Acoustic Images
The new FloFilz full-length Close Distance is a big connector – between Berlin and London, between jazz and hip hop, between sampling and live performances, between the past and the future. After his classic “Melting-Pot-Trilogy”, which combined atmospheric photography with warm retro-sounds, the new material has a distinct 21st century feel to it. It‘s the vision of an artist who has found his own voice.
Beat / Close Distance has a fresh sound, even though I can‘t quite put my finger on it yet. It feels like the typical elements are still there, but they‘ve been connected in a different way. FloFilz / I‘m glad you feel that way! Sculpting a new, but still familiar sound was my goal for the album. The title carries a dual meaning in this regard. It‘s both a reference to my collaborations during the pandemic and the synergy between the old and the new.
Beat / Most of the guests are key players on the London jazz scene. How would you describe your time there?
FloFilz / The London scene is a giant melting pot filled with incredibly talented musicians. They mutually inspire each other and there‘s a great sense of support. Everyone‘s experimenting, improvising and breaking down genre barriers – all of which is important to my own process as well. One of the most influential locations for me personally was the “Jazz Café” in Camden Town. It was an honour being asked to play there a few times and I was a regular audience member as well. It was at that place where a lot of the connections and ideas for the collaborations on Close Distance were born.
Beat / your reference points are really diverse, 50s and 60s jazz, downbeat electronica of the 90s, as well as the sounds of the new millennium. Where do you find your inspirations? FloFilz / The first concrete inspiration was probably Dave Brubeck‘s „Take 5“which was in my dad‘s record box. Already as a kid, I was fascinated by the entire album that piece was on („Time Out“), just like I was drawn in by Sarah Vaughn and Nat King Cole.
Beat / When did hip hop enter the picture? FloFilz / Much later, actually! I was around 18 when I stumbled upon A Tribe Called Quest. But the impact was so powerful that I listened to little else for quite some time. I started digging for similar stuff and, in doing so, discovered the German beat scene. Proceduri di Rutina by Hubert Daviz had just come out, an entire project built around Romanian jazz samples. That record completely blew me away.
Beat / It would seem that there are more live instruments on Close Distance and there‘s less sampling. Similar to someone like Makaya McCraven, who‘s obviously even more radical in his approach.
FloFilz / I guess that‘s true, I really do love working with instrumentalists. If I think about Makaya, I think about the concept of jazz influencing hip hop and hip hop then feeding back into jazz again. It‘s a cycle which feels like home to me. This combination of beats and live elements is very exciting. If the musicians you‘re working with use a beat as their point of departure, their entire interaction changes. The track „Levada“with the Trio Dal is a good example of that.
Beat / That one‘s a highlight for me on Close Distance. So is your track with the duo Blue Lab Beats, „Skybox“. They‘re one of the most celebrated acts on the London scene at the moment. What was your session like?
FloFilz / After the release show of my 2019 album Transit, the guys invited me into their small, but excellent Backyard Studio and we worked on some material for an afternoon. I‘d brought along a few of my most recent ideas as suggestions and they really liked one of them. It was like: „I have an idea, would you like to record it?“They‘d do the first take and it sounded good – and then move straight to the next part.
Beat / I interviewed them and they are just as sharp and on point in their conversations. FloFilz / Their workflow is insane. Mr. DM is a fantastic musician, seemingly capable of playing any instrument at a really high level. And then you have
NK-OK, who adds his producer skills to the mix. It was incredibly inspiring to be able to experience that and be a part of the team for an afternoon.
Beat / Next to the instrumentals, there are also a few vocal pieces on Close Distance. They blend really well, I find.
FloFilz / On the one hand, instrumental music has this certain kind of magic. There are no distractions, there are still a few white spots on the acoustic screen. It all lends an air of timelessness to everything. If you add vocal songs to this, it can give really great results. Then again, I do really enjoy pure vocal projects as well. Like the Lost in Translation EP I recorded with Los Angeles rapper K.A.A.N.! What matters is that you can trust the person you‘re collaborating with. There should be a basis for mutual inspiration and the will to allow an element of surprise.
Sampling philosophy
Beat / What‘s your take on sampling?
FloFilz / If I sample something, the intention for me is foremost to understand the history behind the music. Both in jazz and hip hop, that history is very important and multi-layered. I‘m only a guest in this culture. So it feels particularly important to constantly deal with what informs it.
Beat / Which passages out of a song typically interest you?
FloFilz / Hard to say, it‘s more of a gut feeling. I will usually have an idea of what the passage should sound like, but I‘d be hard pressed to define it. Generally speaking, in the passages I like, there doesn‘t need to happen a lot. But they should tell a story and carry a certain vibe. Ideally, my own ideas will then add to that.
Beat / I suppose the artwork is part of that. With your releases, it always seems particularly closely interwoven with the music.
FloFilz / This goes back to when I was working on my album Metronom. It was my first release for Melting Pot and label head Robert Winter had the idea of travelling to Paris and complementing the sounds with photography in the booklet. It actually made me go back to the music and arrange it so it would fit the experience of that Paris trip. As a result, you can really immerse yourself in another world – or a particular city in this case – without having to focus on any lyrics. The albums Cenário and Transit were natural extensions of this idea.
Beat / It‘s a sort of mental travelling – in space, but also in time.
FloFilz / In a way, yes. Some of that is intentional, some of it takes place subconsciously. I never really had a concept. I just want to take the listener on a journey and make them experience the same images that I see when working on my music. Many people have told me that my beats sound quite melancholic and I guess they‘re not wrong. My experiences tend to be bittersweet. There‘s actually a word for that in Portuguese, “saudade”. That‘s exactly what things feel like to me – and my music reflects that. ⸬
If I sample something, the intention for me is foremost to understand the history
behind the music. «