Nutritious: Exclusive Interview for Paper

A BIG thanks for taking the time to chat with us and for (once again) providing such an incredible selection of tracks for the Blurs E.P. out on Paper Recordings

Thank you to Paper and the team. It’s an absolute pleasure to have Blurs out on the label. You’re absolutely one of the most iconic dance labels, and I appreciate so much working with y’all.

For those that don’t know, can you give us a brief history of the life & career of Nutritious?

Well, I’ve been a musician since I was a little kid. And in fact, I had an older brother who was a guitar virtuoso who also really liked to trip and take LSD. And he would tell me stories that when I was as young as two or three years old, that he would play guitar and have me play drums with him, and he would be on these fantastical trips and journeys and I’d be playing along. And, that’s how I learned improvisational music — kind of got into my system.

As I got older, once I had the dexterity to get behind a drum kit, I started playing in bands. I played CBGBs at a very young age, around 16. Then I got into electronic music. My first foray into electronic was through a Yamaha QY sequencer, which evolved to Fruity Loops — I use Ableton now.

I started going to nightclubs in New York and started working to promote at some of the clubs — Palladium in particular. I started going to The Tunnel and became enamoured with the music that I heard and that I was dancing to until the early hours of the morning.

I would go back home and try to recreate the music that I heard in my head. And at the time, I had a four track cassette recorder [Tascam], some CD players, some guitar effects pedals, and the QY. And I would patch them all together and whatever instruments I could kind of loop into this situation and started making mixtapes. The mixtapes started sounding good, so it was time to get some turntables [Technic 1200 mk2].

Photo by Kaitlin Parry

There seems to be a lot of influences peppered throughout this release. Are there any specific tracks or artists that you conjure up when in the studio and in particular for the Blurs E.P?

I listen to so much music that it’s really hard to pick out any one influence. I love all kinds of genres, and I actually spend a lot of time listening to various types of music, new and classic. So when I get into the studio, and I go to write and produce, it’s rarely thinking about something musical that gets the project started. It’s typically a memory or an experience or some type of trip or journey I’ve had that I wind up re-imagining in my mind and then bringing the sounds I recall to life through the production.
I’ll start with drums, bass, keyboard, and anything that comes to mind that can get the musical project started. Then, as I get the sounds down on paper, it starts to come to life.

Speaking of the studio, what is your setup for making music? Are there any specific instruments or plugins that are always by your side?

In the studio, I like to have various instruments around. I like to work in the box and also have instruments to play — from drums and percussion to synthesizers. Lately, I’ve been really digging the [Ashun Sound Machines] Hydrasynth and Moog Grandmother.
I spend a considerable amount of time mixing and working on sound design and effects, and I really do like a fair amount of plugins for that and really dig all kinds of virtual instruments. I have to shout out Cherry Audio. I really dig a lot of their synths. Also, UVI — their stuff sounds really great. In terms of mixing and recording, Melda is one of my favorite go-tos for plugins. I use a Softube Console 1 system to help make the experience more tactile. And I’ll incorporate turntables, sampling, you name it.

How is the dance music scene currently doing in Brooklyn? (I visited Mister Sunday when I visited last time, and it was pretty incredible!)

New York is a really special place, and Brooklyn, in particular, has always been a home for house music. What I think is the best part about New York is the entire metro area. You can find all kinds of nooks and crannies and great places to party and great DJs and new parties, and it’s just an amazing hub of music in general and art.

Last one, (for a bit of fun!), do you have a fave studio snack that will always be present in your music making sessions?

Definitely, I do. I really enjoy going into the studio with some fresh coconut water. Maybe there’s not a lot in terms of the way of traditional snacks, but I dig nootropics in the studio for sure. Lately, one of my favourite combinations is a mix of saffron and bacopa, two plant botanicals that just have a really nice opening effect on the mind — helps me write — I dig it.

BLURS by NUTRITIOUS is out now on Beatport exclusivelyLISTEN

General release 06-09-23

Say hello on INSTAGRAM

 

Benny Pitcher talks to us about his new Rebirth EP

Benny Pitcher July 2023

Benny: Good afternoon, and thanks for giving me such a great opportunity to tell Paper, your audience and the readers of Zone Magazine about me as an artist, my work, and the music production processes I employ in the recording studio.

Paper: Hi Benny, many thanks for chatting with us at Paper and dropping such an ace release with your Rebirth release. Lots of energy in both tracks which sound very
familiar in their style yet also really unique. Were there any specific influences you had in mind when making the tracks?

Benny: Yep, with you, I have already released three tracks, “Transatlantic Motion”; inside Wild Army Vol.6 and the EP “Rebirth”, including “Lips Like Roses”; and “So Good”. As you may have noticed, all these musical compositions are filled with soulful sound and vibe with an admixture of electronics. I love combining them together. These tracks were created in the spring, so the expectation of summer was one of the factors.

Paper: Is there a process you have when producing, or does it change from track to track?

Benny: At first, I often start going through jazz seventh chords (due to my musical presentation), which, in my opinion, give an intellectual sound, the general atmosphere of the track. When I cook a musical dish, speaking in the language of cooking, I often start with a chord sequence, going over it on the synthesizer according to the mood. And then I hang bass, drum lines, and additional nuances (trumpet, horn, brass, funk guitar). But there are cases when a vocal sample is taken as a starting point when writing a track. That’s exactly what happened in “Rebirth”.

Paper: Do you follow a specific workflow in the studio, and what is your set-up? Any specific go-to plug-ins or instruments?

Benny: My home studio is located in a country house with a view of the garden, and there, looking out the window, I work with sound images, all processing of which takes place in FL Studio. There are favourite VSTi, including Nexus, Sylenth, Omnisphere, Monopoly, Alchemy and others; VST: Valhalla, Hdelay, OTT, Izotope Ozone, all of Waves and more. And also I often practice playing the piano.

Paper: Away from the hectic world of dance music, what other artists or genres do you like to listen to?

Benny: I grew up listening to music of different genres and absorbed all these trends. Broken rhythms from Chemical Brothers, fabulous atmosphere and journey to another dimension together Underworld, magnificent harmonies and lyrics from George Michael, Jamiroquai and Simply Red, a clear groove from House music, as well as sampling from Daft Punk pioneers, all this allowed me to realize and mix all my feelings and emotions into my eclectic style. There are interesting solutions and techniques in every musical genre. I have quite a large collection of music in various genres, from where I have drawn and am drawing inspiration. I’ve been listening to Darius, Disclosure, Black Coffee, SG Lewis, Lovebirds and many others.

Paper: Lastly, do you have a favourite studio snack you will always tuck into when working on music?

Benny: (Laughs). Of course, milk and oatmeal cookies.

Check out the Rebirth EP by Benny Pitcher out now on Paper: HERE.

Interview by Chris Massey

How Paper Recordings and Northern Disco Lights led Pete Jenkinson into the scary world of Academic Research

I’ve generally had an awkward relationship with higher education throughout my life, preferring the ‘getting your hands dirty’ or, as they’d say in academia, a kinaesthetic approach to learning. As a conscientious secondary school pupil, I took Maths and English a year early to squeeze in an extra ‘O’ level in Statistics, Applied Maths and English literature. I even took the A/O level General Studies by going to classes during my lunch. OMG, what was I thinking?!?!

New Order's seminal electro dance tune Blue Monday

I’d always been into music, listening to Luxembourg under the covers and attending gigs underage. During the summer holidays of ’86, my interest was piqued by Mann Parrish in ’82 (cassette album FFS) and then Blue Monday in ’83, but these new beats from the US were just the bomb. I became immersed in all these new sounds coming from the east coast of America on Tommy Boy or Sugarhill, ordering imported vinyl from artists like Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash and the Jonzun Crew. We created cassette ‘pause button’ mixes on cassette and set about becoming a wannabe ‘Beat Boy’ with my fellow ‘beat boys’. We pumped our new sounds on a Hitachi TRK ‘Ghettoblaster’ while dreaming of being Radio Raheem from Spike Lee’s seminal film titled Do the Right Thing. We fantasised about being members of the Rock Steady Crew from the Bronx in NYC, wandering around our small (and safe) housing estate with a roll of lino, attempting to moonwalk like Jeffery Daniel while wearing a glorious nylon and leather mash-up of Tacchini, Farah and Adidas Sambas. I chose the path of discovery, and my academic career was left a speck in the rearview mirror!

Radio Raheem's Boombox

To cut a long story short, I scraped a couple of A levels after resits, which resulted in getting a place on an HND in Business Studies at Sheffield Polytechnic. Looking back, it’s almost as if my forays into higher education have been used as a stepping stone as I have zig-zagged along my journey, meeting people and creating positive situations. The coherent thread running through my life has always been music, whether singing and playing guitar in a band at Poly, working behind (or on it) at the Hacienda or trying my hand as a DJ agent for Miles Elliot and even becoming a bona fide club promoter. The Hard Times and Robodisco parties allowed me to work with talented DJs such as DJ Harvey, Terry Farley, Derrick Carter, Josh Wink, Andrew Weatherall, Roger Sanchez, Frankie Knuckles, and the Masters at Work.
From this world of DJs, clubs, journalists, and travel came the next part of the journey on life’s disco bus.

e at Robodisco-Planet-K-circa-2000

There were six of us working at the Haҫ and Hard Times, a perfect moment to start a record label. The concept behind Paper Recordings evolved during early evening drinks at a tiny bar on Whitworth St. called Alaska in February 1993. It has been life-defining, creating the social and business thread running through my thirties and forties; it even facilitated my meeting with my partner in Amsterdam. Music has taken me on a whirlwind trip for the last 27 years, a complete blast. But, of course, the business got a bit choppy in the mid to late noughties when a seismic shift in media consumption was fuelled by the internet and its mischievous offspring, file sharing and Napster, its main cheerleader. In simple terms, the arse fell out of the vinyl market, and with Paper’s turnover comprising 85% vinyl sales and 15% merchandise, we hit the skids. Paper went into a business version of an ICU unit, and the rest of the gang fractured down different career pathways. Elliot continued to DJ and run his World Famous Quiz Nights; Miles is a Cloud Computing Engineer, Andy, a 3D Modeller, and Stephen now owns an Event Tech Company. Ben and I decided to work Paper out of the pickle. Each time I realise that Paper has commercially released over 2000 recordings, working with over 500 artists, producers, and remixers in over 50 countries, it makes all the graft worthwhile.

Paper Tees drying on the line

Writing this made me realise that turning to academia when the shit hits the fan appears to be my solution, and so it was again. Martin Moscrop, from seminal Factory Records, band A Certain Ratio, was also the head of music at City College Manchester. And even luckier, a fan of Paper Recordings. He invited me in to talk to his students; I loved it. That led me to take a teacher training qualification, more hours for Martin and then, over time, several colleges, teaching kids how to generate income streams from music and performance (I’m still trying to be fair!). It was around 2009 when I did some lectures that turned into a module lead role at Manchester media school ‘Futureworks‘. Working in the School of Sound & Music Production, I lectured across the entire three years of the Music Production degree; on the Career Focus modules. The only issue that became a bit of a monkey on my back was that I only possessed an HND qualification and not a degree, the level I was currently teaching.

Northern Disco Lights

I suffered from ‘imposter syndrome’ during my teaching career until after we’d started a film company called Paper Vision Films and produced our first feature film. Paper became a trusted conduit for Norwegian house introduction into the UK and US underground music markets. It was a 74-minute music documentary called ‘Northern Disco Lights’, exploring the story behind these Nordic electronic musicians. Since its premiere at Bergen International Film Festival in September 2016, it has screened at over fifty international film festivals in cities around the world, including Tromsø, Oslo, Bergen, Kyiv, Berlin, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Tbilisi, Baku, Melbourne, London, New York, Jakarta, Budapest and Prague. To say this has been beyond exciting would not be an understatement. Could an academic investigation into house music development in northern Norway’s Arctic reaches be repackaged as a Master’s level bit of research? I plucked up some courage, temporarily squashed the imposter syndrome and applied for a Masters, by Research degree at MMU. I was accepted and given a place, starting October 2019, submitting my 30k word thesis on New Year’s Eve 2021 (NYE FFS) and awarded the qualification on June 22. Reflecting on the Northern Disco Lights film and the Masters, I feel it raises the question of what comes first, the professional project or the research into the process. It has made me realise that they are always interchangeable and depend on who is at the wheel. The common denominator is and will always be motivation, resilience and hard work.

So, for now, my relationship with academia can take a back seat.

Pete x

PS: you can read my thesis by clicking the image below.

Boom

Paper Recommends – Swimming

Paper Vision have just started filming a new documentary on the Yorkshire wild swimming spot, Gaddings Dam. We have come across some brilliant stuff whilst researching it so here are two shorts that we especially loved.
Follow the production on @papervisionfilms
 

10 Meter Tower

It couldn’t be simpler, put people at the top of a 30 metre diving board and film them. The result is brilliant as they all confront their fear and overcome it…or not.
My Big White Thighs & Me
Our film will be a large part about mental health and people using outdoor swimming to help manage it. This is a wonderful short film as a woman overcomes negative body image, a miscarriage and her mental health through cold water. Funny, inspiring and moving in equal measure.