve always been drawn to within his music. Like there’s this bit in ‘Imaginary Friends’, the first track on the new EP, when the bass cuts out and the downward riff spiral comes in with the baby gurgles that sounds like the friendliest piece of 8bit music I’ve heard in ages. I dunno… maybe I’m just the kind of person that looks for those tiny passages of audio and then re-listens to a song the full way through just for that moment to re-appear within the original context of the song, but whatever; I’m cool with that.

Here we catch up with Devyanin to try and shed a little more light on his processes to better present his edition #116 of our ongoing mix series…

Sonic Router: Let’s start with an introduction. Who are you? What made you want to make music in the first place?

Pixelord: I’m just a guy who wants to create things and be able to share it with the world. That’s why I make music, I want to express myself and reach as many people as I can. Travel around the world with my gigs, see places and people, see them dance to my music.

What are you using to make it? Can you describe your ‘studio’?

Nothing special: a computer, some plugins, knobs, pads, hardware midi things. It’s not a studio, I do everything at home. Right now my main tool is NI Maschine, which I use for gigs as well.

How did you get into electronic music?

I was making a lot of ambient, textural, avant-garde music, that became boring so now I make dance music, which is also music for listening to if you don’t feel like dancing.

You started out making music that’s a bit more hip hop… how would you describe the music you make?

Yea I did more 85-90 bpm music when I started Pixelord. I was inspired by beat scene from US. But at the same time the UK and German scene inspired me a lot. So now my sound is changing to more digital – less sampled, more synths, But the new EP, Keramika still has kind of hip hop beats, some of it was made in the early part of 2011.

You live in Russia. What’s the scene for electronic music there?

It’s not bad. It’s growing, but slowly. My man 813 makes great beats, he released a 12″ on Donky Pitch recently. Another is Koloah from Ukraine, who will be releasing on my label Hyperboloid Records real soon. Watch out for him in 2012.

Your latest EP is coming on Hit & Hope. How did you hook up with those guys?

I love what they released before, like the Naive Machine EPs. I really like everything these guys do, so that was perfect place for my new EP, we have a lot in common.

Can you give readers an idea of what they can expect from the EP?

The new EP is all about melodies I guess, I worked a lot on that part. The EP still reflects my love of 8bit sounds and the 80s, which was widely presented in my first free release. But, as I said before, in 2012 I’ll change my direction and get away from 8bit sound.

What else have you got coming up?

We are cooking up a split release with Herobust my friend. We’re doing a remix swap on 7″, which will come out on Saturate Records sometime in March.

Any words of wisdom for our readers?

Please try to be pay more attention to music that you listen to, it may grow on you at an unexpected moment.

::

DOWNLOAD: Pixelord – SR Mix #116

Tracklist:

1. Deft – Chorleywoods Real Eyes
2. Kromestar – Dont Make Sense
3. Baconhead – Blaze Out
4. Naive Machine – homeless helpers
5. Jon Phonics x BUG – Jack Duckworth
6. Phokus & Grapes – Triggah
7. Pixelord – Keramika (Naive Machine remix)
8. Pixelord – Keramika part 2
9. Manni Dee – Garlic Squint
10. 813 – Crystal RAW
11. Clicks & Whistles – Serious bidness
12. Pixelord – Kiwi Dream (NVG remix)

Pixelord’s Keramika EP is out 6th Feb through Hit & Hope.