Electronic artists Tom Bennet has just released a few tracks under his new guise of AxisAxis. We caught up with him to find out what he’s been up to and where he sees this project going…
BoaTM|
The last thing we heard from you was your EP ‘Autumn‘ which you released under your own name. What have you been up to since then?
TB|
I’ve been working on a full album project of mostly electronic songs, where I’ve been working on using my instrumental and vocal techniques more as if they were samples – cutting them up, distorting them and finding different ways to make them merge with the track.
BoaTM|
And is this slight change of direction inspired by any artist or movement in particular?
TB|
The album in the works is similar to the feeling of artists like Flying Lotus, Amon Tobin, Baths and Gotye, but while making it, I became inspired by the new ‘Seapunk’ movement and artists such as Fire For Effect and Unicorn Kid.
The synths, styles and themes coming out of this sub-genre gave me an incredibly nostalgic feeling. Growing up in the 90s living on the coast, the return to the old garage and club styles I heard as a kid infused with echoey steel drums and the tacky visuals you could imagine being printed on a cheap bodyboard felt refreshing and stuck out as being quite memorable to me.
BoaTM|
Was there anything that made you choose these tracks to release as a single above the others on the album?
TB|
After listening to a fair amount of this stuff, I wanted to combine elements of it to my own style, which is where these two tracks came from. As they deviated from the rest of the album, I decided to release them as a shorter stand-alone project. I also added in little elements of glitch, jazz and trip-hop in Sea Snakes, to tie in with the feel of the current album-in-progress.
BoaTM|
Autumn, your previous EP, featured a remix by Casey LaLonde and this time you’ve secured another remix from electronic artist Février. How does it feel to have your tracks taken out of your hands and altered so much?
TB|
Working with Février was great. If you haven’t heard of him before, I suggest you listen to his albums (all of which are available on Bandcamp). He has an incredibly chill sound and amazing production techniques. I’m looking forward to more collaborations in the future because he’s honestly a great person to work with and always manages to create wonderfully eveloping tracks.
BoaTM|
Thanks for chatting to us Tom, we’ll look forward to hearing the album when it’s ready!
AxisAxis’ debut release is available on bandcamp at http://axisaxis.bandcamp.com/
