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When scary cinema translates into contemporary music. In Conversation with Mutant Joe.



Interview by Sophie Kübler (SGBA)  28 July 2022


Using the internet like Mutant Joe does means diving deep into the SFX archives of horror films to transform them into a unique and distinctive sound.

With his latest release "Wrong Way Out" on Aura T-09 and John Frusciante's label EVAR HQ, Brisbane-based young artist Mutant Joe fuses rap, electro, and techno with a blend of gothic horror fantasies and designed sounds. His fascination for SFX of scary cinema translates into a contemporary music approach, that runs through his current catalog of releases.

Mutant Joe incorporates a range of genres including electronic, underground rap, trap, gabber, and jungle into his darkly euphoric music. Be it on Manchester label Natural Sciences (home to Galaxian, Zanzibar, DJ Seinfeld, Mars 89) to International Chromes, Jensen Interception-run project to EVAR HQ Aura T-09 and John Frusciante's label, he helms a brand of sound so fresh that Miley Serious on Rinse France, 99cnts records with a show hosted by Teki Latex or the show by TNGHT (Hudson Mohawk x Lunice) aired on BBC Radio 1 bring his tracks to the forefront.

With roots in rap and beats making, it's not far that names like Freddie Dredd, YVNCC, Julien Andreas, Lord Pusswhip, Onoe Caponoe, and the Lost Appeal Crew have come together for joint musical ventures.

And yet horror films are a major passion and strong focus during sound adventures. As a young generation of music producers, Mutant Joe discovers himself by experimenting and listening to what he enjoys. Exploring the limits of his ideas and breaking through those limits is the most exciting part. More often than not, these boundaries bring answers to unknown questions and offer something new to the table. About his latest release ‘Wrong Way Out’ he says, "My focus was to keep the dark, gothic sound while continuing to blur the lines between hip-hop, dance, and experimental electronic music. "

In our conversation, Mutant Joe talks about the technical process he's going through, sound archives, and what he wants to have done when he is 40.
An unpredictable talent whose experimental vein doesn't seem to be slowing down.

 

Who is Mutant Joe and what information is the internet not telling us yet?


I try to keep information about myself pretty limited, as I ultimately want my music to speak for itself, but I’m just a producer interested in exploring the outer edges of experimental electronic music, the internet and new media.

I looked at your discography and info on the internet and have a very clear idea of what you do and could recognize your style pretty easily. It's not just because of the people you already work with in the music project, I think it's mainly a sonic identity coupled with the artists' environment. Somehow I find it harmonious and pleasantly creative. It's a well-rounded thing.

How did it start with the style and the development of your identity? Where did you learn sound design and where did the idea come from to combine it with a drum and bass gothic horror style?


Fairly early on in learning music production I established a pretty dark and atonal sound throughout my projects. I think that’s because I genuinely enjoy exploring those sounds and textures but also just suck at melodies. For whatever reason, I’ve always taken pleasure in being scared or creeped out by horror movies and ‘dark media’, so my projects are probably just an extension/expression of that.

As far as learning music production and sound design, I mostly just watched YouTube tutorials and messed around with old VST’s until something sounded cool. A lot of my dark sounds are actually taken from archives of horror movie SFX CD’s which I manipulate and resample. I’ve always liked the idea of repurposing these types of sounds in production, as there’s an ocean of relatively untouched sounds archived on the internet.




I'm not going to ask you the classic question of how you got into music, but rather how it feels to be making music right now, and what do you despair of in the artistic or technical process, but persevere and keep trying until you get it right at that moment?


Great question. I think at the moment for me, it’s the challenge of striking a balance between something that’s completely sonically experimental/abrasive but listenable and still resonates with the listener. Over the last year or so I’ve spent a heap of time trying to push the limits of my VST’s and DAW, while still ultimately producing a coherent and listenable track or album. As far as how I feel right now making music, there is a slight cynicism towards dance music in general, as so much of it seems to be more retrospective rather than futuristic and boundary pushing. I don’t necessarily want to hear clean, typical mixes on a track – I want to hear clipping and mud and texture, and not many (established/industry) artists are doing right now. Most of my favourite stuff is made by 17 year old Brazilian kids and exists solely on SoundCloud with like 100 listens.

You are 21 (?) years young, so you are still very young. How has the pandemic affected your career? Spending a lot of time with yourself is important and useful. How was this time for you, considering that you were on this artistic path before the pandemic?


I actually just turned 23 (I think my resident advisor bio is out of date). The pandemic was honestly not that bad for me, as I already enjoyed the isolation of spending most of my time making beats in my room. It ultimately allowed me to focus on projects and also hone my DJ’ing skills - recording a

heap of mixes over the isolation period. The anti-social nature of the whole period also forced me to consider my ultimate creative direction and was super useful in that way.




Your collaborations are an important part of your work and I think collaborating with others always brings a new wind to the work and creation and is the main engine for progress. This includes people like Freddie Dredd, YVNCC; Julien Andreas, Lord Pusswhip, etc. How do you collaborate and how can you think of the process and how do you define progression through your work? What are you driving forward?


About 90% of my collaboration has been done via the internet, over messenger and email. This has allowed me to form solid artistic relationships with artists all over the world that I would never have been able to connect with otherwise. At the moment, my collaborative process mostly consists of the exchanging of stems and acapellas. In a sense, it’s all just remixing or repurposing WAV files that have been sent to me. I’m super lucky to have my roots in Hip-Hop and beat-making, as I now have a reliable roster of really insane rappers I can hit up for vocals whenever I need. Those hip-hop vocals make it easy to switch up the traditionally instrumental approach to dance music.

The names that support your work and released your music have been in the business for a long time and have made a name for themselves with their own ideas of creativity, genre and style. What are the things you learn from them and what does it mean for you to get feedback?


It’s really been a shock to get support and recognition from some of these super established artists in the scene and I’ve honestly been confused/surprised about why they like my projects a lot of the time. Most of the time the feedback I get is to do with sticking with my off-kilter and unconventional style rather than pivoting into making regular genre focused music. It’s pretty amazing that some of these industry titans are cool enough to focus on a message like this. I presume after being in a particular part of the music industry for so long they just want to hear something new being brought to the table.

With old people, there's always this phrase: If you could tell your 20-year-old self anything, what would it be? Let's turn that around: If you could say anything to, say, your 35-year-old self, what would it be?


Haha, this is a hard one. I’ve always said to myself that I want to direct or be involved in a horror film by 40, so it’d be something along the lines of; ‘you better be on the road to that horror film by now’.

Let's talk about your current release "Wrong Way Out" on Aura T-09's and John Frusciante’ label Evar. Is there a message and what or what stage of development of the artist Mutant Joe are we hearing on "Wrong Way Out"?


Well this project was actually finished quite a while ago, but it still presents I vision I’ve always had for my dance music EP’s. My focus was on maintaining the dark, gothic sound while also further blurring the lines between Hip-Hop, dance and experimental electronic music. The second half of the record definitely opens up some genres and sounds which I want to explore further in future projects; namely bass music, broken beat and hard drum.

As far as the title or ‘message’, there really isn’t one. Titles and themes tend to be the last thing I think about when it comes to my project. I typically just go for some vague, dark title that gives off a post-apocalyptic/gothic vibe. Hopefully the titles tie in well with the tracks and art and listeners can derive their own meaning from this.

I really like the aesthetic in general. I like the artwork of your remix series. How and with which graphic designers do you collaborate for your projects?


For that project and a ‘Vagrant’, I worked with this really cool producer and visual artist ‘DJ Speedsick’. He’s always had this super grimy style that I love so I tend to just hit him up for quite a few of my projects. I have no doubt there will be more album art from him in the future. I should also mention Don Electro and Datura Hex for their insane album art on my other projects. More stuff from them in the future too.

What's in the pipeline?


I’m working on a couple more EP’s for certain labels I really look up to, as well as another full length horror themed album, which I’ll likely just release myself. I also have some more extreme and experimental projects in the works under my alias ‘BAD FACE’, so you should check out my music under that name if you’re interested. I also hope to push out some more music videos soon with my visual artist collaborators.


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