Are there some artists you feel especially excited about, not only music-wise?
At the moment, I think it’s amazing because there’s a wave of new painters who are genuinely bringing something new. That’s incredibly inspiring, because we always have this idea, especially in music, that everything’s been said, everything’s been done, if you look at electronic music or rock music. And painting is much older than any of this. So seeing some artists, for example, Christina Quarles, Katharina Grosse or Jordan Casteel, who clearly have fresh motives and new ideas, that’s always really inspiring. And it vindicates the fact that, nowadays, I feel like we’re in a kind of place where there’s nothing to prove. If you have activism, say feminist activism, or gay rights activism, people are trying to show that they are right. Once these things become established, then they can be free. And the discussions around these things can be conducted on their terms. I feel a similar thing about electronic music. It was proved thirty years ago that it can be the normality. And now we’re in that normality, and we are free to relate things to anything we like and to do anything we like in it.
Do you feel like many artists take the freedom to explore?
Some. I think it’s been a really incredible year for music. We’ve had wonderful albums and EPs, where artists aren’t worrying about making a record in any particular style. They’re just going deeper into themselves and exploring who they are as people. Artists like Laurel Halo, Jlin, or the Lanark Artefax EP, Beatrice Dillon – they’re all just going on their own paths but sucking in anything they want to. And I think that’s the result of working in a period where we’re not worried about this new genre that’s come along. Thankfully, that’s in the past, it feels like, and now we just have people who are productive communities. They are completely idiosyncratic in the way they work, and their work shows that. And that’s really inspiring.
Stream: Beatrice Dillon and Call Super – Inkjet / Fluo (Snippets)
Speaking about Beatrice Dillon, how did your collaboration on your recent EP come about?
We’re just friends and I think both have a mutual respect. The relationship I have with Objekt is rooted in every aspect of our lives, including our work. But aside from him there’s no one else that I’ve had a working relationship with. And I thought Beatrice is someone that could be interesting to work with. She felt the same way and we made some work together. (laughs)
How was the writing process of that EP like?
She began one track, I began the other, and then it was a back and forth. I think the writing process was slightly hijacked when after the first track was almost finished Hessle Audio said they liked it, and then suddenly we were like “Ok, if we do something with it we need another track, that has to be dancefloor/club-focused in some way”, because the label is a club label. So suddenly there were these terms around what we were doing. And I think if we were to work again in the future I would like to work outside of those terms. I’m not so interested in having this fixed endpoint in mind.
And which one of the tracks was finished first?
The A-side, “Inkjet”. I mean, it’s one of the most functional things I’ve ever made. Which, I don’t know, surprised me.
Could you also picture yourself spending actual studio time together when you’re making music with someone?
I can picture it, but in that picture, I think I look very uncomfortable and sad. (laughs) Because I like the lonely aspect of this kind of work. In a sense, I like DJing because I like feeling alone in a club. I grew up in a very kind of lonely world, in a way. And I think it’s what makes me feel comfortable, just being lost on your own. And not only if there’s someone there do you have to feel comfortable together. But there is this pressure on the time. I can imagine very quickly you start thinking “Well, what kind of track is this?” And I’m not really interested in answering those kind of questions. I like to operate in a place of ambiguity. And that’s quite difficult with two people.
