#7 // Trance Farmers

trance farmers / not not fun

We all have our own list of musical bugbears, whether it’s the hyper-compressed “never been louder!!” mastering of some 90s metal CDs, or the coked up uber-masculinity that often plagues 808 boom-bap. Amongst these, you would surely place the sound of surf guitar and vinyl scratches on one song, well...lighten up because that's way too reductive for Trance Farmers. His EP isn’t something to listen to with the usual rationale, its filled with slow cosmic jams, the hiss of vinyl, rockabilly boogie and Busta Ryhmes. Surprisingly, none of this feels like pastiche or gimmicky, its more akin to the playful cut and paste mixtape stylings that Jib Kidder had going on with All on Y’all.

The Boston native is now based in LA, a city getting pinned as being an almost utopic centre for collaboration, alluring beat production and esoteric pop. Trance Farmer’s £LVI§ ? JÅPÅN mixtape highlights some of the music being made in the city, with a pysch trip through Matthewdavid, Daedelus and some other weirdo electronics. We continued this vein on this episode with some tracks from distros and artists that mine a similar dark wave hyperactive palette, diverting via some electronic boogie with Jonwayne’s vocoder yoodle and a track from the forthcoming Niño EP out on Donky Pitch to keep in bubblin.

Vibe label of the moment Not Not Fun features heavily, interview with Britt from the label below.

How would you describe Not Not Fun?

Not Not Fun's an LA-based record label with a thousand eyes and hobbies. What we like is always changing but we're never lacking for new weird sounds to love on and obsess over and support.

What is your role in Not Not Fun, do you own it or curate it?

Me and Amanda own & run NNF together. We curate together, or take turns, depending on our moods and the particular project.

A number of your releases have been collaborative, this is also true of another label based in LA (i.e. Human Ear Music), do you feel that Not Not Fun is somehow part of cultivating a home of collaboration in LA?

A large part of the joy of music as an art form is that it can function socially (unlike writing for instance), so to not engage the collaborative possibilities seems like wasted potential to us. Right now we're living in the age of the solo project, which is fine (it's just a little less romantic than the band/collective concept), but collabs can be a real thrill when they're done right. I wouldn't say it's something we consciously seek out, but maybe we're drawn to them more than I realize?

A lot of Not Not Fun records have been released on cassette, what is it about this format that you find interesting?

Its humility -- and near-indestructability! Too many things break too easy, and neither Amanda nor I take care of our collections/objects that carefully, so it's awesome how rugged tapes are. The sound is sick too.

Are there particular attitudes you frequently encounter towards your music (whether as an artist yourself, or as being part of a label that distributes music)?

Every day. I find a lot of music fans get really annoyed by new bands/albums/scenes, etc, because they feel like they can't "keep up" with it all, so they're extra-quick to write shit off and disregard it. Which is stupid, cause there's no pressure to know everything about every release that comes out, obviously. People sometimes complain about NNF being "too prolific;" I just think that's goofy -- we're a record label, we put out records, that's like our 'thing,' you know? We like to put out as much rad music as we can afford to. Why not? Life's short and there's so much amazing art, screw being a cold-eyed gatekeeper.

What does the term DIY mean to you?

Doing things the real way. By humans, for humans.

Do you have any bugbears with particular approaches to creating music?

I'm not too familiar with the term 'bugbears' but I'll assume it's a negative thing? I like when bands come across as having actual personalities as people, rather than just some goal-based art project. Also I'm not hugely fond of excess professionalism in music; I find it rarely produces better things.

What is it about the 7” that you love?

I like their size, and the idea of framing one small sliver of music; it's like framing a sketch rather than a full finished painting. I will say I don't listen to 7 inches very often. I don't like to get up and mess with the turntable so often!

What are the best/worst things about running a label?

Best: hearing radical new music before it's even been released. Worst: the impatience and anger yr faced with doing customer service. There's a lot of people looking to vent, and a label ends up on the receiving end of that too frequently.

Where do you buy records?

Mainly I trade with other labels and bands. And there's some cool LA bargain-bin kind of spots where me and Amanda dig through abandoned dusty records for 50 cents a piece. Not all old records are valuable, and it's fun being able to make impulse purchases when the stakes are so low. In general I think most vinyl is overpriced.

What was the last piece of technology to inspire you?

My Alesis drum machine.

Posted at 16:34, 7th July 2011