words: MICK WILSON pics: STEVE STILLS TECH In The Studio With Kidsuke
How did you guys get together? Kidkanevil: “We have known each other’s music for a while, but we actually met as participants at the Red Bull Music Academy in 2010 when it was in London. We pretty much spoke quite early on about the idea of collaborating on music together. We also met Cherry Chan at RBMA, who runs a night in Singapore called Syndicate, she got us out to play over there, then I went across to Japan and asked Daisuke to do a remix for me. And in amongst all that, we just started to talk more seriously about making records together, and it just became a real natural progression from that point. We then hooked up with Original Cultures, a non-profit arts and culture organization that are based in the UK and Italy, to put on the Kidsuke tour.”
You’re both based in different countries. How did you find it collaborating on the album? K: “When we did the album, we did a couple of sessions, some in Japan and Singapore, just collecting field recordings and stuff. Then when Daisuke was over in Europe, we had a few sessions in my house recording loads of children’s toys and pianos and synths. We took those away with us, then both just started working on separate ideas. When we got to a certain point with the idea, we would shoot it across to the other person, who would then finish it off. We’d bounce the track back and forth to add the final touches. It was really just sending the tracks back and forth until they became kind of finished.”
Daisuke: “Yeah, it was easier than I thought it was going to be... because of the internet, it was so easy to send audio files across to each other. It is pretty much similar to working with someone in the same country.”
NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK
Kidkanevil and Daisuke Tanabe are two young trailblazers who have come together to form Kidsuke, inspired by their shared love of Japanese culture, new technology and kids’ toys. DJ Mag spoke to the guys about their new album and subsequent tour, and the difficulties of putting it altogether when living worlds apart…
S
chooled in hip-hop and crate-digging culture, UK DJ/producer Kidkanevil has more strings to his bow than Robin Hood. His three albums have explored
everything from deep sampladelic trip-hop vibes to club-ready electronic rap beats, via bass-heavy dubstep, and he’s collaborated with Ninja Tune’s Bonobo, Lateef The Truthspeaker (of DJ Shadow’s Quannum collective), Brazilian MC Yarah Bravo and Foreign Beggars, while being the beatsmith and turntablist for UK band Stateless.
064
djmag.com
Japan’s Daisuke Tanabe is a fellow downtempo beatminer with releases on labels like Circulations, Fluid Ounce and Dancing Turtle. Together, they form the new project Kidsuke, with a sound that draws as much from their beats ‘n’ bass expertise as it does a new sensibility of atmospheric cinematica. Delicate chimes, musicboxes and kalimbas form the musical backdrop of ‘Kidsuke’, their debut album on Project: Mooncircle, out now. We linked up with the pair to talk working long distance, Red Bull Music Academy and repurposing children’s toys to make new sounds...
So the internet was pivotal to making this album happen? K: “I’ve seen stuff like Ohm Force and Bitwig’s new sequencers that allow producers to work together in real time whilst being in two separate countries via the internet. I’ve not tried them out, but I think it’s a dope idea, especially as we seem to be in the golden era of the next phase of the bedroom producer mentality. A lot of us who have grown up making our own beats in our own little spaces, we are quite used to working alone, that kind of introverted thing, so it’s kind of nice in a way to work on a project online, as it means you can collaborate with people without intruding on that unique type of vibe, breaking in on their own personal space. Any program and system that can make this happen naturally and faster is a really cool thing, and it makes working with people on the other side of the world just so easy.”
What do your studio set-ups consist of? D: “We both work off Macbook Pros. I use Logic and a few synthesizers. I also use field recorders most of the time, as I use them to capture sounds that I can then develop.”
K: “A laptop, ProTools, a few synths, a big box full of children’s toys — that’s pretty much it. You can generate so many things with recorded sounds, manipulate them to a certain point, map them out and play musical parts with them. Neither of us have a super-crazy set-up, I think in this day and age there is no need for a big studio set-up full of crazy stuff. People make incredible albums just on Ableton and nothing else! It’s an amazing time to fulfil your ideas with not much more than a laptop. Can I also just say, the nice thing about
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70