Boombox Bisc1 - When Electric Night Falls Interview 26 March 2008
As New York graffiti artist and rapper Bisc1 releases his new album “When Electric Night Falls,” we could up with him between tour stops to speak about the release and his graffiti background.
JD: For those that aren't familiar with your music, can you tell us about your background and how you got into music?
Bisc1: I guess by skateboarding into the city to get mixtapes which in turn took me to the turntables which took me to the emceeing aspect and all that other stuff. If that makes sense, that little quick timeline.
JD: Where did the name Bisc1 come from?
Bisc1: It's routed to the aerosol art, as a kid I was just devising what to write, how to write letters and all that, kind of pushed it for as long as possible, I've been pushing it for about 12 or 13 years at this point, its routed to the aerosol writing.
JD: How would you describe your style of music?
Bisc1: I guess light with a really dark undertone, it’s Hip-Hop, I think it's progressive, it's real music. It's not Hip-Hop about rapping about doing Hip-Hop, its more like life music and reflection music.
JD: Being someone who is heavily into your art, graffiti and music, would you say it is it hard to find a balance between music and art?
Bisc1: Yes and no. I feel like they go very much hand in hand, you know? I'm fortunate to be able to do all my album art and my merchandise and the websites and all that, visually I am able to pull the project full circle, but it is somewhat of a struggle. Well I don't know if its a struggle since music has taken up more of my time in the recent its harder for me to be visually creative, but at the end of the day its really the same gratification I get from both so I don't know. I think I actually got it in pretty good balance. There's days when I don't want to do art and end up doing music and I get tired of music so I go and do visual art, its definitely a good thing to have both.
JD: So which do you enjoy most?
Bisc1: I don't know if I can even say because they are both so hand in hand for me so I feel that together it's one thing. I don't know if I can pick. Right now I am definitely vibing the music hard, traveling and making this record. Presently music is the full drive, but I am on my way back to New York, I will be there tomorrow and I'm excited to sit at my computer and get visual which I haven't done in a month.
JD: So how did you team up with Embedded Music?
Bisc1: I've actually known DJ Ese who owns Embedded for a longtime. I was interning for him at a label before and he was putting out mixtapes. Embedded really started with him and this other cat Hipsta putting together mixtapes. So I was doing cover art and we traded stocks. They put my music on the tape if I gave them my art and so on and so forth and eventually started making music. We got the point where we had to put out a project, we put out "The Basics" and then we got much more focused on this project. It’s been a very organic connection.
JD: Let’s talk about the new album, "When Electric Night Falls?" Can you tell us a bit about the release?
Bisc1: Its definitely the most cohesive volume of work I have ever done, its focused, the production is mainly one producer - Johnny Vegas - he did eight out of the twelve joints and pretty much engineered everything on the record with me in terms of recording it and helping me vibe out while I create them, so having the one vibe from him all across the board made it a cohesive project instead of getting all different producers. In terms of that I think it is comprehensive front to back, I think its heavy, the production is hard. I do songs about the environment that I live in, its electric, its dark and then there’s a light side of it.
Lyrically I think I put the light on top of the dark. There's a lot of real songs in there that are dark, but light at the end if that makes sense. I got the song "Pandemonium," which is basically three ways to lose your life, but it says that life is a gift, so its basically you can lose your life and erase someone’s joy, its kind of like darkness with that final glimmer of hope.
In terms of the title, "When Electric Night Falls," I guess I visualise an electric culture, an electric time. I mean you're in the UK right now, I'm in America and we're talking on the phone. The internet is going crazy. For me it's a creative time musically because I do the art and music, most of my music time is in the evening, when I sit on my balcony and the sun goes down, I just vibe out and the lights are on in the street, I kind of structured the record to walk you through that evening and wake up in the end and arrive through a new day. It's really about the electric land and the electric culture that we live in and the nighttime creation.
JD: How has your artist roots affected the way you recorded the album?
Bisc1: I guess I approach music like its graffiti in how I respect it and I like it to be organic. In graffiti if painted a piece, I do the main filling, then on top of that I do highlights and all these little details to make the whole thing jump, you know. Applying that thought process, I mean tracks are cool when they are just a verse and hook, but if you add in the highlights and the details it kind of allows it more life. Over anything that's probably how I would visualise recording a track, like painting a piece I am just adding pieces to it whether it be minimal or going overboard with detail, but I do look at the time and the energy and really just the ways of pursuing it in terms of the same direction that I have done with graf, you know, graf is not for anything but painting, you don't get work, well you might, but the fame, money and notoriety and vision is very different from what music allows you to do. I kind of approach music in terms of doing it for me and the people around me. I'm fortunate to have an outlet to put it out and because of that its making me work harder and push it, its like the rest of the world will catch onto it when they get to hear it.
JD: You mentioned earlier the work you have done designing album art, did you design your art work for this release?
Bisc1: Yeah definitely.
JD: Are you still designing for other artists?
Bisc1: Not at this moment, but I am sure that I will when I get back to the hustle and the movement of New York and submerge myself back into that world, but not for the last couple of months. I guess the album came out in March so for the month leading up to that I wasn't trying to concentrate on visual art and right now I've been on the road so I haven’t been able to, but its like a cycle it will be back, I've just had to focus on my music for a minute. Once you have a lot of work going you design, it goes and goes and its hard to stop and its hard to make time for music so I kind of had to say no to things and keep the music moving you know.
JD: What is your favourite track from the new album and why?
Bisc1: That’s a tough one, I don’t know man, it depends on my mood. I think direction-wise and production-wise and almost different is the first joint "Nightfall." I love the production on that and the flow, and just the approach to it. There's so much space at the beginning without lyrics, it opens you up then brings you in with the words. I don't know its a tough question, I'm pretty happy with the whole project.
JD: How does the finished album compare to your original plan?
Bisc1: I can't say I approached it in the beginning with a blueprinted plan, its almost when I described to you how I hooked up with Ese, it was organic. We were making tracks just to be productive and make music. We shot back a while ago with a lot of tracks. I'm not sure if you know about the mixtape "The Stay Up Project," which I put out between the EP and this record. Two out of all these tracks where recorded, not done by any means, but like the direction, we shot back and found the sound we were working on and a few tracks we liked the most from the "The Stay Up Project" and took the direction we followed on the record.
When I paint walls I freestlye all the time, I don’t come with a sketch, I come with a bag of paint and I step back at the end and I'm left with this creation, I had no idea what I was gonna do. Its almost the same approach. I focused with it and I filled in stories and beats. I got other things I'd like to do, but thats another project. I'm happy with it, I would say there is a lot of growth, but I think is a great project and maybe exceeded my expectations.
JD: I saw your new video for "Parallels," did you have much of a creative input in the video?
Bisc1: Nah, not really, well later in it. Because I don’t really have a budget I gave the project out to a few video artists I know and first they came to me with the song they wanted to do then they came to me with direction of it. Because there's no money I have to make sure people are motivated for the artistry of it. If its really off I'd give my input to it. I was a bit hesitant to try to pull it off with the kids in it, the people, the train, its just painting a picture with the song its talking about and I hope it paints a visual for people, but I got some more in the works. I definitely have a few more videos, we finishing up one more then we're going to do one for "Strange Love" with a cat Carl Weston I’m very excited to get into that one.
JD: I know you are on the road right now. Are you doing shows to promote the new album?
Bisc1: Yeah, definitely, that’s the whole point. I’m on the road right now I’m driving to get to the last show then after that I’m going to drive right through to New York.
JD: What is your schedule like for the rest of the year?
Bisc1: The only thing I have really locked down for the moment is this release party for the record in New York, because I haven't really tried to plan anything because I've been on the road, but its gonna be busy man, I’m gonna be painting, Id love to get out to the UK at some point, I’d love hit the Amsterdam thing. Who knows where the road will lead, but I know its not going to be slow.
JD: Any final words for our readers?
Bisc1: Thank you for your time and to the world, keep looking for good music and support it because its definitely an interesting time in music right now. Its easy to get your hands on a lot of music, but support whatever your soundtrack is. Artists won't be able to be supportive and people won’t do it as much, but even secondary to that enjoy the music and check it out and hopefully you like it.
