Written Interview with Agaric (Patrik Skoog) for FWD.DJ 2017

Listen to the mix here: http://www.fwd.dj/mix/fwd92-agaric/

Can you start by telling us what got you excited about electronic music and if it’s the same thing that propels you today? What made you say “this is what I want to do with my life”?

Good question, I think there may have been some different phases. When it comes to techno and to some extent house music I believe the deep interest from a "I want to make this" sort of context came from going to the first parties, or actually, buying used compilation CD's at a cafe in Malmö that has alot of 2nd hand techno and rave. But I mean before I even became aware of that stuff I was totally enchanted by electronic sounds already as a younger kid. My dad got me into like Jarre and Kraftwerk and stuff and after that I always became super intrigued by electronic bass lines and synth stuff whenever like Yazoo or something similar was on the radio. And then, by the time you're a teenager I guess the rougher stuff like American industrial or EBM was the stuff that kinda ended up leading into finding out about the rave scene and all the different music belonging to that. But also alot of mellow Swedish synth pop or New wave or whatever. And yeah today is exactly the same still, you grow and expand your musical interest but I think you kinda always go back to those late teen- and early 20's years. Stuff you listened to then really leaves a great impression on you.

When I’ve listened to a lot of your music I find myself really being sucked into the sound in a way that’s atypical for dance music. How do you go about crafting your sound to achieve this vibrancy and tone? Do you think that you conceptualize sound differently than most or just have a magic recipe in the studio?

That's exciting to me! It's not something that I actively try to make happen while working on music. Not a very exciting answer I know! I think it's important though to let recording passes go on for long and throughout the bulk of arrangements though, I mean especially in dance music there is a tendency to loop things. I record drum machine patterns and stuff throughout whole tracks usually. Not necessarily for rhythmic variation, but the brain likes to hear slight differences in looped patterns I think. Everything is of course already a loop, but when a sound is absolutely looped, in a way that it is digitally copied, you can hear and feel it. There is no problem listening to say Thomas Brinkmann precisely looping one of his vinyl beat experiments for 30 minutes, or even just a physical drum machine pounding away on the same pattern for ages. Sampling 1 bar from that pattern and looping it forever in a DAW though? That's torture, actually I can't stand EDM for similar reasons, it's too copy/paste. Another cool thing about taking the time to record long passes of mostly everything is that you always find little things out of there that are useful elsewhere in your production.

You’ve worked with a lot of software and hardware. What does your current studio look like and why do you have it configured that way?

Ok, so it changes pretty much all the time over the years, I don't know if it's because gear and instruments constantly improve and continue to help your workflow to become more efficient, or if its because you get tired of working-setups after some time. Perhaps it's both of those things, but at the moment I'm really happy and I don't use alot of gear to compose and record music. On the software side I've started doing some mixing in Mixbus v4 and it really does sound better than other DAW's. Although I do most arrangements in Cubase, because I'm such a fan of Cubase, since forever. I also like Reaktor a lot, and also have been messing around a great deal with that VCV rack thing which is amazing. On the hardware side I use a Moog Sub37 on mostly everything as well as wavetable and FM stuff from Waldorf synths. I always use a lot of guitar pedals and I use plenty of distortion in my music making. The one thing software does not have going for itself, is distortion. Reverb I also tend to go for outboard almost every time. I owned a lot of drum machines and sampled everything meticulously into my MPC-4000 and still use it on every song. The sample modulation capabilities on that and after the S5000 period is just crazy.

You output is truly prolific yet you keep finding ways to generate original and interesting tunes/sounds. How do you keep yourself fresh and productive?

Productive is easy because there are so many different things you can work on. If you're not feeling like a particular sound any more, just give it up for a while and focus on other projects. I tend to get excited about kinds of music production in waves, and it all kind of goes in loops. I'm happy and blessed to have plenty of different style projects to work on. Having said that there is not much that impresses me more than other artists that really do just the one thing, and lead the way on it. Some people really excel at a certain style, and they never seem to get bored with it. Bored might be the wrong word, but there is just no way that I could spend a whole career successfully banging out tracks in the exact same style, year after year. When people do that in a satisfying way, it's totally impressive.

What are some of the core principals you’ve developed in the studio that you wish you would have known 20 years ago?

I think as music producers develop, they don't have too many of those major, or uber-significant aha experiences where they learn how to do something in a music better way, I think it's more of a gradual refinement. As as such it's difficult to say what you've learned. There are thousands of small improvements that you learn, with anything from how to EQ more efficiently to not overusing too many software plugins, but generally it's just a long process of conditioning your ears to be more accurate so that you can fix problems easier without so much second guessing. If I would go through a mix now that I had made 20 years ago, it would be completely insane how much crap I had left around probably. If I would had attemped to "produce" my own music from back then now, it would just end up sounding completely different and probably lose alot of what made it what it is. But to mention at least something practical, I think one "rookie mistake" that I know I made myself for a long time too, is to mix drums and percussion way too loud, and be afraid to let the sounds (which are the identity of a track) to get in the forefront of the mix.

What’s your philosophy for dance and electronic music’s place in society? Do you have a larger philosophy?

These days I think mostly everyone knows exactly what you're on about if you talk about a something like "clubbing". It's completely mainstream and a huge part of society. Of course there are sub cultures which remain to be unknown to the average music consumer but this explosion of dance music mixing with pop, and not to mention the incredible explosion on the music making gear market only over these last few years, totally makes all of this completely mainstream. And that has some implications on what this genre is and what it will be from now on, for sure. More people are making it, and more people are listening to it, than ever before - I bet. I'll admit, that makes me a bit queasy because there is alot of bandwagon jumpers but it's all really exciting, because there is so much that's changing in society due to emerging technologies right now that it's hard to keep up, and of course this has injected some adrenalin into the heart of electronic music as well. The modular scene fascinates people so much, and there is a whole new breed of guys and girls who do nothing but sit in their flats and work out ways to design new electronic sounds. A lot of these guys aren't even necessarily interested in making records, they just make sounds, tracks, and perhaps play some shows. It's exciting, all these thousands of fresh people sitting out there right now, making awesome new sounds and borrowing ideas from each other over the web, a real culture shift. And everyone is so integrated.

How do you want your music to impact its listeners? How much do you think about that when creating?

I actually try not to think much at all about how music would or wouldn't get received by another listener. That's a tricky thing and you can get a bit lost there. Either trying to do what's expected, or the other way around. I think it's hard to be creative and at ease if you have too many set goals of what the purpose of your music should be.

I know you are working with a new label called “Feel Raw”. Can you tell us a little about that and what the label is all about?

Yeah! It's a label from north Germany that I really like working with and I'm working on some ideas on what might become the follow up right now to my first vinyl Ep that came out in July. They know what they're doing productionwise and have a smart insight into what good music is, and I'm happy to be part of the deal.

What can you tell our listeners about your mix? How was it recorded?

The podcast mix for FWD was mixed at my studio, it's exclusively new music that I've recently found and liked.

What other releases and events do you have coming up? What should people be keeping their eyes out for?

I have finished premasters for a new Ep on the Third Ear label, and I just had a record out last week on a label called Parabel, with my techno project Patrik Skoog. Finally I just finished the third 12" from my other project FAR on a yet-to-be disclosed Swedish label

Tags: Agaric, Feel Raw, Ovum Recordings, We Are Records