Interview: Shamanic Technology & Dusko

Shamanic Technology and Dusko have collaborated on their new release, Artifacts, a sound exploration of diverse styles and tempos that will have you feeling mesmerized. Released on Shamanic’s imprint, Omni Temple, this awaited release is his first since his Simulation Theory EP and his double LP, Shadow Work, which featured an interactive release via an Indiegogo Fundraiser. Both of these creative producers bring a diverse musical taste to the table, and through their musically inspired upbringing, they express a unique approach to creating sounds. They experienced a natural connection in B.C., Canada. When Shadow Work was released, Dusko reached out to Chris for production lessons which became reality years later. Their formation is an inspiring release composed of multi tempo bass music featuring elements of Hip-Hop, Halftime, Future Bass, Techno, Deep House, Lo-Fi, Dubstep, Footwork, Neuro, Dub and Ambient.

Artifacts is a sonically appealing masterpiece which questions and extends our natural existence with a dose of humorous amplification – it’s an experimental and chill experience which will absorb you, twist you, and have you feeling fresh and alive and ready to rock steady with sporadic high energy in between. Fused and melted through intricate textures, alluring melodies, deep sound design, and free form stylings, get ready to be hypnotized and feeling lucid. Every now and then, life happens, so accept plot twists, go with the flow, embrace change, and dig deeper. That’s exactly what transpired in the beginning for Chris & Dan with their experimentations. Inspired by everything digital, ShamTech and Dusko also reflect on the importance of travel, nature, dynamics, collaborative efforts, teaching, and learning. We further explore Artifacts, Warp Academy, sound design, DSP’s, imperfection, Omni Temple, and a whole lot more that can be felt in this intriguing story. Enjoy!

 A Chat With Shamanic Technology & Dusko

[LIS] Tell us about your connection and how this development has influenced your production.

[ShamTech] Cheers! We’ve really enjoyed putting this together, it’s been quite the adventure! Dan and I met back when I was touring BC Canada in 2014, he and an army of his homies came out for our show at The Wardolf and we partied with them after. A year later, when I created my Indiegogo crowd funder for ‘Shadow Work’, he threw down on some production lessons, but we always planned to do them in person instead of over Skype and to wait till he felt he was far enough along on his production journey to maximize the lessons.

Fast forward to 2018 and I’m back touring BC again. Our intentions of getting together and the lessons finally happening in person actually turned into us a writing track after track after track until I ended up living there and working round the clock with him on what has now become our album ‘Artifacts’. He’s someone I really vibe well writing with and brings a lot to the table. I’m looking forward to seeing how our collaborative efforts develop moving into the future. We both have a love of similar sounds and ideas so it’s been a pretty natural unfolding, sonically and as friends. Dan’s also got mad skills on the decks, so we managed to play a few festivals together this Summer in BC which was a total riot. It’s awesome seeing him break through the scene.

[Dusko] Like Chris said, it’s been quite an adventure. I was living in an after hours loft type thing in downtown Vancouver where we had a main stage side stage thing going on. Chris was touring Canada and I hadn’t even heard of him, but went to go see some proper Neurohop at a venue a few blocks away from the loft. Me and my roomies asked him and the other artists if they wanted to come party and crank out more tunes at mine and then we hung out. I picked his brain about production (as I was just learning about it and saving for Ableton) and had no clue to what he was talking about with my level of understanding at the time.

So when Chris was campaigning the crowd funding of Shadow Work, I opted in for production lessons and the sweet Cujo Cussler artwork on a T shirt. We waited to do the lessons in person. I wanted to learn as much as I could to maximize the experience. 2 Years went by and by the time Chris came to Vancouver, we just ended up writing genre after genre until we decided to write as many as we could so he could teach me as much as possible and that’s how Artifacts came into existence.

It’s the fruits of our time in the studio and labor of love to put out something interesting in a scene that’s saturated with the same old same.

                                                                               

Shamanic Technology, what style of music do you create?

[ShamTech] It’s always a hard thing to for me to answer. I usually say multi tempo/multi genre bass music when I’m pushed! But a more of an in depth answer would be; future bass, future garage, drum and bass, half time, instrumental hip hop, vocal hip hop, lo fi hip hop, glitch hop, neuro of all kinds, techno, house, dubstep, trap, footwork, ambient and everything in between really.

Very diverse and original, you’re clearly thinking outside the box. What’s the creative process like and how would you say percussion, textures, arrangement, and synthesis all work together to inspire each process?

[ShamTech] I do almost everything in audio because I’m old school as fuck to be honest. Getting anything that isn’t rendered yet, down to its pure audio form, as soon as possible helps me commit to sounds. Arrangement is almost everything I feel. Your sound sources and textures, your drums, all the components of a track are, for me, like making colors to paint with. Once I have the pieces in place, only then will tracks start to write themselves or reveal hidden elements, which later become themes and central ideas, and as always, a lot gets thrown out. In fact we had a humorous ritual of just yelling “SHIVA!!” (the Hindu destroyer/transformer) at the top of our lungs in the studio whenever we both agreed on deleting a previously major part or idea that we just weren’t feeling or in favor of a new element that had become the main theme; we did that so much throughout this whole process. Must have sounded quite bizarre from outside the studio.

What sound first pulled your attention?

Both of my parents were/are very musical people and exposed me to a lot of different sounds as a kid. I started learning to play instruments as soon as I could reach them, or have the strength to hold them in my hands, or enough lung capacity to make a sound out of them, haha! I’ve always been obsessed with music. I’m just generally enamored with sound, be it from nature, or some niche genres or certain time periods in music where artists did a take on something a certain way. There’s so much sound out there. I love jazz and hip hop, neuro music of all kinds, experimental IDM, future bass/garage, jungle and dnb, techno, weird electronica. I spent years working in vinyl record stores in my late teens and early 20’s, so I naturally got exposed to fresh music all the time. To me when I’m making music, it’s all about emotion and energy, I like to keep things eclectic and I hope to create some kind of narrative with whatever I do musically.

Dusko, share the moment when you knew you wanted to produce music.

[Dusko] Well, it was a pretty epic moment actually. I dabbled in it and had a great time with random free programs, but I was fairly computer illiterate. I thought I wanted to be a prolific bassist and would experiment with FX and weird techniques with the bass guitar and really got into Victor Wooten’s technique and philosophies as a foundation.

The moment I truly knew I wanted to produce music came after a year off from about 10 years of basically living in a recording studio or bedroom just grinding with the bass guitar and my band. I actually thought that music hadn’t developed beyond the point that bands like Incubus took it to in their album S.C.I.E.N.C.E. so I was down and out and couldn’t get inspired by the bass guitar anymore. Anyway, a new roommate moved into my house and showed me Neurofunk DnB and Neuro style music one night and I was immediately hooked. The bass guitar immediately seemed obsolete to me. “Playing the computer “ is epic. You have an orchestra at your fingertips. Unlimited possibilities. I haven’t picked up the bass guitar since, but I have this vintage Epiphone T bird in storage that I’ll probably whippet out in the future.

‘Whippet Moth’ is y’alls future bass song. Very chill, vibey and futuristic vibes which features vocals from Bijou. How do you work together to further each development?

[ShamTech] Bijou is awesome. We chat every now & then and I’ve always loved her vocals, I reached out about finding some time to work on something and she was kind enough to throw me over some acapellas she had been jamming on. She’s extremely hard to track down and I’m not even 100% sure she’s heard this final mixdown yet! We made her vocals do some pretty odd things and in the end only kept one line of actual full vocal. We’re just super thankful that she let us use a few snippets of her work and basically mess with her voice to the point where it was more of an instrument in its own right.

[Dusko] Chris showed me Bijou’s acapellas and I was really excited because I’ve heard so many producers do amazing things with her vocals (Feverkin, Koda, Kursa, etc). They have a very particular quality to them that I love. It reminded me of some of the work that Christine Westphal of Rawtekk and Beth Gibbons of Portishead do.

The start of that tune came from a WIP I had made and shown to Chris, feeling it was potentially to be a garage track. I was going to throw it out, but he got excited about it and said something about it was gold. The first riff is actually the intro to the song and it just got built from there. We were listening to a lot of XXYYXX at the time. Eventually we started using some more future bass style pads on it and suddenly we had a whole new thing going on. Glad you like it!

Both of you prefer Bandcamp over all other DSP’s. Why?

[Dusko] I prefer to purchase music through bandcamp because the artist gets more money for it. If there’s no other option, I’ll definitely go through beatport. I’ve tried iTunes once and have no idea where the album I bought went. Having to navigate new user interphases is a waste of my precious time. Bandcamp is easy. I love being on artists’ mailing lists with bandcamp too. Keeps me up to date with zero effort.

[ShamTech] The digital distribution of music is changing all the time. I think getting as close to the source as possible, buying direct. Not only puts money directly in the hands of artists who have probably already spent a lot of their cash flow, just to get it out there. It’s not only essential, but also inspiring, when someone buys something from my bandcamp. I feel that direct connection and it pushes me to carry on with my art.

Shamanic Technology, you find Sample Position Manipulation & doing things in the box without hardware as techniques which have allowed more creative fluidity for you. Please elaborate.

[ShamTech] Sure thing. For a long time it wasn’t possible to keep an audio file in its relative position in your groove/arrangement and move the contents of that file around within itself, in the same spot. Once that became an option, it opened a huge door for spending time designing intricate “stems” of sounds, usually in sessions outside the main song writing sessions. For example in Neuro, the bass is very complex and has a lot of movement, trying to do this with Midi and Automation isn’t easy by a long shot, but record a note or chord for 4 minutes and apply all kinds of modulations, with controllers assigned to automate all the most vibrant aspects of the sound, dramatically changing the sound meant that now we could just throw a bass stem or a foley stem at a loop and just keep changing the start position, moving through a longer piece of audio, until something works super well with whatever we’re trying to do. It’s one of my favorite tricks.

Dusko, ear training is a technique that has allowed making music simpler for you. Could you elaborate? 

[Dusko] I was told to simplify my compositions and make Hip Hop if I wanted to focus on building my mix skillset. So I spent almost a year writing hip hop songs quickly and then putting a ton of focus into mix down. I’d wake up, use an iOS app called Quiztones while walking to get a coffee and then I’d walk around with a coffee and headphones and Quiztones training my ears, then I’d sit down and read Mixing Secret For The Home Studio, and then journal about what I was doing and what I would change based upon the information given.

I’d then go in and start mixing, and then at the end, I would go over the mix downs with a mentor and see what he would change and why and then I’d watch his screen recordings of the lessons that had true audio and really HEARD what he was doing. I’ve heard that Golden Ears Gym is an excellent ear training program, but I’ve yet to get back into the habit of training these weird looking side of the face flaps on the daily. That program also has a steep price in comparison to Quiztones.

What’s the message behind “Artifacts”?

[ShamTech] So, with this project obviously there’s a lot of dual and sometimes differing intentions, because there are two of us both bringing things to the table. But mainly this is an album created from the artifacts of mine and Dan’s studio time spent together experimenting with all these aesthetics and genres, to me an artifact is something left over by something else. A lot of the processes that led us to finished tracks consisted of discovering pieces of our sound design or parts that worked well together and that theme sort of stuck. We also got cut short from spending another month or so in person finishing this project up, as I had to leave Canada a little earlier than expected and return to the UK. Artifacts are often lost, recovered, or rediscovered and we most definitely had to dig deep and do as much as possible with the pieces we had made so far. It’s been non stop since I returned to the UK to get this done and as we wrote a lot of it in Vancouver we ended up doing some pretty intense screen sharing and working on separate aspects of the whole thing. It’s been awesome.

What was your favorite collaboration?

[ShamTech] That’s a hard question. Every track went through so many transformations and such, all of them have their place for me, but particularly Firewalk. It just happened in a really linear and smooth way, writing itself from the get go, like some kind of ghost in the machine. We would often play musical chairs in the studio, one of us would ride the vibe for a while and when the inspiration hit a stand still or the other producer had a big idea, we’d switch. With Firewalk, I kinda made the riff and started explaining my take on footwork/juke drums and we added some neuro elements. I let Dusko loose on counter bass for the drop, left to make some coffee, and by the time I came back, it was just absolutely perfect for what I was imagining. That led us to quickly finish the rest of the arrangement together and it probably changed the least of all the tracks. I love it when shit’s just meant to be!

               

[Dusko] I am going to have to say Jive Talk, just because while we were writing it, we kept fluctuating between loving it and hating it. Towards the very end of the songs creation, I held myself away in the studio for a day meticulously looping each bar and cleaning up everything. It all came together that way in the end. Bit by bit. It was a very weird collab that way, and the resulting tune has really grown on me now.

             

Shamanic Technology, you find “Chasing Perfection” to be your biggest challenge as a producer. How do you know when a song is complete and what’s your take on imperfection?

[ShamTech] I like the Japanese idea of wabi sabi, which is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete”. It is a concept derived from the Buddhist teaching of the three marks of existence, specifically impermanence. That imperfection is beautiful and natural. In reality, nothing is perfect. I also like the idea of juxtaposition, having something very clean and perfect almost alongside a gritty old sample from yesteryear, processed beyond recognition and full of little artifacts. The idea that a track can be better, keeps me up at night, learning to let go and abandon my art to the world, when I could spend a lifetime trying to crack it to perfection and it probably would only be noticed by a few ears out there. These are the dragons we must slay if we want to keep releasing music when our mindset is to try and seek perfection. The problem for me is I think if given half the chance, I would’ve worked on this release for another year. Same with most of my stuff.

In ‘Chasm’, you gather sonic reflections from techno and house elements creating a deep feel. How did this song begin? 

[ShamTech] It’s pretty interesting with Chasm because unlike anything else on the album, it’s a remix of a remix of another album track. We wanted there to be some recurring elements in the album, easter eggs for keen ears so in Monolith, Relic and Chasm the same choral vocal can be heard, it’s actually layers of Dans voice. Anyway, Monolith was the original track, Relic was an outro/remix made from that track and Chasm was yet another remix from the same stems but with a techno/house vibe instead. I like the weirder spectrum of techno/house so I’ve been dabbling a bit recently and it was awesome making something like that with Dusko.

What are your top 5 tools/plugins for sound design?

[Dusko] – Serum, Uhbik, Ozone, Fab Filter, Ableton stock.

[ShamTech]  – Fab Filters Bundle, Omnisphere 2, Serum, anything by U-he, Xfer LFO Tool.

Dusko, you’ve created a Soundbank and built the backbone of a Serum Course with Warp Academy. Share with us the experience and what you enjoyed the most about it.

[Dusko] Making a soundbank was fantastic. At the time it was a decision between going deep into learning a Virus TI2 and really learning that hardware synth or sticking with digital synthesis for ease of use and space with Serum. I was then presented with the opportunity to build a pack with Warp Academy using Serum. It was heaps of fun and very serendipitous, because I first learned music production from Warp Academy.

When it came to building the Serum course, I found that it wasn’t for me at all. I wasn’t enthusiastic about it and it’s just not in me to fake enthusiasm, so – and it’s funny how life works like this: a family health scare came up and suddenly I couldn’t get through a day of shooting footage for the course, because of a complete lack of enthusiasm. At this time, Chris came to town and I threw in the towel to switch my focus back to what I’m truly passionate about.

I really like what Warp Academy is about and Vespers who runs the company is a solid human being, so when I called it quits on the full product, I just gave the team my work so they could use it to hit the ground running. The course actually comes out 2 days before our album, so that’s a really interesting coincidence. It feels good to see that it’s completed, and I would definitely make more sample packs. They’re great practice.

                 

‘What Happened?’ is another intriguing future bass filled half time beat exploration. What’s the process with mixing vocals with production?

[ShamTech] We like using vocals as effects & experimenting with them as percussive elements or even bass and sometimes if they are sounding interesting enough they can create more narrative in a track. Vocals always bring a human element to mind. Especially like the main sample in ‘What Happened?’. The track sort of explodes into a totally different vibe after the breakdown and without the vocal giving you a hint; it wouldn’t of sounded as fun 🙂

Any advice on creative process with textures?

I love granular 2 and foley for crunchy clicky bits. If you’re getting Serum specific, I’d be using custom audio in Serum’s noise oscillator as an FM source for one of the main oscillators wavetables and then build a sound from there.

I would suggest trying a lot of interesting things with the 4 assignable macros to the left of Serum’s graphic interphase in order to freehand some automation to control rhythms and width and depth. Stuff like that. Sometimes I use a midi keyboard and improvise while recording in order to comb the resulting audio for useful Artifacts, followed by more post processing.

Reference your favorite textures. Experiment.

                                                                                

‘Echos from Home’ reveals a lo fi hip hop nature. What VST’s where implemented through here and what did you enjoy most about low tempo music?

[Dusko] Interestingly, we hardly touched any virtual instruments to create this tune aside from the busy Harp. I’m pretty sure the harp is a kontakt instrument, I find kontakt to be a wonderful source of orchestral sounds and piano and stuff. I started Echos from Home off by taking kicks, snares and hats out of old acoustic drum kit sounds. The kicks often have a hat or cymbal on top of them and the snares tend to have a lot of grit so it becomes really fun to process that kind of sound since this will accentuate the audios’ unique character. Layering drums for lo fi and hip hop in general is where it’s at!

After getting a fat drum loop we turned to a more additive and subtractive method of just adding layers of melodic content, from old samples in our archives, to get that organic rustic, re-sampled vibe.

We would do this in nearly every other song, where we would have a brief compositional phase, dig through our sample library to find unique sound sources which would then be thrown into the project on top of the song seeing what might fit the vibe with a little manipulation. Pitching, stretching, reversing and getting things to gel and then subtractivelt locking parts down to just their core and creating foundational elements that ended up making the track. Making lo fi music is a great way to relax from a challenging composition or mix down. I find writing chilled out tracks to be a nice “vacation” from more heady projects.

What about your view on percussion?

I use synthesis as maybe one layer in kicks or snares. All of my percussion work is done in audio and with various sample sources. Any sample source. Anything can be percussion.
I absolutely love creating loops and breaks from these and then chopping up that audio while pitching, reversing and adjusting the transient envelope of the clip.

Most of what I do nowadays is mess with audio while trying to get unique artifacts. Happy accidents. Reference your favourite percussion examples from various tunes and…EXPERIMENT!

Favorite book?

[Shamanic]Technology) Wow – heavy question, too many… I mainly read philosophy and books on Buddhism and the mind, for fiction – anything by Haruki Murakami.

[Dusko] Definitely a hard one. There’s epic fiction adventures, there’s philosophical books that have changed my perspective on reality in extraordinary ways, and then there’s The Complete Works Of Edgar Allan Poe. Yes, that is one book.

‘Miyamoto’ is at 132 BPM and our feature with us. What inspired this future garage extravaganza?

[Dusko]  I was already looking into how to produce future/ neuro and UK garage before Chris came to Vancouver, so it only seemed natural that we’d go in on a high energy future garage tune as we’re both massively inspired by the more neuro influenced tracks from artists like Skope, (Mimic) Culprate (Two) & for me Chris’s track on Shadow Work (Kenjutsu) is one of my favourite tracks out there. I feel there’s a lot of ‘Future’ garage that’s a little boring and love tracks using these flows that have a tougher, harder vibe.

[ShamTech] Future Garage is awesome. Vibes for days!

Favorite producer right now? Why?

[ShamTech] – Jon Hopkins – his music is astonishing and super interesting, it got me back into making 4/4 stuff a few years ago and I think he has truly original methods of production. Which is becoming rare with such power at our fingertips and so many producers sharing their secrets online with streaming and tutorials. Which is a good thing of course, but when you hear originality, it freshens up your ideas about potential…you know? That there’s still more to be done, more to be learned, more to come.

[Dusko] Culprate. Although I haven’t checked his full new EP yet, because we’ve been making Artifacts. Why? Vibe. Creativity. Complexity. Unforgiving exploration of different vibes under one moniker. After I heard Deliverances he took the title and hasn’t let me down yet.

If you could see one change in the music industry, what would it be and why?

[ShamTech] I would like to see less drug use at festivals and more focus on the music and creativity of events, having so many humans together with passionate intentions about art is something I think we could use more efficiently. We tend to have huge events with thousands of people, have a great time, clean up our mess and leave the spot a little nicer than we found it.

But imagine what you could really do with all that human potential coming together? Some festivals own the land they party on and thus have permanent installations allowing them to create truly immersive environments, but the potential for giant permaculture and sustainable living is there if we want it. (If you’re going out there doing this hit me up! I’ll play your festival and get my hands dirty before hand building eco homes, no problem 😉 ) So yeah, other than that, more harm reduction, there is nothing worse than hearing someone has been harmed or hurt, or worst, over partying at an event you attended or performed at. Look out for each other and know your limits, fam! Stay safe!

[Dusko] The main thing I would change is for major labels finding more of an interest in taking risks on unique artistry like they used to. With great risk comes great reward. But at that level, you’d need parasitic corporate interests cleansed out of the mainstream, because music is clearly an effective tool for social engineering.

Shamanic Technology, what’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learned as a music producer?

Take regular (ear) breaks, listen to things on multiple sound systems, cut the chaff from your tracks, you don’t need everything, less is more. Listen to completely unrelated genres for inspiration. Stay productive. Never give up!

‘Hilarious’ is a short interlude with vocal commentary. What do you have to say here?

[Dusko] The initial sample says something along the lines of “First you have a judgement, then you have a judgement about that judgement. Then you have a judgement about that judgement. And that’s not a very good way to live life.” 

In the original audio, we used the guy saying that phrase, is just cracking himself up laughing before and after saying it. It’s hilarious. And it really relates to the flow state involved in creating these tunes. I was often getting caught up in one single bar, or on one sound in the tune. I guess it’s the sound designer in me getting hung up on the micro and becoming blind to the macro elements if I’m not careful. It’s just good to loosen up in all facets of life and just experience the flow of things rather than judging every single step with impunity.

[ShamTech] Yup it’s easy to take things too seriously. I also felt this little interlude worked well before Jive Talk because the vocal at the start of that track, sort of replies to this vocal. At least when I hear it! haha!

Your collective is Omni Temple. What’s the vision?

[ShamTech] The vision for Omni Temple as a label collective is to release epic content from talented artists who create awesome multi genre music and next level art. I’m hoping to have a catalog focussing on larger releases from artists, when possible, with bigger bodies of work from producers who either need that extra space to express themselves or don’t usually get the chance to release their more alternative styles and ideas. I released a full double LP, Shadow Work on it back in 2016 as it’s starting point, and since then, have really started to get the gears moving to where we are now. ‘Artifacts’ will be our 4th record this year and we have some awesome talent lining up for 2019! The brand has officially become a label now, moving away from its previous role as a booking agency and under new ownership. Namely myself! I’m building a solid team and actually Dusko will be doing some key A&R for me as of 2019.

What’s new?

[ShamTech]  As I’m writing this, I just finished the very final edits for the album and I think we finally have the track order down, as for in general. I just got back to the UK after nearly a year of touring and I’m about to wrap up my 3rd installment of a lo fi hip hop / downtempo series I’ve been putting out, called The Otherside Beat Tapes.. Vol 3 should be ready in early Feb. It’s called “The Secret World” my talented VJ/Designer friend David Roger Bret (Vessel) has been helping me with the artwork themes and I’m stoked to have him onboard for the final 2 volumes.

[Dusko] We’ve been in constant communication about the final edits and track order. Chris has been having a great time having me pick out tiny sounds that need to go down minuscule amounts in volume, or transitions that need a tweak etc, etc.

It definitely feels new to have this album nearly finished and being able to foresee working on my own schedule again. We’ve had a year of daily communication and efforts towards this. It was very rare to not have at least one of us with our nose to the grindstone for Artifacts. I think my new years resolution will be to give myself one day off from the studio a week, as an absolute minimum, so I can experience what life is out there again.

What’s your favorite place you’ve ever traveled and where would you like to journey to next?

[ShamTech] I have a real soft spot for Asia and would love to see more of it. I played in China and Thailand in the last little while but Japan is by far the most alluring place on Earth for me. I just wanna get lost there and make weird and wonderful music. I still feel British Columbia is a piece of paradise.. Man those mountains really rock my socks.

[Dusko] The best? A villa on a cliff overlooking a small beach town in Mexico. I ate fresh tortillas and squeezed piles of citrus fruits which I spiked with tequila all day everyday. Being unplugged for a week. With a lovely lady.

Where do I wanna go? Take me to Thailand so I can explore the temples. Take me to Japan so I can explore the endless artistic possibilities derived from a modern artisan culture. Take me to a cabin in the mountains that’s lit by a wood stove in the peak of winter so I can unplug.

If you had any super power, what would it be?

[Dusko] Mario Star. Everytime. To flash colours, blast tunes and front flip everywhere would be the righteous path. Killing every living creature you touch while in rave mode is a huge downside though. With great power comes great responsibility.

[ShamTech] Dan’s answer made me spit my coffee out. I’d like the ability to make coffee spontaneous appear anywhere. Anytime. In any variety. (Especially right now) That and to have the ability to active optimum human compassion at will. So everyone would just hunker down, get shit done and be nice to each other for a change. Is it that much too ask?

Outside of music, what do you like to do?

[ShamTech] Meditate, read a lot, and travel to far away places. I also play far to much Magic the Gathering. (analog) It’s my guilty pleasure.

[Dusko] I haven’t had much of a life outside of music for the last 2 years while doing 2 lofty annual projects. When I hit a brick wall and need fresh air, I hike in the lush temperate rainforest here or do some urban exploring. I love viewing any artwork, whether theatre, an art exhibit, a jazz ensemble, a film, or seeing what’s new in gaming at a friend’s house.

Senses are the spice of life so whether it’s fresh air and movement or a proper bar cheffed cocktail, I like to indulge.

Where do you see music going?

[Dusko] That’s the thing about vibration, you can’t see it going.

[ShamTech] Haha! I think we’re going to see a rise of complexity like never before. Less quantization. More dynamic live shows with the leaps and bounds in technology that lets us play our creations in interesting ways. Hopefully just, higher and higher quality. Everything moves in cycles so I’m interested to see what curve this thing takes next. There’s so much music out there already you couldn’t listen to it all in one lifetime. That’s made me a little somber. I need a sandwich.

[Dusko] Seriously though, what he said. I think we’re in the middle of another evolution in public perception where the technical prowess of a lot of these underground G’s is getting a lot more attention from the enthusiasts that aren’t music producers. It’s like when jazz was written for jazz musicians. Ed Sheeran’s next album will have neuro elements. Trust me on this one.

Anything else you’d like to share with us?

[ShamTech] Sure, first of all, thanks so much for the chat, it’s been fun and I’m sure I speak for us both when I say I hope you enjoy this album! Also If you’re out there reading this and you make interesting, musical, multi genre bass music. Hit me up! I’m keen to hear what you’re working on and looking for new artists who fit with what we’re doing here at Omni Temple, we want to give artists experimental freedom and a place you can put out stuff you might not find a home for elsewhere. 10 years ago I never would’ve thought I’d be putting out a 118 bpm tech house track alongside future garage and lo-fi hip hop, but I guess that just happened, haha!

[Dusko] Yes, thanks. It was nice to reflect a little in order to answer these questions. Thank you to everyone who has reached out and expressed their enjoyment in my work. It really means a lot to me. If you want to hear more of me check out the Cycles EP that I put out on Omni Temple earlier this year. It almost didn’t see the light of day, but Chris gunned for it.

I hope you enjoy Artifacts! It’s meant to be a ride and was built with your experience as the listener in mind.

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