Bonafide Magazine @ MSN: Introducing: Edward Scissortongue |  |
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Posted: 13 Mar 2014 05:56 AM PDT
Edward Scissortongue, real name Thomas Hawkins, is somewhat of an enigma in the UK hip-hop scene. Cutting his teeth as part of the Contact Play crew, he has forged a niche within the scene as a solo artist, known for creating music that some label ‘beat driven poetry’ and some others as simply ‘fucking good hip-hop’. His first release, a murky cinematic album ten years in the making and ominously named Better.Luck.Next.Life dropped late in 2012, garnering critical acclaim and more than a little bafflement due to its unconventional style. Working almost exclusively with Glasgow-based producer Lamplighter, it was an album that was hard to break down to the sum of its parts. Two years on and he’s set to release The Theremin, an ambitious 7 track EP with the themes of death and catharsis at its core.
So, first things first, who exactly is Edward Scissortongue? I am a rapper who spends most of his creative energy thinking about and writing rap songs, and I’ve been doing that for flipping ages. But more than that, I feel it’s rude to pigeon-hole myself as a rapper, so I'd say I was a forward-thinking musician who enjoys writing weird, messed up music. Is Ed different from Thomas Hawkins? Yeah, sure he's different. He's a creative entity, in that I do what I can to shape him into something of interest to other people, but more significantly something of interest to me. When is he? Is he always on? He's pretty much always on. I spend a lot of time on my own, and he's on then, the clock is on when I'm on my ones. I was writing bars on the train here and on the train there, and I'll be writing bars when I’m on the train back home. If not on paper or on my phone, they'll be ticking over in my head. I'm dealing with concepts and themes constantly, sometimes with great joy and sometimes with fucking agony. He’s the side of my character that I find catharsis in, and joy and release and satisfaction.If it’s not for the inane daily things that might find you a bit of joy like eating a really good macaroni cheese or having a cuddle with your girl or watching a good film in three dimensions. When it comes to it everyone needs their outlet, everyone needs a means to exercise their brain. He is that for me. So who do you write for? From what you’ve been saying it seems like it’s mainly for yourself. One million percent. I don’t write for anyone else. I never have and never will. I think if you’re really gonna write music, if you really wanna proclaim yourself as an artist, you need to paint, draw, sculpt, swing on a trapeze in an incredibly selfish fashion. That’s the only way you’re really going to get to where you wanna get internally. The only way you can get to a place where you’re entirely satisfied with what you do. Selfishness is king in this music making game. So you embrace that? I embrace it whole-heartedly. It’s not like ‘fuck you lot and fuck the music you make’, my main concern is writing something that ticks the boxes in my head, something that brings me satisfaction to the point where I can’t improve it any more. I think that as soon as you start writing music for a different audience or from a different perspective than for oneself then you’re diluting the process, the true core of what you’re making. Writing for yourself means what you’re saying is going to be highly personal. Do you find it hard to put that measure of yourself down on a record or perform it live? I’m not a big fan of talking breeze on stage, which is pretty prevalent in the UK hip-hop game. I’m a big fan of music talking for itself, that’s the key for me; I’m happy to say that my thoughts beliefs and principles have been applicable in my recent live endeavours. When you’re playing to a big crowd of people that are there because they wanna see the show, you have them in your hand before you even hit the stage, but you have to earn that. There’s great examples, like Frank Ocean; I saw him last summer in London and he didn’t say a word until maybe eight songs deep and he was just like ‘Yo waddup London’. Song, stop, nothing, mad rapturous applause. Song, stop… just silence. I’m a huge fan of that approach. Here are my songs – listen to them. Don’t expect a whole stand-up comedy show in between. So in that regard, I want people to hear exactly what I’m trying to say, and if they don’t understand it then it’s whatever, it means something to me.  In terms of laying things down and playing things to people that are from so deep within, I have such a great working relationship with the people I make music with that I’m not fearful of any part of that process. I record with one guy called Chemo (aka Telemachus). I can record whatever I want in his studio, and he’s not going to be like ‘mate, what you doing?’ I mean I was singing in the booth not so long ago! It sorta worked, sorta didn’t but the fact that I feel free in that space is essential. How do you write? What comes first, beats or bars? I’ve experimented with both but 99 percent of the time its beats; music that you fall in love with and then you write to. I’ve experimented with writing to nothing but drum tracks and getting producers to play around with the BPM, the tone of the voice and whatnot. It’s a dream to achieve that but it’s tricky without the orchestral sample or the synthy weirdness that often inspires a track to take shape. Those musical elements define where you’re going and what you’re saying essentially so for me, beats then bars. What does UK hip-hop mean to you? It means a lot. I’ve listened to a lot of it; it certainly defined who I am as a person and as a musician. Those seminal records back in the day, the Task Forces and the Jehsts and the Roots Manuvas of this world were incredibly inspirational and they still are. And the scene? How do you feel you fit into that? It’s a beautiful scene, the UK hip-hop fans are very passionate and there are so many great likeminded musicians making great rap music in this country, but I don’t really see myself as someone that sits pretty in the scene. I’m like a bit of a weird anomaly which I’m more than happy about and without really trying I feel like I’ve carved this strange niche within it, and I get a bit of gip for it occasionally but the truth remains that it’s been embraced for the most part. No one else is like me and that’s a positive thing. Some people, when they listen to your records or your words, might think you’re an introspective depressive. They might think that and I understand why. I just find that a really nice playing field, I really enjoy that side of thinking. It’s impossible to be so happy go lucky and so dumb that you can’t entertain the thought of a 700 foot squid attacking London.Those sorts of things tantalise my brain. Every single time I write. If I hear something happy in the music I'll embrace it, but it will always be love, and with love comes pain and heartbreak. That’s kind of how my brain works. The Theremin EP is my attempt at telling a series of stories, and all of those stories happen to be about death and the end of man. There isn’t fear attached to that if you’re looking at it from a different angle. I feel sad some days, but I don’t think I’m a sad guy. A lot of people say I have ADHD. Maybe that’s something to do with it. What can we expect from The Theramin EP? It’s beautiful and harrowing in equal measure and there are certain moments where it really breathes, and there’s a track on it which is designed to take you into the future, and there’s a track about donating your teeth to the government, and there’s a track about a global tsunami killing everyone, a track about androids flying from a different planet to kill all of mankind. There’s a tune about the last man standing who’s German. There’s a track about a calculator fizzling in a bath and bible bashers knocking on my door and asking me questions about my beliefs and death. It’s an interesting long EP. It’s not an album because I worked with a bunch of different producers on it and an album to me is something which is super concise and very considered sonically and this kinda jumps all over the place in terms of the sounds coming out of the speakers and the things I’m saying. If you’re gonna address the infinitely wide subject of death and the end of mankind, whether it’s like that guy just dying there or myself when I do die, or everyone falling victim to the raging tsunami that is brewing somewhere, you gotta be willing to jump left, right, up, down when it comes to how you say the things and what they sound like. So it’s a long, ambitious EP, 7 tracks long, that is me displaying my storytelling skills more than anything. That’s what I wanted to do and I’ve done my best to do it. Who, living or dead, would you like to work with on a project or track? Rachmaninoff. Or Burial. I’d like to work with Burial badly, but that’s not going to happen is it. Bastard. The Theremin EP is out April 14th on High Focus Records Words: TheNakedMug  |
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