Downstate

Ahead of the release of his debut album Farewell Static at The Shelter this month, Alexander Barlow catches up with Shanghai-based Uk electronic producer Downstate on working with Pause:Music record label,being a bedroom soundscapist and producing stoned bus music.

Sitting in his bedroom among a mess of computer screens and Casio keyboards priming his next smoke, Tom Oliver, 28, tells us he’s the type to need a kick up the ass to get things done. Somehow, we believe him. ‘I need deadlines,’ he says, in his slow, stoner lilt. ‘If it was up to me, [the album] would never come out. The only other stuff I’ve released [on Bandcamp] was probably only because I was shitting myself that my harddrive was going to die,’ he adds, taking a sip of beer, pausing to absorb what he’s said. ‘Yeah, I really need deadlines.’

For the past six months, the boot in his backside has come care of Gaz Williams and Michael Ohlsson, the duo behind local imprint Pause: Music. So far, the label has released AM444’s Eye Wonder, Sig’s Sad Mirror, a split EP with Boys Climbing Ropes and X is Y, and ROM’s self-titled album last November. March sees the release of Macanese alt-dupstepper Achun’s On the Other Side, but this month sees the launch of Oliver’s long-threatened debut album with a live performance and release party at The Shelter. ‘I’ve always loved his live shows,’ says Williams. ‘In fact, Downstate was one of the first names that came up when we started the label [two years ago].’

With mournful synths and tender, willowy piano lines, Farwell Static is a sort of shoegaze-y electronica that coos and crunches its way through various moods and sound fields that seem, in areas at least, tethered to the Warp sound of the 1990s. The album has two competing egos, one spare, low calorie, remote and introverted, the other chilly, cluttered and claustrophobic, with rolling Aphex Twin-like snares and glitchy lo-fi, eight-bit synth samples.

Despite being a regular live fixture at The Shelter, JZ Festival and, more recently, a support slot for Yuksek at MAO Livehouse, there’s not much for the dancefloor here; it’s a settled and not very difficult listen. ‘I kind of think it’s more a bus-and-earphones kind of music,’ he laughs. ‘Yeah – that’s my sound; I make stoned bus music’.

Pressed, his description is more lucid. ‘My sound is much more melody based than beat driven,’ he says. ‘For me, it’s all about what feeling a melody can convey, which, in my music, is part melancholy, part happy, and a little bit eerie, all at the same time.’ A devotee of Sigur Ros and Helios, the darker moments are owed, he says, to a love of ’80s horror films. ‘Creep Show, Maniac, the scary levels of eight-bit video games,’ he says. ‘I’m obsessed with re-creating those synth sounds.’


'Helium State', Farewell Static preview track. To listen to more tracks see our Downstate event listing

The more brisk, bass-heavy moments on the album he credits with his move to Shanghai, he says, where he found an emphasis on bass and post-dubstep sounds. The city also helped him evolve a more club-ready set for the live shows which, he adds, have thrived here. ‘I don’t feel pressured in Shanghai like I would in London, with all the fucking hipsters around,’ he explains. ‘The crowd here, especially the Chinese, are more open minded, without pre-conceptions or pigeonholes to be filled,’ he says. ‘I’ve never had a negative response anywhere I’ve played.’

While calling Farewell Static’s sound dated would be harsh, it certainly doesn’t chase a trend. That’s no accident says Oliver. ‘I don’t listen to anything new or current,’ he says. ‘And, I think if you listen to all the music on Pause, I don’t think it sounds like anything else.’ It’s a by-product of the city’s remoteness, he reckons. ‘We’re here, we’re not seeking out an ‘in sound’, so we’re not making the kind of music everyone else is making’, he says, with an endearingly strung-out shrug. ‘We’re just doing what we like.’

Downstate plays The Shelter on Saturday 25. See Downstate event listing.

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