What first drew you into music?

My first inspirations came from going to the Folk Music Festival as a kid here in Edmonton. Getting to see Blue Rodeo, Neal Young, Bands like that actually play what i heard on CD’s was amazing. That eventually led me into starting to play guitar pretty early on. Starting a band is a nightmare here and i could never count on anyone to help create anything so that led me into making music on my computer after hearing The Eraser album by Thom Yorke, shortly after a friend showed me Excisions 2008 shambhala mix and it blew my mind and gave me that sense of awe hearing sounds that i didn’t think were possible to be made.

Listening to your music we can tell you love incorporating interesting new sounds and techniques within each track! What inspires you to experiment and evolve?

Sound design is by far my favorite part of making a track. I love the idea of being the only person making certain sounds and using techniques I’ve stumbled upon on my own. For the entire time I’ve been producing I refuse to use any presets that other people have made, and would rather try to recreate sounds i’ve heard on my own. The results are always different and you start to get your own sense of what sounds good or bad and that’s unique to every person. The main guys keeping me inspired to keep experimenting  are Space Laces, Soltan, and Eliminate, they’re idea’s are so fresh and new with each release, I always find myself rushing to Ableton when i hear something new.

It seems like you already found your signature sound Do you have any tips for upcoming musicians that can’t seem to find their own sound?

I would say just keep working on sound design and building up a library of your own samples and presets. Splitting up your time between sound design and arrangement helps a lot when it comes time to pour ideas into a project. It takes a long time but with each session you get better and better and happy accidents have made a lot of my best sounding tunes. 

Your track “Odyssey” is your best track in our opinion! From its artwork to the Incredibly powerful sound we absolutely love it. Could you tell us more about the story behind this track? Also, what is your creative process like?

Thank you! I made this using all the inspiration I got from festival season, mainly Curiosity Music Festival in BC. Sleeveless records threw an artist takeover at one of the stages and every artist blew my mind so I wanted to create something based off what I heard that night. I started with the drums and focused on getting those punchy and crisp and shaping the bass sounds around that and using some different styles mixed together, also trying to contrast a minimal intro to a wide and full drop section. I also wanted to make it so it could be played at any point in a night so the second drop i decided to go heavy.

What are your musical goals for the future?

Right now my main goal is to keep up momentum for 2020 and book up a busy festival season that will hopefully lead into doing another tour, possibly in the Fall. Other than that just keep grinding away in the studio and keep pushing myself to get better and better!

What do you have planned for the coming months? Any upcoming projects we can get excited about?

In Febuary, I’m very grateful to be asked to play Frequency which is always one of Edmonton’s biggest Shows of the year, Excited to share the stage with some of the biggest artists in EDM.

I have a lot of singles coming out in the next few months, along with collaborations with some amazing Canadian talent (Hypesetterz, Diametic, Dowski, to name a few) and I’m working towards putting together an EP for the Spring!

Connect With SHRUG:

• Soundcloud

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