The X Insider

1 www.kaltblut-magazine.com COLLECTION 5 180 The TextInsider and Interview by Maree J Hamilton Illustration by Nicolas Simoneau Artist and producer Dan Black has “This was worked with the likes of Kid Cudi, X Kanye West, and Mikky Ekko, amongst others, and toured old school, with Robyn in 2010. His highly danceable single, “Hearts”, features Kelis and comes two complete with a stunning, cinematic people in a video that was shot over a twenty- room, eyeball four hour period. KALTBULT caught up with to eyeball, him to discuss songwriting, and writing a song his much-antici- pated second solo album. together” www.danblacksound.com 181 KALTBLUT: The !rst thing I would love to talk about is the song “Hearts” which time I’d done my solo album I missed collaborating with people. I want both. I features Kelis. It’s a delightful, bumping track as the kids would say. Dan work with people when I want to and at the same time, get to be super sel!sh Black: (Laughs) That sounds very street--delightful bumping track. KALT- and sit in a room and do whatever I want to. I’m lucky I get to. KALTBLUT: BLUT: How did the collaboration with Kelis come about? Dan Black: I did a Going back to Hearts, the video is quite a visual experience to watch. It felt tour with her and Robyn, but ironically, I met her once for a literal, “Hello!” very stop-motion. Dan Black: It was a twenty-four hour shoot using time- “Hello!” in a corridor. I’m a massive Kelis fan, from her !rst record really, but lapse photography. I remember when I was !rst writing “Hearts” with Kelis it I didn’t speak to her at all. And then about 6 six months later I got a phone call made us think of the city sped-up, just in general. That was our leaping off from her management people saying would I like to go and write with her in point for the lyrics. The anonymous city with people running around, being Spain for her album. KALTBLUT: Well, any excuse to go to Spain. Dan Black: disappointed and giving up, but part of not giving up is the heart going, “No, Well obviously. So I leapt on a plane and went and we wrote an insane come on, we can still go on,” essentially. To actually get my mouth to synch amount of songs in a very short period of time in her little house she’d rented up with the lyrics for the video, I had to sing the song to a camera. We !lmed looking out at the sea. And amongst those songs we did was the seed of that, and then I had a laptop that would show back to me the original footage “Hearts.” I particularly liked the song, and I nervously at one point said, of me singing the song frame by frame. So I’d look at what my mouth was “Could I maybe keep this for me?” And she said, “Sure! Go for it!” A lot of doing in frame ten and reproduce it, and then in eleven, and twelve, and so times when people collaborate or have a feature they tend to write a song on. In the chorus I hold the word “heart” and at that point my mouth is very and then send it to an artist and say “Oh, put a verse on it.” But this was old wide. I had to stand there, for like, 10 minutes with my mouth open. It was a school, two people in a room, eyeball to eyeball, writing a song together- long, arduous day. But it was much worse for the directors, and one of the -which I don’t do a lot, on my own stuff. It’s refreshing. She’s got such a directors is actually my wife, which may be a clue as to why there is an distinctive voice, and a lot of times it was just a laptop and a mic and her. element of suffering in the all the videos. KALTBLUT: Some sort of karma? She’d have the headphones on so I couldn’t hear anything other than her Dan Black: Some sort of subconscious wish on my wife’s part that I should singing and it was really like, “Well how did I get here?” It was something suffer to make a video, maybe? But I really like things when you feel you’ve very special. KALTBLUT: And so your last album was in 2010 in the US and earned it, put in work, and then there’s this object at the end. KALTBLUT: Did 2009 in Europe. What’s next? Dan Black: Album two! The last 2 years, since I the concept come from the directors or from you? Dan Black: They’d had the did the !rst album, I’ve been doing a lot of writing and producing for other idea before of doing a human time-lapse thing, but we didn’t really have a people which has been quite time consuming. KALTBLUT: Who have you been song that made sense for it. When I wrote this, I said, “We should do that idea really excited about lately? What’s coming up? Dan Black: I ended up doing a for this, on a roof, like, in Paris.” I wasn’t deeply involved in the production bunch of stuff with [Kid] Cudi, and I did a project with Kanye West. I did a side. I’d say, “I’d love it if it had this in it,” and then they’d have to go off and bunch of stuff with Miky Ekko who’s got a new album coming out. The thing is worry about it. Most of the things I do end up being quite protracted. I wrote it it keeps making me feel bad about my own talent. I get in these sessions this song with Kelis, and originally there was a sample in there. I approached with people and when we’re rehearsing there will come a point when they’ll the band when the song was mixed, and they refused us the sample, or it be singing and it will just be me listening to them sing without me hearing could have been their label. So I had to create something that was like the what the music is, which I kinda like. People have got these insane and crazy sample but not the sample. I spoke to a forensic musicologist, who’s basically voices. Anyway, all this stuff, but at the same time I’ve been doing my own a legal expert on samples and who can say, “This is too close or this is close.” album and that’s been an intense thing. I wrote a lot of it and then scrapped it, I came up with options and he said which was furthest away and legal, but I sort of gradually. KALTBLUT: Kill your darlings. Dan Black: Yeah, kill the ones had to then re-record that and re-mix it. It was a crazy journey. KALTBLUT: you love. Which is a bit of a nightmare. It’s been an exhaustingly long journey. Are there any music videos that stand out in your mind as something that’s But I write on my own, I do everything on my own. When I’ve been writing really impressed you? Dan Black: The most recent one I thought was just with all these other people, I suddenly realize how things are so much faster brilliant is the MIA “Bad Girls” video. Obviously there’s a massive wow factor because it’s more than one idea, more than one brain. I have to collaborate just from, how the hell are they doing that? But also, it’s an Arabic country with myself. I do something, I write a melody or a beat or whatever, and I’ll be and it’s got Arabic women, and a mixing of urban culture. It’s just really like, “This is really good but I haven’t got the same inspiration for the lyrics or layered and clever and thought-provoking. KALTBLUT: What kind of music do all the bits that are missing.” I have to kind of wait ‘till I’m somebody else, and you like to listen to get you really pumped up, like for a workout? Dan Black: then I return to it as this new person and go, “Oh, of course.” Whereas when The thing is, I work all day every day on music so it’s really rare, now, that in you’re in a room with people, there’s a bunch of different ideas. KALTBLUT: a “recreational” context I’ll put some music on, ‘cause I spend all day Your bio says that you’re an art school drop out--I was curious what the listening to music. That’s just the nature of the beast. But it depends on my transition was like, going from something presumably visual to something mood really. I just absolutely love the new Kanye album, it’s just crazy good. completely different, like music. Dan Black: I was always doing music at the It would be kind of a dark workout, but it would certainly be intense. same time, I didn’t stop. I loved art, but by the time it came to, “Well what are KALTBLUT: What are you really excited about that's coming up for you? What you gonna do after school age?” I wanted to do music.

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