Driving Ford Fusuion, Interior, Brooklyn
Dare I ask: who’s been the easiest person to collaborate with either musically or general Bootleg release-wise?
AceMo is definitely that to me. He’s sort of like this little brother figure to me that’s constantly showing me up. This past summer when I was really zoning in on my working and making it sound better with Abelton, sorta striving for faster stuff, influenced by footwork and other shit, staying true to the, “I like that, I should make that” mentality, so it’ll come out and make sense. At the same time, AceMo was doing the same thing, making the same shit, so while collaborating, his imagination was right there with mine, and he was always anxious to continue. Just hyping us up with, “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”
I mean, it really all works well because you’re just a very good team-work minded guy, don’t you think?
Thank you, man. Well, with Ace it was cool because he came over to make a track one day, but I felt dumb that I had never made any collaborative tracks on Abelton before. Take a left. So I was interested in seeing if it’d work out, having never done it bef — WATCH OUT, WATCH OUT, WATCH OUT, WATCH OUT!!
*BLARING HORN*
Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry
Fuuuuuuck. Woooof. We almost just DIED.
I’m really sorry about that. I really hate scaring people
It’s alllll good. Sick. Headline: “During the interview we KILL the artist: his final words, we guarantee it!”
So, fucking with Abelton and AceMo
Right, we really just died, though. Like, nearly hit head on by two cars. Um — holy shit. So yeah, I basically just figured out that he and I use Abelton the exact same way, previously thinking I was the only one doing that. From there, we evolved using Abelton together, starting to try things that was more organized, making heavy hybrid tracks, better than I can make myself, and at sometimes impossible to do solo, as we’re frequently doing sequences on pads with both hands, all four hands, simultaneously. Obviously anyone I work with, I do it because there’s a great chemistry we build together. With Ace, though, our tracks are the most solid and finished tracks, and they come to us together the fastest.
Have you ever collaborated with someone entirely URL?
No. Most of the musicians I fuck with are IRL, however MET through URL. Like this new release I’m doing for Machinegirl, who I met online.
Personally, then: do you ever plan on putting out an album as Lord$M$?
Take a right. Um.. define an album?
The way Lil B defines an album
I mean, I’d say WONTON SWOOSH is an album, but it’s an EP. It’s my first little condensed folder of tracks I’ve made starting Lord$M$, though now I want to make many more and put ‘em out on Bootleg and wherever else. I don’t want to be the guy always putting his own shit out. It’d be nice to hook up with other artists, while taking focus off the production of the physical album or pushing sales, and solely concentrating on the music. Take a right at the gas station.
My whole life I’ve been working up to the point I’m at now, and a lot of people have been trying to get me to stop and concentrate on just one thing, but I’ve always had this urge to always be working on everything, so now I’m in this place where I couldn’t be if I hadn’t explored all these possibilities.
Where did the name WONTON SWOOSH originate?
WONTON SWOOSH came from the whole idea of influence from bootleggers, and my take on the reality of what quality is and presenting something that was… I mean, the first time the title came out of me; I was describing a bootleg Nike swoosh. And through the presentation of it as an album title branded my aesthetic to the LORD SMS name. Using the swoosh was just a consistency I felt was appropriate for defining this, as well as representing my influence of marketing.
So, you’re just generally into bootleg products, the way their made and the artistry it takes to forge a separate, popular brand, yes?
Definitely. So much so that, I just saw this documentary on how bootleggers (who’ve done this forever, but…) sew a patch or different off-brand logo over say the Adidas symbol, so when they arrive in America, people just unstitch the fake logo, and sell the bootlegs. And customs wouldn’t rip off the logos when they’re shipped in. It’s not about making a new item, but a process of figuring out how to get the extras/counterfeit products into the U.S. under a more blanket hide. And specifically, I love buying bootleg products IRL. I can’t fuck with it URL.
You got a favorite spot, or you can’t sample snitch this?
Oh, man. *Laughs* I have a few spots. I got a few connections in the hood who hit me up when there’s deliveries. One guy is my bootleg Louis Vuitton dealer, and he knows I only like the best stuff, so next week I’m getting a Louis belt and hat. As well as Chinatown, obviously.
Kitchen, Bushwick
Oh those shoes, shit. I’m so stupid.
You didn’t buy them?
No I probably shouldn’t have bought them.
Picking up with your obsession with the artistry of bootleg products… is this the basis behind your Craigslist clothing line?
Bootlegging is definitely an influence on my work with clothing, yes. But Craigslist is really just my opportunity to make stuff with my best friend Kamil Abbas that I’ve never had the opportunity to obtain before. I’ve always been interested in design, and have come up with some really cool shit, so once I started to make stuff, I saw him making clothing in somewhat of the same realm. Our intent was trying to not make things corny and gimmicky by producing an original style. The process can even be making the design prior to the clothing, and not just created around what the item looks like worn, but previous to even obtaining the shirts or whatever we’re printing on.
I love Kamil, so it’s beautiful to do this stuff now because Craigslist isn’t meant to be a permanent thing, and playing having the opportunity currently to do it, while being able to flip something, it’s almost a mock of the bootleg culture in the streets for club-kid wear, gripping from the specific respect of how bootleg designers take time to replicate their art: we’re mocking in that same sense. Designers and fashions catch on from being noticed and then marked up. But the whole idea of this world beneath that, doing what I want with a brand name that’s not well-known, marketing it like everyone else would be. Looking at this outside of the big game, it’s just clothes I’d want to wear and look fresh in, not wearing someone else’s brand. Then we have plans for just working on other types of branding and management. Kamil and I connect a lot of great people and it’s an honor to have a great friend, roommate, and business partner all in one. Just watch, you’ll see.
Do you look up to any peers within the same realm you’re in?
Richard from 1080p I linked up with recently, as he’s going to school for design, puts on shows, and has put out some interesting releases on his label within the past year. Definitely Chris from Paxico Records and Daniel from Dirty Tapes have both been undoubtedly influential to me. Although, working with Bootleg, I stopped hanging out with others so much, which I got backlash from Daniel about because of everything I explained before about Dirty Tapes and my involvement.
Though, later on, Daniel and I patched things up, so I’ve learned that I can be friends with people, but not work with all of them. And at this point, Bootleg has built up pretty well; choosing to put my head down gave me the opportunity to focus on what was directly in front of me. By doing that, I’ve gained a lot of trust and confidence in myself which was much needed to be able to do my own thing, birthing everything you see now.
All it’s about is keeping it real. I gotta focus on my health, the label and clothing design, my music as a DJ and producer, friendships and connections I’m making, having jobs on the side; I’m constantly going on this. I’m separate from society, but I still need to eat, sleep, and shit. Nobody but Bryant and a select few people were supporting me when Bootleg Tapes began, and looking back on that now gives the label a confident foundation. I love gathering all types of feedback, but it doesn’t change what I’m doing. My interest lies in structuring the label how I feel it’s heading, finding musicians, and putting on shows.
How have shows been going now that FUGITIVE is more established as a name and grown through the personality you’re intending on keeping?
Shows have been great, I do plan on putting on Bootleg shows, definitively. Although, I might not be putting my name on the bill at all, because I don’t want people think that just because it’s a Bootleg show, FUGITIVE has to perform… Like, that’s just overdoing it. I’d rather put all the energy into putting on an excellent show than focusing on my set AND the show. So, separating that provides a platform for the artists moreso than just me or the Bootleg name. And even though people might not think exactly that, I don’t even want to chance it.
Obviously very excited for the future of Swim Team’s presence in NYC, but mostly the WHOLE WORLD. We’ve put the work in and I’m so confident in what we have to offer, especially when it comes to us performing together. We have the perfect design, we have the ability to give shine to artists we fuck with, but most importantly we all have the skill to really rock any party anywhere at any given time. The next Swim Team party HOUSEHOLD will be on the 30th with DJ NJ DRONE and Juliana Huxtable, with Tsunami Sound System. I can’t wait!!
Yeah Shanghai Deluxe, Chinatown
DUDE
Oh my god. That looks SO good, but it’s too much food. I might go duck tongue.
You ever go to summer camp as a kid?
Yeah, I hated summer camp, but knew my mom needed that time. The further I get away from my childhood, I realize how in-tune I was with what was going on, but still was just a kid. Like, one day I was in school and saw a guy walking across the street out the window, and he was all dirty and worn-looking… I was just anxiously awaiting the day to do whatever I want. I just wanted that freedom.
Do you feel you draw upon this maturity of thought while making music?
I definitely appreciate freedom enough that it puts me in solitude, when I need to be. But generally I like collaborating with people because I love sharing knowledge on how to make music. That’s something I have to look introspectively too, just deciding on if I want to do music as me or with someone else, and I make this decision based on just the freedom of how I feel. Right now, I’m in a place of not having emotional attachment of outside things when I make music. It’s nice to be able to sit down and concentrate on my music that way without my feelings overtaking my composition process. I have folders and resources and sounds and ideas that I save and have learned to keep to this system and continue to build on these, so when I sit down, there’s already a process for me. But sitting down and trying to make a track: I hate that without feeling inspired. I love spontaneous music-making, but sitting down and developing my own song gives it much more focus.
Waiter: Two hot sake, chicken, and shrimp.
Lately I’ve been working on combining all the ways I’ve made music before, dialing into…
Your struggle trying to eat those two peanuts is going into the interview, btw.
Yo, it was one peanut, it just dropped twice! *[Drops it a third time]*
I gotta focus on my health, the label and clothing design, my music as a DJ and producer, friendships and connections I’m making, having jobs on the side; I’m constantly going on this. I’m separate from society, but I still need to eat, sleep, and shit.
Back into it because fuck eating: Do you see this new work fitting under the Fugitive moniker?
Lord $M$ was a real easy way to have a moniker for me as a DJ, doing remixes and edits, collaborating with Young AOL at the time I started, and it’d blended now into making club and dance tracks with Swim Team. It bounced off the other producers in Swim Team, and that’s where Lord $M$ peaked. Using what I can as a musician within a club setting, sounding good and using what I know now. I had to show respect to the quality of what Swim Team is doing and in my opinion put on a more true pertaining moniker, hence the birth of FUGITIVE.
So it’s definitely not an album-making moniker?
I’d definitely make a tape or put out this project on another label, but I mostly would like to start projecting myself as a serious musician.
Would there be more dichotomy between sample-based and synthetic tracks?
I find myself making sounds from other sounds because it’s the same thing, like — if you’re manipulating a sound to a place that’s unrecognizable, it’s different how…
British Patron: “El Bandito! Victory Manchester United!” *Pointing at Fugitive’s Mexican soccer jersey*
Thanks. But I feel like there’s just different levels of sampling music. That’s where I just stop giving a FUCK about phrasing things. Phrasing something goes to the extreme. I never want to label my work as sample-based music because that connotation has a bad sound to me. I sample sounds. I sample hits. I sample myself. It’s not like I’m recording instruments dictated to like… it just sounds free to me. There’s a freedom I have when I sit down to make tracks because of the way I work now, and my organization has fully transpired into what I need. Loads of software and structure, loads of hardware, it’s all unnecessary.
Music-making to me, to make whatever I want, involves way more self discipline and originality and self-style. Not the figure or newest shit I have. You make music sound high definition and lo-fi both very easily now. And it’s really important to know your history and research what you’re into and honor and respect what your creating…
What are you trying to respect in history as FUGITIVE?
Naturally, a clear influence on FUGITIVE is how footwork and juke made its way into contemporary club music, and my take on it is…
British Patron: “Boys, you have a lighter, mates?” *C gives him a lighter*
…When I started playing that shit in New York, it was so weird for people, so it influenced me to dig deep within myself to other sounds I liked, but continued to use those rhythms. My mom bought me a three-piece drum set when I was five, so I’ve always been a drummer in different bands, then started playing piano, had a teacher who wanted me to make a song before class, but would just make it up on the spot. She would say that my songs were “drummy.” Now, when I’m banging on pads and collaborating with Ace, it’s a funny feeling to have that comfort of knowing that it something within me. And as footwork/juke spins from drum-and-bass methods, I was inspired more as a producer to work outside a template and specific sound to find a creative space. Trying to open the density of Chicago’s scene and seeing how to recreate and transpose styles of New York techno and house from the 90s (which is exactly what motivates and pushes Swim Team’s aesthetic).
The FUGITIVE high uses (let’s say) a siren, and I’ll figure out new ways to drop it or cut it so it’s not overused in the same sense it has always been played. I want the intensity of the siren to sound like the city is right behind you. Putting listeners into my environment is how I use my influence and making FUGITIVE music is inspired by the peak high of your night. I want people (high on molly or not) to obtain that same vision. Like tapping into a consciousness that creates anxiety and then drops it just as much in the music as one would settle with emotion. Proper coordination of mixing and production within hectic environments is what makes me feel comfortable now. I can trust that in my sound while not feeling too weird about what I’m playing for others.
FUGITIVE is like a plastic, controlled substance. My next project I want to be very free, with nothing related to FUGITIVE, although I’ll always be part of that name; FUGITIVE will never die.
Why the name Lord $M$?
I find that people saying technology makes society more isolated is said so much that we don’t think about breaking out of that anymore. Or how it makes us lazier, or it’s all about instant gratification and us as a society is shit, yet it is all true. But when you look at it, as a species, we’re just learning how to avoid each other. So, Lord $M$ is at a point where it’s AVOIDANCE. My grandma had been calling me for so long and is mad because I don’t have voicemail setup, and can’t use SMS, and it’s not that I don’t want to talk to HER, but my system of talking to people — it’s not that I avoid talking to people, I just have a set amount of people I do speak with quite a bit. When I created the name, it was during a period when everyone was using retro technology in their names, so I tried going for something more temporary.
Yeah, you’re shit sometimes at getting back at people. Wait-wait-wait, was that your public admittance to why you’re terrible at getting back at people?
Yeah. Well, no. It just is what it is. I mean it. [LAUGHS]
I believe you. When you make a new release, do you find it matures you or it matures your sound?
Both. It goes off of me refining my sound and technique, which is heard within the release. And I don’t like flexing very much, but I can say I’m pretty amazing at performing.
I think I know a couple people who could say that too…
I get a certain high from performing. I can really just disconnect from everything else. Not like a hippy deal, but evolving and learning as I’m DJing and live mixing. Some performers bring that energy, and being in-tune with that is important or people will completely miss it. That’s why I want to play more, especially around the world. My next goal is to tour the world with Swim Team and Bootleg Tapes artists, gain all these experiences with those guys, and then come back here and bring that exposure to New York, make better tracks, and building and branching. Meeting new artists. Keeping it local with Bootleg Tapes. You can’t slow down. You can’t be discouraged. The more you look up at people, the more shit gets made, and the better your shit gets. That formula works. It’s worked for me and I’ve seen it work. And going back to this name FUGITIVE is where I’d like to freely expand this more-so.
Bedroom, Bushwick
You were talking about Lil Ugly Mane’s DJ, Mr. Whoa Whoa…
Well, he was the one who put me on to DJing with software when I was in a weird transition between a hardware/noise guy, but definitely wanting to support the continuation of others releasing vinyl and cassettes; the rush to the extreme of “everything is obsolete” is my worry in ways where I feel like its necessary to not be extreme. In terms of how people are presenting their releases, like when cassettes became “obsolete” because of CDs, a lot of people were like, “Throw away all those tapes and buy the same albums on CDs! You can skip through them now.” That seemed to be the first era of a format that had so many variables, and comparing it to a cassette, you can toss it around, pop in a tape player, no scratches, etc. But I’m also unsure of my feelings for the recent Cassette Store Day because I don’t want to focus on the sale of tapes, or to honor them in that way. That’s when things are going a little too far for me.
One day I realized at a barbecue, while switching between two contemporary cassette tapes, I was taken back to a younger part of my life when I’d go and buy brand-new tapes and listen to them on my brother’s car stereo system (that cost more than the car), dumping these tapes, and listening to them with him, considering he’d hype them to me. Then the golden age of hip hop hits, and I’m buying ATLiens and Capital Punishment, witnessing him and friends experience this music on tape; when I finally get another car, I’ll get the best cassette-deck system in it. There’s just such a range on cassettes that one can explore.
Audio range is really important to you, yeah. How do you perceive Bootleg in this matter, then?
I’m so involved in the quality of every tape. All the levels, and highs or lows blending, mashed and mixed, I don’t want that. To me, not doing it perfectly is taking someone’s work and fucking it up; it’s not putting it out there how it should be heard. Every Bootleg Tapes release I put out on cassette, I master to my specific satisfaction, and that’s all I’ve had to worry about since day one. Which, in my perspective, is how Bootleg Tapes come out the best sounding tapes out there. If I were to take a tally of everyone, I’m sure there’d be a slew of people judging on how this-or-that should sound, but I don’t give a fuck. That’s Bootleg’s sound on cassettes. Not even to rub in the idea that Bootleg Tapes sells cassettes, but more-so the memory of buying mixtapes put onto CDs, and just flipping around that idea. Latching on to the idea of cassettes as their specific medium is something I’m trying hard to move away from, because that’s some closed-minded, hard-headed shit. I don’t need that anymore.
To me, Bootleg Tapes will always be the best music coming out right now. Each release on Bootleg Tapes is special to the artist, and they know where they’re being supported and represented. Color Plus has been one of my favorite producers and getting to work and travel and play shows with him just gives me more respect, watching how strong he is as a performer and seeing how well rounded he is as an artist. Same with Izy. These guys are making some of the best music in regards other than just quality, and its important that its represented right. I cant wait for Izys releases, he has so much good music coming. And having a good strum helps me figure out which will be next. As well as how we’re doubling up now, since AceM0 just dropped Redshift, it’s like we’re just building our muscle as musicians. Building business. Learning how to open up. Strengthening artistry. Developing personal discipline. Seeing that and who prevails has been important. That’s when I know what makes me happy while making the best music. It’s an instinct now. Sometimes it feels like, I either have to do Swim Team and Bootleg Tapes, or I’ll murder somebody.
And that’s why you made the switch to FUGITIVE from Lord$M$?
I would say *Clears throat* the switch was… working from — or maybe just, being held back by…
[Laughs]
OK, you wanted to grab the bong there and I hadn’t hit it yet. Lemme hit it. *Exhales Blows out giant cloud of smoke. Narrates actions. *Coughs. Um. *Coughs deeper. Drinks hot sake.
Why I chose Fugitive? When I was a kid, I would watch The Fugitive, and naturally became comfortable with the storyline, developing an identity with it. Like how this guy was just running and dramatically forced to escape his life. For what it is there, that’s what I was thinking of in a name that would excite me upon hearing it. For Fugitive I’d rather it be more of me making music, and breaking off fully from Lord$M$. I even had a Montreal promoter call it “Mature.” So that’s what Fugitive is right now for me. Having a place to be sure of myself.
More about: Bootleg Tapes, Fugitive, Lords $M$
