Muddle

Deejayeetee

Interview by L. Valena

Can you first describe what you responded to?

I responded to a video that was in black and white. It was the story of a little spark. It was a white little blob, that moves around, and sometimes it explodes, and sometimes it’s in a million little pieces shimmering all over the place, and sometimes it’s moving so fast the one little bit looks like it’s swirly in shapes and stuff like that. It explodes, and it comes back together, and sometimes it’s little, and sometimes it’s bright, and sometimes it fades out and disappears, but it always comes back. It was fun, it had a lot of movement and energy.

Where did you go from there?

Electronic music is my primary art form, so I loaded up my music program, and imported the video so I could play it alongside. My first point of inspiration was the parts when the little point of light explodes or pops. So I picked a fun-sounding instrument that sounded like a little electronic ping. I watched the video, and played a little ping noise every time it popped. And then it kind of went from there.

I knew I was making a song- did I have to know what tempo it was going to be in? For electronic music you kind of need to. So there were pings every so often, and they weren’t quite lined up, so I adjusted the tempo, and adjusted where the pings were so it lined up with the video in the points where I wanted to match them up to. Then I had the pings— a sound to indicate when it does one of the many things it does. Then I could picture the rest of the song as segments leading up to and following the pings.

From there, I went and played around with some fun, creepy glitchy background noise. I loaded up a program that allowed me to do some experimental glitchy percussion stuff. I didn’t use a regular drum set, I used a load-in of sounds called something like ‘cinematic textures’. The software has a whole bunch of textures and stuff built into it, and I wanted something that was kind of cinematic, interesting, textured and layered. Something that could go in the background, but that also had a sense of space. The black screen with little white flecks going around makes me think of space, but it’s also motion on a background. So there was a lot of openness. I wanted to have some openness, but also stuff going on that maybe you would notice and some things you wouldn’t.

From there, I picked another instrument, and just played along with it. I don’t play any instruments particularly well, and I don’t read music very well. I program music for the most part. So I had a keyboard, plugged it in, and played a few notes that went along with certain points. When things got big, I played lots of notes. When things got slower, I made fewer notes. So then I just watched it over and over again, and tweaked some of the notes that I recorded. Then I’d choose another instrument, and do another layer and do some more notes.

After I did a couple of sets of instruments that all sounded sort of like they might fit together, then I went back and looked at what notes I played. And then I asked, “Is this in a certain key? Can I make certain chords?” So I’d make one layer, and then see how that layer affects all the other layers. And then I’d do another layer, and see how it affects all the other layers. And then I’d say, “Oh, I missed something really important that’s really smart and essential to music,” and then I’d go and reformulate everything else. I just did lots of iterations and versions.

Eventually, I got to a point where I liked it. And I did what I always do when I get to a point where I like it: I went and changed half of it. I always know I’m on the right track working on a song, when I take between a third and a half of the instruments and just turn them into other instruments. So then I ended up being even more happy with it, and then I spent a few days just fine-tuning the balance. In at the end I was happy with it.

When you hear it now, on its own, what does it say to you?

I wanted it to say... the thing that I saw in the video. Which was a thing, beginning with not very much, trying really hard to become organized and impressive, and then not usually succeeding at that for very long. Then going back, starting over and trying something new. So I tried to make the music a little bit jumbly, and then a little bit subtle, and then getting really interesting. “I can see that, I can understand this, it has a groove,” and then the groove almost immediately falls apart. And then it builds up again, and it’s a really good groove, and I let the groove go on for a while. Longer than I originally intended to, but I liked it. When I listened to it, I thought it needed to be longer, and this little bit is too busy. But I ended up restraining those impulses, because I wanted it to pair well with the video. I wanted to make the music for the video. And I think it goes well together, I’m happy with the combination. But the music I made was inspired by the video, but I’m going to make more music inspired by this song that I made. I’m going to remix it, expand on it and build on it.

I love the plot that you pulled from the video— I can totally relate to it. That pattern of trying hard, feeling like I’ve figured something out, and then everything falling apart on some level is so familiar.

The main percussion groove line, for a while, was one drum kit. And then pretty near the end I changed it— it sounded too much like something. And then I changed it, and realized that it wasn’t right either. So then I was going through all these different genres of sound for each drum type. I almost went back to the original, but I finally found something that I liked better. It was writing, and rewriting, and editing. Only a little bit was spontaneous creation. It’s always second guessing, finding and refining.

There’s always some element of “I’ll know it when I see it,” right?

Yeah. And with art, I feel like there isn’t really an ‘it’, there isn’t really a ‘right’. You find something that works, and you work with that, and then all the sudden some of the pieces aren’t the right shape anymore, and so they need to become other things. It was a very fun process. Most of the music I’ve made has been made because I have some time, and this is the hobby that I do. And sometimes I have a groove in my head, or an idea, and I try to get it down, and I almost never get it down exactly. I can’t keep my musical ideas in my head for very long, but I have to start somewhere. I don’t usually respond to something else, I usually respond to what I’m making over and over and over again as I make it. It was interesting to start from something that totally did not come from me. Your response is not totally in your control. And that’s interesting, and for creative stuff it’s a really good way to mix things up.

Now that you’ve done this, do you have any advice for someone else approaching this project for the first time?

My advice would be that you can figure it out. My way of doing it was to see something in it, and kind of make up a personality and narrative around it, but not everything is going to work that way. I was responding to something that was fairly well suited for responding in my media, and I don’t know if all the pairings are like that. Seeing the types of suggestions for types of art forms that were in there- how would you make art in response to food? But I would have probably just figured it out.

I don’t really have much advice, because I don’t really imagine the creative process ahead of time. I just do it, and figure it out, and muddle along, and then I come up with something at the end. My advice is to do that. Unless you have another way of doing things.

Sometimes when I’m faced with a problem, I ask myself, “what would someone who knows what they’re doing do?” And then I try to do that. That’s good when your car breaks down, or you have a problem at work. But if it’s a creative thing, then I’m the person who knows what I’m doing, and maybe I don’t know what I’m doing. So I’m just going to try something— try stuff and figure it out.

Is there anything else you’d like to say, on the record?

Yes! Three things. These are all inside jokes from a million and a half years ago: Everything is equal to five; but if it’s not five, it’s a taco. The next thing I want to say is much more sensible than the first thing— it pretty much makes sense: Everything is more or less blue.

Sixteen year old me would be happy if he knew that forty-two year old me was still saying those ridiculous things. As a sixteen year old, I wrote a surrealist manifesto based on those ideas. It probably still exists somewhere.

I’d like to read that.

Call Number: Y44FI | Y45MU.deeMu

Deejayeetee is also known as Jesse Tokarz. Among other things, I’m an electronic musician living near Boston, MA with my wife and cats. You can find my music in the usual places, including deejayeetee.bandcamp.com, and I’m on Twitter/Instagram/Facebook as Deejayeetee.