SHOLTO // The Eisenberg Review Interview

A conversation with the London-based drummer, composer and producer about his new album The Changing Tides of Dreams, the power of instrumental music, and how the resurgence of cinematic soul is linked to the rise of AI.

The Changing Tides of Dreams is equal parts grandiose and groovy. I'm very taken with how it evokes the work of some other modern groove merchants like Surprise Chef and the renowned work of composers like David Axelrod or even other contemporary groups like the Ironsides. The title in particular to me is so evocative because it's almost soundtracking liminal space between the conscious and the subconscious, dreams and reality. What was the inspiration for the sonic palette that you drew from on this project?

Well, yeah, you basically hit the nail on the head there. It's sort of about the human condition, how we're ever evolving and ever-changing, and our dreams are constantly shifting, and what you thought was a dream suddenly becomes no longer and a new one sort of emerges. It was about embracing that and I wanted to encapsulize the dark and the light sides of the human psyche and some of the records got this slight intense undertone, but the overlying thing is hope.

I wanted to try and encapsulate that in a sort of nostalgic [way]. I think at the time I was actually on a beach, but I was feeling quite blue. So I had this paradise view, but inside I was feeling... My view wasn't reflecting my mood kind of thing and so it was about wanting to explore that. How melancholy can be beautiful.

Music is such an amazing communicator of so many things, but it picks up on emotional nuance like that because we as humans are not always great about that. We feel like we have to be one thing or the other and I even get that in some of the tracks. I think "Vampire" is the first single from the project, the first track that I heard and it starts with this huge, gorgeous string intro and then immediately goes into a super tight groove evoking that duality that you're talking about.

That gives you more sort of intense feelings and it's a constant battle between that dreamy, meditative state of beautiful beachy haziness mixed with the reality of what's going on in the world attacking you from the other side. I think it's really interesting as well with instrumental music because you have more of a palette to create moods and capture moods, whereas with lyrics, it gets to the point. It tells you what you should be thinking or understanding and you can maybe relate to it and not relate to it, and that's how it hits you in a deep way, but with instrumental music, you have instruments on your side and arrangement on your side and it's interesting in evoking that kind of thing with just instrumental music. It's a new journey for me and it's been one that I've really enjoyed exploring.

And in saying that it's a new journey for you, I know you've released some singles up to this point. I believe you're a drummer first. You started out playing drums?

That's right. Yeah. I started out playing drums and I'm self-taught, and I've suffered from a little bit of maybe side man complex of always being on tour and working on other people's projects. I had a studio as well, and I produced other people, so I always felt I was giving all this creative energy and stuff into other projects, and I felt a bit depleted and exhausted. So it got to a point where I just started focusing more on getting my own ideas out, and it was really rewarding. It was really nice.

That's fascinating. I was just talking with another percussionist, actually. His name is Daniel Villarreal, and he also had a similar experience. He's drummed in countless other projects here in the States, primarily groups based around Chicago where he used to live and during the pandemic, he also decided, "I've got all of these ideas. I want to create a record that's autobiographically me in a music form," and he did that over the course of the pandemic and it is just very richly textured, similar to yours. It's a record called Panamá 77

Oh, nice. I'll Check it out.

Daniel Villarreal // The Eisenberg Review Interview

What do you make of the resurgence of cinematic soul music? I feel like we're in a period where the distribution and music making processes have been so democratized to the point where anyone can open up a laptop, bang something out in a DAW, and then upload it the same day. Producing this type of music is fewer and further in between it would seem, because it's more expensive, it involves more time, it doesn't match the immediacy incentives that we have.

Well, it's an absolute nightmare, really, but no. I'm joking. For me, I keep myself in my own little zone. It's just what I want to make. I don't really ever think about it too much. I think it's great to be in a resurgence, and I think probably a lot down to the fact of, it's like the opposite to AI music, basically. I don't know, it's the opposite of a digital technique, and I think some people get it and some people don't and for me, I personally think it's really important. You feel the analog-ness and the emotion and the time and the patience and the fidelity that's gone into it, and I think that to some people is important.

I realize it's not for everyone. I get it, but it's just for some people that hits the spot. It's like if you use certain ingredients, it's going to have the right sort of thing to prick your ears or prick your soul or your senses or whatever and I think it's nostalgic, and I think we're getting to a time where everything's looking so scary and digital and unknown and I think it's that bit of reminiscence of harking back to a pure, more analog sort of way of life, I guess.

I think that's beautifully put, and I think that's why even in all the discussions that are happening about AI, I think there's always going to be room for people making music, because fundamentally, AI is going to innovate away a lot of the muzak and pop-trap beats that you hear and the records that people are making for TikTok and bigger commercials, but I feel like we are always going to crave some sort of human connection, and you see that play out in certain instances.

This is my big thesis about that Steve Lacey song that was huge a couple years ago, "Bad Habit". I think people really responded to that song, not just because it's a catchy hook, but because it sounds amateurish and human, and he sounds out of key on it.

Yes, it's the imperfections. You can buy plugins nowadays that replicate noise that a tape machine would've made, which at the time the engineers would've been struggling their hardest to get rid of. So it's like we're now going backwards to... But all that pop stuff and the AI thing, it's like I don't really feel threatened by it. If anything, it's like I'm intrigued by it, but for me, it's just like if you hear a beat that's made by AI, then it's like well, I'm going to go and do that now without actually playing it, because I have that ability.

I feel a lot of this kind of music is made by people who have the idea, but they don't have the ability to execute it and I think if they did, they would probably just be executing, because it's way more fun to actually hear something and then go and play it on an instrument and I feel like we have the ability to do that. So it'd be, why wouldn't I use it?

Absolutely. I think it's just going to be another super powerful kit in the toolkit.

Yes, exactly. That's the optimistic way of viewing it, I guess.

And I try to at least be a little bit rose-tinted in my prescriptive about the future.

Half full, half full.

Absolutely. I want to get a little bit into your background because I know you did some shadowing with Inflo in particular, as well as Nick Waterhouse from the Allah-Las. How did you meet both of those folks? What did you work on them with? How does that contribute to your overall journey?

It all started in my first band, was a band called Hidden Charms, like a rhythm and blues style band, a bit retro I guess, back in 2013, and it was very like Allah-Las, that resurgence of sixties music or whatever was happening at the time and I fell into that and I was lucky enough to work with Sheldon Talmy. He'd done The Kinks and The Who and stuff, so I really got the taste of the analog stuff quite early.

We met Nick Waterhouse through that, and he worked on some records with us and produced them and then I went on to stay friends with him and ended up playing in his live band for a couple of tours.

And then yeah, Inflo again was just, when you're in a band that’s got a bit of hype, you're being put in the room with all these producers and you get to work with them and see their flow, pardon the pun, and see how they work and then you, just constantly like young brain absorbing everything, taking it all in.

We worked with Inflo just on a couple of tracks. I don't know if they ever got released. I did five demos with him but still, just even being in the room with him for five days, just seeing what he's gone on to do, it's just invaluable seeing his techniques or his process and you absorb it all and bring it back into your own studio, and that's your starting point, I guess.

That is so cool. Especially because I feel like Inflo and a lot of his projects are incredibly shrouded in mystery. I mean, thinking specifically of all the work Sault's done over the course of the past, I mean I guess it's five years now, but that's very cool, and I certainly hear that influence developing on your sound.

Nice. Well, he's one of the best. He's a genius. So yeah, that's nice to hear.

I want to get, before I let you go, some recommendations on records. I always like closing interviews by asking for three records that you'd recommend to the audience. It can be anything.

Caught me very off guard here, but-

Sorry about that, springing it on you so I get the honest response!

Yeah, no, that's good. Well, again, there's a guy who's also on Root Records with me called The Offline. I believe he's based in Hamburg, and I'm loving his album at the moment. He's brilliant. We’re kind of similar and on the same page.

Then there's my friend Oli Burslem, who has a group called Group O, and he was in a band called Yak, a punk rock outfit, and he's just a bit of a creative guy. This next project he's just released, it's not punk at all. It's completely experimental. He's just done it on a Casio Keyboard whilst traveling through airports. So it's Brian Eno-esque.

Then I'd have to say Maston. I don't know if you know Maston, but he's another instrumentalist but he's been a big inspiration on me as a friend and as a musician inside the world of this library-esque music.