Absolutely one of my favourite new house/whatever producers, I originally posted this interview on Dangerous
Minds last year, but thought it was worthy of a re-post. This is part one of an ongoing series covering upcoming children.
They say House music is a feeling, and I am inclined to agree.
For
too long House music has been defined by a rigid beat pattern that,
almost 30 years after its birth, has barely changed. In fact, it has
changed so little as to make this hallowed genre seem stale and
insignificant, the opposite of how it appeared the first time round,
when (ironically) it wasn’t the beat that defined it so much as the attitude.
I
remember hearing House music for the first time as a child of about 9
or 10 and asking my siblings to buy me a compilation of this strange,
funky music. They got me a two-cassette release, called something like Hits of House,
and unexpectedly opened my ears to a whole new freakish world of camp
men from Chicago stuttering over a hard and dark music unlike anything I
had ever heard. Sure, I had been obsessed with S’Express already,
tuning into late-night radio on my headphones hoping to hear “Theme From
S’Express” and “Hey Music Lover,” while also hoping not to get busted
by my parents in the next room. But Hits Of House was like
nothing I had ever heard. It’s hard to explain to younger generations
just how fresh House was when it first appeared, just as it is hard for
the listener to recapture the thrill and joy of hearing it for the first
time.
But that’s where Ynfynyt Scroll comes in.
YS is a
young, Austin-based producer who takes the best elements of house music
from the 80s and 90s and squeezes them through the post-crunk filter to
create something eniuinely fresh. You know, as opposed to what most of
the magazines and websites sell House fans as being “forward-thinking”.
Ynfynyt Scroll makes music that actually sounds like it comes from 2012,
not 2002 or even 1992.
So blown away was I on first hearing
Ynfynt Scroll that I immediately asked Rodrigo (his real name) to do a
remix for me, which he thankfully agreed to. I am very happy to report
that his remix of “Work It” doesn’t disappoint, coming on a bit like
Junior Vasquez draged to a deep south R&B club, but even that pales
in comparisson to his own releases, such as the Let Me See It EP on the #Feelings label. I also emailed him a few questions, that he gratefully replied to:
THE NIALLIST: Who are you and where are you from?
YNFYNYT SCROLL:
My Christian name is Rodrigo Díaz. I was born in Lima, Peru, but I’ve
lived in Dallas nearly all my life. My assumed name is Ynfynyt Scroll,
which since 2010 have I used for production, DJing, visual art and as an
excuse to be a cunty brat with heavy Islamic fundamentalist undertones.
Describe the YS sound to me.
It’s all about scroll scroll scrolling. Just keep scrolling on to the
next thing until your brain goes “ugh, ya,” whether it’s listening or
producing. I have almost no intentions when setting out to make a track,
I just gravitate toward certain sounds that lend themselves to certain
genres, but I don’t think in terms of genre.
Who and what are your biggest production influences?
I am very influenced by bedroom rap producers of the American south,
mutli-layered trance pad chord hits, men who love dancing without making
physical contact with anyone else, Afro-Peruvian rhythms, breakz and
very early house.
I hear the club scene in Texas is hot - is this true?
Well Austin does a pretty good job of bringing talent through. Groups
like Elevater Action, Broken Teeth and Peligrosa consistently throw good
parties, my Freshmore buds in Houston do a good job too, and in Dallas
there’s Track Meet, of which I am a part. We’ve thrown some pretty neat,
all-out, immersive parties with movie-quality glowing slime and exotic
set designs and neat/fun stuff like that, but haven’t had the frequency
of guest that the folks in other cities have had up to now.
What can we expect from a YS DJ set?
You can expect me to be all over the place, to ignore genre and
sometimes tempo, to play a lot of really abrasive and tinny, trebley Ha
tracks, and to play as much amateur music as possible. You can also be
sure you’ll hear your fair share of American southern rap, something
that has been a part of every DJ set I’ve ever played.
If you could have written any song in the history of music, which one would it be?
Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman.”
YNFYNYT SCROLL SOUNDCLOUD
This is the debut Ynfynyt Scroll release ofr #FEELINGS in Austin:
No comments:
Post a Comment