Originally posted on Realtime
Lōtic is someone I recently came across on soundcloud. Loved the dragish, spacey even “swisha house” sound that I heard on his tracks and other people’s remix’s of them. Great stuff. Get familiar.
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/122371511″ iframe=”true” /]
Who are you? Where are you from/where are you now and what do you do?
J’Kerian Morgan, 22 years old. I’m from Houston and am living in Austin now as a DJ and freelance graphic artist. Moving to Berlin this spring, so trying to get ready for that.
When did Lōtic begin and what’s the story behind the name?
Lōtic actually started in early 2010 as a noise project by my boyfriend Mark and myself. I’d booked a date with a friend at this coffeeshop and she cancelled a few hours before the gig. Mark and I had been wanting to play together, so we formed a band that night, haha.
For some reason I wanted a name associated with water, so I Googled “words associated with water” and thought lotic sounded good. I thought it was fitting for a noise project. The ō is probably just me being difficult, haha. Or maybe I’m trying to be like Beyoncé. It’s supposed to help with pronunciation, but it’s probably naïve of me to think that.
Anyway, I just kept the name when I started producing, which was a few months ago after seeing Kingdom DJ here in Austin. His set made me realize that my experimental background could benefit me if I was smart about incorporating it. I’d kinda ignored the club scene before that night, but producing was always a childhood dream. I wanted to be Timbaland. Now I think I’m going to start using Lōtic for all my artistic output.
Whats you favourite Kingdom track?
I think my favourite Kingdom track is “Wartime HA,” and there’s this one particular whip sound he uses a lot that I really like.
Are you the man behind #FEELINGS?
No, #FEELINGS belongs to Ben Aqua! Well, it’s more of a collective, but he’s like the daddy. He’d been wanting to start a label and I wanted to release a few tracks, so the timing was good for both of us. It’s been really cool to see how #FEELINGS has been shaping up in just this short period.
After listening to your ‘More Than Friends EP’ I have to ask who are some of your biggest influences. There’s a definite sound or mood, just wondering who or what helped you get there.
Oh god I have so many. Obviously Kingdom and Timbaland. Beyoncé, Nguzunguzu, Björk, Maryanne Amacher, Ben Frost, Bernard Parmegiani, Mark Bell, Matthew Herbert. Anything that challenges its precedents, really. It’s always nice when someone has a completely different perspective on what a genre/type of music should or could be. I grew up in Houston, so that Swishahouse influence is probably there, too.
You into UK Garage at all?
Maybe? I tend to kind of ignore genre-specific music, so I have no idea what UK Garage is, haha. Maybe that makes me a bad DJ.
Your music has been described as “atmospheric and subversively minimal.” Was this your aim or even how would you describe your own music?
Has it? Haha. I think it’s just a product of how I think about music. I’m more of an editor and sound designer than a composer, I think. I’ve spent more time than I care to say on shaping reverbs and delay patterns, or on trying to mimic the EQ of a closet or make my voice sound like a drum machine, haha.
Philosophically, I’ve always been kind of a minimalist, though, so I’m not surprised that it’s obvious with my music. It’s more fun to make a song entirely out of vocals or marble sounds than to have 20 different sounds, amirite?
Is there any kind of imagery that you have in mind while you’re producing?
Sometimes. With ‘Coming Together’ for instance, I was thinking a lot about caves for some reason. I noticed it starting to sound like a cave so I tried to emphasize that sound. I tend to think about dark, moist spaces, haha. Like cold ones. Tornadoes are cool, too. Volcanoes, lightning. Factory sounds, like whirring and hydraulics. These all have such crazy sounds associated with them. I’m pretty abstract, I guess.
What, if anything, would you like people to derive from your music? For some people it’s as simple as having someone far away enjoying what they do, for others it’s a specific emotion they’d like to invoke.
Nothing, really. I love hearing other people’s perspectives, so I try not to be too overt with themes. I like for there to be some kind of mystery. In the end, I’m just happy people are listening!
As far as software and hardware go, what are you making music with?
Ableton and a half-functional midi keyboard. I code in CSound a bit, too, for more sound design-y stuff. For vocals I use a Duet and an SM58.
How has your production set up developed from when you first started?
It hasn’t changed much, it’s just a bit more streamlined now that I feel like I know what I’m doing. The “Rendez-vous” project file got up to like 40 tracks, haha, but newer stuff is only 10 or so. So I work a lot faster now.
Lastly, your ‘More Than Friends’ EP is up for download on your bandcamp exclusively, featuring remixes alongside original tracks from some progressive names like Ben Aqua and Arms&Suites.
Any words you’d like to end this off with?
Nope! Thanks for listening!
