[Digiview #8] An interview with 죽음ᵈᵉᵃᵗʰᵖᵒᵉᵐ

죽음ᵈᵉᵃᵗʰᵖᵒᵉᵐ is an ambient/vaporwave from Tennessee, he specializes in making music that will take you to another realm of existence. With a new record in the works the sky is the limit for 죽음ᵈᵉᵃᵗʰᵖᵒᵉᵐ I had the pleasure to interview him a few days ago

When did you begin making music?

i started making music around the age of 13. I started playing guitar around the age of 10, but became obsessed with the idea of recording music, and made my first rough demo around the age of 13. it was probably some terrible metalcore or whatever I was into at the time haha.

That's very cool, one of the first bands I discovered was a metalcore band back in middle school haha

Amazing!

Some of your projects give off dream punk vibes, how do you vision the dream punk scene in a few years?

I hope that it continues to be about expression and experimentation, and I hope it constantly evolves. I feel like it will eventually become unrecognizable from what its origin point once was, and honestly, I feel like we are closely inching to that point now. I would love to see more mega arcing storylines and world-building, and just any kind of experimentation with that side of the genre. that’s what kind of sold it for me in the beginning. like vaporwave would invoke or suggest a feeling, but with dreampunk, it CREATES the feeling and is a little more self-aware of it. but ultimately I think the beauty of it is I honestly don’t know where it will go, but I will try to stick around and find out!

I agree with you! Dream punk is fascinating, love how you put your twist on it as well.

Thank you! i kind of didn’t know what the hell i was doing at first, so i just reached for tropes and cliches that i saw in other dreampunk music, but I eventually found my bearings and found what I liked to create haha

Can you tell me a little bit about your upcoming new record?

Sure! it’s something I’ve been working on for Dreamshore and has a similar vibe to my first record, but I dialed back the drone-y aspect substantially and took a more synth-heavy production style. I wanted to write it to sound like some music you would hear in a Blade Runner type of film or video game. something slightly futuristic but familiar. Close but far away (if that makes sense) I toyed around with the idea of making a slushwave record and tried and failed and tried and failed, but salvaged one song that kind of fits the vibe of the record. It’s kind of a distant relative to City Dreamer in that regard. This is going to be my last release for a while, so I wanted to do something fun and something that sounded a little more clear than the drones from my first record. which some people might not dig as much, because I’ve had a lot of compliments from the phasedrone sound from City Dreamer, but I gotta change it up from time to time 😛

That sounds very interesting! It's always good to switch up your style from time to time, looking forward to it!

I noticed your music has many different layers of sounds, how do you go about achieving that sort of production?

I work in a free version of Ableton Live. so i am currently limited to 8 tracks to compose on, so I have to get pretty creative. it differs from song to song. Some songs have a straightforward production style; (my more ‘musical’ sounding songs) and some are pieces that I’ve written and composed, bounced down, and then paulstretched and warped to shit. It just depends on my mood and what I feel like the song needs. as long as it fits within that 8 track framework haha. I heavily considered upgrading to get more tracks so I can layer my sounds even more, but I often like the limitation as it forces me to be more creative. one method I use to create a drone is to record a sound on my mic, usually me singing a note or clicking my tongue and then speeding that sound up until it becomes a tone, and then adding in effects to that sample and playing it like a synth. a lot of the high register whistle/static sounding tones that sit underneath the mix in my first record are just that. I think I made like an ‘S’ sound and then sped it up, EQ’d it, and slapped a shit ton of reverb on it haha. I do also abuse the fuck out of rain and foley samples, as it fills in dead air and also can aid in the suggestion of world-building within the song

The joke tl:dr answer is massive, unhealthy amounts of reverb

My production has changed quite a great deal since I decided to only use samples that I create myself

I think that's a very unique style of production, your sound has evolved with the projects I listened to from you!

I love your album art, it's stunning. Do you create it yourself?

I create about 98% of my album art myself. the cover for City Dreamer was done by Eric Weidner, but everything else in my catalog has been done house 😄

Awesome! 😃

What are rare your top 3 animes that you would recommend?

OOOOOO

good question, hard question.

uhmmm in this order my favorites are 1. Neon Genesis Evangelion 2. FLCL 3. Akira. I have pretty basic anime taste but those 3 will forever be my favorites.

Great recommendations, I really enjoyed neon genesis. Heard good things about the other two you selected as well

flcl is great! you should definitely check it out if you haven’t!

Do you have a favorite OST album?

At the risk of sounding predictable and cliche: the work that Vangelis did for Blade Runner is untouchable in my opinion. I just watched that movie again yesterday and the soundtrack moves me in ways another film score can’t. it’s perfect

Blade runner is on my watch list, everyone says the OST is simply amazing. I'll give it a watch for sure

Do you have any other hobbies you like to do in your spare time?

I game waaaaay too much. video games are the reason I don’t release more music lol. I used to be an avid reader but haven’t had the chance to sit down and finish anything so far this year.

Gaming is fun! I do a lot of it as well lmao What are you currently playing?

I’m currently playing elite dangerous! it’s been fun writing new songs for this record and then flying around in space to see what kind of mood they create haha

One final question I like to ask everyone I interview

1. an old-school ipod loaded with music. 2. an acoustic guitar. 3. as much beer as I could carry x)

Great answers! Thanks for taking the time out of your night to do this interview! It's been really fun

Thanks a bunch, man! I'm glad we had the chance to chat! Take care!

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-VDMR