For our 28th AAC Sound Series mix, we bring you a brand new mix from musician and experimental hip hop artist iblss. Listen to the full mix and read our short interview with iblss below.

Interview with iblss

Firstly, tell us a little bit about what inspired the mix

This mix is basically a representation of the inspirations that I found throughout the past year. It was born out of all the time I spent outside in nature over the last year. It has been transformative reconnecting with nature, animals, plants, and I want to encapsulate my experiences with nature into the music that I have been listening to and making. Because of that I have been focusing on textures and temperatures of music that excite me; the textures, warmth and rawness of all these songs is what ties everything in this mix together. Nowadays, our world is getting more and more digital, losing our connection with nature and organic materials. I want to use my art as a way to connect people back with nature and the simpleness of life.

A lot of this mix represents different approaches to the art of sampling. Focusing on the feeling of the source material and bringing that alive and into the present in a fresh new way. I take a more simplified and minimal approach to my sampling; I used that as the foundation to find other songs that matched that energy.

Who are you listening to lately?

A lot of the artists I have been listening to have been included in the mix. People like Moor Mother, Contour, Ohbliv, Conductor Williams, dakim, and Ka have been on repeat a lot recently. I have also been listening to a lot of people that are in my artistic circle of friends: S!lence, phiik, SWARVY, Nelson Bandela, AKAI SOLO, Semiratruth. A lot of my time though is spent digging for vinyls. I have been enjoying early 70s jazz, funk and soul, that seems like what catches my ear most often recently, a lot of Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane, Roy Ayers. 

Can you talk about how you sourced your audio for this mix?

I sourced the audio from this mix from anywhere that I could: vinyl, TV, youtube, my library. I’ll rip audio from anywhere that I can and process it through my different analog samplers and saturators.

What tools do you often use when sourcing or creating audio for your mixes?

The tools of my trade are extremely important to me. Texture and temperature are so important to me, I spend a lot of time on the audio processing end of things, trying to make things more organic and natural sounding. I am really averse to clean and perfect-sounding tracks, making things sound imperfect and gritty is enticing to me. To process my audio, I use my SP-404, Octatrack, Analog Heat, and route that back into Ableton on my computer.

ABOUT

Equipped with analog machines, iblss crafts experimental hip hop beats by combining the musical archive with various sounds and textures inspired by the material world. iblss uses music as a way to tap into raw and ethereal feelings that he translates into experiences that others can resonate with. You can find iblss on Instagram and Twitter