#aplm

India Together: From mandis to markets : Will this round be any better?

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The second attempt of the NDA government to create a market for farmers’ produce may not fare much better than the first one, for the same reason – it fails to address the asymmetry of power between the farmers and buyers, writes Kannan Kasturi.

29 September 2018 –

Farmers across the country are extremely agitated. A quick scan of just the English language…

Announcements - Deconstruct Church

I truly value communication. It has always been one of my top priorities.

For a church, I’ve built a website, set up social media pages, published a weekly email newsletter, not to mention planned the weekly liturgy, written letters, visited with people, and made the obligatory announcements on Sunday morning.

And strangely, one thing has been true in every church I’ve served: people still say…

(Victor Florence who you can check out HERE.

Interviewed A Problem Like Maria. she has a new EP out here.)

VF: Since 2011 you have released 6 EPs, 3 LPs, 8 singles. What keeps you moving at such a prolific pace?

APLM: I’ve learned to let go of my songs and accept them for what they are: representations of who I am and what I stand for, each bounded by a finite place and a finite time. In other words, I’ve stopped over-thinking. It keeps the music honest and current, and it keeps me sane.

  When I was younger I was always to hesitant to release my tracks “officially,” calling almost every song a demo because in my mind I could always do better if I just waited a little bit more. There was no appreciation for the journey; it felt as though I wanted to get to the destination without ever walking a single step.

  By the time I finally released a hip-hop EP in 2004 under a different artist name, the songs felt like they were written by a different person. The motivation behind the EP was no longer pure; by then it felt like it was more of something I had to do because everyone expected me to do it, rather than something I wanted to do for myself. Too much over-thinking ruined what was supposed to be a milestone—I got burned out by the process and stopped gigging, eventually hitting a creative block that lasted until 2011.

 What got you over that creative block?

I got into a national songwriting camp. During that week I spent with 60+ different songwriters in a confined space I remembered why I started making music in the first place: because it made me happy. Everything else apart from that is just not as important.

  I've always been fascinated by how musicians approach their own work. Do you have a certain set process in writing and recording songs or do you try to vary it with each release?

Each release is slightly different, but some things remain constant. I work best with a tight schedule of deadlines, which can be grueling for the people I work with (hence my short list of constant collaborators who are understand and work well with my process). Every song starts with a story in my head, and every collected release starts with a full-on concept—even if it doesn’t seem like it by the time it’s done.

  It’s quite rare for me, but at times I work alone—meaning I produce myself. When that happens the schedule’s even tighter, and all other areas of my life basically shut down until the music’s done (this happened with Saudade).

  Nearly all of my releases are mastered by Rekapper, but before that I typically send out previews of new stuff to people I trust—so they can point out flaws that I might have missed.

    What is your musical background? Did you have formal training or were you self-taught?

I took piano lessons for a decade (from age 6 to 16), which accounts for my knowledge of basic music theory. My family’s Catholic background helped, too; I was in choirs all throughout elementary and high school.

  There’s also my family, period. My mom plays the drums, my dad plays the guitar, and my brother plays the bass. All of them, plus my sister, can sing. That’s a lot of support and a lot to live up to, at the same time.

    What albums did you find influential in how you approach music? What are you listening to these days?

There’s a whole lot of those, but off the top of my head, there’s Bjork’s Post, Tori Amos’ Boys For Pele, The Beatles’ Revolver.More recently, there’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu’s Baduism and Mama’s Gun, Imogen Heap’s Speak For Yourself.

  Because of my line of work, I’m exposed to a lot of young, local music. There’s always a freshness and a rawness to the majority of my music consumption—something I’ve really come to enjoy. The downside is that I don’t get a lot of free time to listen much else. I’m still listening to the latest Childish Gambino, the latest Eminem—there’s always a little bit of Motown and the Beatles that gets rotated into my playlist, too. I’ve Jessie Ware, Com Truise, Chvrches and the new Beyonce on my phone right now so that’s what ends up in my ear when I’m on the go.

  Beatles! Favorite Beatle? This is incredibly important.

I wanna say Ringo just to annoy RWE; but really, it’s Paul McCartney. All of my favorite Beatles songs are written by him.

    What brought you to focusing your musical output on electronic based music? How do you work with your collaborators?

Performance anxiety and shyness make face-to-face collaborations difficult for me. Usually when I work with others the part I contribute is supposed to be the focal point (because I sing), and I’ve never been comfortable with that. (Choirs are different because the whole point is to not stand out.) This made being in a band—or even forming one—very awkward. Electronic based music allows me to work by myself or with fewer people (and mostly online), which makes everything so much easier.

  Don’t get me wrong, I do have a band now and I do enjoy making music with them and regularly seeing each other. The Cellar Doors have done a lot for my on stage confidence; but at the end of the day, that’s The Cellar Doors’ music, and not APLM’s.

  More often than not, I work with producers who provide the instrumentals for me to lay over my melodies and my lyrics. There’s a bit of a back and forth usually (email, Soundcloud, Dropbox, etc.); I’ll ask for some changes in the chord progression or the sectioning, even asking for adjustments of the BPM or the key sometimes. This is sort of the standard I’ve become accustomed to when working with musicians from The Hai (especially Water Gun Water Gun Sky Attack—we did a concept EP together called Decompose) and with Almost Technicolor (with whom I did Europa). Occasionally the producer will work with a demo I’ve provided beforehand (Mascara Hera and I have done this; the result is “Steal Your Heart” from Lagniappe).

    How did you wind up part of Gentle Whale?

Someone asked me if I’d be interested in joining, and I was, so I said yes! RWE and I worked on a collab EP years ago and I already was familiar with your work and Mascara Hera’s—seemed like GW was all good people making good music. What’s not to like?

    Not only are you part of Gentle Whale but you are also connected to The Hai. What can you tell us about the collective?

Honestly, I wouldn’t be as prolific and as creative if I’d never met the musicians who make up The Hai. We’re from all over—Brazil, Finland, Norway, the US, the UK, Canada, the Philippines—and all we are really is a group of friends who happen to really enjoy making music, occasionally with each other and occasionally following a theme. I really enjoy being able to hear and observe other musicians’ WIPs as they progress from demo to final product; and this  is often the case when it comes to us, our songs, and our dynamic as a group.

    I'm a huge dork when it comes to lyrics and I really enjoy how you write, especially hearing how you vary your approach with each release. How do you approach writing lyrics for your songs? Do you approach the song with a certain idea and work towards it? Or is it more improvised on the spot?

Like I said, every song starts with a story in my head. It’s easy to create a narrative for your song to follow, because you can get ideas from anywhere—books, TV, history, celebrity news, the title of the file the producer gave you when he first sent over the instrumental, whatever. What’s not so easy is to insert that grain of truth somewhere so the construct doesn’t fall flat. Songs need to connect, you know? That’s not going to happen without that little nugget of relatability.

  On that note, I’m a fan of repeating sections, often multiple ones. Prechoruses are my jam. Most of my songs are also sung from a specific point of view—a specific character in a story.

    It has been interesting comparing BONSAI (released July 2013) and LOVE LIKE GOLD (Oct 2013). BONSAI is embedded with a strong sense of hip-hop while LLG seems to be approached with more sense of space and mood. It’s almost ballad like. How would you describe the way you changed your approach between releases?

BONSAI coincided with a milestone birthday and was a symbol of how I felt during that time: nostalgic but finally able to let go and start to accept my adulthood. There’s a lot of hip-hop because it’s where I came from.

  LOVE LIKE GOLD was actually just a way to finally release two singles of two producers from the Hai: StratosFear and New Dark Age. I love these two songs so much; they were both initially for different releases, but they complement each other beautifully. It helps that their lyrics coincidentally matched, too.

    Do you have any plans for this year?

I’m coming out with something this month! It’s a compact little EP with some song collaborations from the Hai’s recently released compilation, plus previously unreleased content. After that maybe WGWGSA and I will start on the sequel to our collab EP, or maybe I’ll do another solo LP. Oh, and my main piano man finally has some free time so we’ll probably do a few covers. The Cellar Doors are also recording, so there’s that, too.

  Thank you for doing this interview! Before we end it, do you have any parting words for the reader?

WGWGSA: NO I NEED THAT

WGWGSA: I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO FOR THAT

APLM: MAKE IT YR FACE

WGWGSA:OH GOD NO

APLM: WITH LIKE WATER GUNS RAINING DOWN ON YOU

APLM: I CAN DO IT

APLM: GIMME A PHOTO

WGWGSA:I DON'T KNOW IF I WANT TO

By A Problem Like Maria (check out her music right  here   and check out her collective, and our best friends, The Hai here ) 

Radio Wire Empire, has a double album out now entitled "Songs For Dismemberment" which is available to check out here 

APLM: First things first! I've always wanted to hear a long and drawn out explanation for this: What does Radio Wire Empire mean and why did you choose it as your artist name?

  RWE: I feel like I concoct a different answer every time someone asks me this. I think it is a combination of things. Dumb things. One being that maybe I wanted people to think I was a whole band, and not just the one person that I am. The other that is most obvious to myself is that I just picked some words I liked and thought sounded good.

I actually started out using the artist title "Rapid Eye Brunette" which was just a case of, well, I don't know. I don't know what that name meant. I don't know why I changed it to Radio Wire Empire. I probably took "radio wire" from all the Jeff Mangum I was listening to back in the far reaches of 2008. 

I have relatively recently, and somewhat humorously (funny to who? no one, just myself), said that I'd one day retire the moniker with a self titled album exploring the theme of a literal "Radio Wire Empire". The imagery pretty much presents itself to me when I think of the name as an actual place. Like some kind of Oz. I probably talked too much about this question so I'll end it here.

APLM: You mentioned Jeff Mangum. Would you say that he's an influence in your music? On a related note, who ARE your influences?

  RWE: The Elephant 6 in general was my biggest influence at the particular time I began writing and recording. I think you can really hear it (me trying to be the entirety of the collective) in some of that really really early stuff, if your Google sleuthing skills are good enough to find it. 

I think most who try their hand at any craft always start out by trying to be their influences. It hardly ever works as well as they think, either. I'll spare you the "oh well you know life is my influence" rhetoric and just strictly state some of the consistent musical influences that have been guiding my sound, and you may be surprised by what standard choices they are.

  Let's see: usually saying ___ is the greatest anything is terrible foolishness but I will always go against my own advice and say that The Beatles are the greatest band of all time. I don't need any arguments or comparisons. I have earmuffs on when it comes to this, and the lads are playing through those muffs. If they hadn't had the success they did I'd still say the same thing. I can listen to them every single day and never get sick, because I have and do. The mythos that goes along with the group is just the cherry on top for me, really.

Um, let's see who else. A quick rundown of the possibly unexpected but true: Thee More Shallows, The Format (Nate Ruess was once a cool guy before that sophomore Fun. album. The worst.),  At The Drive-In, Björk, 소녀시대, Little Dragon, Elliott Smith most certainly, Led Zeppelin, John Frusciante, Rodriguez, Okkervil River, The Beach Boys... I'm omitting so much more but I've already blown enough hot air and we aren't even on the third question.

And hearing Pink Floyd as a very young kid (as well as Frankenstein by Edgar Winter) was what made me love music in the first place but those are different stories for a different time.

APLM: How was the reception to your massive double album last year? How'd it do?

  RWE: The same as all of my other albums usually do: like a fart in the wind. Friends liked it, I think, but beyond that, downloads were pretty dismal. Kind of disheartening.

APLM: Does disheartening stuff like this cause you to think of "quitting" sometimes? How do you think your life would change if you stopped making music? (If that's even possible!)

  RWE: It makes me think I need to play live. Maybe that'd help in some capacity. I sang in a band called Earth Engine for about three and a half years and those guys are all incredible musicians, much better than I could ever hope to be, and we played live all over for that entirety, but had the same issue I have now with my music online. Maybe you need both and can't have just one. 

But yeah, sometimes it does make me feel like retiring the thing at least as far as trying to get people to listen goes. I'd probably still make music just for myself. Who knows? Playing live as RWE is a bigger challenge for multiple reasons so honestly it has been leaning towards the latter option for some time now.

APLM: So how does this general feeling affect what's on the docket for RWE this 2014 (or beyond)? Is there anything in the works right now, music-wise, or are you taking a break from even conceptualizing and doing demos and stuff? Are you concentrating on other things first (school, for example)?

  RWE: I get little fleeting ideas. Bigger, more fleshed out concepts for albums I already had have been put on the backburner for now. I am mostly busy with my minimum wage day job and going back to school. Mostly, I have been coughing up some various covers here and there just to keep myself from getting ring rust, I guess. I wanted to do a whole covers/duet EP with the other Gentle Whalers but I haven't been able to put much work into writing or recording the music. Can only hope things get better from here.

APLM: I hope so, too. As you know I'm a big fan of your work (and I really am not just saying that). Speaking of which, what's YOUR favorite work of yours?

  RWE: I think the Color & Colour EP had the catchiest tunes. The newest thing, the Songs For Dismemberment double, is probably my favorite thing I've done. If I can find it in me to keep doing more, the next thing will probably be sonically similar to my oft forgotten EP, Neotenic (which is a shame as it has some of my favorite songs and songs that are actually positive in nature as opposed to Color & Colour).

APLM: My favorite is Color & Colour! Alright, let's wrap it up I guess. Since this is for Gentle Whale, can you talk about a few Gentle Whale artists and their releases that you like? The ones that were notable or left an impression on you personally, I mean.

  RWE: Victor Florence is my dude. He is a really great writer and I've been listening to him since Trapeze which was forever ago. I've covered some of his stuff; and me, him, and Jon (Bedroom Minstrels) are always locked in a three-way text message conversation where we sometimes send each other little audio doodles. 

You, of course. You have a fantastic voice that sounds like many different great artists but at the same time sounds like none of them at all. I loved how our EP together turned out and I hope to make more sometime in the future. 

Behind Mascara Hera is a very talented kid. She is an adult but she was a kid as part of my big online friends (wow cool) family so she is still a kid to me now. 

Vernous is slick stuff, but I really really loved the record Elana Belle Carroll did as the Checker Chance. Really neat stuff that I can't describe because any descriptors I use for any fellow artists will probably just not convey properly how much I like them so let's stick with the "cool!" and the "awesome!" modifiers.

One of the newer members, Willow Youth, has something real special and I really have liked everything I've heard that I have got to listen to.

I mostly live in a music-less vacuum. I truly don't listen to much music at all besides replaying the Beatles too much. At least the past couple years it has seemed that way to me.

APLM: I remember you had a little cover EP called Songs Paul Sings! Will you ever do a Songs John Sings? Hahaha! Or maybe Ringo? (Don't sing that "You're Sixteen" song, though, it's a litle creepy.)

  RWE: I had started a Songs George Sings around the same time but never finished it because I didn't like the haphazard one take, no mixing, terrible mess that the Paul one was, with mouse clicks still intact.

APLM: Last question! What are you listening to NOW? (Alternatively: What's the last song you listened to?)