DONKEY BASKETBALLLL!!!
Photo by Elio Agustín
Maybe you've heard of Donkey Basketball as in the Chicago electronix freak, or maybe as in the strange high-school sport... or mayyybe you've never even heard of Donkey Basketball before.. Whichever it may be, for Static! Revival's October interview, I was fortunate enough to have had the chance to clear the air on who Donkey Basketball truly is with none other than Donkey Basketball himself. We discussed influences and inspiration, an obscure architecture movement, recording, and even Skrillex.....
interview by reid isbell
How did Donkey Basketball start? Well I started it when I was in I think seventh grade when covid had just started and I remember a bunch of people I knew who were in bands released solo EP's. And, like everyone, I was just going crazy during covid and I was like you know what I'm gonna be funny and start making joke music and be like this is my solo EP. So initially it was just garbage, like, strange Garageband noodlings. And there was a moment where I would make a song once a day and upload it onto Bandcamp and make the album art and everything. And slowly, kinda out of repetition of it, I was like oh wow I actually like making music with electronics a lot and I should keep doing this. So then, I made a record out of songs that kinda evolved out of the jokes thing, and then it grew from there.
When did it start to get serious? I think I just realized I was having a blast making that music and I was like actually I totally have weird, interesting ideas here. But I had a very hard time figuring that out on my own, like initally when I would show my music to people I would be horrified. I would be so embarassed and would be super self-depricating about it. But I think I just realized I kinda a blast sound designing and producing and making music with MIDI. And also, just to add onto that, at some point I just decided to try figuring out a Donkey Basketball live set, which initally started out with playing with Sublime Jupiter Snake Duo. So it was Sublime Jupiter Snake Donkey Basketball Trio. But honestly having the live setup was kinda addictive for me, because it let me work on something other than recording. And it felt like there was something you could practice for, which I think is really a rewarding part of playing music in general. So after playing it over and over again, it felt like I was getting better at it. That's what got me into the whole thing, I don't think I'd be doing it without the live set now.
Click each to listen!
What was the first song that was out of that early phase? Okay, it's not on Spotify anymore, but it's this song called "Digging Daydream" I think. That was like oh this is pretty cool stuff, but I remember it kinda sounded like "Kid A" or something haha.. But that was the first song that wasn't a joke. And apart from that, when I did "Crude Oil" I think I was trying to do genuine music there. Like, that I spent real time on and I remember getting really deep into the drum programming, but I still didn't know how to make melodies so all of that was Kai. So, if that one feels distinctly not Donkey Basketball, it's because those melodies are not mine, they're way too cute.
What were some early influences? Hmm, well I'm thinking about "Freezer Burn" and honestly the crazy thing about it is it was kinda influence-less in a lot of ways because mainly I was just doing Lifeguard and then I would just make this music. And I think the awesome part of that record is that it's kinda naive which is fun, and it's all over the place. But I remember liking some Aphex Twin and I think when I was finishing "Freezer Burn" I had gotten into Seefeel. And I think you can hear some like, there's this band Emeralds, there's like some more analog kind of melodic synth stuff. And I was also really into Goldie when I was younger, but it was like scattered understandings of electronic music from a total rocker's perspective. For "Donkey Basketball Planet" I got completely obsessed with ambient techno, so I was very into Global Communication and LFO and the Orb and Orbital and all of that was just literally ripping that off. So that was I think the first one I knew what I was talking about and that was the influence there.
Were you into electronic music before Donkey Basketball? Yeah I think so, but it was in a way that I think lots of rock fans are into electronic music. You know, it's where you know a couple records here or there but you can't connect things through a scene or you can't talk about labels in the same way. But I think I liked all those ideas and found that kinda thing interesting, but it often also ended up being rock bands with electronic elements. I really liked "Kid A" and stuff.
How do your two albums and EP differ mindset wise? Honestly, I don't even know with "Freezer Burn", it's like a weird black sheep. With that one, I was really just making music straight from the heart, so I don't even really know what to say for that. But with "Donkey Basketball Planet", I had a very specific image in mind while I was making it that I was creating a concept album about a planet and that there's this universe that the whole record exists within and it's this planet where, you know, you never left the early '90s essentially. I think for that stuff I was just like completely honing in on that. But with "Towards Group Form", I think, first of all, I kinda got much more into true dance music and I started to understand the connections between different techno things and kinda just getting very interested in that whole thing. "Donkey Basketball Planet" sources most of its sound from all kinds of samples and presets used from old synths or whatever, but with "Towards Group Form", most of it is either heavily processed sampled audio or hand synthesized, so this was me being really interested in sound design and kinda creating stuff from scratch. And then also taking a dancier and kinda more experimental angle maybe.
Were the influences different between Towards Group Form and Donkey Basketball Planet? Yeah, I think the influences were different. I think with "Donkey Basketball Planet" I was like crazy into the early '90s stuff, where a lot of it gets borderline goofy. Like on "Artificial Intelligence" or on lots of LFO tracks or whatever. A lot of that stuff is pretty silly and I think the campy factor of it all I found really fun. But then with "Towards Group Form" I wanted to switch into something serious. I mean with "Towards Group Form" that was like my first release after getting into the later Autechre stuff and kinda other more sound designy stuff and like weirder ambient music. So I think a lot of those ideas come across, and I think in general the influences for "Towards Group Form" are just much more modern and I wanted it to sound like it came out now even if it's referencing '90s stuff.
I remember you telling me you wanted "Towards Group Form" to sorta not have any meaning. Yeah that was kinda the thinking for a while, or at least I didn't want the songs to have very distinct visuals and I didn't want any words anywhere. And maybe since we spoke last about the EP my opinions have kinda changed because, at least the way the cassette turned out and the way that I wrote about it, it's like kinda dedicated to an architecural movement and there's ideas of kinda faking and mimicking things found in nature which I think is true in ways that I was thinking about sound design and that kinda stuff. I mean I think the EP is about a lot less than "Donkey Basketball Planet" was, but I think with "Towards Group Form" it was about having some idea in mind still of like there are these buildings that are mimicking nature and are designed after trees because that's like optimal. And I think something about the music, a lot of stuff is kinda left up to chance, you know, there's a lot of unpredictability in the music even though it's very synthesized and rigid. So I think a lot of that kinda influence was on my composition whether I knew it when I was making it or not.
Talk about that architecture movement some more. It's dedicated to these people called 'the metabolists' and the EP is named after one of four essays that were from the metabolists' manifesto. So the essay the EP is named after is called, I think, "Towards the Group Form" or something and it's written by Fumihiko Maki. But the metabolists believed the best way to build in modern society for human enjoyment is to mimic things found in the natural world. The most famous example they had built was the Capsule Tower which had individual capsules as rooms, but basically the idea was that you could remove capsules pretty easily and like adapt a building to its surroundings or like changes in society or changes in how people want to use it. It's like how a tree can grow new limbs or change to adjust to its surroundings. I find that to be a very striking and beautiful idea, something about it being concrete mimicking nature I found pretty fascinating. So I think with the music, when I was writing the EP, I didn't exactly have these buildings in mind, but they had a large impact on me before I even started writing it. So they had their influence on me, but with the EP, all the sequencing was very unpredictable and there's lots of manipulating of the actual sounds that are live recorded by me. And I think the composition is kinda about letting the tracks grow into themselves. To me at least, composing them it was kinda like you sculpt all these sequences, but when it comes time to actually perform the song with the computer, you're just like sculpting this thing that already exists. Sculpting these rigid sounds into a completed shape. So I just felt like there were comparisons you could make. It felt like you could imagine the songs as concrete buildings that sprout up like trees, you know, little concrete branches diving off.
How do you go about writing songs, where do you start? It always starts with the drums for me or kinda sound designing stuff. But my voice memos are filled with little recordings of me in public just like beatboxing beat ideas. So a lot of the times I just go through my folder on my phone and try to rebuild one of those rhythms I recorded. But it always starts with drums, maybe that makes the melodic stuff kinda an afterthought. But that always just comes along later, just like trying to build that stuff with a synth in a sequence. But usually the writing just starts with rhythm. I mean I'm a drummer at heart and though I am playing melodic stuff also, I think as Donkey Basketball I'm just a drummer. I think with making dance music it's all about keeping the rhythm, so I really am a drummer first.
How do you go about recording? So at least with "Towards Group Form", everything was constructed with my Elektron machines without a computer. And when I felt like my patterns were complete, I'd plug my computer in and just record basically live james of the tracks into there, just getting multitracks out. And then all the songs have embellishments done afterwards in Logic. So there's a lot of reverbs I put synths through after and also little momentary additions I put after with automation. But for the most part the songs were just made on the machines and then cut down a bit.
What's a musician or band people would be surprised you like? I love Skrillex, I'm sure a lot of other contemporaries of mine would be like of course, he's awesome. But I like a lot of Skrillex, I think a lot of the early stuff is great, like the really brostep stuff is super awesome, but then also - this might be a hot take - one of his two new records is great, I was listening to it earlier today actually. But "Quest For Fire" is just really well produced, like really great mixing and really satisfying programming. I think it's like a really well made mainstream electronic record.
How would you describe Donkey Basketball? I don't like to call my music IDM beacuse I feel like it's a stupid term and I also don't like calling it braindance because that ties into Aphex Twin too much. So I often just like to say electronic music and I also feel like that keeps the door open a bit in terms of like lets say I just want to make something else completely, let's say I want to do ambient eventually. So I guess it could be electronic or I guess it could be techno, which some people would be upset by me saying that. The way I would describe my music is handcrafted, made by scratch.
What could you listen to the rest of your life without getting bored? I think I have my answer, but I feel so bad just like only repping these guys. But I think Autechre I could listen to for years. First of all, they have so many records and I feel like all their records are very difficult to get into initially. Like I think you could literally enter any album and start a hater and end a lover. It's just a special band.
Would you ever want to play with them? I don't think I could play with them, I don't think it would be a good fit. I mean I would if I were asked, but I would just be like aw guys this is embarrassing, I don't mean to rip you off like that.
Autechre, some time in the '90s
I meant to ask you this when it was more on topic, but do you mix and master everything yourself? Everything is mixed by me, I got really into that, and then it gets mastered by someone else. I don't really believe the artist should be mastering it themselves, I think mastering is about getting another pair of ears to listen to your thing. If you've mixed something perfectly you don't need to master it, so I think mastering is nice to have someone just give the final glue that you don't even knew it needed. I think the artist is too familiar with the mixes, they're too familiar with how everything is already working, so sometimes you just need to send it to someone who has no idea what processing was done and they just have to deal with what they got.
How do you get your drum sounds? It comes from all over the place. My main strategy now is to basically get onto like some kinda synth, right now its been my Digitone or my Waldorf Blofeld, and just record like crazy harsh noise into my Digitakt and sample it into drums by like pitching them or adding envolopes. So a lot of it I do by hand.
Have you ever beatboxed and turned that into a beat? I did it once on "Donkey Basketball Planet", I think it's on the first song a little bit. But if I could process it more, I'm sure I could getting sounding really cool. I dream to do it one day, but I'm not good enough of a beatboxer or producer to do that yet.
Where do you see Donkey Basketball going in the future? I want the audio-visual element to become stronger I think. I want my projections live to become a bigger part of it or I'd like a video album or something, that could be fun. But who knows.
How do you feel about the music scene in Chicago right now? Electronic-wise I think it's awesome. I feel like there's a lot of really interesting young people making really awesome music. All the people involved in the Mages Guild stuff over here are doing really cool stuff. I think there's a lot of really exciting things going on, I know that in general over here we're kinda exploring doing surround sound audio setups for dance music which I know hasn't really been done that much. It feels fun to be a part of this moment where it feels like everyone is kinda innovating and changing our norms for this kinda music.
If you could go back to any scene at anytime anywhere, where would you go back to? I would go back to late '80s Detroit and see techno in its early days. Go to some of those parties. I would love to see early acid house in Chicago too.
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