TBSeFM, “Rough Around the Edges”, 2009

Interviewed by Juyoun Kim for TBSeFM, “Rough Around the Edges” (Seoul, South Korea), 2009. TBSeFM: What is the name that you go by? accomplice: accomplice. TBSeFM: What are your affiliations? accomplice: I am a member of the Breakbeat Massive (a global collective of underground deejays and producers), and currently a resident of both Konkrete Jungle Seoul, and Vinyl Underground in Busan. I am signed to Substruk Recordings, and I have a release out on Celestial Conspiracy Recordings. TBSeFM: What is your country of Origin? accomplice: Canada. I grew up just outside of Toronto, but prior to coming to Korea, I lived in Montreal. TBSeFM: How long have you been in Korea? accomplice: I originally arrived in Korea in August of 2004, but after a year and a half, I left to travel. Six months later I returned to Korea. I will be leaving permanently in May. TBSeFM: Why did you come to Korea? What is your job here? accomplice: I had been living in Montreal for a number of years and though I had enjoyed a relatively successful djing and promoting career, I was treading water in a proverbial sea of debt. In late 2003, my landlord bought my roommates and I out of our beautiful loft on St-Laurent Avenue, so rather than looking around the city for somewhere else to live, I looked around the world. After sending out a mass email to all of my friends who lived outside of North America, I received back a number of replies, but for some strange reason, only the one from Korea really caught my eye. The email was written by then resident of Seoul, Ms. Tiff, a friend of mine from Montreal who was living here as an English teacher and was also working as a columnist for Seoul Classified (which later became K-Scene). Tiff wrote an extensive detailed reply that listed approximately three pages of bad things about living and working in Korea accompanied by one page of good things. In hindsight it might have been wise to have paid attention to the former, but it seems that the latter was what mattered to me, as the following week I was packing my bags. TBSeFM: What is your musical experience in Korea? accomplice: I have played at various one-off events during my stay in Korea, most notably the 2008 Pentaport Festival, the 2007 Flow Festival, and my personal favourite monthly event in Korea, We Love Techno at Jokerred (Hongdae). Aside from that, I have enjoyed residencies at Club Cargo (Hongdae), Bar Nana (Itaewon), and Vinyl Underground (Busan). I am also a frequent guest dj at Berlin Lounge (Itaewon). Berlin Lounge is what I would consider an ideal venue for my current musical tastes. TBSeFM: What is your musical experience outside of Korea? accomplice: While living in Montreal, I was a resident of the monthly underground events hosted by iDJ, and a weekly resident of Junglist Fridays at Blue Dog (at the time the longest running jungle/dnb weekly night in North America). I hosted events and worked as a promoter under the name Cognitive Vibe for seven years. Aside from djing in Montreal, I have also played in Ottawa, Toronto, and New York. While I was living in Montreal, I met some of the most talented artists of our age; I feel very fortunate for having lived in a city that both values art and supports its artists. TBSeFM: What is your favourite genre of music? accomplice: Dubstep. TBSeFM: When/how did you start your career in music? accomplice: Officially I started deejaying in 1997, but prior to that I was being pushed towards this art form by a number of outside forces. These include; my dad inexplicably buying me a dj mixer from Radio Shack while I was still in elementary school; and hanging out with Lil’ Jaz (a DMC turntablist champion who many years later went on to produce for Nelly Furtado). I am somewhat hesitant to mention that my grandmother’s dying wishes were that I learn to play an instrument, notably the piano. I regrettably took those early lessons for granted, and though I went on to play the saxophone in a band for a number of years, my prowess in that regard never fully flourished. In the past few years as my production skills have advanced, those early music theory lessons have proved to be invaluable. The first tape that I ever purchased was Run DMC, “Raising Hell” at A&A Records and Tapes with my mom in July 1986. From that point on I exclusively listened to hip hop (mostly underground) until around the mid-nineties when I began to feel less connected to its typical motifs (particularly the genre’s tendency towards misogyny). Because my car at the time did not have a tape deck, I became an expert at finding quality music amongst the rubbish that somehow finds itself on the airwaves. It was from underground pirate and college radio stations that I was first introduced to jungle/dnb. At the time, particularly because of the emcees, I thought that it was just really good hip hop. Once I figured out what it was, I started to record all of the jungle/dnb radio shows that I could find. These tapes were in constant rotation in my Walkman for many years. Already obsessed with the music, when I started partying (i.e. attending illegal underground raves) in the late nineties, I immediately became enamoured with the culture. When I left Toronto for Montreal to study at McGill University, I took that love of underground culture to the classroom and majored in English Culture Studies with a focus specifically on electronic music culture. There I wrote about what I was living, approaching the culture from a critical academic standpoint. Completely aware that this scene is what you make it, I realized that I would have to quickly become involved if I did not want to allow it destroy me just as quickly; so, I bought records and a lot of them. TBSeFM: What is your favourite colour? accomplice: I can’t think of a colour that I do not like. TBSeFM: Name an influential band. accomplice: In short, everyone and everything influence me, but to be specific, what influenced me the most this past year was the book, “This Is Your Brain On Music: The Science of a Human Obsession” by Daniel Levitin. It was recommended to me by dubstep and dnb producer, Martyn, and I would recommend it to anyone and everyone who has ever enjoyed a piece of music be it “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, Bach or Marlyn Manson. TBSeFM: Is there anything else we should know about you? accomplice: I would like to thank you for featuring my music on your show. I think that it is extremely important to support both the underground arts and underground artists. After all, the underground is the foundation of any great culture.