Dead Formant 2

Dead Formant

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Dead Formant

Originally, when I was 13 (it’s been 5 years!) it wasn’t about having a ‘project’ but rather spending time on something that made me real happy during my free time, and that was Music Production. Being 13 shouldn’t really be ‘hard’ but at the time I felt pretty awful because of my own experience in Schooling, frankly Music Production kept it off my mind, which is one of the reasons I started, including that I had my own ideas I wanted to make.

I already had some experience with programs like FL Studio because my brother Squadda B bought a copy a few years ago for our house’s Windows XP computer, but that experience never went further than just throwing a few effects on channels through the mixer and other basic stuff until New Years 2010 where I told myself I want to make music in my free time.

I used to hang out with a few friends online during those days who were also into music production so I had a nice group to be with, I would spend my time making cheap small remixes of FL Studio’s “new stuff” projects. (the number of Blake Reary’s Holding On remixes are vast) It was a real fun experience, but I never took it too serious until my cousin talked to me about it and how serious it can be to know skills like the ones I knew at the time. It mostly got more serious to me when I sent a demo to Breakbit Music (a now defunct weblabel) and started throwing myself in remix contests and such, lost a lot which definitely made me feel bad, but it was nothing life changing, I still continued since that’s just nothing to quit over.


What song of yours is the one you like the most?
I love way too much of what I made, but if I really had to choose, I’d pick Telega. Telega was really the starting point for looking outside of the box and trying to make other genres than just the typical Electro, Dubstep, DNB stuff, and Ivy’s vocals helped bring that to life.

It was made during a pretty poor summer before I brought it to Ivy Hollivan, actually! During that summer, I wasn’t happy with what I was making. My sound design wasn’t making me happy, the songs I had in line weren’t looking okay to me, the other stuff I would work on like graphic design wasn’t making me happy either, Everything I would work on during the time felt so dull to me. All of this made me feel real poor about myself, so I decided to take a break from all of the ‘EDM’ type stuff, and try to branch out and experiment instead of force myself to just like what I’m making, and I have to say, I discovered so much about the production of other genres, what ‘sound’ I wanted to go towards, and myself. I never thought of what kind of ‘sound’ I wanted to go towards, but rather kept just pouring out stuff I thought was cool, which is OKAY, but just wasn’t enough to make me feel real good, like what was mine was really mine.

Because of Telega, I don’t only feel okay with the ‘EDM’ songs I create, but also outside of the genre, it and other things helped grow interest in other genres of music, and not just only making it. I actually have a bunch of clips and unreleased songs that I’ve made and feel more than happy to share here! ! (http://www.deadformant.com/unreleased)
How do you write your music?
Writing music mostly ends up being a “in the moment” type of thing, I usually don’t sit down and dedicate time to write something, but rather write what comes into my mind. It’s a bit hard to handle when you’re out and roaming, but this is why I’m thankful for technology these days seeing how I can just annotate it all in FL Mobile and bring it to my DAW when I get home.

 
What is music?
It’s far fetched maybe, but Music to me is just too defined by the specific listener or maker which is why I can see why it’s considered an art form: it’s about you, the person who can make the music. Listeners obviously apply, but I can’t bring myself to think that Music is meant to be defined by one genre, or that it’s meant to be defined by what something sounds like, or that it’s meant to be defined by what people LIKE to listen to, etc. I strongly believe it can be literally anything, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Dissonant stuff like Noise music, Glitch music, Hardcore music, those can be music. I may not understand a lot of dissonant stuff, but what should hold me back from learning, enjoying that stuff and acknowledging that it’s music?
What influences do you have?
I have many! In terms of keeping me going, I have to say my friends keep my influenced to keep working on what I love to work on, seeing my friends succeed and continue working on what they’re doing is a incredibly lovely sight to me. Majority of the time I spend in School doesn’t really have any of that kind of attitude, which is why I’m very excited to graduate and get out, because that just doesn’t exist there, which sucks, but I’m happy I can get it from somewhere.

Artistically though, there’s a lot that influences me in art. One I can definitely start off with is the ‘Cyberpunk’ sub-genre (I.E Series like Ghost in the Shell, Serial Experiments Lain, Max Headroom, so on) for it’s aesthetics laced in various art and clothing that I see and just end up loving. My favourite visual artists also really influence me, like 30000fps (http://30000fps.com/), Dustrial / Ctrl Alt Design (http://ctrl-alt-design.tumblr.com/), Jonathan Lucero (https://www.artstation.com/artist/sevenk), Prettypuke (http://prettypuke.com/), Kaneoya Sachiko (http://kaneoyasachiko.deviantart.com/) and just so much more. I can definitely go on about the artists that I love, influence me and inspire me.

Oh, and I don’t wanna forget about the musical artists who I love, like Little Dragon, Outkast, Yung Gud, S.P.Y, FKA Twigs, Billain, and also so much more!
What´s the best experience you have had with your project?
Best experience I’ve had with the music is just getting such positive, awesome responses from people and labels who enjoy what I work on, especially artists who I strongly look up to. Akira Complex is one of them, he’s one of the nicest dudes in the game right now and he’s just straight killing it, I remember when he made a post loving my song Aetius and I absolutely fanboy’d honestly. I’m sure I’ll experience even better in the future, but I’m just thankful people who give me real nice words and constructive criticism over what I like to do.


What plans do you have this year?
Not much, to be honest! All I’m working on at this very moment is finishing up this album that I hope to release this December, and working on some non-music work for my brother. I’ve been engineering, mixing, producing, and editing video for him a lot recently. It’s real good experience and I hope to keep doing it on the side. I also hope to be able to do more stuff next year!
Mention something you don´t like about your project.
I personally don’t like how “on the spot” a lot of the production that goes on with my songs are. Getting Ivy Hollivana on Telega was something that was planned for a while, but a lot of other stuff that I do like write music, publish content, and so on is so ‘on the spot’, and personally I’m not sure if I like that or if that’s what can keep the ‘intensity’ up. I hope to start actually developing some kind of schedule in the future, but there’s not a lot for that I don’t think.
Mention the biggest sacrifice you did for your project.
Having to constantly tell people that I know what I’m doing. Not much of a sacrifice, but with what I want to get in (sound design in visual media), people around me always seem to be so sceptical besides people who are more than willing to sit down and listen or people who just have experience in what I want to get into, which is understandable, but I’ve heard so many people try their hardest to pan me away from what I want to do commercially, it gets real exhausting, but you just have to keep your head up, do your research, and just keep working.
What band, music project or solist from your city do you like?
Between Main Attrakionz and 100s, for sure. I haven’t been too aware of artists around my city, but I should definitely start getting into that.
If your project was a word, what would it be?
Indigo
What´s your full name?
Shagia Metric. That’s not my full legal name, but rather a name I generally go by these days, one I’ve related with for a few years now. I was in my room when I answered this interview!

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