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Artist Interviews
Q&A: Kid Adrift
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 22 July 2010
Playing an eclectic mix of rock riffs and dubsteppy beats, and with nods towards both Muse and Aphex Twin, Kid Adrift’s music fills the gap between underground electronica and well crafted songwriting. Gaining attention from the likes of Vic Galloway, Huw Stephens and Zane Lowe, he played the BBC Introducing stage at Glastonbury and has had the title track of his new EP, ‘Oxytocin’, added to the XFM evening playlist. With that EP out now via Island Records, we caught up with the Kid to ask the Same Six.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
I lived in fairly remote places abroad growing up and didn’t have any instruments to play so it wasn’t really until my early teens that I got into writing music properly. When we finally got to Scotland I inherited a really nice old piano from a relative so I started playing that. I still have it to this day; it’s where I start writing most songs. I have it in a little room that over looks the Ochil hills, so I try and get up there to write as much as possible.
Q2 What inspired your latest EP?
Long story! I was visiting someone in hospital and seeing a lot of brain scans and charts and things. I just thought it was odd seeing someone you know in such a scientific and impersonal way. It got me thinking about what emotions are, are they just a chemical in your head? It seems crazy to me to think that all of human history could just be a big petrie dish of chemicals interacting. Some people believe love is primarily a chemical called Oxytocin in your brain. I think there has to be more to it than that.
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
I usually start on piano. At some point a whole crapload of industrial noise and distortion comes in, I’m still figuring out how exactly that happens…
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
I love Son Lux, he is really free with his orchestration and use of sounds. He’ll rarely stick to the same set of instruments or, if he does, he’ll use them to make completely different soundscapes. Trent Reznor has always created a world around his work that you can get inside, which I love. And Jon Hopkins gets me excited, his soundscapes and textures.
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
I guess more than anything I hope they find it raw. I feel like a lot of records are so polished they feel a bit soul-less. We still write, record, produce, mix and often master everything from my house even though we’re on a label now. It’s just straight out of my head onto tape using pretty rough and ready equipment. I still use the same laptop I’ve been using for about five years, but I think that’s why people like it.
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
I’ve always just done my own thing of making crazy sounds up in Scotland, it’s flattering that some people now want to get them out to a bigger audience, so I’ll just keep doing it and it should be a pretty exciting few years ahead I hope.
MORE>> www.kidadrift.com
