SKARKREEM
SKARKREEM’s artform was developed on the sound systems of the Scumtek freeparty collective, where organisers and performers alike were forced to be as brutally efficient as possible whilst making the very most out of their scant resources; deploying parties for thousands of people in the bankrupt commercial spaces of post-financial-crash London, always with the shortest possible notice.
The hard work on the free party scene didn’t go un-noticed with the manufacturer of SKARKREEM’s favoured instrument: the KORG Electribe MX 1 inviting him to work on the next generation in the product line – KORG Electribe 2 - which is still in production to this day.
Amongst the user base of these instruments, he is recognised as the foremost virtuoso player of them; able to produce anything from soundtrack scores for horror movies to tearout drum and bass, and everything in between, squeezing every last drop of sonic juice from the hardware’s architecture.
The sound he produces is devastating: that of a seasoned industrial metal band in a pro-studio setting, but performed using only a single drum-synth. What is heard on record is exactly what is heard in a live setting, with no post-production editing, just a direct recording in one take.
Where many of his peers struggle to translate their carefully crafted studio masterpieces into a live-setting – often just relying on DJ’ing or a backline of thousands of dollars worth of pro-audio and personnel - SKARKREEM is able to deploy as a live instrumentalist with nothing more than a single power-supply, a stereo-jack and a microphone.
The hard work on the free party scene didn’t go un-noticed with the manufacturer of SKARKREEM’s favoured instrument: the KORG Electribe MX 1 inviting him to work on the next generation in the product line – KORG Electribe 2 - which is still in production to this day.
Amongst the user base of these instruments, he is recognised as the foremost virtuoso player of them; able to produce anything from soundtrack scores for horror movies to tearout drum and bass, and everything in between, squeezing every last drop of sonic juice from the hardware’s architecture.
The sound he produces is devastating: that of a seasoned industrial metal band in a pro-studio setting, but performed using only a single drum-synth. What is heard on record is exactly what is heard in a live setting, with no post-production editing, just a direct recording in one take.
Where many of his peers struggle to translate their carefully crafted studio masterpieces into a live-setting – often just relying on DJ’ing or a backline of thousands of dollars worth of pro-audio and personnel - SKARKREEM is able to deploy as a live instrumentalist with nothing more than a single power-supply, a stereo-jack and a microphone.
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SKARKREEM Talks To PHACEMAG
Can you tell us a little about your experience?
Like in a job interview? Well, I got a useless degree in philosophy in the early 00's - which was the style at the time - i then worked in corporate non-jobs for ages typing visual basic gibberish into Excel, living in either pokey shoebox flats if i was in a relationship or in warehouse shares if i was single.
Where are you from / how did you get into music?
Born to an English London family who raised me in Essex. Was immersed in new-music from a young age with little sense of tradition and with an emphasis on making whatever music you want to with whatever you had available. First thing i ever made was by using two Fisher Price tape recorders that had microphones (my brother and i both had one). The loading tray had broken off one of them so you could slow the tape down with your finger if you pushed on the spindle. I recorded the speaker from one recorder back n' forth and turned my voice into some sort of monster.
Like in a job interview? Well, I got a useless degree in philosophy in the early 00's - which was the style at the time - i then worked in corporate non-jobs for ages typing visual basic gibberish into Excel, living in either pokey shoebox flats if i was in a relationship or in warehouse shares if i was single.
Where are you from / how did you get into music?
Born to an English London family who raised me in Essex. Was immersed in new-music from a young age with little sense of tradition and with an emphasis on making whatever music you want to with whatever you had available. First thing i ever made was by using two Fisher Price tape recorders that had microphones (my brother and i both had one). The loading tray had broken off one of them so you could slow the tape down with your finger if you pushed on the spindle. I recorded the speaker from one recorder back n' forth and turned my voice into some sort of monster.
Who have been your main inspirations ? And how have they affected your sound?
I'm one of those annoying people that when you ask them "so what music do you like?" they say "oh i like everything". I genuinely mean it tho. I suppose people need music genres coz the entirity of human emotion is too horrifying to listen to all in one go, but I don't have a favourite genre. I din't have a favourite emotion either! Technically tho i've tended to follow producers who go for fuzziness rather than clarity, and who sacrifice loudness for a bigger bottom end. Matt Wallace's mixes for Faith No More are some of my all time faves, along with Alan Moulder for the Pumpkins, and Steve Osbourne and Flood for Curve. All those tape-saturated 90's fatcats who pushed their mixbus into the red back in the day.
Who / What do you dislike musically ?
Not sure i dislike anything "musically", just a weariness of the socio/economic aspect that surrounds music i like. Things that have nothing to do with music get held up as being more important than the underlying artform a lot of the time. To me, the least important thing about music is what it looks like and who it represents. If it sounds interesting it *is* interesting, therefore i'd like to know how it's done and where i can get more of it... i don't care if it was made by a polka-dotted polar bear catwalk model for flat-earth awareness week. I care if it sounds fat/rich/heavy/weird/moody/amusing/etc.
How would you define your sound? And how has your sound evolved so far?
It's the sound of a Korg EMX1 programmed by someone who knows how to use it properly, who then sings (kind of) over the top of it. I used to not be very good at using it, now I am. I could totally be a better singer but i go for loudness most of the time coz the Korg is so noisey i find i have to push against it, so it's not easy to be pitch-perfect when trying to be a loudmouth.
What concept do you want to convey?
Music as i see broadcast to me is enthralled to advertising and media-worship. So I want to put the instrument and the instrumentalist front and centre, solo, with no worship of any sort of medium, middle-man or media scene. No worship at all in fact. Just the reality of the individual, and their point of view.
What projects are you working on right now?
Music projects? Other than things i've singed an NDA for, I'm gonna just gonna make more Skarkreem patterns i think! It's so quick to do - coz it's such an uncluttered workflow - and i'm not bored of programming crunchy riffs over splatty drums just yet…