El-P needs no introduction, after entering the public consciousness in 1996 with his group Company Flow he has gone on to run one of the most widely acclaimed independent hip hop labels, Definitive Jux, and has also put out two largely successful solo albums. He is famed for his work as both a rapper and as a producer and has gone down in history for his contributions to the genre as a whole.  

His latest project Weareallgoingtoburninhellmegamixxx3 drops August 3rd on Gold Dust so we caught up with him to discuss the project's origins, his creative process and his thoughts on why his music sounds like it does...

What's the story behind Weareallgoingtoburninhellmegamixxx3? I understand that the other mixes in the series were only out on a very limited press, what was the thinking behind giving it more of a widespread release?

Well, a couple of things really; the other ones were just available on tour, I only pressed up about 500 of each and they became these sort of cult favourites of my fan-base, but I always got a lot of shit from people because they couldn't get their hands on them. I just felt like it was a good time to put something out for people to give them something while I work on my proper follow-up to I'll Sleep When You're Dead which is going to take me a little longer to complete because obviously it's a little more complicated than doing an instrumental album.

 

Gold Dust approached me to do a record, and at the time I had already kind of started to compile this thing and it just happened to be the right timing. It just made sense and it seemed like a cool thing that people would be into a little bit and a good way for me to wrap my head around some music. I just felt like jumping into something. So that's it really, nothing too lofty.

What challenges come with putting together an instrumental release? Was the process of making this album similar to how you worked on Company Flow's Little Johnny from the Hospitul which dropped back in 1998? How do you feel your production style has developed since then?

Well, when we did Little Johnny From the Hospitul I had no fucking idea what I was doing. I had never done any instrumental music before apart from a few random little things and I'd done some production work for people but I had never done an instrumental record. I don't think I had ever even done an instrumental song; maybe I had done one or two. So that was really new territory for us at the time, you know it was kind of a weird idea. No one expected us to do that in 1998; people looked at us like we were fucking crazy because it was a follow-up to Funcrusher Plus and it was an instrumental record. A lot of time has gone by since I did my first instrumental album and this one and I've learned a shit load about music and gained a lot more experience in production since then.

This record was produced in a very different way to Little Johnny from the Hospitul. The challenge with it is; everything that is on this record came from a collection of things that had never really come to much and that I had laying around, things that I had started and that had never really gone anywhere, as well a few things that I had not used from other projects. Firstly I had to go in and make them instrumental songs, most of them were not instrumental songs; they were small pieces of music that probably were going to have me rhyming over them or someone else. I had to sit back and look at them and give them some sort of structure: a beginning, middle and end in whatever twisted way I could do that. That was a challenge.

 

I had to add another layer of production from the originals to connect the songs, you know; to make sure they were cohesive. I did each individual song, I mixed them down and I bounced down all the stems, then I had to go in and essentially re-produce the whole thing to make it really continuous, to make sure that if you play it will run right through. So I tried to make this record just a cool little mix that you could throw on and that would really just flow mostly. I'm pretty happy with the results of, it was fun to make. It was definitely a bit of a unique thing, I probably did this faster than I've done any record before.

How long did it take you to make would you say?

Well, not counting whatever time it took to make the original pieces that I drew from which were scattered throughout the last couple of years, I'd say probably about four months. I really just sat in and just got immersed in it. It's a lot easier to do that when you have that sort of direction. Doing an instrumental album is a lot less taxing than trying to you know, write the great American novel.

I remember hearing in another interview that New York remains a constant source of inspiration for your music, can the same be said for this record?

Oh definitely; no question. It's just something thats ingrained in me at this point. This is where the noise comes from, this is where the clutter comes from. In some weird way I think it's just me trying to assimilate all of the random noise and chaos and it's my little way of controlling it. It's worked its way into the way I do music. I'm trying to I guess control the sound in some way, it's chaos but it's my version of it. I think that New York has to have affected me because I don't think that the same reference and the same sounds, ideas and the same aggression and moods would really have emanated from anywhere else, at least in my life. I think my music would sound a lot different if I grew up in California.

Over here in the UK, when listening to genres such as grime and dubstep, I really feel that they encapsulate the chaos of London...

I feel a great kinship to those types of music. I feel that kids that are producing that type of music and myself probably have a similar mind-state. I think that we hear some of the same things. I just look at all that type of music, despite all of the monikers they're given, as hip hop. At least it comes from the same heart, I very much appreciate all that stuff. I feel like there are parallel lines of influence, which is cool to me. I love the fact that those forms of music exist, it makes a lot of sense to me personally.

I agree, you can put labels on these types of music all day. I remember when grime and dubstep were first emerging the music didn't even really have a name, it was just a type of music people were making.

Yeah, I mean you can only go so long before someone decides to give it a name. That magical period of time where you're just making music, eventually if you start to make a bit of noise people are going to come out and give that shit a name. I've seen it a hundred times. At the end of the day I think that all the musicians that I've met from those scenes are just like me. They come from the same ideas. I think that those types of music always emanate from an urban environment. Where else do you have that type of idea? It's not something that you can just conjure up out of thin air, if you live on a farm that's not gonna happen. It's almost environmental, you don't even know you're doing it, you're just like a medium placed between noise and music.

Are you preparing a live show to accompany this release?

To a degree; I'm not really going to be doing to much touring. Next week I'm going out to do the Low End Theory, which is like a famous beat head / producers party in LA. It's kind of like a place where Flying Lotus and Gaslamp Killer and those guys play. I've done a few things here and there but for the most part I'm really just working on my next record. I'm not trying to do too many shows. People have been offering shows and there's a possibility that I might come out to the UK to do something in the fall but for the most part I'm trying to just knuckle down and do this follow up to I'll Sleep When You're Dead.

You put out Dizzee Rascal's Maths and English in America on Definitive Jux back in 2008, how did that come about?

We were just fans of his music and a mutual friend knew his management, they were looking for a label in America particularly more of a hip hop label. We just liked the shit he did and we were passionate about it. Then once I met Dizzee I just thought he was a great guy. We just tried to get the word out about him. It was a little difficult because his record had been out for a long time overseas and it had obviously disseminated and spread a little bit. In some ways we were re-launching a record that had already been out. It was definitely positive. I think by the time he was done doing what he was doing over here his name was definitely more renowned than it had been previously. That's my dude man; I love Dizzee, he's a crazy motherfucker and a good hearted dude. It was definitely a good experience doing that.

Have you done any tunes together? If not, do you have plans to?

Every couple of months we'll talk. I'm definitely trying to reserve a slot for him on my next album. We'll see, he's obviously a busy dude.

What equipment did you use to make the music on this project? What's the most recent piece of equipment you have purchased?

I'm always rotating gear but I have a couple of things that stay permanent in my collection. You know the Ensoniq EPS 16 sampler? That's my baby, the one that I've been using since '92. Then I have a collection of varying analogue synths and virtual synths, different drum machines, etc. The last thing I bought was a Moog voyager, I'm very much into Moog. I also just bought a Yamaha CS01 which is the last analogue synth that they ever made; which was basically made for children, it actually has a little speaker on it. It just makes a raw fucking sound. I kind of just use everything, it's a combination of live stuff, samples etc. I like switching it up, I like adding and taking away from what I use. I think it's cool when you listen to something and you can't quite tell that there's any one piece of gear at work.

 

I'm really into all these great programs that have made music so affordable for people to make, like Logic Studio and things like that, but at the same time one of the effects of that is that a lot of these kids never become gear collectors, they use a lot of the same sounds and they're almost trading sounds with each other. A professional can listen and tell you how you made a piece of music. It doesn't make it any worse, it's just a pet peeve. I like people to not know how the fuck I'm doing what I'm doing.

Those programs didn't really exist when I started making music so I had to become a gear head and had outboard effects and different things. I'm also thankfully young enough not to be an old man ruminating about the glory days of gear. I'm also deeply immersed and completely up to date technologically. I think that it's a cool sub-genre of interest, when you really start to learn about analogue gear and outboard effects. I spend a lot of time trying to create sounds using combinations of different effects and techniques. That's a huge part of my process. That's just somewhere people get eventually, over time you just learn more techniques.

You spend a lot of time trying to create new sounds, have you ever done much circuit bending or anything along those lines?

I've never done that, I'm not that smart. I'm just not wired that way, I don't have a mathematic mind. It was hard enough for me to essentially learn and figure out the basics of synthesis. To basically understand how to operate a real analogue synth, I'm still working on that to be honest. So I haven't really got into circuit bending. I've bought a couple of circuit bent devices here and there though.

What do you remember from when you first came to London, was it with Company Flow?

It was definitely with Company Flow, we played a sold out show at the Jazz Cafe in 1996. It was sold out, people couldn't get in, people were going crazy, it was really welcoming. We were really surprised because we thought that our music was only known by connoisseurs of hip hop. At the end of the show we got Skinnyman, Chester P and A Cyde up on stage to freestyle with us. I don't have a very good memory, I can't usually recall every show but I'll never forget that show, and honestly since then I've had nothing but good shows in London..

You mentioned getting Skinnyman and others on stage, is there anyone you'd like to collaborate with from outside the US, be it the UK or anywhere else?

I definitely want to do something with Dizzee and I'd also really like to do something with Skinny, he's real raw. He was like the realest dude we met when we first came out to London, he broke down the scene for us and showed us about a bit. I always wanna do collaborations but it's just a matter of arranging these things around mine and other people's schedules.

Words: Aaron Jackson

 

• El-P

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