Beaver With Ears

How’s your day been?

I just woke up, I got some appointments, and it’s my day off work so I’m gonna get home, I’m gonna hopefully work on music, play some splatoon, just have a nice relaxing day.

You’ve been in the underground for years. Did you ever cross paths with people who have long since blown up or maybe some people you think should get more recognition?

Both, a lot of people. This guy, back when I started, his name was lo3rd, that guy probably had some of the most talent I’ve ever seen out of the underground. He blew up a little bit, he had about a thousand followers, but he didn’t really end up going anywhere and he quit music which is really unfortunate.

That sucks.

Of course, back in the day a lot of the time I’d “know about” artists but I wasn’t really “tapped in,” like 2hollis and Yeat. 2hollis was a friend of a friend, I tried to get him on a song once but he never responded, so I ended up getting his friend on instead. People like funeral I’ve talked to a fair bit. I was the last person glaive followed on Twitter for some reason. Basically everybody in that old hyperpop scene, just people that I grew up listening to and talking to. There’s been quite a few people. I’m glad to see roop getting attention, I think xang should be getting more attention, he’s really good. Lots of those ambient producers too, tobi obviously.

Didn’t you know PinkPantheress online?

Yeah, she used to be on Discord a very long time ago, she would put out demos. I didn’t listen to them, but I remember somebody later on replying and being like “Holy shit, it’s PinkPantheress!” The main thing is that I was a day one listener of some of her early music like “Break it off” was the song that I believe I found the day it came out.

You or your friend made one song sampling it very early on, right?

Yes, that was my friend that produced the beat, I was gonna make a song on it but I never did, but yeah that was very shortly after the song came out back in 2021.

That’s pretty incredible.

I mean, if you’re online enough, especially covid era, I was online on SoundCloud and Discord all day just finding new artists. It was just lucky. It’s the same thing with Yeat, who I found really early on, but I didn’t like his music so I just found this guy and was like “Oh, cool” and then two years later he was everywhere.

I’m curious about how you feel about the reception to dreamcycle. It was a lot of people’s introduction to Ambient Plugg and garnered a lot of attention upon release, but it didn’t seem to have much staying power after that. Do you have any insight on why people didn’t stick around despite the attention?

I think a lot of people, especially on review sites like RateYourMusic or AlbumOfTheYear have a tendency to listen to whatever’s front page or just came out, but they don’t really relisten to it. It has to really stick with someone to have them relisten to it. I personally think that a lot of my songs on that album do have a lot of replayability, but I could understand. A lot have very minimalistic vocals, and with the trends in the underground right now, it’s not surprising that this kind of music doesn’t really stick with people or resonate with a lot of underground listeners. That’s why it’s very niche and why the scene has been mainly undiscovered. I’m happy that it got attention on release and I hope I can use that attention to propel more future projects that are more ambitious.

Yeah, kind of like the “potato chip mentality” that some people have with music paired with a lot of what’s popping up in the underground being very “maximalist.” You have people like Osamason and Che. I’d say 2slimey is the biggest example.

Yeah, Che has lowkey surpassed 2slimey in terms of artists I don’t like.

What are your ambitions for ‘stay afraid, revolutionaries?’

I’m hoping that it not only gets more people into the ambient scene, but that it also shows that I’m much more versatile as an artist. I really wanna blow up a lot of the people that are gonna be on that project. In addition, I’m also trying to get a lot of people I’ve always really admired in the underground on the project because I either want them to get more exposure or if they already have exposure I just want to make this project a love letter to the underground that I’ve spent half of my life being in. It’s also just a message that I think is really important. It’s a lot of anti-government and anti-surveillance messaging. There’s also still a lot of that depressing songwriting from dreamcycle but I feel like it’s the natural evolution of it.

That’s really cool. Do you think the sound of SAR will be similar to “crash” or “hurricane,” or something else entirely?

It’s definitely more similar to hurricane than crash. crash was just a song I made a while ago and I wanted to drop something, but nothing too old or anything I was going to put on the album or the EP. It was just a fun song that I dropped, kind of like my older style of music where I wasn’t really worried about projects and the bigger picture, just having fun.

So hurricane and crash are both standalone?

No, hurricane definitely ties into the sound and it is on the project. crash is not though.

Do you have any specific features planned for the album?

The one that I’m excited for is funeral, and there’s a lot of others that I don’t wanna mention yet because I haven’t got them on yet, but I’m hoping to in the future. I’ve been reaching out to a lot of artists trying to connect with people and get them on. Another one that I’m really excited for is Kevin Kazi, he’s an OG of the underground. I’m hoping that I will be able to get a decent chunk of features, mainly on this EP that I’m releasing before the album to drum up hype. I want to have the project still showcase my versatility and talent as a solo artist.

You said it’s gonna be pretty long, about twice the length of dreamcycle. Is it gonna be a very feature heavy album, or just a lot of features spread out?

I would say there’s a lot of contributions. I’m trying to do more than what a lot of people do when they have a feature which is just “hook, verse, hook, feature, hook.” I’m trying to have a lot more interesting contributions. There’s one song where I got someone on to layer vocals and create a really nice high and low effect and there’s a couple songs where I’m just getting people on to do breaks between verses. It’s similar to maybe “The Mountain” by Gorillaz where they have a lot of different contributions but maybe not as many traditional features.

What are your plans for the EP?

I’m gonna drop it on my birthday, which is December 27, and it’s gonna be three or four tracks. It’s probably gonna be a lot of features that I didn’t feel like fit the project but I still wanted to drop. I kinda wanna just drum up hype for the project. I’ve seen a lot of other artists drop EPs before their albums and I think they could work. I also didn’t wanna go nine months without any new music or anything releasing. I don’t wanna drop the album and have everyone go “Who the hell is this guy?”

Is the EP going to have a birthday theme around it?

No, not at all. I’m just dropping it on my birthday cause I’ll have that day off work.

What’s your favorite album this year?

That’s a good question, actually. I have not listened to a ton of albums this year. I think it’s probably “The Mountain” by Gorillaz right now. I know it’s kind of an underwhelming one. I’d say my two albums were probably that and “DON’T BE DUMB.”

You mentioned you took a little bit of inspiration from how Gorillaz did features on that album, are there any other albums that have inspired you in that kind of way?

Not really albums this year, a lot of old funeral music continues to inspire me. A lot of ambient artists too, I’m in a lot of ambient Discords. imago meri deserve a lot more praise, margo proxy and larua, those guys have gotten so many people into ambient. Probably more than I have. And I think those two have inspired the sounds of both of my projects a lot and inspired me to be more creative instead of just dropping a song to drop a song. So I would say that a lot of my influence does just come from a lot of my fellow artists and older albums.

Recorded and transcribed by Michéal Doran.