Interviews

It was a pleasure to have a chimneyside chat with XL Middleton of MoFunk. This week sees the release of his monster collaboration with Soul Clap, Moniquea and FSQ. XL Middleton is a renowned producer, DJ, and the co-founder of the influential MoFunk Records label, a leading force in the modern funk revival. He discusses everything from his deep LA roots to the political undercurrents of his danceable music.

Thank you for taking the time to talk. Where are you this moment and how are you spending your day?

I'm coming to you from Pasadena, Los Angeles, California. I'm either in the studio making music or at my record store, Salt Box Records in the Little Tokyo area of LA.

What do you love most of all about the city in which you live?

I love that it's a part of the greater Los Angeles area, just a twenty minute drive from downtown LA, so we share in and contribute to LA culture as a whole, but we've also got our own thing.

How is the health of the music scene where you are in your opinion?

It's Los Angeles, so of course there's gonna be no shortage of artists, both people that are from here and people who moved here later. So, there's a ton of talent but that can also make it hard to cut through the noise. And also the cost of living makes it extremely hard to pursue anything creative when you have to worry about paying insane rents. So it's a mixed bag.

To go back to what I said about cutting through the noise though, I do think that has really calcified a lot of musical movements here, because I think scenes really had to come together to be recognized as 'a thing' so that people know, these are the artists you go to when you want these sounds. Whether it was LA's jazz scene, centered around Central Avenue from like the 20's to the 50's, the Laurel Canyon scene in the 70's, g-funk/gangster rap or the Project Blowed scene in the 90's, Low End Theory & Funkmosphere in the 2010's, the list goes on and on.

Where does the impulse to create music come from in you do you think?

I think everybody wants to be seen, to be acknowledged in some way. For me, my dad made music when I was a kid and that inspired me a lot, so he's the reason why music became my medium of expression.

What roles do stuff like art, people, the state of the world play for you in the the ideas process?

There's a school of thought that says all art is political. I guess people say that because, no matter how apolitical any individual may see themselves as, we all still exist under the same systems so everything we hear, say and do is all influenced by that. So maybe everything is a commentary on your own state of existence even if, to you as an individual, it's not that deep. For me, I embrace it. I want my music to carry that commentary even if it's subtle. Like one of my songs - I Can't Believe It - it sounds at first like it's talking about a love interest that deceived me, but it's really an overall critique of the capitalist system. It's just a critique that you can dance to.

Am I right you have an interest in the Japanese music scene? Where does this interest come from and what kind of stuff are you into?

I'm a big collector of Japanese city pop vinyl and I do a party in LA with my partner Kaistar called Tokyo Love Song where we highlight that music. Part of why it spoke to me in particular I guess is because of my own background, being Okinawan which became a territory of Japan. As a record collector, I was especially interested in boogie funk of the 1980's and of course that's primarily a US thing, but as I dug deeper & deeper into it, I got interested in how other locations outside of the US were interpreting this sound. And that's why, with Tokyo Love Song, we focus on the sounds of Japanese boogie/funk more than the jazz fusion/AOR sounds or anison [anime music] that a lot city pop parties & events tend to emphasize.

For you to get started on new music, does there need to be concrete ideas for you to make a track?

For me there's no one way to do it. Sometimes I sit down and start running through different sounds just to see if anything inspires me. Sometimes I have a melody or chord progression already in mind. Other times I've got a full song written and need to craft the music around that.

What is the balance between planning and improvisation for you?

They both have their places in the process. Like one of my signature elements within my production is using a lot of synth solos. And of course those are best for me when they're improvised. Same with a lot of my bass lines; I don't always just want to record an 8-bar loop that repeats through the whole song. So once I get the overall idea, I let the song play all the way through and record each loop with the small variations, fills, even minor mistakes that can make the music feel more human. And then that becomes a subtle way of letting you know I'm not fucking with any of the AI bullshit.

For your latest collaborative release, how did you all get together on this? Are you good friends with Soul Clap & FSQ and the label?

The Soul Clap guys reached out to me back in, I think it was 2013, to contribute a song to the Tempo Dreams compilation that they were curating for Bastard Jazz Records. We've kept a good working relationship ever since. A collaboration that I did with Zackey Force Funk called - Shotgun Lover - was released on 7- by Soul Clap Records, and I curated a compilation called New Directions In Funk Vol. 1 for their label. I remixed their song - In Da Kar - with George Clinton & P-Funk for their 11th Anniversary compilation album. We've done shows with them, remixes of all sorts. So yeah, we've definitely got a great relationship.

Where did you guys start? How did you start?

It was that song - Antislumper - on the Tempo Dreams compilation.

Were there conceptual considerations between you and what were they?

Charlie [from Soul Clap] heard Moniquea's - Red Light - which I produced for her, and wanted to put his own twist on it. He took it all the way to the house and I love it! The modern funk world that I come from, I feel like it's a cousin to house music. The bpm's are similar, the heavy use of synths, all of it makes sense as far as considering why these worlds should be connected. All of it falls under the greater umbrella of electronic music, I feel. And that connection has always been there, it just needs to be highlighted more. An example - D-Train's - You're The One For Me, 1981 Prelude Records - considered by many to be one of the great boogie funk tunes of the era. But also, it's got that pulsating rhythm, that emphasis on every beat, that kind of makes it like a proto-house song too, in a way. Or maybe a proto-proto-house song. But either way, that's an example of how that lineage has always been there.

How did you manage the process with so many of you involved?

Sometimes there were studio sessions where we could create and develop the songs together, and unending email threads when we couldn't.

Tell us a bit about the way this release developed and gradually took its final form.

Well, the Red Light remix came about with Charlie wanting to remix it. Brand New was a song we created from scratch during an in-person session we did in San Francisco. Feeling Wide was a song that Chuck Da Fonk from FSQ had been written long ago and had been trying to complete for a minute. We also were able to put a lot of the key components together for that one during that same session.

You are working with Moniquea on this release but its not your first time working togther right? Tell us a little about this artist.

Right, she's my life partner & my musical partner. I've produced the majority of music on her albums and we've toured the world performing together. She's a tremendous songwriter and a one-of-a-kind voice. And I'll always be glad that Soul Clap took to creating with her in the same way that I did.

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later?

I do like to sit on music and listen to it over and over again to decide how I really feel about it. If I'm still excited about a song after the 100th listen as I was on the first listen, then I figure I'm probably onto something. That said, the closer I am to finishing a project, I don't have the same amount of time to sit on the songs I'm working on at the end of the process that I did in the beginning. So, I like to sit on music but it can't always do it.

How much tweaking do you allow until you're satisfied with a track?

It's hard to say. I've sat on songs for years, and I've also finished them quickly and decided I was completely happy with them. It's really unexplainable, the way that you can sometimes just tap into the magic effortlessly, and other times it's a struggle. But that's what makes the whole process beautiful; the endless possibilities of what it might become.

Do you find that the feedback of others is important to you? Are there sometimes misunderstandings or does feedback from you peers help you to gain new insights?

Sure, getting input from others helps to take whatever I'm creating out of the vacuum it may have been created in. That's often critical. There's been songs I was getting ready to just throw in the vault and forget about because I couldn't get it to a place where I was happy with it, and a simple suggestion from a different set of ears hearing the song changed that.

What is most important for you to convey through your music and do you feel you acheive it?

Music is everything. Art is everything. It's expression, it's resistance, it's beauty. I hope I achieve those things, but I feel like it's not really for me to decide if I do. It's up to those who receive what I create. So, hopefully they're receiving what I'm putting forth in a good way.

What else are you working on next that you can share?

After Soul Clap vs. MoFunk, the next project for us will be the new Moniquea album Womp In My Spirit. That's coming in December. Then, my next album in March entitled Private Press. I'm always working on remixes too, which is one of my favorite ways to create. We've got our bi-monthly party, Indeed Indeed, that I do with Moniquea, Zackey Force Funk, & Kaistar, where we put a lot of emphasis on modern funk music and we plan to continue growing that. If I'm being honest, I don't feel the same motivation to participate in the music industry that I once did. Sometimes I feel like I just wanna put out music without bothering to promote it, and whoever hears it, hears it. But, music industry aside, I'll always love making music. I don't see that ever changing.

Check out the latest release from XL Middleton.