WHEREVER YOU ARE

WESTPHAL

FORTUNE - TELLING

3RD DAY OF THE ISOLATION ROOM

Why akinji? 

I saw what looked to be an aircraft, or rocket, something moving at a speed I've never seen a plane fly, one morning at dawn. you know that short period when half the sky is still stars with blue on the horizon. It could have been a shooting star because it was sparkling but there was a jet following behind it which was fast, but nothing compared to the sparkling dot leaving a contrail behind. It's a mystery. I saw it mid December 2022. Anyways, it got me googling and I found the Turkish made high altitude drone called Akıncı. I'm not saying that's what i saw but it lead me to something interesting. It's likely the drone responsible for all the Ukrainian air stikes on Russian bases. It's equipt with an active electronically scanned array radar, cutting edge technology that makes the akinci undetectable. This type of radar is one of the major reasons canada needs to upgrade our fighter jets. 

What was the process like making this EP? 

Lyrically try to be cryptically raw, if that makes any sense. I'd rather describe a situation than say what it is outright. I'm more concerned with how I feel rather than telling people how they should think. I don't want you to know exactly all the details of my life so you get this slam poetry bullshit. I'll spend months, even years working on the same song until I think it's good going through multiple versions. I'm rarely satisfied with anything I do so everything I do takes a million years to complete. To be fair I'm ill a lot of the time and in hospital so that's the time I write lyrics. There's only a few songs I've made I feel are worth promoting so that's that. I've been keeping the best little bits from the different versions and mixing it together. 

Sometimes it starts with a beat, sometimes guitar. I like both digital and analog sounds, digital for the low end and bouncing things to tape for the charm - lofi or warmth, texture. I find my best songs come from writing raps and singing them. I basically rip off suicide boys flow 24/7. also set a mic up in the room and record the master back just to get the room sound. I don't like pristine recordings so I over do it with distortion and compression. I end up in situations where I can't record for months so I've been using a couple programs on my phone to get down ideas. The guitar solo on superstar was recorded with my phone. I also used vocaloid, the voice synthesizer on dogs playing poker. AI really interests me. I fed gtp-2 the unibombers manifesto and got some really weird hateful stuff out of it. It showed me what kind of twisted mindset the guy had. I don't recommend doing that. I'm looking forward to using chat gpt to write lyrics once I get out of hospital.  

Who are your influences?
Schwefelgelb- German techno inspired by electroclash. It's fantastic. I think death from above's first ep is underappreciated. I follow Cindy Lee religiously. Early freak heat waves, baby keem(vent), gilla band. I tend to listen to noisy music like thunder bolt. Conway Twitty. I don't know. Lorn! Death grips. Scissor sisters! 

Plans for the future? 

Yeah. I want to be a drag queen superstar! Find a gang who'll help me make videos and do graffiti with. I want to learn python so I can get into data analysis with pandas. Stuff like that. I'd like to commodify my music so I guess I have to stop dreaming and put on that wig. 

Describe how your art is important to society. 

It's not. 

Okay. What motivates you to create? 

The need for attention. I'm all ego until I read a situation as rejection 🙃 then the bad thoughts happen. I want to make connections with people but I'm a bad people person so I draw attention to myself by being obnoxious and the reaction I get feeds into this self absorbed narcissistic thing. Kinda like conducting an interview with yourself to post on a blog. It's kinda weird. But hey, this feels less awkward than filling out a dating profile so here I am. I'm a homebody. 


Akinji-B