Nonostante il momento difficile, la musica in città non si ferma e l’ Hip Hop a Napoli è più vivo che mai.
Breakstarr è uno di quelli che dal giorno uno si sbatte per portare la faccenda un gradino più su e la sua continua ricerca è inarrestabile.
Il suo nuovo beat tape Random Beats è una raccolta di strumentali che coniugano la passione per il boom bap più classico con una visione musicale più ampia, da sempre un suo marchio (la versione in stile Breakstarr di “Pop Corn” è incontenibile).
Roi U. Al co cΔt torna con un nuovo album a distanza di un po’ di tempo.
Il titolo è Ribbon Cut, ispirato ad un classico taglio di tabacco da pipa. L’influenza è sicuramente anni 80, ispirata dai numerosi ascolti di synth-pop giapponese che Roi, appassionato crate digger, colleziona insieme a tanta altra bella musica.
Gli 8 beat presenti sono principalmente suonati al sintetizzatore (altra passione del nostro) e la presenza di campioni vocali e percussioni ricercate, arricchisce il tutto. Un lavoro creativo ed originale (non ne avevamo dubbi), primo di una trilogia che vedrà la luce in futuro…
Fuori Ovunque Neapolitan Classic BeatMaking.Un progetto ambizioso dell’Associazione “Giano Bifronte” che vede convolti Ammontone Prod nella gestione artistica affidata al nostro DjUncino-Un viaggio che parte dall’archivio storico della Musica classica Napoletana ed arriva fino ad oggi, un viaggio attraverso i suoni del passato e del futuro.
Buon Ascolto.
Feat: Bop – Dj Uncino – El D – D-Ross – The Essence – Nu.Bourbon – Speaker Cenzoù – Iken – Tonico70
We are pleased to present the interview with Paul Pastourmatzis, better known as
Pueblo Vista, producer and founder of the net label that promotes artists with hiphop / chill out sounds from all over the globe.
Paul is out with his own 13-track album called Am épos am érgon, distributed by Universal Austria.
Hi Paul! tell us who you are and how you got into beat music
Hi there guys! Thanks for having me! I’m a Greek dad who lives in Innsbruck, Austria working as a full time UX/UI Branding Designer during the day, managing a creative and collective label at night while making some instrumental beats as I go. I “seriously” got into lofi hip hop and chillhop beats around 2014 when I started making vlogs and short films for my YouTube channel and wanted to use some background music without the danger of getting my channel suspended.
How did the need to create a label / streaming collective arise and why the name Pueblo Vista?
I had never really tackled the subject of music from the management side, and I thought it would be a good time as any to begin with. There was no monetary or notoriety goal behind my thinking. I simply like doing a lot of things and on hindsight I believe I thought this would be beneficial for my day job. Create a brand from scratch. Project management, human resources, marketing campaigns, public relations, digital media; I work in branding so starting my own brand made sense. Of course always within scope of time, resources and budget. The name? I wanted a name that was unique and could be pronounced in several languages. Predominately English and Spanish, since they are the most spoken languages on this planet. Pueblo comes from the tobacco brand I was smoking at the time (I quit smoking 2 years ago btw) but it also means “People”. The word ‘la gente’ is more commonly used however that would have been a pronunciation hell. Vista is simply the view. I was going for uniqueness and the specific view on things that come from it. Grammatically is not correct in terms of word order, but it’s easier to imprint and brand.
Hundreds of tracks and beat tapes from different producers appear on your streaming platforms. how do you choose who to collaborate with? what strikes you most about a beatmaker?
Indeed we have a lot of music form people world wide. From Argentina to Finland, India and Tokyo. Choosing someone, whether it comes from a submission, digging or a reference is done instinctively. I will surely look them up, however numbers and following are of little importance to me. I have been in the music world since the late 90s (made my first money djiing jazz house back in 1998-99), and I always had a special relationship with sound. I’m pretty sure that this would be a cliché to say, however I simply know after listening to a track a couple of times. I can lowkey smell potential; if the artist wants to develop it, that’s a whole different story.
Listening to your latest album “Am Epos Am Ergon” you can breathe a relaxed and intimate atmosphere. what is the mood that leads you to compose a track and what are you inspired by in music production?
Why, thank you! So nice to see how music is interpreted by people! This is actually pretty close to home. What inspired me on this album was my 1.5yo daughter. Babies come into this world knowing nothing. They consume all this raw information during the day and digest it predominately during their night sleep. Sleep cries tend to originate from what I like to call “encephalitic buffer overflow”. So calming them down (there’s not much you can do anyway) is quite crucial, hence the relaxed and intimate atmosphere. Having your baby in your arms while it goes to sleep. My composition skills are very limited tho, I never took piano or guitar lessons and to this day I can’t play an instrument or read music. I know the musical keys and what keys are compatible and that’s that. My ignorance is also my motivation, if that makes any sense. That is why I like collaborating with people that I admire. Their influence is quite prominent throughout the entire album.
What does your set up consist of? What are the tools that you would recommend to those new to beat production?
My set has been the laughing stock and an inside joke to be honest. I do own a PC-beast in terms of processing power and specs, however my orientation was never music. It’s video and image processing. I use Proplellerheads Reason as my music software. I have recently started using Ableton, and I have to say it’s a bit more intuitive so I see why younger guys prefer it. When it comes to hardware I have an AKAI MPK Mini because it’s portable AF. Sadly tho, it spends most of its time in my day-bed’s drawer to be saved from dust. I take it out only when I’m on a composition spree. I own a pair of 8” Phonic monitor speakers for a bit over 15 years and an Edirol UA-25EX USB sound card coupled with an SM Pro Audio M-Patch (that I clearly don’t need lol).
My personal suggestion would be a) music software that you like working with and b) some sort of keyboard interface.
Your album is distributed by Universal Music Group, tell us how this collaboration was born and what do you think about the interest for lo-fi music by the ‘mainstream’?
Universal Music reached out to me almost a year ago and they showed interest in me and what the brand was doing in general. Several meetings and discussions later, we’re in this boat together I guess! That second part of your question is quite juicy and I will try to be as brief as possible.
Lo-Fi music IS mainstream. You have millions of people listening to it every day. The word Lo-Fi itself only describes the community now and the feeling or the vibe. Because I can assure you there’s nothing Low Fidelity about the tracks that are getting made by producers these days. The genre is evolving and the more producers get involved, everybody injects their own musical background and knowledge to it. If the first wave was (in it’s majority) arrangers, the past year we’ve seen an avalanche of composers getting into it. Multi-instrumentalists, vocalists, classical music students and so on and so forth.
If we look to the future, how do you see the lo-fi scene over the next 5 years?
It will be thriving. What we could potentially see is that people might actually start following specific creators and not just curator playlists. Maybe if the pandemic is over and we avoid yet another mass extinction event as humans, maybe there would be some lo-fi enents where beat-makers and instrumentalists can perform live in front of audiences (buckelist item right here).
Lo-Fi music many MANY applications. From the classic study music, to background music and also being the music that can be used to calm and help deal with anxiety and depression. Especially for that last part, I can vouch myself having suffered from severe anxiety and panic attacks, a couple of years back. I had become a dad, my work stress was increasing and to top it all off I lost a very dear friend and colleague of mine. Don’t get me wrong, I would not say I was miraculously cured by listening and composing lo-fi music. Far from it. It definitely helps, however what helps more is seeking out advise and consultation from professionals and (at least in my case) medication.
Thank you for your time and thank you for giving me a chance to use your platform.
BeatZcat Ent. 