Channelling Creative Energy with Nothing_Neue

Being a genuine all-rounder in music is no mean feat.

In an increasingly competitive industry, the pressure is higher than ever to be a one person music, marketing, design and PR team. On top of that there is an expectation to keep your sound diverse and full of quality. However the benchmark for success in all these fields are extremely high. It takes a very talented, driven and relaxed individual to even attempt these moves. One producer that doesn’t struggle in this new landscape is Nothing_Neue. This up and coming New Yorker has crafted his sound over the years, creating a truly unique sound palette for his fans. As well as that he DJs, creates filmed content and designs his own art and branding. With the release of his newest EP ‘Sound Palette’, we took the opportunity to speak to the man himself.

So, let’s start off with Sound Palette, the new EP you just released. Could you explain a little bit how this project came about? 

For sure, Funk’n’Vibe, has this Sound Palette EP series set up on their Soundcloud where they do a focus on one producer, and they’ve got to create three songs of a cohesive sound.  The first one I saw was WES WAX, but the one that pushed me was KMB. That pretty much pushed the entire concept of Sound Palettes. Before, we just had to curate three tracks that sound alike, but once KMB did it, it was three tracks that told a story. I had been DJing for a year at that point, and I’d always flirted with uptempo stuff, but I’ve never really jumped right into it. As you’ve brought up, it’s almost a departure from sound for me, because it’s such a big jump in terms of tempo and energy. The Sound Palette gave me a reason to switch up the vibe and focus on that dance energy, without it feeling like, “oh wait, where is this coming from?”

I don’t think it’s as much of a sound departure, as it is a stylistic departure. 

The energy is different.

But I think the beauty of it is that it has remained very Nothing_Neue. Did the creation of this EP differ very much from your previous project releases? Aside from the more focused approach you just mentioned. 

It is different, but it’s also similar. Everything that I’ve done up until this point, has been me just sitting down and writing music until things sound right together. Sometimes I’ll write five, six, seven tracks before I start getting a sound direction. But with the Sound Palette it was weird, the first couple of tracks I made for it weren’t House at all. They were all Hip-Hop sounding tracks, that meshed together and told a cohesive story. But then, throughout one weekend, I started writing a bunch of these House loops. I decided to take the time and put it together, and turn it into something real. They all touched in different places where I’m known to be, A lot of African percussion, the Jazz chord progressions etc. but they all were so cohesive that there wasn’t any doubt in my mind that they were going to live together and make sense. 

Yeah, I get you. I totally get you. So your previous albums, ‘Foreign+Familiar’ and ‘RE: Collections’. Could you just briefly describe what those two projects were about for you? 

Cool. ‘Foreign+Familiar’ was my very first sample based project. Up until that point, I hadn’t really put out anything that was made with just samples. Everything else had been played live with synthesisers.

Wow!

Yeah! That’s something that a lot of people don’t really notice. I have to say it for people to get it. I really haven’t been sampling very much. ‘Foreign+Familiar’ was the first time that I sampled outright across the board.

How do you interpret that? We’ll go into RE: Collections in a minute, but how do you perceive that perception of you if you like? 

I haven’t really cared too much. For me, I’m just creating the music. However it hits you, however you respond to it is cool 

Wow.

It’s weird to be put in that position because it’s almost a compliment, but at the same it’s limiting. ‘Foreign+Familiar’, was made that after I moved out from my parents’ House and into an apartment. It was a smaller situation. I didn’t have all my gear on me. And for the first time in a couple of years, I was going back to being just a straight up bedroom producer. It limited me in a way that pushed me to really understand sampling.

I get you. So when when looking at ‘RE:Collections’, what would you say that one was about?

‘RE:Collections’ was my very first release. People always say your first release is always going to be the most potent one because you’re talking about everything that you’ve ever gone through up until that point. That project was me dealing with different emotional experiences, over the course of the year. I’ve come to realise that a lot of the music that I wrote for that record, that’s immediate responses to traumatic events. When I go through things, I generally go and immediately write music on it. The chord progressions, the drum sounds, just the energy behind it was really based on dealing those feelings as they happened.

From what you’re saying, when you throw ‘Sound Palettes’ in there, those are three very different projects, with three very different motivations.

Right.

And I’d say just generally that you have a very hybrid style in terms of production. I don’t think that dilutes anything that you’re doing though. Do you see projects as a way to showcase that diversity? And the larger question is generally what are your opinions on full length projects and their creative purpose?

I came from a full band setting. When we sat down and tried to write something, it would come off the heels of stumbling upon a new sound or a new direction to take the music, and then trying to figure out conceptually where that fits, how to tell a story with that. And for me, full length projects give me a chance to showcase where I’m at right now as far as what’s inspiring me. Anything that I do, if it’s more than two or three tracks, there’s probably got a story behind it. I really enjoy spending that time thinking about what I’m saying with these records, and how they’re going to touch people, and where they play in other people’s lives.

Absolutely. So, for you almost a project, or album, or EP, or whatever you want to call it; is a loose term. If a collection of work comes together that’s going to tell a story, then you’d rather present it as a collection of work, rather than a single B-side or something like that. 

I just recently came across a sound style that I think is really strong, and I could put out one or two loose beats, but I’m ready to explore that sound and really figure out what it’s trying to say and what I’m trying to say with it.

How do you normally approach beat creation? What’s the process for you?

So, it’s interesting because a lot of people sit down and try and figure out what they’re trying to write immediately, they might think “I’m going to make a House track”. I used to fall into the same scenarios, where I would sit down and push something. If I’d been listening to a lot of Afta-1 or Flying Lotus, then I’m probably going to try and makes something that’s inspired by that because it’s in my head.

But recently, I want to say as of the last year or so, instead of going to what’s inspiring me, I first check in with myself throughout the day. “How am I doing? How am I feeling? What am I feeling?” ,and these things begin to influence what I’m going to write when I sit down later and start putting music together. Once I know how I’m feeling, when I begin writing the music, it’s less like trying to put it in a position or make it do something and more about getting that energy out. I feel like that’s really what starts to cause writer’s block for artists, if you’re trying to make a House beat or something, and you’re not in that headspace, your brain’s not there, your emotion’s not there. You’re forcing it, and because you’re forcing it, your ego jumps in front of everything and makes you think that whatever you’re writing is “Bad” or “not working.” 

Whereas, if you just sit down, check in with yourself emotionally and begin writing without any expectation on how it’s going to sound when it comes out, then you’re guaranteed to come up with something. And your ego’s lower, so you’re not going to judge it to the same level. As long as you’ve got the thought and the emotion out, you’re satisfied. 

Yes, I totally get that. I think that’s a really beautiful way of putting it, man. Where it’s just check in with yourself, that’s the main takeaway from what you were saying. It’s just check in to see where you’re at, and then see what comes out after that. 

Right. That’s across the spectrum  too. You should be doing that with anything you do, not just music. You should always know where you’re at, both emotionally and mentally before you even enter a room. 

You touched on it a little bit there in terms of influences, but who would you say some of your major influences are? 

It’s a really long list of different sounds. I’ve been making music since I was 20 something. 21 or 22. And then, even before that I was playing in bands. So, there’s bands that have influenced me. I’ve listened to progressive Metal bands, Misery Signals are huge. That’s really influenced how I understand chords and melodies. Then I have Afta-1 because it’s just ridiculous how he’s pushed beatmaking and always expanded on its boundaries. 

Of course, there’s Flying Lotus. Timbaland’s another one. Kanye, and it’s not evident in how my music sounds, but it’s evident in how honest I am with that music. I feel like Kanye does really well with capturing what he’s feeling, what he’s going through, and putting it out sonically without caring what anybody else thinks. ‘Yeezus’ was’ him being so angry, that he needed to make an album that expressed that anger. Or, ‘The Life of Pablo’ was unfinished because his head was all over the place.

I think a lot of producers owe a lot to Kanye, simply for the fact that he was able to take a very well worn formula and interpret yourself through it. Kanye is so dope because he can go over an album that’s been rinsed for samples, and find that two bar loop that makes you feel something.

Right.

And every other producer in the world would skip over that, because one, it’s either not an obvious loop. Two, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything right now. Or, three, it’s just what can I do with this? 

That hasn’t already been done, yeah.

Exactly. And I think Kanye’s one of those guys who can really find that meaning out, and in a beautiful way put his own stamp on it to tease out the half meaning that’s already inherent in the sample or the sound choice.

Dilla, too. Dilla’s huge, because if not for Dilla, we’d all be quantising like crazy. The swing that I’ve come across is so inherent to me. It’s not anything that anybody else can create, and that goes with anybody who’s turned quantise off. You’re starting to understand who you are and where you sit with music. That’s why Dilla and Madlib, I don’t even mention them as influences because they’re so fundamental and rooted in the stuff that we’re doing, that it’s common knowledge. If I’m a fan of Fly Lo, I’m probably a huge Dilla fan.

You recently tweeted about your time as an assistant in a studio. I saw that you’d worked with Raekwon and 9th Wonder, and others. What was that experience like, and how do you think it impacted your creative output? 

All right, that’s a good question. When I first got lined up with the recording studio I was working at Dr. Martens as a manager. I was out of college and I was making beats, but I wasn’t really taking that serious. I’d daydream about working at a recording studio, but never knew how to get in. And then, fast forward a couple of years, and this guy comes in and he’s asking about boots for construction. My coworker’s handling him as a customer,  and then I hear him say something about constructing a studio three or four blocks away from where I was employed. So, I jumped up, ran over there, took the customer from him, got his number and ended up building this studio with these guys. I built a relationship with them where I was the intern, I was running around, soldering headphones, patch bays. I learned so much about just the process of making music, because they were songwriters too. So, I learned all this stuff about the process of making music, and what it takes to be a producer. I didn’t even know what a rhodes was prior to working at the studio. So, I was learning about instruments, I was seeing and hearing hardware synthesisers for the first time, sitting in on song writing processes, hearing outboard compressors, understanding them. They had a Neve at that studio.

Wow!

Yeah, and it was a custom made vintage Neve, because they had gear from this guy who was collecting gear for decades. And he was just sitting on all this vintage gear, so he would just let it sit in their studio for storage. So, I’m coming across 1176s and hearing how they affect audio, and Distressors and hearing how they affect audio. I didn’t know what a Moog was, until I saw the Sub37 up close and heard it. And it just changed everything about how I record things. I immediately understood that I wanted to use live instrumentation in everything that I was doing, and I wanted hardware synthesisers, to the point where that’s all I collect. I search for synthesisers in the same way that people search for samples, man. Same with percussion.

Wow. So, suffice to say it was pretty impactful on your odyssey as a music producer!

Huge! It was the single biggest moment in my career thus far. I’ve been in the music industry since then, doing behind the scenes things, running live audio at shows, and the reason was that my boss Rich Deccico, told me “You need to decide if this is something that you want to do. You can’t just intern and expect to learn everything that you need to learn and be a recording engineer, through interning for free two or three days a week. You should really sacrifice some time.”  So, I jumped and quit my job. And I was working there for free for a year or so, just trying to learn more and be in there. We did Jazz sessions, pop sessions.A lot of my songwriting ability came from just being in these sessions with different genres, and understanding how people go about things.

You are also always out there playing live. What is your favourite part of playing live?

It’s a three way conversation, man. My SP didn’t come with an instruction manual. A lot of the stuff that I learned came from either watching other people or playing live and pushing a knob too far, or coming across the setting by accident. So, the SP ends up telling me what to do on stage. And then, I’m communicating my music to the audience. They’re now talking to me through how they respond, either through raising their voice, applauding, bobbing their head or dancing, that’s a conversation with me. The music that I write, I try to emphasise this whenever I get the chance, it’s healing music and it echoes double time when it hits me and the audience at the same time. So, the whole room is hit with this music, with this intention to heal other people and to touch other minds. It becomes this very powerful moment, and that’s really what pushes me to do it.

So, it’s that unspoken conversation.

Yes, man. Being in a band, if you hit a groove with a guitarist or a bassist, and you’re playing the drums, nobody has to say anything, just suddenly you’re in a groove. And when you’re producing, you lose that. You’re in a room by yourself, unless you’re collaborating with somebody else. Those moments don’t happen the same way anymore. So, when I’m on stage I get that back, I get to have those conversations with the crowd.

Yes, I totally feel you. What’s some advice you would give to producers who are just starting out in live situations? 

When you get on stage, don’t think of yourself as a producer. Think of yourself as a musician or as an artist. And when you’re on that stage, put forward your best energy. I think we’ve been blessed enough to have had several different outlets and several different ways to express ourselves as music producers. It gets to a point where people get jaded, they don’t put forward the same energy as somebody in a band might. We get a lot of performances where people are just standing in front of an SP or a computer, or an iPhone or whatever it is, and standing still. People are paying money to come see you, people are taking time to come see you. It doesn’t read well when you’re just there, standing around. You could be doing that same thing in your apartment or in your House. When you’re out there, you should really be looking to do more. 

Exactly. This is something different. You’re playing to an audience. You don’t really know what that audience’s experience is of the Beat Scene so you want to give a them show, right? You want to give them a show in an authentic way.

You don’t even know how they’re feeling.

Exactly.

They’ve spent time to come out and see something, walk away with an experience. Somebody said something that’s a little melodramatic, but it stuck with me, what if it’s that person’s last night here on this planet? A lot of people DJ and play music and go out to venues, and they take it for granted that people are taking time out of their lives to come and see you. They could just as easily walk out that venue, and that’s their last night out here on this planet. 

Absolutely. More generally what’s your view of the beat community as a whole?

It’s a beautiful thing, man. I know it was really running on its own for a real long time, and then it took a small lapse. And now it’s coming back again full swing. In New York we had Beat Haus and The PUSH were really holding it, down as well as Paxico Records. When they started to transition out of monthly shows, there was a little bit of a void. So, I came up with In Plain Sight, Paze Infinite came up with Pushing Buttons, and The Pronetic came out with the Brooklyn Beats Syndicate. I was seeing it all across the tri-state, we had 9th Haus, Freq Show and Sound and Colour in New Jersey. As I kept playing I started seeing things like Controllerise down in Atlanta, and Nightworks in Boston. All of these people started connecting in real life, and giving us the opportunity to be out in the public with what we’re doing. And that is something beautiful that I didn’t expect. I never expected to be playing out in public with people.

You mentioned a few people there, but who are some people coming up right now that you really think should be paid attention to?

In terms of collectives, I would say 9th Haus in Jersey. On top of the fact that they do a lot in terms of providing a platform for hip hop and music culture, it also provides the space where we’re able to sit and bond in ways that we really can’t do in a live show situation. I got to know people that I’ve seen for years way more intimately through this. They’re really about the uplifting and safety of black and brown folks out in the tristate area and worldwide overall. So, in terms of collectives, they’re ones to look out for just from their stances, their views, and what they provide to the community. 

In terms of artists, there’s a few, man. I don’t want to namedrop too much, but I think Good Food is a monster. Good Food has range like I’ve never heard before. Ewonee is a certified monster, and he’s been for some time. Who else? I would say BrainOrchestra. BrainOrchestra, he’s a one man promotion team, rapper, producer and his rollout game is crazy. The way he’s really producing content has been inspiring.

And talking of content, I wanted to go on to talk about Mangled Mondays. I’ve got to say I love the Mangled Mondays series, really love it. Where did the idea come from?

That’s straight up from STLNDRMS out in Atlanta. I went and did Controllerise with him, and we were chopping it up and having a conversation on how to move forward, how to push what I’m doing further. Because I had so many questions, and I don’t have an OG in this, so he served as my very first OG there. He was telling me I needed to look for some video content. He said it would be what really pushes things to the next level, because he had seen my live show and understood what I bring to the table in terms of that. So, as soon as I came back from Atlanta, I picked up GoPro and I was like, “I’m going to figure this out, I’m going to get some video content going”. I thought of the term Mangled Mondays because it’s just alliteration, if you can’t already tell, is something that goes across everything I do, be it Mangled Mondays, 'Foreign+Familiar', Saturday Swatch, Foley Friday Nothing_Neue. This stuff rolls of your tongue easier. It’s easy to remember.

So, it was like it came from a need to spread yourself a bit further, and get yourself out there a bit more in a couple of different mediums?

Yeah, it was to find what’s next. What do I need to push my career to that next level? Because I was trying to figure out what it was, and people weren’t coming across my music organically, the way I would have liked to. So, this was a nice way to package everything that I’ve done and put it out on display, as well as my live energy and my proficiency behind an SP.

Can you go into a little bit about how these videos come together? Is there a certain criteria in terms of tunes you’re picking? 

The first couple of ones, I was free to pick whatever I wanted. Okay, this one is going to off of ‘RE:Collections’ because it’s there. And then, once I dropped ‘Foreign+Familiar’ I realised that this is a long term marketing play, so I can promote music that I just put out, and let it live for longer than just, “I put it out today and it’s just there”. Now I’m putting something out and I promote it for free. The ‘Sound Palette’ for instance, I’m already on my second and third week promoting it because Mangled Mondays allows for me to promote it weekly.

You’re also a graphic designer too, right?

Yes. If you had been paying attention to me since Soundcloud, all of my album artwork has been stuff that I’ve designed. Even when I do photography for my work, I’ve probably sat down with a photographer and come up with a concept for it. But yes, that’s what I went to school for. That’s my major and that’s my 9 to 5right now. 

Do you see it as an extension or separate from your music? Is it one and the same thing, or are there levels to it? 

It’s a little bit separate. But when I do album artwork, it often comes from the same concept. So, I’ll be thinking about that. 

Okay, cool. So, when you’re doing it for a 9 to 5, do you find yourself borrowing from each medium, in that you might sit down to do a graphic project, and then you might say, you know what? Let me try and apply what I do when I make music to this.

Oh, yes. A lot of my strength in visual branding and identity… You know what? I’m talking about the graphics stuff still. It’s hard to separate. When I do graphic design its cleaner. It’s about presentation, it’s about getting a cohesive idea in the cleanest way possible, and I think that might actually have an influence in my mix technique. I try to get to sound as clean and presentable as possible, because I don’t want the message to get lost behind the artistic expression. And I feel like that might be something that has come from graphic design a bit. It’s a lot less linear than it being just either it’s separate or it’s together. It just ebbs and flows. 

So, it melts as and when it needs to, in either discipline really. 

Right. It exists within the same vessel. I’m the person who’s doing the design and doing the music making, so by default whatever I learn with one sword, I’m going to take it and learn it with the next sword as well.

Of course, yes. I totally feel you. So you also do a mix series called ‘Saturday Swatch’ why did you yourself decide to create this series? Why was there an urge from you to make a mix?

Because people don’t understand that I DJ. That’s the biggest thing for me. I’ve been DJing for about a year. It’s something that I’m passionate about, and something that I’m starting to get pretty good at. But I wasn’t getting booked for it. On top of that, when you DJ, it’s hard to move past a certain sound or play things that are a little bit leftfield. You’re just stuck with what the audience is trying to hear. So, Saturday Swatch gave me a chance to play music by some of my friends who are artists, and music that I’m just passionate about overall, without the pressure of matching the crowd’s energy. 

What creative buttons does DJing push as opposed to simply producing or playing live? And I use simply very lightly there. What’s the feeling like in comparison to producing or playing your stuff live? What creative buttons does it push for you?

DJing is a lot more fluid, because when I do these things, I don’t necessarily have a tracklist or a layout as to what I want to hear first and last. I just sit with the music and play. And whatever comes from it is what comes from it. So, it gives me the chance to explore what I’m feeling. I don’t know, it’s just playing. It’s much more playful than producing. Producing after a while becomes, “Okay, I’ve got to get this idea out”, or “I’ve got to knock this out.” But DJing is something that I do, and I sit down and I’m, "oh, let’s have fun.” 

So, it’s an outlet to explore your love of music, rather than loving making music. 

Yeah, man. When you’re a producer, it becomes hard to listen to music because your ear is so critical that when you’re listening, either you’re judging what you’re hearing, or you’re listening for techniques that you can learn from.

So, the last question is simply what’s coming up later this year for Nothing_Neue? What’s on the horizon?

I’ve got a release coming with Dust Collectors (Shout out to them!). It was initially just a single, but I’m not into just putting out singles, I’ve found this sound that I’m really into, and I want to push that. And that’s mostly outer space beats. It’s a weird blend between Foreign+familiar and RE: Collections, but without the sampling and without the African drums, so it’s its own little monster.

Oh, nice. Yeah, that sounds interesting man.

Yes, so far the chord progressions and melodies, they’re all really similar to RE: Collections, but the drum patterns and the drum sounds, they’re all really Foreign+familiar sounding. I’ve also got a drum kit coming. I’ve spent some time putting together some drums from some synthesisers that I’ve collected over the years and ran them through a very specific chain. They’ve been hitting crazy. The drums have been just slamming real crazy. I’m happy to share that with people. It’s been getting good reviews during the test phase of everything, I’m just figuring out how I’m going to roll it out, and once I’ve got it rolled out, you’ll never hear the end of it from me. I won’t stop talking about that.

Follow Nothing_Neue on FB, Twitter and IG.

Listen to more Nothing_Neue here: