Since 2009, the partnership between Ishmael Butler and his post-Digable Planets outfit, Shabazz Palaces, and producer/engineer/artist Erik Blood, has yielded some of the most interesting and futuristic hip-hop music in recent memory. I sat down with Erik and Ishmael at their brick walled, dimly lit Black Space Labs in Seattle, WA. to talk about their working process and the color blue.
How did your partnership start?
Erik Blood: We met through our mutual friend, Bubba Jones. Bubba ran studios I used to work at. I wanted him [Ishmael] to sign my copy of [Digable Planets'] Blowout Comb. I think Bub played on the record I was working at the time with The Turn-Ons. Every time we metup, we talked about working together. After two years, we finally started getting down to it.
Ishmael Butler: Yeah. I think the key to Erik and me meeting is really Bub. He's a Svengali-type everyman; a jack-of-all-trades — putting studios together and building houses. His mind is always in construction mode. I think that he even thinks of the humans that he knows in that way. He'd always tell me, "Oh, you gotta get with Blood." So he knew what would happen, to a certain extent. I think he thought we'd have a fruitful compatibility, sonically. I always think about him when I think about Blood, because he was so right. It was a really good accompaniment, almost telepathic. Our taste is similar, which is rare. We don't even make the same kind of music, really. We do — we know we do — but when the product comes out, it doesn't sound that similar.
So what was it about Erik's production style and engineering that drew you in?
IB: I think [it is the] passion for the intricacy of mixing and recording. That's rare. Also to have a lot of style and taste. To be able to look at other people's shit with a critical eye. He's critical, but he can also understand where people are coming from. You can be comfortable, and when you're composing you can think farther out. It's warm, soft, thick sounds. You can start putting those combinations together, and you can have infinite outcomes. It was promising and exciting in that way.
How do you work together as a team?
EB: The process always varies. There's never a set way that anything is done. That's not necessarily intentional, but that's how it happens. What I do is try to translate anything that he's hearing in his head into reality. My whole goal is just to help him make music.
Can you give an example of a tune and how you started it?
IB: I could, but it wouldn't really be that accurate, in terms of how it goes down. After the composition, the recomposing, and then the mixing, it's like the characteristics of all of the songs bleed into each other. I think an example would be maybe on "Dawn in Luxor."
EB: I don't know how to even put it. We speak in codes, and we understand each other in a way that wouldn't translate. If we were to verbatim just tell you what was going down, it would either not make sense or would be extremely mundane.
IB: I could say to him on the kick drum, "No, man. You've got to 'blue' that. Make it more blue. Put some water to it." Like that, you know? Blue water.
But do you have a lyrical musical idea? Do you work independently and then collaborate?
IB: Everybody's always doing something at home — coming up with a beat. If it's a Shabazz Palaces project, then I probably came up with the beat and the initial kernel of the idea. If it's Erik Blood, he came up with it. If it's Chimurenga Renaissance, Tendai [Maraire] came up with it. If it's THEESatisfaction, Stas and Cat [Stasia Irons and Catherine Harris-White] came up with it. Blood's the conduit, the river that we all cross to get to the finished product. We usually start out with a groove or something, and then we get to talking about it. It may end up somewhere way different from where it was; but yeah, that's pretty much how it goes.
Are you creating the lyrical landscape after the fact, or are you coming in with lyrical ideas?
IB: Both. Nothing's ever lyrically finished until pretty much the end. I never come in with a finished song. I wouldn't even want to.
How has your role evolved, from your time in Digable Planets to now?
IB: Not much. Just the people I'm around are different.
What about what you're writing about?
IB: I haven't lost any hope, but I'm not idealistic.
Tell us about Black Space Labs studio here.
EB: When we moved in, it was just a raw space. We brought in a contractor to build out the spaces. We have a control room, a "dead" room (iso), another 9-foot by 9- foot iso that is "live," with 25-foot ceilings, and we have our entry way. The reverb in that room is unbelievable. Most of that room also has 25-foot ceilings; and then part of it has a false floor where the second floor would be, that gives us an extra 10-feet or so.
How long have you been here?
EB: Construction took nine months to a year, and we have been up and running since about last October. As soon as we had all this shit [sound treatment] up, turned on the computer, and listened, it just felt good in here. We immediately felt this was home.
IB: In the summer it doesn't get hot; in the winter it doesn't get too cold. We got lucky.
Are you working in the box?
EB: For the most part. I've got the lovely Rupert Neve Designs 5059 Satellite summing mixer, which has changed the game for me. I come from analog land, so I bring that aesthetic and sensibility. I still don't think digitally. I'm just old enough to be one of the last of the tape trackers. I held onto it for as long as I could. We're still hoping to find a tape machine to put in here, at some point. Since having to figure out Pro Tools and how to make that work, I've gotten pretty good at mixing in the box. Now the hybrid of analog and digital is where I'm at.
The vocals in these mixes are very much a part of the landscape. Can either of you talk about the conscious choice of where the lead vocals sit?
EB: That's one place that me and Ish really connected early on.
IB: That's true.
EB: For me, the voice is an instrument and it belongs with the instruments. Ish treats his voice as an instrument. The effects are chosen by him during recording. It's instrumental. Like if it were a guitar, you wouldn't think twice about the effects.
Do you have a pedal board or rig that you use when you're tracking live, or is it post?
IB: Naw, it ain't post. I used a TC [Electronics processor], and I just use whatever presets or whatever I can come up with on the spot. What I think sounds good. I just record it like that.
The music's very ambient at times. Was that ever part of your thought process?
IB: More like part of my life process. If I can achieve some ambience that is felt, and can be meshed in with by whoever's experiencing it, that's cool to me. I like it when I feel like that, or something makes me feel that way.
Was there specific processing on this record that you guys feel comfortable talking about?
EB: No. I don't want people to think that that's it; that one piece of the puzzle is the entire thing.
IB: Not in a way to keep information from them, but just to keep the notion that it's somehow only gear or instrument related when it comes to achieving even one blip of a sound. I thought like that, at a certain point. I was glad to realize that wasn't true at an early time in my life.
I think people are interested in the process and using specific tools to achieve a creative end result. Erik, I've heard you say that it's the ears not the gear, and I believe that 100%. We all have to use gear. So that's really what the question is.
EB: I can't think of anything particularly outlandish gear-wise that was used. I mean, we have nice shit, and we use it well, but there are no secrets.
IB: We recorded some out in that room out there [the room that has 25 to 35-ft ceilings] with different various mic placements.
EB: Every room in this place has been tracked in. We've used every bit of this space, sonically.
IB: A long time ago, Bubba gave me a Neumann mic that we've been using quite a bit on a lot of shit. We've got a bunch of stomp pedals, guitars, and amps, and we just run shit. Maybe we hear something in our heads. Once we hook it up and record it real quick, I don't remember, but a lot of the things that are on the records that we made are definitely from running things here and there.
EB: I'm a big fan of the Slate Virtual Console.
Where is Seattle in the music?
IB: It's going to be a product of the environment. You're going to have everything spanning from underground, rarely heard subculture energetic music, to all kinds of hip-hop — from "progressive" hip-hop to just straight up candy-ass, bubblegum bullshit. It's a place, like everywhere else. Physical borders, especially in America, are getting pretty wavy because of travel and the Internet. Everything's right there for you, at all times, instead of in Arizona or in Texas.
You talk about colors and how you're visualizing things. If you listen back or reflect on the music, does it present itself in a way that's visually or emotively this city?
IB: Yeah. I think 100%. Even this place. This is a real Seattle place that we're in. Like who knows really what went on in this space over the years.
What was your first foray into making music and recording?
EB: When I was really little, I had a cassette recorder that had a microphone attached to it, and I figured out that you could track things over and over again. It was like a multitrack, basically like a karaoke machine. I would fuck with that all the time and make weird songs with Casio keyboards. Once I got a 4-track cassette it was all over. That was all I wanted to do.
How old were you?
EB: 13.
IB: I used to have these things called tape to tape. It was like two [cassette] tape decks, and you could record on one and play on the next. I would make loops by trying to time things. I don't know how old I was. I might have been 12 or 13.
EB: I still love the phenomena of pause tapes. I had these cassettes, like "Erik's Bonus Beats" and shit like that. No one ever told me to do that. Did anyone tell you to do that? Did any kid say like, "Oh, check this out. You can do this"?
IB: Naw.
EB: You know the dual cassette desks? You put a song with a beat, or whatever, anything you want to loop in play, and then you record and pause. When the spot comes around, you un-pause, and then you pause it just in time to get the loop, and you rewind. It takes like six hours to make a song's worth of a beat.
IB: Yeah.
EB: It's pretty fresh. There are imperfections in it, like skips and weird stuff. Sometimes when you pause a tape while the sound is going, you'll get that draggy sound. I love that.
Things you can't do in a DAW...
EB: Oh, yeah.
Do you ever consider going back to it?
IB: I just did, yeah.
Do the tools influence the music to you, or does it matter?
EB: They do for me.
IB: Me too. You know how it is, you can just be trying to tune up, but then you're going through something and, "Oh, shit! It sounds crazy." Then you're there for an hour or two. So yeah, of course.
