Cirrus – much like the entity inspiring the name – has been a quiet presence, producing away and refining his slick-and-dense-but-pronounced style from his Boston base. Recently, two eps seem to emerge simultaneously: Dark Skies and Drone Protocol/I Know You. We decided to venture cloudward and catch up about the former first, to find out what Cirrus is all about.
On Alchemic Breaks we have the Dark Skies ep: first of all what inspired the title? Ominous!
Most of my music has a pretty ominous and moody tone to it I think, even some of the more melodic stuff. So I think the name made sense.
It’s kind of a play on my name Cirrus which is a type of cloud which is where the ‘sky’ part comes in.
From the ep there’s ‘Ugly Variables’. That’s a killer, can you talk us through it?
Talk about moody and dark. I was watching the TV show Hannibal at the time which is about as dark and disturbing as it gets and that vibe definitely came through in the track… it’s also the source of the vocal sample.
I also was and still am in love with the music that guys like Clarity, Homemade Weapons, Overlook and those guys are making so I wanted to give my take on that deep, dark and precise minimal style.
The tunes have fantastic names. What sources/things inspire you to create, or do the titles come organically?
Media inspires a lot, especially movies and TV shows. Vocal samples from those types of media usually dictate a lot of what the names end up being since they become instantly recognizable. If there is no vocal sample to go on then I just try to pick a word or phrase that suggests the vibe I was trying to capture.
What TV & film specifically?
TV shows I’ve been enjoying recently include True Detective, Hannibal, Fargo, and most recently The Knick. For film I’m big into sci-fi which has been really lacking recently.
I usually go back to the classics like Alien and Bladerunner for tonal inspiration. Other personal favs for movies include Apocalypse Now, Zero Dark Thirty, Sunshine, District 9, Children of Men and Gravity.
Take us through ‘Lost In The Desert’?
‘Lost In The Desert’ is interesting because it was a big departure for me both in terms of tone as well as production methods.
I’m usually mostly sample-based… I like to manipulate raw audio. But for this the bass as well as all of the pads came straight out of a new synth I’d just purchased called Razor which was fun to mess around with. I also got loose with the melody which I normally leave very simple and sparse.
It was fun and very liberating but also very challenging because I didn’t want it to sound cheesy at all. Hopefully it works in the end.
You’ve also recently released on Terabyte, the ‘Drone Protocol/I Know You‘. Did these tracks/this ep come about separately? or from the same session.
For the most part I believe the music for both releases mostly came about across 2014 but that isn’t the case for all of it because ‘Wind Like This’ for example is much older. I’m usually working on no more than two tracks at a time so I don’t plan my production on a per-release basis.
I just basically make stuff that I like. Once finished I work with the label to see what tracks will work together effectively.
When did you start producing?
I started producing about three years ago, mostly because I’d been DJing for a few years before that and thought it was the right time to make the jump into production.
I was very curious about how electronic music was made and had the opportunity to get some formal training around Ableton Live so it made sense to dive in.
Who first influenced you?
Influence really came from all over, but started with The Prodigy who were my first purely electronic musical obsession.
With all this, you’re very busy I take it…
Yes it certainly feels that way between my full-time job, my own releases and the releases on my label Terra Null. Although somehow I still find the time to sink a ridiculous number of hours into my PS4 so maybe I’m not as busy at it seems ha ha.
What tune, any genre, is in your head right now?
The ‘Light Of One Thousand Furnaces’ by Eskmo.
Any shouts?
Everybody from Terabyte, Alchemic Breaks and Nurtured Beatz, everyone involved with Terra Null and everyone who does Elements Boston, especially Lenore and Fox.