EQUATE Meets Birthmark
"...I guess I just want it [the music] to be wholesome and honest."
I was sat, tinnie in hand, bobbing along to the unpredictable tide of a Young Echo radio show. The best way I could describe this one show is as a dense fog — perfect for a wallow with a fuzzy head and a lukewarm can. Eventually, as my attention drifted in and out, the ambient haze began disappearing and out of a ratchety drum loop came some clarity: “Irish heart, English tongue, African build,” said a voice, low and nasal, before continuing.
“Some people look at us / and think that we look menacin’. / Whilst others got the fucking cheek / to say that I’m too feminine, / but I don’t choose my ratio / of testosterone to estrogen / or the amount of melanin / that’s wrapped around my skeleton. / So fuck your preconceptions, / that shit’s discreditin’. / I’ve had many groups of friends / and I rarely settle in.”
(extract from Black Sheep, Birthmark, unreleased as of November 2020)
Words & Interview by Joseph Francis
As the words faded out, I just about caught Amos Childs (who was hosting the show) saying who it was; I scoured the web — nothing — so I resorted to ripping. That recording, despite all its skipping, would have to do for now.
“That means a lot you know!” Birthmark beams, humbled by my desperate attempt to savour his verses as I face him over a video-call nearly a year later, “I think I know the radio session you mean […] I didn’t even know I was going to be like…chatting. I got a text from Amos; I was at work. He was like, Yo, I’m doing radio at the Cube. Do you want to pass through? So I was like, Yeah, Yeah I’ll come. I’ll just come down for a drink and watch and listen. Then he was like, Do you want to touch mic? And that was one I’d been writing at the time.”
Moving to Bristol about four years ago, Birthmark relishes being in such a welcoming and casual environment, surrounded by like-minded musicians. Before moving, he tells me of his nomadic lifestyle and of a town in the countryside where he used to live. “It’s actually a horrible place this town — so much violence and so much hopelessness,” he comments. Thankfully, he was never too far from the bustle of Bristol, where he found solace in the Young Echo nights, and his attendances at them would outshine even the winteriest of fans.
Young Echo, a collective of experimental musicians based (mostly) in Bristol, sporadically run nights at the Exchange, the Cube cinema and other music venues around the city. Members of the collective play DJ sets or perform at these nights, and local musicians are often invited to play, too.
“I used to go to every fucking one!” He excitedly tells me, “They’re just so sick! You always hear something new and if I’m honest, sometimes I’d hear something and be like, What the fuck is this?! I don’t know about this.” A friend of mine had a similar experience when I dragged him along to one. One minute, (Young Echo member) Manonmars was rapping, the next an electric-cello came out and finally, to round it off, someone screamed down a microphone; my friend left.
“I like that though,” he smiles, “I like the variation and, even if you heard something you didn’t like or whatever, you always heard something new. For as many things I heard that I didn’t like or was like, I don’t know about that, there were so many other things where I was like, Wow! What the fuck is that?! That’s mad! That’s cool! I’ve never heard nothing like this! And the crowds at those nights are always diverse as well, which I liked; I felt very comfortable there. A bit of a weird guy me, but I felt comfy there.”
Soon, members of the collective began recognising Birthmark’s face at the nights and, like a fairytale, he went from die-hard fan to close friend. “Chester and Amos came up to me separately and were like, Bro, you’re at all our nights,” he remembers fondly, “And it just went from there [to] emails [and], Do you want to come for a pint? We’re all just mates now which is fucking mad for me because I’ve been fans of these guys for a long time you know. I remember buying the old Jabu bits and stuff. It’s still really surreal because a lot of my favourite musicians are like my mates now, which is really strange to say. But yeah, they’ve backed me quite a bit man, particularly Amos, although all of them really; they’re all really lovely people. I’ve got a lot of time for all of them.”
In a recent song, Armour, featured on Manonmars’ sophomore album In Colour, Birthmark speaks of his trips to the Young Echo nights.
“I just saw Anina play a killer set, / so I’m back on the rum / and I ain’t even had my dinner yet. / Pissed up on a Thursday, / yeah you know the score, fam. / Got myself a draw / and a score for the doorman. / Hardcore coming through the wall, / could be Jamie or Sam. / Stumbling with my eyes closed, / familiar with the floorplan.”
(extract from Armour, In Colour, Manonmars featuring Birthmark, 2020)
He says how his verses in this song are one of the more light-hearted ones he has written, celebrating those nights that would mark the start of a positive change in his life. In most of his music available at the moment, he speaks openly about the difficulties he used to have: moving from place to place, battling depression and being stuck in a dead-end, suburban town. Although Birthmark won’t shy away from past experiences, he also doesn’t want to come across as morose.
“I think with all my stuff it’s mostly speaking about experiences or things that have troubled me or whatever — just something that I’ve got something to say about or feel a certain way about. I ain’t scared about talking about depression or nothing — do you know what I mean? I’m not gonna be like, Oh I ain’t got no feelings […] [but] I don’t want to be too moany. I don’t want to just bum everyone out every time. Really, I don’t. It’s not always the vibe […] I guess I just want it to be wholesome and honest.”
The honesty and clarity in his words is initially what drew me in as a listener. It was different to a lot of what I hear because this time each line was relevant and rarely masked in figurative language. Additionally, the music that Birthmark puts his vocals over (whether self-produced or produced by friends Dean & Gus, aka Withdrawn) is spacious, allowing him to be heard candidly.
“A lot of people speaking on tunes these days don’t want to speak about those kinds of things. I hope that someone will hear what I’m saying and know that I’m being real. Going back to Black Sheep, it’s something else that I’ve always felt. Earl Sweatshirt put it well — Too black for the white kids, too white for the black. In my groups of friends, I guess I’ve just never fitted in — not really having a hometown or somewhere to call home. I’m a bit of an odd guy in the sense that I struggle to be wholly comfy in one particular sub-group of people.”
“When I was growing up, I used to like Punk music and my mates were all road and were like, Why are you listening to that shit? Man only listens to Grime! Then I’d go skating (because I used to skate) and that’s where I heard a lot of this [Punk] shit, and a lot of skaters wouldn’t fuck with Grime and Garage. And then those circles as well where everyone’s got to be macho and the other circles where everyone’s, Oh I’m artsy as fuck. That tune is more just about like, I don’t know where I fit into any of this, but I can see you all.”
Since Black Sheep challenged certain prejudices, Birthmark was thankful for my skirmish around whether to call him a rapper. Although my first introduction to him was through his lyrics, calling him a rapper didn’t feel right because he rarely follows any obvious Rap tropes. He has nothing against rappers or Rap, but his choice to put words over music was just another step along his path of experimenting.
“I would describe myself as, first and foremost, a producer because that’s more what I do and what I’m about. I think my vocal stuff has gained more traction recently, but also I haven’t put much [music] out at all. [I’m] only sort of getting to that stage where I’m happy to put out my music seriously. I think, as far as vocals go, I only call myself a vocalist. I know I am rapping some of the time and some of the time I’m more speaking, but I wouldn’t describe myself as a rapper as such […] it’s not really what I’m trying to do. If I end up rapping on a tune, then so be it.”
“For me, production is my main thing. I will normally either find a sample or something and I’ll build from that. Sometimes it’ll even be [that] I’ll hear something and I’ll want to put that in a tune. I played a lot of Tekken in lockdown — Tekken 2 and Tekken 3. Me and my housemate, we just decided to sample it and actually we’re working on an EP that is all PS2 samples. [We’ve] got a tune that’s just called Tekken and another tune that’s called Metal Gear (from Metal Gear Solid). But generally, yeah, it’ll be from an initial idea [or] something like that…or a drum loop. I like fucking about with drum machines a lot.”
Birthmark’s samples are fruits of his musical searches both near and far; from PlayStation samples to Jpop blogs, he has an attentive ear and an open mind. Now, in the thick of a creative scene in Bristol, he has a list of song recommendations longer than his arm, which he attentively updates and chips away at it in spare moments. When he hears something unique, he is eager to see what he can dig out from it for his own productions.
“One tune I did recently — very similar process to how I do a lot of stuff — I took a sample of a song by Miharu Koshi, a Japanese Pop star […] I took a sample from that and pitched it. I think I slowed it down and I slowed it down again and then pitched it up. Then, [I added] distortion and delay and I found a rhythm in it and then built some ideas around that […] I nearly always start with a sample and build on it like that: I find things about it. I like it when there are mergent things; things that only reveal themselves when you start tinkering with them.”
Haunted, released as part of a compilation on friend Dean’s Cold Light label, has eerie synths over a distorted crunch — a graveyard plod through crisp, Autumn leaves. His voice is tuned down a couple of semitones and a sub-bass pulsates beneath the surface. It is an assured debut for which he made all the components himself — vocals and sound. His approach and attitude towards the making of Haunted is something Birthmark wishes to continue.
“All of my stuff I’m most happy with is stuff [that] I’ve not laboured over for a long time […] Haunted I wrote in one night. I had notes, I got home from work and I just set up the keyboard (this Casiotone),” he reaches behind himself to show me the keyboard drum machine, “I plugged that in and started fucking about with the drums; I made it in like five hours! Other stuff I work on for months and months and months [but] I always find that capturing those little bursts of creativity are always the best ones […] when they naturally come to you. You’ve got to go where they’re telling you to go.”
“It’s like a conversation. You’ve got to give a bit with an idea and then maybe that idea will show you something else and you can pursue that or a path reveals itself to you, so you follow [the] idea through and then you learn how to make decisions (with creating stuff).”
The freedom to see where an idea can lead is a refreshing approach and one perhaps Birthmark has felt confident to embrace thanks to the wealth of experimental artists around him. He also talks of a similar inspiration he has taken from late filmmaker, Agnès Varda.
“I watched a documentary about Agnès Varda. I didn’t know who the fuck she was, but I saw this film on [and] went to go watch it. It was about her and her work (like a biopic). She was talking about the first film she ever made and she said, I had no idea what I was doing: I had no experience; I just really wanted to make a film, so I did. As she was saying this, it was showing shots from her first ever film and it was fucking beautiful. I was like, Oh my god! […] I said to myself, I’ve got to fucking do it. I’d always wanted to. You know [saying], Maybe one day I’d like to make a film, but [after] that [it] was just like, Before I die I will make a film!”
Often, planning is just another form of procrastination that gets in the way of action and results. Teaming up with a friend, Birthmark has immediately taken Varda’s words to heart and they have the imaginings of their first film shots. And Haunted — a tune he was proud enough to release as his debut — was a conglomeration of ideas that came together in one night.
Throughout our call, he never concretely committed himself to any future plans or styles, only that he knew he wanted to build on this newfound approach: start with an idea and react as you go along. From producing music to then incorporating words to now experimenting with film, he is sticking to this attitude — never settling, always exploring.
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Stream ‘CL002’ HERE
Follow Birthmark on socials
Instagram: @j_birthmark
