Summer Music: The DIY Chaos Of Skrapez

September 16, 2021 at 10:45 AM PDT

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Well, scrapes is a legendary experimental electronic duo who create on their own terms. You can't find their music on traditional streaming platforms and they don't play traditional instruments. Their live shows are a chaotic explosion of chopped breakbeats and alien noise that push the speakers within an inch of their life. It's grapes joins us today, but let's begin with their song kiss [inaudible] You can definitely hear the jazz behind the chaos there. That is grapes with Savickas. And I want to introduce grapes tension, AKA John [inaudible] and psychopomp AKA David Lampley. Thanks for joining us on the KPBS summer music series. Thank you so much. Thanks for having us on. So First question, how did you meet and start scrapes And high school? And we had mutual friends that were in the music, also, David. It was, uh, at the time producing, like hip hop stuff and rapping, and I was deejaying and I did some scratches for his album and we just connected through music and had like the same wave of creating crazy sounds and chaos stuff. So all this, this chaotic sound, I mean, what is your process? Just whatever we get fine that could plug into the amplifiers amplified noise. Pretty much. It's just all freestyle, a jamming out it's like free jazz basically. Hmm. So what instruments do you use to make your sounds? I used be a little synthesizer. I have a couple of synthesizers and a lot of affects and found electronic things that could be plugged in or amplified. Yeah. I Use modular synthesizers samplers, mostly just capture sound and try to chop up the sounds to create rhythms and noise Field recordings, reel to reels, tape decks, old records. Nice. I mean, lets you use it. This process called circuit bending. I mean tell me about that. Yes. Circuit Benny has just taken like any instrument toy, anything that makes sound that's battery powered or electronic car, but I just opened it up and just poke around in the inside a bit and see if it alters the sound. Makes anything sound crazy and destroy the original sound. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] I have to know like what are your live shows like Improvisational? Yeah. Sometimes like some people don't understand it, you know, just cause we're just going up there. Just feeding off of uh, The day this around. Yeah. So Usually it's just like a big wall of sound going on in the whole time. It was just like, yeah. Yeah. Maybe we just make a Wallace down until something breaks through. Then we go off of it. Our friend Sue marks, this guy gone to Sufi. He always says it's like scaring someone, then giving a hug and telling me it's all right, then pushing them off to you then like making a laugh then, then you're like friends after the show, I went to all sorts of different feelings, I guess. Hmm. What are your roles? What specific instruments do you play? What sounds are each of you responsible for Mia? I mostly do mostly all the percussion duties and some of the ambient noise stuff going on. I mostly just use my, my modular system for that. And um, psychopomp David uses his scent keyboards, so it's mostly just like drums and scent the whole time. A lot of bass sounds on there and Very minimal, but like it sounds heavy. Uh Where'd you get these phrases sounds Sometimes we'll use a tape loop on a reel to reel. I have like a machine that's for take a hearing test and it makes all these crazy sounds out of it. Well, those who delay in some distortion on it. Yeah. Everything's different. Every time we perform it's like sometimes we just pick like they'll take decks or like, um, a little radio they'll speak and spell or whatever, you know, or a game boy. Yeah. And so, so how do people respond to your music? I think people were scared at first, but seems like people through the years got the idea we're trying to do. And uh, hopefully they're feeling it, but it's all right. If they don't, this is what We do. We just have fun. Every time we play Play shows and we don't even look up, we're just, we look up and one that's up. Cause we're just like in the zone. So what, how does that, how does that work? How does this sound man? That he doesn't even get it right? The sound guy probably hates us. Usually they don't get it. So we used to just bring our own sound because they'd always turn us down and we're turning up and they think we're going to burn the sound system out, but we just bring our own self. We break it. I'm not mad. I'm like, I feel like I one or something. If I burned this figure out, we played a show. One time we knocked the lights out of the ceiling. [inaudible] I would imagine that like the crowd's reaction is different too. Like you've toured Europe many times. I mean, how's the crowd reaction different there than from here in the U S Or shows in Europe. I feel like people are dancing and moving and just hanging on to every snare and baseline America. It seems like they're more just observing and trying to see what we're doing studying or something. Well, like in other countries they don't really stare too much at our, at our appointment. They're just mostly just feeling the vibe of the music dancing around. They're having a good time. It's Really cool With that. I want to take a listen to heavy machinery. [inaudible] [inaudible] Wow. So that's a very lively. So those overseas audiences, they were up on two feet dancing when that's going on. Yeah. I usually like the energy gets locked. It gets, people are swaying. And like people go to the spots to just get loose. It's a real big honor to be a part of that, you know? So what's it like being on stage and improvising your music? It's kind of free. Maybe there's a little bit of pressure, but we don't really have an expectation. We just want to get loud and kind of abrasive and here's some heavy drums and we're just kind of locked in the zone and if people are feeling it, that's like really special, but people walk away. It's it's cool. It's not for everybody. Yeah. As long as the sound system sounds good. Well, we'll have a good time on stage. That's all that counts. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I mean, you know, it's not like you've practiced, you know, I mean, this is just like it's raw when you're up on stage. And so how much does the audience's reaction, um, impact you? Oh yeah. If the audience has really fell on it, Then yeah. It's like we can't stop playing when everyone everything's going perfect. And the audiences like the energy so high that we could just like pause and everyone will pause and they will start playing again. It's just having that control is yeah. It feels like the phrase yeah. Control the interview is like, yeah, We just become like one with the audience with Do it yourself approach and the way you create music in the moment and never repeat the same thing. What is it about that as an artist that's really just kept you going for over two decades. I guess it just never gets old. There's always something like a different rhythm or So I create like our own records laid cut records. So we also try to find new ways of, um, designing those records to whether it's like homemade picture dis records or like weird shapes. So that's what kind of makes it more exciting for us as well. Cause rows we're just like, Yeah. I feel like we're just artists, like we'll make our own t-shirts or own record covers our own tapes. Uh, our own flyers book, our own shows. We used to have control over every part of the process. And I don't know how many other people could say they do that. I feel like we're pure artists and it was good to be able to say that. I feel like I can honestly say that I've been speaking with scrapes members, tension and psychopaths. Thank you both for joining me. Thank you so much. Thanks for having To solve [inaudible] Scrapes. New album. Witchcraft two is out now go to kpbs.org/summer music series or a video interview. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible].

By KPBS Public Media

With manipulated synthesizers or homemade electronic instruments, the San Diego-based experimental duo Skrapez makes curious, creative and chaotic walls of sound.