Insight Interview: Lore

We caught up recently with UK producer Lore (formerly known as Stompbox) to talk through his recent and upcoming projects. Check out what he had to say…

Hey Lore, thanks so much for agreeing to an interview. Where are you based? Do you tend to travel a lot, or are you firmly rooted at home?

Hello Antony, no trouble at all. Thanks for asking me 🙂

I am based in Manchester. I am pretty much firmly rooted at home for the time being.

Can you recall your first real exposure to music?

As a child being exposed to Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Black Grape…

How and when did you first begin writing and creating music?

I first started in college. I dropped a Geography course (wasn’t my cup of tea) and took up Music Production instead. Never looked back since!

How did you decide upon the name Lore?

The name was stumbled across whilst out running with my girlfriend. We came across some graffiti and that was one of the tags.

I quite like the meaning behind folklore as well: the traditional beliefs, customs and stories of a community, passed through the generations by word of mouth. Quite pertinent to the communities and scenes within the different genres of music.

You have previously released music under the name Stompbox. What were your reasons for changing your name?

New music, new name! I’d taken quite a long break from putting out music and didn’t really feel that the music I was producing now, fit with the sound that people (people being myself) expected from Stompbox.

Can you describe your music for us?

It definitely stems from garage music, with influence taken from other genres of electronic music, particularly dubstep & grime.

My music centres quite heavily around the interaction between the drums and bass, with other bits thrown in for good measure. I’m massively influenced by club music, but wouldn’t really say that my music belongs in that environment. If you love interesting rhythmic patterns and dark atmospheres then I’d definitely recommend my music!

Have you played live recently? Would you like to do more shows or tours in future? Anything coming up soon you’d like to tell us about?

I haven’t played live for ages! I’d love to do more shows. I’m an extremely keen DJ with a vinyl obsession and an extremely eclectic music taste.

Nothing in the pipeline but I’d definitely love to get back into doing shows at some point in the near future.

What have been your biggest influences?

I love Grime freestyles. I like the way that they’re based within real life, in real locations that you might even recognise, it makes the music feel extremely tangible.

Anything with an interesting rhythm is always a massive influence, whether it be music or in everyday life. A big part of my music is taking rhythmic patterns from foley recordings and mapping them into drums, allows me to create super unique beats based from real life. Garage is probably one of the biggest influences on my music, I love everything about the genre and it’s so vast that no matter how much time I spend looking for tunes I always find some hidden gems! I work in a Soul music record shop and so it’d be ignorant of me to not acknowledge the impact that this has had on me – everyone check out: https://www.discogs.com/seller/beatinrhythm/profile. SICK Soul gems! Manchester’s #1.

Do you think producing electronic music requires technical or creative skill? Or both?

I think both go hand in hand. The only thing I would say that is technical ability can always be taught. A natural creative flair is definitely a gift!

Don’t get too bogged down in the technical aspects. Music can be made with limited technical abilities but not without creativity. Creativity first, technicality second.

Do you tend to find the creative process a cathartic or therapeutic experience? Has creating music helped you cope with difficult times in your life?

Music is a wonderful escape from everyday life! Nothing better than coming home from a long day at work and just shutting out the world with some music production.

Any collaborations, remixes or joint projects on the horizon?

Working on a track with Chilllito at the moment. Early days as yet, so we’ll just see how that progresses.

Nothing else planned for the moment. Always love chatting too and working with new people, so if anyone is reading this and wants to connect, then please drop me a message.

Any new releases coming our way?

There is a release in the pipeline. I can’t really say too much because I’ve been sworn to secrecy, but keep an eye out for KOKESHI013.

Any artists or other individuals / collectives you’ve not worked with yet that you’d like to work with in future?

Absolutely loads! A dream collaboration has always been to work with D Double E. He’s my absolute favourite MC!

I won’t name them all but a few people i’d love to work with are: Shanti, Objekt, Pangaea, Kwam… I could go on for hours and hours.

It’s been said that a life in music can be a hard one. Would you agree with that?

I wouldn’t say that I have a life in music at the moment. My life definitely revolves around music though.

It’s a very privileged position to be able to do your hobby as a job but I can definitely see how trying to maintain a consistent level of creativity would be incredibly taxing.

Especially in a society where everyone seems to voice their opinion whether it be positive or negative. I think you just have to take everything with a pinch of salt and as long as you’re making music that means something to you / makes you happy then everything else is ultimately irrelevant.

Do you have any words of advice for aspiring young producers?

Don’t put too much pressure on yourselves! Embrace new music whether you like it or not, you can always learn from it. Don’t take everything that you hear in tutorials as gospel and make as much music as possible, as often as possible but always remember to take breaks. Fresh ears are the singles greatest tool available to you.