Boulder-based producer Space Jesus sat down with L4LM to talk about all of his ongoing projects. His genre is described as ‘BASS’, though the acclaimed producer has been known to incorporate influences from hip hop and Chicago Footwork, all to make a psychedelic experience that brings low frequencies from the high heavens and beyond. With a new album, Close Encounters, due out on November 20th, and an album release party on the same day (tickets here), we caught up with Space Jesus to hear about how he’s been working on this for nearly three years!

Writer Jack Sheehan got the exclusive – read on to see what the prolific artist had to say:

L4LM: How do you build your beats? Is there any specific modus operandi? 

SJ: Yea, you know, what I spend the most time focusing on is the balance and the relationship between the kick snare and bass. That trinity relationship is the backbone, and I focus on that a lot. With my music, I try to focus on the spaces in between the notes more so than the notes themselves. Does that make sense? 

L4LM: It absolutely does.

SJ: I’m all about that. Rhythm is awesome to me; someone told me a long time ago “when you listen to a song, what’s the first thing to hear?” when I was looking into picking up instruments when I was younger. What did I hear first? It was always kick, snare and bass. It’s really cool because there’s a dynamic relationship between the three. That’s the backbone of my shit, for sure. 

L4LM: That’s why you have to move to it. When you have low frequencies like a kick and a bass working in tandem. You’re mixes aren’t muddy or anything. 

SJ: Thanks; I’m working towards that (laughs).

L4LM: It’s a lifelong pursuit. You remixed a track by Lettuce called “Madison Square”, an excellent choice of a unique song that you made your own.  How do you go about making a remix compare to starting your own from scratch? 

SJ: In the time that we live in, that’s definitely a remix. But there are lots of songs people are making that they wouldn’t necessarily say is a remix. They just put parts of certain songs in. With remixes like that, I’ll grab a couple pieces and listen through. I do a lot of hip hop samples, listen to the stems and think “damn this is a dope loop” and I can throw a loop on it and think about it for a little bit, and it has some element I can vibe off of and then I can jam with it. I’ve always liked to do that. I like to work with vocalists, rappers, I like building off other people’s energy. And even when I’m making my own songs by myself, I’m still building off energy I’ve felt and have felt reciprocated at shows.

Space Jesus Releases Hypnotic Remix Of Lettuce’s ‘Madison Square’

L4LM: True. From a hip hop production angle, the samples are such a big part of it.

SJ: Yeah, when is it not a sample and when it is a remix? It’s a question a lot of people answer differently. Why wasn’t that Biggie tribute track by Puff Daddy not a remix of a Sting song? 

L4LM: Sting doesn’t know Faith Evans as well, maybe. 

SJ: (Laughs) It’s an interesting place, because what has and hasn’t been used before? Even in ancient cultures, it’s crazy how basically all tribal music is around 140bpm, which is dubstep. And that happened all around the world, at separate times. Its not like these people were talking to each other; it just developed that way. It’s a question of human collective consciousness: what is a sample and what is a remix (laughs)!

But I try to stay as far away as analyzing. I try to write stuff where it’s harder for me to figure out in terms of music theory. If there’s something that’s like, “oh that’s not supposed to be right” and it’s happening in the song and it works, it works.

L4LM: That’s why you know a Space Jesus song when you hear it. Tell me about your album coming out.

SJ: I got this album Close Encounters coming out on November 20th with Smokers Cough, the record label from Brooklyn, New York. I could have done this with some different places, but these are my close homies who have been really supportive and involved in my process so I wanted to do it with them. I’ve worked about 2 years on this album, which is the longest I’ve spent on a piece of music. Its 13 songs plus two remixes right now. You don’t see many people putting that kind of material out, and for good reason, because usually people don’t have attention spans for that. But for me, one thing I really wanted to do was put together one cohesive album. This is that cohesive album.

Like “how many songs have I finished in the last few months? Let me throw those together.” Whereas this one, I’ve been writing a lot of tracks over the last two years, but I would sit with the intention of this one is going to be for Close Encounters. So it was like one out of every 3 songs I was writing for Close Encounters. Definitely a lot of people have heard these songs live. There are still a couple that have been dropping since last summer, so I know they’re anticipated.

L4LM: Nice. It will be great to hear such a cohesive album from you.

SJ: Cool. That’s really what I’m trying to do. I also have some assumption that people aren’t going to listen to it start to finish, and that’s fine too. But I laid it out so people could listen to it start to finish and it creates and experience. There’s a movement to the songs, there’s a reason why it’s out that way.

L4LM: Nice, well that’s what gym workouts and road trips are for!

SJ: (Laughs) Yeah man, for sure!

L4LM: There were a good couple months this summer that you went from festival to festival. What’s your favorite part of playing one versus a club or traditional music venue?

SJ: Well to me, when you get that set at the right time at the right festival, what I can bring to the table in the midst of this life changing festival. You put yourself through some physical shit to be there. I was at Mysteryland this summer, and there were a lot of first time festival people there. And they weren’t really ready for the first night with all the rain and how cold it got.  They’re like “damn I’m putting my self through some shit for this place.” All of a sudden the sun comes up and the sets are going on and there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, some reason for it all. It’s really important to have a good message at those places worth spreading to people, because you can make a really good impact.

L4LM: Yea, there’s no rain or mud at the high-end club.

SJ: Totally. I don’t like to totally think of it this way, and this is definitely a generalization, 75-80% of people are there to meet somebody. And yea people may come to a festival come to do that too, but at a certain point with whatever goes on they’re meeting themselves. Its more than just this go out, go out get laid kind of place. Even still I think clubs are a great place to connect to, but I’m not one for that kind of vibe, but also I’d never judge anyone for doing one-way or the other.

L4LM: But yea, they come with different cultures. Indoors vs. outdoors.

SJ: Right. In my mind it’s a bunch of people who put on cool sneakers and clothes, versus a bunch of people whose egos have been stripped out of their head and are spun where there brains are supposed to be. That psychedelic place at the festival that I’m talking to is a part of what my message is really about. The unknown, the understanding of what else is there, and how wild shit could be in the universe.

L4LM: And Space Jesus is a fitting title!

SJ: Yea (laughs)!

L4LM: What was performing at Creatures of the Night like? Not every artist on the bill was able to.

SJ: To be 100% honest, I had an amazing time at Creatures of the Night. I had no complaints about it because the night I played was an amazing line up. It was homie after homie playing. It was The Widdler, me, Yheti, G Jones, Mr. Bill, Thriftworks, it was awesome. Everything went great; they had an amazing stage set up. I guess they just overextended themselves in certain ways, and I didn’t witness the rest of it. A few of of my buddies were there like Esseks, a close producer friend of mine from New York. He was playing the next day, so I left and he was in the hotel we were staying at. He was getting ready to go back, I got a call from a friend saying it was called off so I gave him a heads up, like two hours before they announced it.

L4LM: That’s some good timing there. Esseks is great.

SJ: Yeah, he gets better and better every song he makes. He’s super creative and writes so fast.

L4LM: You’ve done some music together too, right?

SJ: Yeah we did an EP together on Gravitas, a very cool label out of Austin. We did it in like two weeks or so. I ended up moving down the street from him in New York so it was like, “want to make music?” He’d come over, we’d smoke weed, and we’d have a song written in an afternoon. Soon enough was like “oh shit we have an EP!” I really like that release.

 

L4LM: You make a lot of music videos too, with him and other artists. 

SJ: Yea pretty much all the videos I’ve done have been with Knowledge Knights, who is an amazing camera guy, director, super creative. He’s really young, like 22. The first thing we worked on, I don’t know if he was even 21 yet. We worked together on “The Weed” video and I was like holy fuck this kid’s a genius. We’ve been working closely since then.

L4LM: I’m happy you mentioned that song specifically, because it has that weirdness that works. I wanted to ask whether its genres or artists that influence your sounds that most listeners may not realize?

SJ: Sure, there’s definitely a lot of stuff. I grew up listening to a lot of Indian and African music, that’s what my dad would listen to. Its not that I try to aim to do these tings, but when things happen that reflect those ways of though in writing music, it pleases me. I’m still into, and there was a point where I was obsessed with Chicago Footwork music. What I like about it was there was all these polyrhythms type stuff going on. Triplet-y really fast kick drums. 

L4LM: When it’s at a high bpm, it stutters. 

SJ: That’s right, it stutters and it’s glitchy, but it’s simple. It’s minimal, there’s only like five or six instruments in the song.

L4LM: That’s different. In electronic music, you hear of people in Ableton with 70 tracks in their song. 

SJ: Yea, Shlang, a project I have with Supersillyus, we both kind of bonded over our love of Shpongle. Simon Posford is one of the biggest influences to me, and everything he’s done, Shpongle and Hallucinogen. Like the sound and the ways he was going about making the sounds, not necessarily the beats. My friend Rob, Supersillyus, he’s also very in that direction. We do different things really well. When we work together, it’s a crazy process. We’ll sit down one day and end up with a project that is 15 minutes long that’s 200-500 ableton tracks.

 

L4LM: You have good workflow, and it’s the best of both worlds based on your strengths.

SJ: And we’re going for this maximalist full on psychedelic experience. Whereas when I’m doing my own stuff…

L4LM: …You’re cultivating a different vibe.

SJ: Exactly. I like to have as many outlets as possible so that when I go to attack the point of one thing I’m not bored of it. It’s new and fresh. With my own stuff it’s always a balance. I’m trying to make it complex instead of complicated. Minimal complexity versus maximal complication. 

L4LM: What’s your favorite DAW? Plugin? Gear on stage?

SJ: Ableton. Probably right now is Serum. It’s amazing, really well done. Made in a very cool homegrown way. You can go so many ways with it. Most of the early stuff I did I used a lot of massive so I’m really comfortable with that. On stage? Uhh…a microphone! 

L4LM: How excited are you to perform with Minnesota at U Street Music Hall in DC November 12?

SJ: Very excited! I played there once before with Esseks. The sound system there was unbelievable, everybody was ragin’. Christian is the man; I love playing shows whenever I can with Minnesota. His vibe is awesome and I love everything he’s doing.

L4LM: The Lord has spoken. Thanks for your time!