Prague-based hyperactive experienced booking collective Heartnoize Promotion is organizing the 5th edition of their ŠELEST event series. From their first event in Ankali club with Kenyan producer Slikback, to their 4th party in Bike Jesus with Mookie or Safety Trance, they built a name as a distinctive underground club series showcasing the newest trends in worldwide club music.
Now, they offer a quality and unique program (AV project awoo by Oliver Torr & bílej kluk, Slovak DJ wyme, BCAA collective, Irako Sei and Noemi) that we certainly recommend. British electronic music wizard Iglooghost will be the main headliner. Since his EP Chinese Nü Yr (2015) on Flying Lotus-managed label Brainfeeder, he just kept going and released 4 more EPs and albums like: Neō Wax Bloom (2017), XYZ (2019, collaboration with Kai Whiston & BABii) and Lei Line Eon (2021) under his own imprint Gloo. We recommend browsing his multimedia webpage Glyph Institute.
∎ You can listen to the „RECENTLY UNCOVERED VAULT OF「Lei Disks」CONTAINING A LOT OF UNHEARD MUSIC“ by Iglooghost and find our interview below ➔
Question about the DJ sets. How do you like to build your DJ sets? What are some elements, that are important for you, for example, showcasing friends/artists‘ songs, build up from your recent/new songs? Or create some kind of a story, playing with narrativity, or just freestyling and messing around, playing different genres?
➜ I think a big focus of DJing for me is having a space to play all the unreleased tunes that will never see the light of day for whatever reason. DJ sets only exist in a temporary space in time, and it’s so special that the audio can’t be ripped or ever revisited. Feels like some lawless international waters shit.
TikTok, and current social media. How do you see social media as a tool for you? Is it something that you think you have to use properly to promote your music, or do you hate it? How do you see the importance of artists presenting themselves in the digital space? (I think you are especially unique and great in your social media, playing with typography, creative descriptions, and inventing stories about your music, it’s brilliant!)
➜ I just try and use it as a medium to tell stories and bend reality with. There’s so much wrong with social media, but it can be a really powerful tool to casually slip worldbuilding and fiction under people’s noses without them realizing it.
AI technologies, significant language model-based chatbots like ChatGPT, text-to-image generators… Do you use AI for your own art and what is your opinion on the current AI boom in general?
➜ I’ve played around with it a lot but I’ve got a lot of issues with it. My favourite thing about making art is just grinding away at learning skills & the general process – so I’d never want that part to be taken away from me. It’s kind of the same logic that leads me to making all my own visuals and working on music videos myself – like I could easily hire/commission people to do it for me but it would be an antithesis to everything I enjoy about this shit. I think I’ll enjoy AI in moments where I can use it as a subtle collaborator rather than it taking like 90% of my workload away… that just doesn’t sound fun.
On the visual side of your music. You are quite original in your graphic design work as well and I think the art perfectly fits your abstract and futuristic fantasy music (If I may call it this way). What’s your process of creating visuals for your music?
➜ I make music and visuals alongside each other and they’re very inseparable to each other. I only really started making music as a teenager so visual art is really where everything stems from – I’ve been doing it since I was a baby.
What was essential for you in finding your own style of music, when and how did you realize that this is what you want to make?
➜ I guess a little switch flipped in my head when I realised I could be creating all the music that I wish existed… like weird genre combinations and hyper-specific types of music that I’d be searching the internet for hours but apparently didn’t exist. I think a huge drive of making music comes from a frustration of something not being made by someone else before me.
Did you ever think about quitting/changing the direction of your art – maybe doing something different from music?
➜ Hahaha nah… I want things to constantly be changing direction though. Every album needs to do something in the opposite direction to the last.
What is your process of making music like? Do you create daily or according to your mood, not regularly? What is your special routine for creating music?
➜ It’s very era-focused… I make music every day but stylistically I’ll be aiming for a particular vibe each year. I love building up folders of thousands of songs that all exist in the same world. Then I refine the best ideas together and try to make an album with them… then find fun ways to leak the other scraps.
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Iglooghost will play on May 19th with Awoo, Wyme and others at the next ŠELEST event in Prague’s Underdogs. Organized by Heartnoize Promotion. Tickets are available here. You can follow Iglooghost on Instagram or Bandcamp.
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