Norwegian producer and artist Lido is heading to Perth in September to perform at Listen Out Festival. Now living in Los Angeles, the multi-talented performer chatted with Graeme Watson about the evolution of music and making beats in transit.
Your new EP with Canblaster is a really interesting work, it’s almost a journey from start to finish.
“It was a weird project. We wanted to make a concept EP which was a journey, so I’m super glad that’s how you actually feel. We wanted to make an EP about time and the entire project is a story about a guy who wakes up in the morning and he overslept through his girlfriend’s birthday and he gets in his car and there’s a car crash and a lot of stuff. There’s a lot of different interpretations of what actually happens, we just wanted to make a weird little story with sound and it’s one of the most fun projects I’ve ever been a part of.”
After finding my Walkman the other day I realised that we increasingly consume music as single tracks, unlike we did 10 or 20 years ago…
“Absolutely. I think that’s something that’s going to change again because of streaming. Streaming is becoming the main way of listening to music right now. More and more, you just put on a song and whatever happens after that song – you just keep listening. I think a new way of consuming music with playlists and finding songs through services could actually change that and bring it back. I think people are sick of singles, you know? The stuff that really hits people now is interesting format-wise. I’ve been frustrated with music for a long time and I think things are starting to brighten up again. We’re definitely getting back to that Walkman time, for sure!”
I was listening to the remix you did for Chance the Rapper on a plane. Where did all those sounds come from?!
“Literally that plane ride. I was flying from LA to Paris via Chicago and when I had a layover he called me and was like ‘Yo, I really want you to do this remix, can I send you some sounds?’ and I was like ‘Yeah, but I got 30 minutes ‘til I gotta get on this plane’ and he literally sends me a song that is called Planes. It’s just perfect. So, I sampled pretty much everything that happened on that plane ride. There was a crying baby behind me so I chopped up some of his screams. I sampled the bell that tells you to put on your seatbelt – I actually created the synth from that sound. A lot of the stuff that doesn’t sound like airplane sounds are in fact airplane sounds. There’s cups with ice and all sorts of things slamming.”
Are you doing all of this from your seat or are you wandering around the cabin getting samples?
“Oh no, this was all in my seat. I’m way too low-key and socially nervous as a person that I wouldn’t walk around with a microphone. This was definitely all stuff I could do in very incognito style. This is literally what it sounded like for me to fly from Chicago to Paris.”
Don’t miss Lido at Listen Out Festival on September 27th. Tickets available from moshtix.com.au
Graeme Watson
