Nathan Fake takes on the challenge of remixing Hrdvsion’s Captivated Heart. Expect rhythmic intricacies, glitches and a killer synth riff. Tailored to be served in a dark, atmospheric, underground club. Read our discussion with the artist below!
Describe your sound in 3 words
Unveiling Refined Resonance
Tell us a few things about the Captivated Heart EP and the idea to to release a collection of remixes.
The creation of this remix EP started before the original was even released. I was living in Berlin and at some point met Derek Plaslaiko at Club Der Visionaire a popular open air club just off the spree. Derek is someone I am surprised would ever need an introduction as he’s such a dope DJ, but if you don’t know him, find him. I used to go out to all his gigs and one afternoon I decided to write him a track. Captivated Heart, from beginning to end, was finished one summer afternoon within a couple hours, and I brought the freshly burned CD to CDV where he was playing. When I handed it to him he said “I’m not playing this, I know your music” (LOL) After previewing it, he mixed it in as the next track. It was magical to hear it and see a crowd enjoying it so much so soon after creating it. We knew at that moment that it was something special.
I shared it with a few more people to play, one of which being my very good friend Chris (Shanx). This track was meant to be a single for the album I released in 2010 titled “Where Did You Just Go?” and so he was the first person I gave the parts to as I started putting together a list of people for possible remixes.
The second one that was started was from Nathan Fake, another dear friend of mine, who finished a 30 second snippet in his spare time, but then misplaced the project file. Wagon Repair ended up releasing a few of the more club focused tracks on a 12″ instead and a pin was put in the remix EP idea.
Fast forward 4 years and my friend Chris and I were both playing at Bass Coast, (he was performing at the time as Monolithium) and I had been away in Berlin for so long, Chris was introducing me to people over here I was out of the loop with. One person of which was the absolute production wizard, Sinistarr, who told me they’d been playing Captivated Heart on 45, or sped up somehow so that it was at 160bpm instead of the regular tempo. I immediately re-recorded the whole thing at that speed just for him so the bass was still thumping in the low frequency range instead of all high pitched and midrange-y. I wondered how it would sound with his fresh spin on it, and he became the next person I asked to do a remix.
Another 4 years later, while on a 9 month tour that flew me around the world twice, I met efemme who was tagging with (another) another very good friend of mine, Josh of Posthuman / I Love Acid / Balkan Vinyl. She played “Detroit Technobass” by Detroit In Effect which sparked the first in a series of totally natural but absolutely insane conversations that have continued to this day and we are now roommates-for-life.
At this point, the original had been released many years previously, and the idea of putting out the remix EP was a long faded pipe dream. She asked if she could remix a song of mine for fun, and when I gave her the parts to Captivated Heart I imagined the whole project potentially being reborn. The talks began again, but this time with Leo from Creaked Records as we had already been chatting about rereleasing some of my other older music (How To Make Good Music and Be A Happy Person). When we convinced Nathan Fake to remake the 30 second clip into a full length track, and efemme handed in an electro banger, it finally felt like the tracks were actually going to see the light of day!
SHE Spells Doom’s mix came in towards the end and was someone Leo and I talked about, thinking their unique blend of Gqom, Soukous, and Rap, mixed with the House and Techno in Geneva, would round out the EP really nicely. It fits so well with the energy of the original track and in describing their remix process to me, said with this particular track they were channelling the energy of Drexciya. Ace!
This EP means so much to me as it’s been in the works in one way or another for the better part of 15 years. I feel so lucky to have Creaked finally release this collection of remixes from artists I’m so grateful to have been able to work with.
Can you elaborate on how your need to challenge norms has shifted over time, and how it has influenced your creative process?
I love learning. That perpetuates a constant change in my music as I am finding things that inspire me everywhere I look. I used to be into big crazy edits, like super glitchy craziness. I wanted people to listen and think “what a weirdo!” and my style was way more in your face. I needed to really feel like I was unique and different. Over time the need for that type of attention has become more muted and elements that interest me have shifted from the obvious to a more refined precision.
How do you perceive the balance between experimentation and consistency in your music, especially as you’ve progressed in your career?
There’s only so much my brain can take on and learn at any moment. I think the only time there’ve been really noticeable jumps in styles is when I made a big move to another country, or if I took time off from writing. Typically I’m working on things so continuously that there is always some sort of consistency without making an effort. I certainly don’t consciously attempt any balance.
Could you share any specific techniques or methodologies you employ to maintain authenticity and originality in your compositions?
I never sit down to write something to release, I sit down to express myself and I don’t get in the way of the music. I let it flow from any inspiration, whether that’s from within or from a sound or song I’ve heard. Sometimes I sit down and dive into a synth or VST and just follow the path to see how far it can go, twisting all the knobs until something surprises me. Ultimately I’m just trying to make music that I love and blows my brain. The music I release is selected from many finished songs rather than sitting down to write something to release.
Artists and people that have influenced you?
A million people, a million artists, a million life experiences. Some musicians off the top of my head Squarepusher, Lorn, Andy Stott, Bjork, Aphex Twin, Burnt Friedman, Atom TM, Mr. Oizo, Autechre, Surgeon, Del the Funky Homosapien, Funkstorung, Unit Moebius, Cassius Select, u-ziq, Plaid, Bogdan Raczynski, Lee Gamble, Oneohtrix Point Never, Lorenzo Senni, James Blake, Matmos, of course my brother Mathew Jonson as well and all my friends who make music….I could go on and on and on… but really I’ve missed so many people.
If you could change anything about the music industry, what would it be?
I would make it so that when you spend $10 on a streaming music service, the percentage that goes to the artists would get split only between the ones you listened to. If I only listen to Lorenzo Senni for a whole month, I want him to get all the money I spent.
What is the story behind your name?
Hard comes from the Squarepusher album Hard Normal Daddy that featured the song Chin Hippy, a song that was hugely influential to me as I just didn’t realize there was electronic music like that out there. As a fan of Punk and Hardcore in my teens, this kind of things was right up my street.
Vision comes from family vacations where we saw big signs outside motels advertising they had kitchenettes & cablevision. I always loved the word cablevision. Hard Vision to me means a challenging idea. Something I’d like to achieve that is not easy, an infinite journey I am happy to be on.
hardvision.com was an adult site, and my mom has always been very supportive of my music, I knew that she would eventually look me up online and it was likely she would end up at that site. So I wanted to adjust my name somehow. I was heavily influenced by Autechre and the abstract or perhaps just cryptic and obscured titles missing letters or spelled phonetically or whatever it is they do. They just made me feel like I could do anything I felt like. The idea of being that free was empowering. If you go to the waybackmachine you can see why I skipped the letter “I” in Vision. Visually it now looked lopsided, so I took out the “A” as an artistic decision to bring some visual balance. Hrdvsiovsiivosvsiosvin came from the frustration that Hrdvsion is often misspelled. I jokingly told the Wagon Repair label manager that I wanted to credit the Prettier Than That Remix with that name after jokingly mashing on the keys and he released it like that. I decided to keep it as an alias because its hilariously never spelled wrong.
Thank you!
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