UK Producer Lastboss Discusses Turning Dreams Into Music Ahead of Friday's Show

For the past four years, my Bandcamp feed has been grateful for the numerous works of UK-born, Zhuhai-based producer Tate McNeil AKA Lastboss. The multi-talented producer’s prolificacy has been a wonder to behold – not only for his output, which has seen him pair with a wide range of labels and collaborators but for his utter disregard for sticking to the script.

Skipping from one genre to another, his body of work differs widely in themes and styles – from cyber-industrial soundscapes that feel tailor-made for Asia’s cutting-edge metropolises to swirling mandolin samples that whisk you away, it’s all held together beautifully by the artist’s keen sense of atmosphere and audio space, an almost cinematic immersion that ignites the imagination. Much like his catalog of sounds, Lastboss’ journey to the present has also not followed a linear path, but rather one of constant exploration and innovation.

This Friday, Jul 19, he'll join a drove of producers, artists, and dancers for Shining Dimensions’ final hoorah over at Aotu Space for an immersive round-robin musical showcase, billed as the first of its kind in Beijing. Ahead of the show, I chatted with McNeil about his introduction to electronic music, how cities can shape your music, and how he keeps his imagination running wild.

What was your musical upbringing like? Was electronic music something you were immediately drawn to or did you dabble elsewhere before it became your mistress?
My mother, father, brothers, and uncles are/were all musicians, so growing up I was constantly surrounded by a variety of different styles of music, including pop, reggae, dub, punk, prog rock, metal, and some obscure soundtrack stuff. My dad had a sound system and would go around Europe with it. I was too young to remember much about it but it probably had a subconscious influence on me. I took a real interest in Hendrix from a very early age and I recall raiding my uncle’s vinyl collection repeatedly to get my fix. The Stranglers were also a massive favorite both sonically and visually. Their album artwork is forever etched into my memory.

My first instrument was the bass guitar, then the guitar, then keyboard/piano. I’m self-taught and play by ear and have had little to no musical training. My first introduction to electronic music would have been some old Konami SNES titles that I got really into: Castlevania, Axelay, etc. that really shaped the way I thought about music and still does to some extent. It’s always been a very visual experience for me and I’m mainly inspired by movies, artwork, nature, cities, and dreams.

Zhuhai is the last place you’d imagine finding an electronic producer – what kind of journey did you take to wind up there? 
Well, I’ve lived in three places in China: Beijing, Ningbo, and finally, Zhuhai. That’s the short version. I really came here because I much prefer a hotter climate. I also wanted somewhere with easy access to major cities but without the hassle of living in one. As you know, Zhuhai is close to Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macau. Beijing was a great experience but it was never going to be a long term thing. I basically did the third year of a degree there. I found it a difficult place to live in. Ningbo was excellent but I much prefer Zhuhai. That is even despite its lack of subculture. To be honest, though, there are some really talented people here, it’s just a smaller community. The likes of TrueTrue (now in GZ), The Sun Yat Sens, DJ Young Pioneer to name a few. 

How have your new surroundings affected your music – both in output and style? 
I’ve been in Zhuhai for nearly four years now so a lot of the novelty has worn off. However, I think the lack of subculture has really propelled my output – fewer distractions. The lifestyle also plays a part. What I mean by that is I get time, or am more inclined to make time to process and develop ideas. Creatively, I think such a tranquil and peaceful place is somewhat reflected in the music I’ve made here. My thoughts are a lot more organized in a place like this. I tend to thrive in serenity. Subsequently, I’ve released a lot of ambient stuff whilst here. With recent gigs, I’ve spent more time in Shenzhen and Guangzhou where there is an abundance of talented people. Being around creative communities really inspires me to try new stuff.

Being prolific is one thing but being prolific and working with a magnitude of genres is another – is this intentional? Or is it simply how your brain works? 
I don’t really think about it that much, to be honest, I just see where ideas take me. I’m not afraid to experiment with stuff though, so I guess that helps. Ultimately, I just want to enjoy what I’m doing. It’s been my hobby for so many years now, exploring genres and experimenting keeps things interesting and there is always something new to learn. One of the things I loved so much about the breakcore genre was that it encapsulated that notion. Anything was possible and even encouraged in terms of genre-hopping. I feel I’ve retained that mentality even though I don’t really make that style of music much anymore. 

For our music geeks out there – what’s your gear setup like today? What piece of equipment are you hung up on nowadays? 
Well for many years I’d relied on a piece of software called Audiomulch running on a beat-up Mac with a couple of midi controllers, a phone, and a mic. Nothing spectacular, but the modular nature of the software was well suited for what I wanted to do and fairly flexible. However, more recently I’ve migrated everything for creation and live performance to an iPad mini 5. So I guess I’m kinda hung up on that at the moment as it facilitates much of what I want to do musically. Software-wise I use AUM (mixer and software routing), AudioKit Synth one, Patterning (rhythm), Borderlands Granular (live granular synth), and some other cheap and accessible apps. I run a small Mackie mixer with a mic, iPhone, reverb, and distortion pedals into the iPad. I’ve still got those really old midi controllers though despite the other ‘upgrades.’ This setup has essentially moved me away from DAWs except for some final edits, production, and minor arrangement changes. It allows me to be a lot more organic in making music. It’s not perfect but allows me to create on the fly and improvise a lot more than before. The recent release Supercompensation is an example of this process. All those tracks are ‘live’ so to speak, with some post-production to tidy up loose ends. I’ll be doing some more like it in the near future.

Your recent release The Beast From Benhill – was written and produced in Tokyo in 2008 – it definitely suggests a different mindset from your more recent ambient work. How would you describe your time in Japan and the work you were putting out? 
I did that release for UK-based electronic label Love Love Records originally. I released it again more recently to give a more complete picture of what I’m interested in as a musician and some of my influences. 

Living in Japan was incredible. I was there as a language student and had plenty of time to do gigs and get involved with some local artists. I’ve said this before but I feel The Beast from Benchill captures that time quite well. Tokyo itself is sensory overload and I think that is reflected in that release in particular. Breaks and edit-heavy, I’d play the tunes half-finished at gigs then get home and add something extra until it felt complete. Living there pretty much changed the direction of my life I’d say. Certainly opened my eyes to possibilities outside of the UK. I’d been working and studying in London prior to that, which was fine, but I’d essentially done the same job for too long and was itching for something exciting and different. The Tokyo opportunity presented itself and going there was one of the best decisions I've ever made.

Could you give an example of your tracks come together (something like "Huge Slabs For All Your Gas Needs")? Where's the kernel of the idea? How does it evolve? Are there samples being used?
For that particular track, I started by developing a few motifs for the album (Cyclops) using a Mandolin preset and a 61-key midi keyboard. I wanted several short interludes between longer tracks. "Huge Slabs" is basically a bit of both. 

I played in and recorded the midi track manually then made some little adjustments to velocity and volume in FL Studio. From there, I knew I wanted at least one more layer, so experimented for a while and finally opted for the modulated synth sound that sits behind the main keys and vocal. 

The vocal parts are just me singing into a mic and recording straight into FL Studio and came after I’d created a musical base for things to sit in. I resampled the vocal to get the harmony effect and also stripped most of the low end from the vocal. I usually dabble with a lyric-less vocal melody prior to recording. This can take ages but for this track, it happened pretty quickly. The song title and lyrics are basically summaries of dreams that I’d had. Every day I try to remember what I’ve dreamt. If I can remember them, I’ll record them in a journal in summarized form, a sentence or even just a word sometimes. These usually end up as my song titles. As I don’t play keys all the time, I tend to forget how to play a lot of the stuff I write. I generally keep a midi track as a backup of notation and for any future projects. I was encouraged to use the motifs I used in Cyclops for a separate project that I’m now working on. Some extended versions of those tracks with some new twists.

You’ve recently started doing more and more live sets – what was the motivation behind that? What can audiences expect this Friday? 
The motivation was basically having more time to pursue it. I’d been locked in a crazy work cycle for a year, which limited my output and time. Prior to that though I had done a few DJ sets in Zhuhai, mainly grime stuff, and met some likeminded creative people. Anyway, once the time wasn’t such a major issue, I reached out to some of the creative community in China: thruoutin, Hoodoo crew, Guiguisuisui, TrueTrue, yourself, and many more. I started to build the network and get more opportunities to play.

Friday, I’ll be improvising around a loose brief for the evening. I’m paired with an artist called Shui, who will be using ‘tag tool’ to create live visuals. I’ll be feeding off her visuals to create live drones, ambient loops, industrial noise, vocals, and hopefully something beautiful in the process. It’s a round-robin, which is totally new to me but a really intriguing concept. I’ll mostly be in awe of all the talented folks I’ll get to finally meet and see live though. I’ve been in contact with some of them for a while and I’m really excited to get to meet them in person.

Catch Lastboss and the final Shining Dimensions this Friday, Jul 17 at 9pm at Aotu Space. Tickets are RMB 50.

READ: Events That Won't Leave You Hungover, Jul 16-21

Photos courtesy of Lastboss