Eliot Lipp, a Brooklyn-based DJ/producer who is on the Pretty Lights Music label, dropped his latest album, Watch The Shadows, today (Oct. 14). With more than a decade making electronic music, this latest effort shows Lipp bringing a more "human" element to his sound while trying out new genres and styles.
Music Times recently chatted with Lipp about the process behind making Watch The Shadows, the role classical music played, the influence Brooklyn has had on his evolving sound, and the story behind the Pretty Lights Keepin' It Crew Tour, which features Lipp and labelmates Michal Menert, SuperVision, and Paul Basic collaborating on stage together.
Watch The Shadows is available now as a free download and on iTunes.
Music Times: You've described your new album Watch the Shadows as funkier than your previous releases. How so?
Eliot Lipp: There are a lot more live instruments on it. I just feel like when I'm using samplers and synthesizers and programming on the drums, it tends to have less of a human feel, and it's more computerized, you know. I feel like sometimes you lose a little bit of the funk by making things a little too precise. So I think because a lot of this was playing live instruments, to me that give it more of a human feel. But also just some of the rhythms and stuff I'm doing with the drums is also different than how I've produced before.
MT: Did you record the live instruments yourself, or did you bring in other musicians.
EL: It was a combination. A lot of what I did, and the way I started it was, I had a lot of samples on the album, then I replayed a lot of the stuff that I sampled. My friend Nick Bockrath, he actually plays the guitar in Cage the Elephant, I've been friends with him for a long time, and we're always hanging out in the studio together. So a lot of the guitar parts that I wanted to switch out the samples for, he would just play it. He would write original stuff, too, and we'd resample it, chop it up.
MT: So you kind of worked backwards in a way, using the samples as a framework then recreating it live?
EL: Yeah. Then I have another friend who has big grand piano in his studio, so I recorded a lot of piano parts over there. Then there's a couple friends of mine that do vocals that I have them sing on some parts. One was the song with Cherub ["The Western"] where they sing on the whole song. So it was a lot of collaborations with other musicians as well as me playing.
MT: I read that you were listening to and sampling classical music this time around, most noticeably on "Temporary Residence." What were you sampling?
EL: Just lots of pieces of orchestra that just kind of sewed together in a collage. I can't even remember a lot of times where it comes from, I'll just get one note from one record and a little piano part from another record, then I bring them all together and kind of collage them in a way that it works.
MT: I also read that you used the classical music samples as a framework, similar to what you did with the synth, where you reimagined the piece with different sounds. Can you elaborate?
EL: A few parts with the strings I did that. But classical music is still really new to me. I just got into it the last year or so. I never really knew anything about it before then.
MT: What drew you to classical music at this point in your career?
EL: I got interested in the history of it. Like my dad initially got me into it. He gets so excited when he starts talking about Beethoven and about Tchaikovsky and all these different composers. He kind of got me interested in checking it out, then I started listening to a bunch of classical music and buying classical records and downloading stuff.
For a few months, I got kind of obsessed. Every time I'd hear some open strings or just some sounds that I knew I could incorporate into my music, I would sample it and set it aside for later. Then while I was working on a track, I would go through all of these different little pieces and find parts that fit.
Like I said with the piano, sometimes I'd replay it or I'd use the samples to get a reference or idea to get some inspiration then end up changing it around a whole bunch more later on.
MT: Did you go into this album with a specific vision in mind or did it just kind of develop organically?
EL: Yeah. It started when I had a sample from an old jazz song called "The Lamp Is Low" and one of the lyrics is "dream and watch the shadows come and go." I just thought that was a cool line, and it fit well into this one song I was working on, and I felt like that was the theme song.
So all of the other tracks that I was working on at that time, I started to push them... I wanted it to be cohesive even though there are a lot of different genres. I felt like I had nailed down the theme of this kind of darker, melancholy shadow-y vibe, then I went and found a bunch of songs that would complement this title track. So yeah, the theme came about, but I had already started a lot of these songs before I had nailed down the whole concept, you know.
MT: When you tour in support of this album, do you see yourself bringing along a live backing band to incorporate that "human" element you were striving for.
EL: Yeah. I've done a lot of tours the last few years with a drummer and a guitar player, and that's kind of my favorite way to perform when I'm doing my own music. There's this keyboardist I've been working with who I've done a couple of shows with here and there. So yeah, I'm definitely going to be gathering up some live musicians for a tour next year.
MT: Right now you're on the Pretty Lights Keepin' It Crew tour, where you are collaborating with a few artists from your label. How did that concept come about and how has it been going so far?
EL: It started when we did SnowBall festival with the four of us and Pretty Lights and one of the guys from Break Science, who is also on the label. We set it up where we would each take turns playing a track. We were all on stage together, but we'd bounce around between us. So while once person was playing a song, everyone else would kind of jump in a bit, playing keys or samples and other stuff on top.
That's where we got the idea to do this tour. We had so much fun doing that one show that we decided to do a whole tour like that. So we got together for about a week in Colorado before the tour started, and the four of us worked on a bunch of collaborations and went through a bunch of ideas of what we thought the stage show could be.
We eventually came up with what we are doing, which is we do a few tracks with all four of us like a band, then we each take turns doing little 10-minute sets. But in between each set, we do a song as a crew. So for the most part, we are up there on stage playing like a band. Paul Basic is doing drum pads, SuperVision is scratching, and Michal Menert is basically the frontman, the emcee, and he raps also does samples, and I play keyboards. So we are basically like an electronic band.
MT: Is it all improvised?
EL: No, we're all doing songs that we've written and with our solo sets, it's like a greatest hits thing. We're doing all of our favorite songs, then we are doing all these new collabos. But there are moments that are improvised. There are a few parts where we just kind of jam for a while, but it's like loosely structured.
MT: So these aren't totally new songs that you're developing on the spot?
EL: Well kind of, sometimes it really goes there. It depends. Every night there are a couple moments where no one is playing a particular track, and we're all just kind of jamming along with each other. Those moments are pretty fun.
MT: How has the reception been from fans?
EL: Good. There have been a few sold-out shows and big crowds. It's just good energy.
MT: You've lived all over the country since you started making music. How has each region influenced your sound?
EL: More than just the region, it's also the people that I end up around. Like in Chicago, I got way into house music and techno. Then when I got to L.A., I was in the beat scene like playing at Low End Theory all the time. I met all the guys doing the experimental hip-hop stuff in L.A.
So definitely every time I would move to a new city and get into a new scene, I would get inspiration from that specific atmosphere. But I think these days I get a lot of inspiration just from being on the road so much and meeting different producers from all these different cities.
MT: You're based in Brooklyn right now. What has living there brought to your sound?
EL: I think in New York, a lot of my friends there have these lo-fi house labels like this label called L.I.E.S. and this label called WT Records, they're all based out of Brooklyn. I think I've gotten inspired to let my music be grittier because I've always tried to have it be really smooth and really sleek with hi-def sounds. But since I've been in Brooklyn, I've gotten really inspired by just noisier stuff.
MT: You're known for your sampling, so I was wondering what new artists you've been into these days?
EL: There are a couple I'm really into. There's this guy named Gladkill from California who is one of my favorites and also Odesza, I'm really into their new album.
MT: You got your start making hip-hop beats for emcees. Are there any rappers out there now that you'd like to work with?
EL: Yeah. There's this group from Tacoma called ILLFIGHTYOU, and one of the rappers in this group is this kid called UGLYFRANK, and he's like 20 and completely obnoxious, but he's a really really good rapper. And I've been hollerin' at him and trying to get him to get on one of my beats.
MT: Are you getting back into making beats then?
EL: I've never stopped listening to hip-hop, but I did stop trying to work with emcees for a while. I'm trying to work with more vocalists in general lately -- R&B singers, rappers -- I just want to get more vocalists on my tracks.
MT: So we can expect to see more features on your next album?
EL: Yeah, that's what I'm pushing for.
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