#daddypower

SHAPE Platform is a pan-European initiative designed to give the underground music scene exposure on its own terms. The SHAPE Class of 2018 is as exciting as you’d imagine, which is why we’re showcasing picks from this year’s selection every Friday…

This week’s highlighted artist is… experimental producer and Daddypower label boss Alley Catss.

MusicMap: How long have you been making music, and what first inspired you to do so?

Alley Catss: Well, I’ve been visiting music schools and learning to play the piano since I was a child, but the idea of creating electronic music came about only around 2011, when I was in junior year of high school. I felt that the overall aesthetics of electronic music, lately digital music, resonated well with what I wanted to say. Firstly I used analogue gear and very amateur digital techniques, then I started working in DAWs.

Alley Catss, my main project, was born around this time. I spent a lot of time doing stuff in Ableton, which I’m still using now – however I’m always looking for more interesting ways to develop my creative process. I think electronic music really is such an extensive field, like it’s a blank canvas, and you pretty much can use the sonic field in any way you want. I enjoy the fluidity the internet provides in this matter a lot as well.

How did your recent Alley Catss / Bintahaha split release come about, was there a central idea you two were working on when you were putting tracks for it together?

We played together in Paris last spring and have been music friends since a long time. By juxtaposing our tracks on this split we wanted to see how our worlds would collide, considering we are different characters with more or less similar sounds. I think we somehow tried to give a narrative aspect to our work, too. We also exchanged a lot of visual stuff we’ve made in order to inspire each other (we did the artwork together too). It was a pretty nice process working on this release.

Experimental music from Central and Eastern Europe seems to be getting some overdue attention at the moment, have you found this makes it easier to get bookings beyond Hungary?

I definitely feel that something is emerging from around here and certain things I’m interested in are becoming stronger. I’ve played outside Hungary only a few times, and those gigs were pretty special – I really enjoy exploring different scenes and getting to know new stuff. As for Budapest, I think there’s a very nice and supportive local scene – the city is quite small in this aspect and pretty much everyone knows everyone, which results in a nice blend of multiple different things music & art wise.

Tatasi Dadadata – Taking Troll Castle By Velocity by EXILES

Tell us about Daddypower Records – what are your plans for the label, and who would be your dream artist to release?

We’re planning to play together with Bintahaha in Budapest and neighboring countries this spring. I can’t wait for that to happen! Also, we’re planning to release a double cassette thing with a friend label (from Budapest as well), EXILES. Next up on Daddypower, there’s a tape on queue by multimedia artist Yeongrak, from New Zealand. It’s going to be released soon. It would be nice to press vinyl and do other formats in the future, however at this stage I think tapes are perfectly enough and serve well in this context & aesthetics.

Where are you looking forward to performing this year, or where would you love to perform?

I’m really looking forward to this year’s happenings to come, and I’m also curious about SHAPE platform. I’d love to travel around more and leave Europe. So far I’ve been thinking about trying to go to Egypt this autumn, lately I’ve immersed myself a bit in stuff coming from Cairo and I really enjoyed what I heard & found it resonant to what I’m doing. However my long time dream is definitely visiting Japan, a lot of stuff coming from there has influenced me a lot. I’d be really happy to be around that.