Womad 2017 Interview: BAYNK

0

This is the second in our series on upcoming artists performing at WOMAD 2017.  This time, it’s BAYNK, aka Jock Nowell-Usticke, the Kiwi university student who chucked up a song up on SoundCloud back in early 2015 while travelling around Europe and scored himself an appearance at a major local music festival (St Jerome’s Laneway), despite having never performed live as a DJ – ever!  Tim Gruar simply thought this was too good to be true, so he called him up to find out how it all happened.  At that moment, Jock was parking his car.  But being the techno whizz he’s become, he quickly switched to hands free and found a spot in double quick time. 

First up, I had to ask him about that track – the tropical house-themed single Sundae which was made as part of an early ‘music making binge of about 50 songs, most of them rubbish’.  At the time, Jock was supposed to be be studying engineering at Canterbury University.  Then he got hold of some music software and started experimenting.  “I was mainly creating these loops and beats.  Most of my material is around loops.  I tend to work fast and produce something, then move on.  I like minimalist, so I don’t want to keep visiting and revisiting the tracks.  Once they’re done, that’s it.”

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poFtefldd5g

Jock put his track up on SoundCloud and ‘moved on’.  He completed his year and headed for Europe on his big OE.  In the meantime, the track was getting some major traffic.  It was a huge surprise, given that he’d never produced before, and had only dabbled in music on the fringes.  “I’d done some music theory, grade one, two.  Piano. I’d played in a few little bands and done a bit of vocals but not much.”  He continued to make music whilst he was overseas.  “I just wanted to be in a city every day, so I travelled a lot.  But I took my laptop with me.  I was writing on buses between destinations, or in hostels, hotels, etc.  I named all my tracks originally after the city I was in or going to.”

Legend has it that at some point in his travels Jock lost his laptop and went surfing.  The reality, he reckons his laptop was stolen by the cleaning crew on a flight from Stockholm to Warsaw, losing lots of new music he’d been working on.  He’s on record saying that it’s possible that it could be released somewhere out in the world – perhaps under the moniker ‘DJ Spray and Wipe’.

It wasn’t long before the track caught the ‘ear’ of promoter, Mark Kneebone who was emailed the Jock’s SoundCloud link.  At this point he was merely a ‘bedroom producer’. ‘Nek minute’, to coin the phrase, the people from St Jerome’s Laneways, the Australasian festival that showcases new and upcoming talent, are on the phone asking him if he’d be keen to play.  “Yeah, I was in a supermarket in Budapest.  Kind of a surreal experience, talking about sound stages and consoles and looking at the cornflakes and muesli.

“This (Laneway) was my first show (as a producer) – ever.  I went from just a bedroom to like 20,000 people.  It was massive. ‘Pretty brave’, I would have thought.  “I’ve played in front of crowds before, though,” he says, noting he’d performed in a few bands, “But I have to say, it’s much harder to play in front of crowds and hype them up playing an instrument than as a DJ.”  He calls the experience fantastic, having shared the gig with some of his heroes such as Aussie DJ Flume.

His latest number Could You, which is getting big support on Vice’s channel Noisy, is still loop based, but with the added flavours of a funky tropical bounce and some big brassy horns.  Its video was shot in the South of France featuring one of Jock’s Uni mates, Kit, hamming it up in true Kiwi bloke fashion on camera, implying how stoked he is about the swell digs he’s found himself at. You can’t help thinking that he’s just crashed the set of a high-end porn film, although including Jock’s mum on the scene kinda ruins that scenario, just a little bit.  “We used a high-end camera but didn’t have a tripod.  We had a chair instead.  So you can understand why everything is shot at that level.”  The ‘below the belt level’ gives it all a slightly glam-sleazy feel which works well with the music.”

Lyrically, Jock’s a minimalist.  For instance, on Could You is all based around one repeating line: Could you wait?  What for and Why.  Is I important?  “I hate writing lyrics because they just all seem to make me cringe.  I Like to ‘chop up’ the vocals and manipulate them, range the Pritchard and tempo and make it into a catchy tune from that. “

Lyrically, though, he’s been slowly growing.  “When I started out my production was high enough quality to release something but I need to work on my song writing. I need to feel more comfortably into a song writing position.  He did this with a recent track What You Need (feat. NÏKA). The video shows her walking through a multitude of scenarios as her clothes change to match each scene, I suggest that she sounds a little bit like Florence Welch.   “She’s got an incredible voice. I met her at a party.  She’s the Younger sister of the Broods duo.  I saw her at a party and I asked one of her friends and she sent me some acoustic tracks which I loved so I flew down to Nelson and we worked for two days and this is what we got. “

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIsLVhQX4es

Jock has a very fast production output.  “When I do my best stuff, it definitely happens just like ‘that’! But the time between those moments are long.  You could wait a couple of months for that magic to happen.”

And if you’re wondering about the name, so was I.  I had about 20 that looked good when written down and the name ‘BAYNK’ seemed impressive.  “I wish I had a better story but there you go,” he says.

For WOMAD he’s working on a fuller show, a mix of DJ-ing ‘other people’s material’ and his own.  It’ll all be supported by a video made by a young producer based in the Hawkes Bay.

With songs signed to overseas record labels already, Jock is keen to give this new career a ‘go’ and has plans to make an EP.  “I’ll keep going until I succeed or fail.  If it’s the latter, then I’ll have to get an engineering job.”  Bags not the latter.

Tim Gruar

Check out BAYNK at WOMAD, 17-19 March 2017 – More information at https://www.womad.co.nz/

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 13th Floor
Latest posts by The 13th Floor (see all)