We had the chance to catch up with Philadelphia-based producer Starkey and talk about his recent travels on the road, his second LP 'Ear Drums & Black Holes', happenings in the Seclusiasis and Slit Jockey camps, as well the all-important Philly Cheesesteak; as he gets ready to head out West to smash up this year's Decibel Festival in Seattle later this month.

BF: Starkey, thanks for taking the time out. This past Spring saw the release of your 2nd LP 'Ear Drums & Black Holes' on Planet Mu. How have the past few months been soldiering it on the road in support of the album?

STARKEY: It's been great. I've been to some really great places, met a lot of fans of my music and have been able to share my music and performances around the globe really. The overall positive reception of the 2nd album has been very exciting for me. The album is basically a snapshot in time of where I was musically the past 2 years and I'm really happy with how it holds up over repeat listens. I really set out to make an "album", not a collection of songs, and I think there's an overall arch that holds all the concepts and sounds together. The vocalists all provided amazing performances as well. It's been a very exciting few months.

BF: Any parties/festivals from the past year that really stand out and are there any venues or places on your radar that you've yet to play?

STARKEY: Well I'd have to say that Dour Festival in Belgium has to be on the top of my list. I had never played to that many people and if you've seen the video on youtube, the energy was amazing. There have been some others that were pretty incredible for various reasons, but that one was really special. I flew all the way over to Belgium to play that one gig as well, so I'll always remember it.


STARKEY x AOOA.TV from An Overdose Of Awesomeness on Vimeo.

STARKEY: Just this week, Ear Drums was re-released in Japan by UltraVybe, so there's talk of doing something in Japan which would be fantastic. I've never been to Japan, but one of our Seclusiasis artists' BD1982 has been living there the past few years and speaks highly of the music scene out there.

BF: Are there certain tunes from the LP that seem to resonate more with different crowds, geographically speaking?

STARKEY: hmmmm. That's a tough one. I'm not sure if there are any of my tunes that stand out in different places, but as you know, I play a decent amount of hiphop in my sets and that goes over differently depending on what city I'm playing in. In some places, people don't really dance to hiphop and in other places, I could do a whole hiphop set and the crowd would be down for it. haha.

A lot of the same songs of mine get requested at most shows. Usually someone asks me to play "Spacewalk" off the first album....I also get a decent amount of requests for "Gutter Music VIP" still. From the new album, "Fourth Dimension" has gotten a pretty big response in most clubs as well as "Capsule". I guess "Club Games" is one tune that I think gets a bigger reaction in some cities and not in others, because it's pretty strong on the vocals and the hiphop-ish side of my sound.

BF: There is a noticeable inclusion of your vocals on 3 tracks off the album, is this something you plan on pursuing further on future works? live?

STARKEY: Yeah definitely. I used to be self-conscious about doing vocals because I've always been a singer in the more concert music side of things and never thought of myself as having a "pop" singing voice. But I realize now that it really doesn't matter, look at someone like Matt Bellamy from Muse who has a big theatrical voice, he's doing alright.

I've done vocals live at a bunch of shows now and the reaction has been mixed when I just whip out a mic in the middle of a DJ set. But when I did a live set this summer in London, I did vocals for all my songs live, so it made sense. I remember the first time I performed "Alienstyles" live. It was the last song in my set at Glade Festival in 2009. The next day people were commenting about it on the Dubstep Forum, saying like "Starkey was cool, but then it got all weird when he got on the mic at the end". haha. Some people liked it,  others never will. You can't please everyone.

I'm always going to be a producer, first and foremost but if I feel like singing on a record and have been inspired to write lyrics, then I'm not afraid to do it.

BF: We had a chance to chat with Anneka earlier this year, prior to the 'Stars' release and she spoke a little bit on her creative process writing the lyrics, how did that instrumental initially come together and when did you first hear about her music?

STARKEY: I met Anneka when I was in Brighton once hanging out with my friend Ital Tek, but I wasn't familiar with her music at the time. I later heard the tune she did with Vex'd, put 2 and 2 together and realized that it was the Anneka that I had known from a little while back. When we were having a meeting talking about the album and which vocalists we wanted to get in touch with, her name came up and I immediately said, "yeah... let's do it". Her voice is absolutely amazing, and she's got a great lyrical and harmonic sense to her delivery. We recently finished up a tune that's coming out in November on Civil Music called "Paradise". That one came about pretty much the same way as "Stars". I had a tune in mind, sent it over to her, she demo'd it, it was amazing, she fixed up some of the vocals and sent me the parts. I did some mixing, made some edits here and there and it was done.

BF: Was your intention with ED&BH to create a more cohesive album and tell a story, moreso than your debut LP on the label and were there certain ideas going into the production of the album that you knew you wanted to incorporate that you hadn't on 'Ephemeral Exhibits'?

STARKEY: Yeah definitely. Ear Drums was written from scratch to be an album, unlike Ephemeral Exhibits which we pieced together from tunes that I had been working on for some time. Ear Drums to me, has a bit more "classic" sounds in it, at least in the percussion elements. It's built largely around 808 and 909 drum sounds. I also did a ton of synth layering to build the textures into more complex waveforms. A lot of the themes in the lyrics and song titles reinforce the overall vision of the project which loosely revolves around my interest in interjecting science fiction, post apocalyptic thoughts, films, music, writing, etc... with street culture and composition at the same time. I know it sounds pretty crazy and probably only makes sense to me, but yeah... that's kind of what I was thinking about with the album.

BF: How did you initially get in contact with Mike Paradinas from Planet Mu and what was the first Mu release you remember hearing?

STARKEY: Well Planet Mu has been a label I have admired for many years so I had been sending my music to Mike for some time before he actually reached out to me about doing a release. I would just send him emails with links to the tunes that I was happy with. Then one day he responded saying that he was interested in doing an EP and that I should send him more stuff. The EP turned into 2 albums.
I'm not sure which Mu release was the first one I had ever heard because I'm pretty certain I had heard things and just didn't know that it was from a Planet Mu artist. The ones I can remember going out and buying were probably from like early 2003.... Snares' "Winter in the Belly of a Snake", "2370894", etc. Before that time when I started getting into breakcore and IDM/electronica, i was mostly into post rock epic stuff and trip hop.


BF: What can we be looking forward to from Slit Jockey and Seclusiasis in the coming months?

STARKEY: Lots of stuff. On the Slit Jockey side of things we've got a Kaiser EP and Single, an album from Sduk, 2 Stagga singles amongst other things. Then on the Seclusiasis side we're putting together Street Bass Anthems Vol. 5, as well as an EP from Siyoung, a DNAEBEATS mini-album of sorts, another release from Kastle, 2 Halp releases, a new BD1982 single with tons of great remixes.... There's a lot. I'm really happy with what we have going on with Seclusiasis and Slit Jockey. We have a great group of people who are passionate about making music, support each other 100% and are excited about it.

BF: With the now defunct 'Dress 2 Sweat' (RIP!) label, any chance we'll ever see another MOVES!!! release?

STARKEY: Well Dress 2 Sweat folded into Numbers, so it's sort of still around. But yeah, um..... I've demo'd a bunch of stuff, but I'm not sure what I think about it. Other people who have heard bits and pieces were into it, but I don't know. It's hard for me to write the music that I think MOVES!!! makes. haha. I love playing "All Skate" out... it always gets a huge reaction in the club, and it's one of my favorite dancefloor tunes I've ever done. But it's hard to keep things simple. I always want to overproduce things I think. I've been forcing myself to keep things a bit simpler at times with my new tracks but then I'll go and do a track like my new Tinie Tempah remix which was like 107 tracks. But yeah, I think there will be another MOVES!!! release down the road. If for anything... I like talking shit about MOVES!!! in the Starkille skits.

BF: Lastly, can we get you on record...best cheeseteak in Philly?

STARKEY: That's a tough one as well. I always ask people when they come to Philly "Do you want the standard, street cheesesteak or something a bit more gourmet?" For a bit more high end I'd have to say the Abbaye in Northern Liberties. They use chimay marinated flank steak, grilled tomato and onion, gruyere cheese and a roasted garlic aioli spread on the roll. I took Drums of Death there last time he was in Phillyand he's still talking about it. For the more touristy kind of simple cheesesteak I'd have to probably go with Jim's on South Street.

BF:  Big up PJ.  Thanks again for taking the time out!  Catch you at dB.


Photo credits:  David Lang (Vancouver, BC)

Starkey performs at the Planet Mu Showcase on September 24th at the Baltic Room in Seattle, WA alongside Ikonika, FaltyDL, and Ill Cosby.  BUY TICKETS HERE