Influences: Cromie

This is a snowboard movie haha. I also think it’s a masterpiece. It not only has the sickest action, but such an incredible soundtrack. Most importantly, it captures the excitement of being with your friends and making some shit happen and doing so in a creative way. The movie was relevant and influential to me because it combined two things I really loved when I was growing up (in Salt Lake City, Utah of all places lol): music and skiing/snowboarding. I was spending all my free time doing either one or the other, and this movie combined the two so well. The segment with The Knife – Heartbeats is really emotional and nostalgia-inducing for me.

The Caspa & Rusko fabriclive cd was huge for me, I was instantly hooked on their audacious bassy music. I thought it was even sicker to hear Rusko’s distinct style blend with that of BSS, whose music was also really thrilling to me at the time. I was playing a lot of stuff like this at my earlier gigs in college and in hometown SLC. Buraka Som Sistema drumstyle is too sick, still. I remember I saw them perform at some festival in Europe in 2008 or 09 and they did that thing where they made the entire crowd crouch down and then jump at the same time on the drop haha. That shit was so fun.

“…tend to bug cuz the beats are hard but gentle” and that’s really it; those are my favorite beats, the ones that do that. And no one was tighter than J Dilla. This is such a fine example of his work to me, I’m at a loss for what to say besides I don’t know sicker beats than his. Also, I’m of the opinion that Madlib totally smashes his verse here, and on many Jaylib tracks. I’m also of the opinion that Dilla is one of the best producers on the mic. Anyways, I love it when a couple or few artists get together to make a whole album and create a new sonic world for themselves like these two did on Champion Sound (but this wasn’t on there!).

I tell people that D’Angelo’s Voodoo is my favorite album, because it is. Any song from the album could go on this list, but I chose this one for now because it’s sad and resigned and beautiful. I was a huge neo-soul fan in this era, buying CDs at Warehouse Music and Blockbuster in Salt Lake City like mad hahha. It was also when I began using the internet to chase music, which obviously opened up worlds to me. I look back at both of those things really fondly. The music that came out of the Soulquarians camp touched me, in a crazy and Voodoo is their crown jewel IMO.

I’ve got to give a little shine to my indie rock influences, but not too much. The Joggers were this amazing band from Portland. I love their music because it’s complicated, full of surprises, but still catchy as hell with killer pop sensibilities. These characteristics are ones I look for across all my music hunting. The Joggers in particular are wildly creative and fresh to me. I was never in a band or anything like that, regrettably. I did have my one homie Dave who was a music fiend like me and we were constantly on music trips, chasing songs on shitty 256kbps modems, sharing stuff with one another, driving around the hills jamming. Once I felt the urge to make music, I did so on my own using a sampler and a keyboard as I guess I didn’t feel like I had the friends to be in a band with. I’d love to be in a band that sounds like The Joggers, maybe one day… Me and Dave saw them live at Kilby Court, a classic indie venue in SLC, god bless it; they were so tight with such a full sound and their drummer was an absolute ripppper.

Kyle Hall, what an insane talent. I feel so lucky to be able to experience his music over a long term, having listened to him since his first records, and expecting to be enjoying his music for the rest of my life. I think there’s also something special about him being closer to my age, but still fully embodying that timeless innovative Detroit spirit. I love the youthfulness you can hear in his early works and the playfulness you can hear through all of his music. It’s so cool to witness with joyful excitement, his ability to hear the magic, and hear the chords that flow from his hands so effortlessly in this clip. KMFH is easily one of the most influential artists of the past ten years for me.

My father and mother have had the biggest musical influence on me, which makes sense. This is a single from a band my dad was in called Biseri (Pearls) in the Former Yugoslavia. My dad, Vladimir, played bass and released two singles with them, including this one. It came out on Jugoton Records out of Zagreb in 1969 when my dad was 20. That’s pretty wild to me! It’s a pretty cheesy jam, but it’s all good I’ve learned about and listened to so much music with my father. We’d listen to everything from D’Angelo (see above) to Phillip Glass, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Joe Pass, those just come to mind. We’d pretty much have music on whenever we were hanging out; that stuck with me.

Pepe Bradock was a revelation. I got into his music through the Confiote De Bits compilation BBE put out in 2009. I had been a long time since I got tickled by music like that, and I went on a rampage through his catalog shortly thereafter. Again, inventive, creative with tracks full of left turns and wacky moves. I love how sample-based, yet loose and flowy his music is. I read an interview where he says he never thinks the track is finished, he just had to hand it in by the deadline. His music certainly sounds restless. It seems like there aren’t to many steps between his raw ideas and what gets onto the record. I think only the best artists can do that well. His first album Synthese is also full of just perfect filter house with the sickest sample cuts, and then it only got less conventional from there. That Confiote De Bits compilation of his remixes has banger after banger on it; I like this one because it’s freaky and chill.

I might have gotten into house music in earnest through this song. I mean, isn’t it perfect? All I can say is the dubstep diaspora times were some heady days. I was eating that stuff up. It was my first time fully taken up djing, following a fairly specific music scene, and watching it splinter off and evolve into all these different directions. I was consuming a lot of this type of music around this time. I got to experience it in a community sense living in New York City for a short while around 2009 and going to parties like Dub War in Manhattan and Turrbotax in Brooklyn hearing dj’s like Kode9, Brackles, Bok Bok, Mosca, Pinch, Geiom, all those dudes. I was having so much fun living in the city for the first time, and being part of a bigger local scene around some really exciting music. I won’t ever forget it. This tune is just a classic. I love Crazy Cousinz, again, it’s all about the drums, “hard but gentle…”