RC Interview #1 - Booshank
Music Tabloids
Booshank is one of our favourite local producers. Many know him from his UNTHANK 10” which came out in March 2013, 10 years ago (congrats) or his work on Butter Sessions where he featured on the BSR002 V/A in 2014 before his solo 12” Operating With a Blown Mind in 2019.
You can also find tracks of his on Inkswel & Benny Badge’s Hot Shot Sounds label as well as his own Couch Acid imprint.
His music is hard to define as grows and evolves with each release but you can hear his sound is rooted in the foundations of dance music. You can tell from his answers below he is a well read producer with a diverse set of influences and taste.
His description of Technicolour for his own works are fitting, you will find tracks which scratch the itch if you are into anything house, electro or digital funk adjacent music with a fresh, one of a kind take.
We tried to convince him to release ‘Know Your Mountain’ on a real record label but he was happy to put his latest and in our opinion, best to date on Repeat Concrete, for this we love him and support him endlessly.
Keep an eye out for his upcoming Live sets, even better hit up the man online to book him to perform one of his improvised mutant techno sets.
QUICK FIRE QUESTIONS
Describe your sound in a few words?
Technicolour dust
Beverage of choice?
Liquorice tea
Best and Worst Synth you’ve used?
Best is probably Oberheim Matrix 1000. Worst I don't know, there's a place for everything.
On average, how long does it take to produce a song?
Like 3 months
Most played albums at ages 16 and 20?
At 16 maybe Propaghandi - How To Clean Everything, or Regurgitator - Tu-Plang. At 20 I have no idea album wise. I was neck deep in 12"s, not sure I slowed down enough to listen to many albums.
Favourite of your own releases?
All of them!
Worst gig you’ve been to?
Even really shitty gigs have charm. I've been to some super bloated festivals that from a punter's perspective really sucked. But even that's curious to me, like how decision making can go so wrong.
Instagram / Social Media, net positive or negative?
The jury is on this one: bad bad bad.
Last book you read?
A song or album that blew open your idea of what music can be?
An early experience of that was Pink Floyd - Ummagumma.
Spotify?
On one hand democratising, on the other devaluing art and borderline enabling piracy
How old is too old to go to prison?
I'm not scared to go but get me the fuck out of there ASAP.
If you could be in any band at any point in time, who would it be?
Late 70s Iggy Pop
Most unexpectedly good gig you’ve seen?
Five Venoms at Ding Dong.
The most mundane thing about Performing/DJing/Playing Live?
Wading through the droves of adoring fans before and after the set
Best DJ you’ve seen live?
Floating Points
Are you ever inspired by music you don’t like?
All the time!
Who did you idolise at 14?
My best mate Daniel
When are your tracks/songs named?
I keep a list in my phone, then pick pretty much randomly at the last minute possible
First festival you went to?
Alternate Nation: Faith No More, Tool, Nine Inch Nails, Primus, Lou Reed, Ice-T
Favourite historical figure?
I like all of them
Marvel Movies?
Yawn
First international band you saw live?
Rolling Stones
One thing about the music industry which makes little to no sense?
The music industry structure fits with the broader economic structure, so it's not the music industry that's fucked
Favourite sports person?
Neil Blender
Vitamins and Supplements?
I wonder how orange I can make my pee...
Would you rather be well above average tall or below average short?
Big tall guys die young, and I want to live forever. So make me tiny.
Dream collaboration (music or visual or other medium)?
Dev Hine
If you didn’t have music, what would you be doing with that time?
Ravenously consuming video games
Pitched up chipmunk vocals, yay or nay?
I <3 Frank Ocean
Producer or artist who should (or should have) been more famous?
Obscurity suits a lot of people. Cases in point: Jay Electronica, D'Angelo.
Should music be produced with the listener in mind?
No
Kraftwerk VS Yellow Magic Orchestra?
Computer Games changed me
Best micro genre or niche sub genre?
Jizz jazz
Journalists, friends or foes?
Relying on other people's opinions about the world is purgatory
Your top producer from the 90s and 2000’s?
Maurice Fulton
What one word will bring world peace?
Siesta
Favourite painting?
My daughter is on a BEND at the moment. Whatever she brings home from kinder this week will be my fav no doubt
A FEW MORE QUESTIONS
Can you give us a rundown on your creative process or setup to make music with?
My process is so convoluted, it's hard to explain. I've accepted that my process is very time consuming and that I'm sometimes going to sweat and cry if I want the satisfaction of releasing music that I stand behind.
What have you been up to lately? What would you like to plug?
My musical efforts for the last year have been increasingly focussed on building a live set. I first set out to play live like 7 years ago and have finally worked out how to do it in a satisfying way. Playing pre-prepared stems doesn't feel like performing for me. Instead I'm taking a largely improvised approach.
I've put together a small eurorack system (168HP) that's capable of making all sorts of percussion, lead and bass sounds. I run that into a multi-channel looper (Boss RC505) via a couple of FX pedals (Meris Mercury 7 and BugBrand PTDelay). An Elektron Digitakt gives me clock and some additional drum sounds.
I improvise all the rhythm and melody sequencing and make up synth patches as I need them. It's fast, loud, heady, sweaty. When I'm jamming on this rig I can really express what I feel is a unique dancefloor experience. And given that 90% of the performance is improvised I can really go with my mood and react to whatever is happening in the room.Tell us about your history of skateboarding and the role its played in your life?
Skateboarding means committing to regularly being humbled by inanimate objects. 20+ years of that has probably had a profound effect on my personality, for better or worse.
You can listen and purchase Booshank’s latest on Bandcamp
Booshank - Know Your Mountain
Something is amiss.
We have turned our backs on our natural sense awareness. We are in the age of metaverse, unexplained sightings, viruses, reality bending, hyperstition and a global network, for better or worse. Our rational world is yet to provide all the answers and it seems there is a spell, or a curse stopping our ‘best minds’ from coming close to getting a grasp on it.
What do you know? What do you know for sure?
It's our pleasure to release ‘Know Your Mountain’, the latest EP from Booshank, one Melbourne’s more unique producers of mutant and liquid metal techno.
I first heard the music of Booshank (Paul Graham) on his 2013 10” on cult label UNTHANK Records a sub label of Firecracker Records out of Edinburgh, UK.
With each release his music has evolved and morphed into a unique and meticulous blend of electronic sounds rooted in deep hypnotic techno. This is music which evolves so fast and is hard to define within a framework when it seems to come from the outside.
You wouldn’t know he has a studio of hardware synths and an ever growing, seemingly sentient modular rig as his deeply rooted electronic sounds are highly organic, constantly flowing or modulating and seems to come from a wide ranging set of influences outside of the trends or norms of modern club music.
I’m not sure I would define Know Your Mountain as ‘club music’ so to say, it's certainly my kind of club music but it is also very much suited to home listening, The tracks on this release melt down and reform into new giants on a proper rig, they become Sacred Monuments, or Mountains, which the sight of alone may recall the memories of previous pilgrims to infiltrate your mind.
The tracks are subtle but they make use of the full frequency spectrum which brings a comfortable hazy flow yet underlying power to the music.
This EP could only be the work of a producer with a singular vision rooted in experimentation as a sort of self expression and I believe Booshank has wholly unique music to offer the world.
Know Your Mountain expands on Booshank’s work on his own "Couch Acid Recordings" imprint and his 12” on Butter Sessions 2019 12” "Operating With A Blown Mind" but with this new EP. Booshank guides you through panoramas of ethereal organic technology, before you know it the cloud has dispersed and you are being led through a molecular crypt in total immersion.
It is a fine and delicate practice when you stray from functional music but these aural gems show a producer who has gone off the deep end in pursuit of his own musical vocabulary. The augmented percussion, precarious pads and glowing synths dance on the edge of collapsing, and they often do, before long they reform into new chemical compounds of this mad scientist creation.
You may want to start low and take it slow or else risk falling under the dream-like spell’s which are invoked throughout this EP. In my opinion, when confronted with a craft capable of this mystical candor, the only way out is through..
