5 Questions with Rags #78 - Kytami + Phonik Ops
There's something about the presence of a live instrument (beyond turntables, which are 100% an instrument and I'll fight you if you say otherwise) in electronic music that immediately grabs the attention of hardcore bass-heads and the uninitiated alike. Undoubtedly there are a few acts on the west coast combining live instrumentation and next-level bass with the ferocity and craft than Kytami + Phonik Ops. Since connecting at a festival here in British Columbia, the duo has become one of the most intriguing acts, standing out in an already saturated musical landscape. I got a chance to talk with the two from their studio, where they've been holed up – in heavy creation mode – during this whole quarantine thing.
“Phonik Ops reached out to me when were both playing Centre of Gravity in Kelowna. We were both playing at the hip-hop stage. He had reached out to me and posted one of my videos, so I looked him up and started listening to all his mixes,” Kytami says, recalling their beginnings as a duo. “At the time he was working with a rapper – Mishap – and I got them to open up for me on a winter tour. We started talking about working on a mix together and then we did it. That led to an EP. When we started working on actual music, we became partners in shows. It only made sense.” Phonik Ops elaborates with a laugh, “I started DJing for her is what she's trying to say.”
While both artists had their own things established, they meshed well right away and began tackling the big work – creating a truly unique sound that is instantly recognizable as their own. Listening to the duo talk about their music, it's clear why they work so well to this shared, and gloriously defined goal. “What these last few years has been about is getting the sound I want, getting it dialed in and getting the catalogue behind us. Really finding the space for my melodic lines against really heavy, fucking badass basslines. Trying to get those two working together, that's been the work. That's what we're really striving for,” says Kytami. “Not just liquid, or pretty, or easy-listening electronic music, we want it to be really badass, dirty but still have these soaring lines that I'm playing or shredding. But I don't want it be an afterthought.” Phonik Ops elaborates on the duo's process, “Part two to that is us figuring out how to write better together. Bass sounds and violin, how we can stack and move together and also what we can get away with frequency range-wise. Taking away frequency so there's that much room for her, versus if there's a more noisy part and balancing it out more. We're stoked with everything we're making right now.”
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1. When's the last time you did something for the first time?
Phonik Ops: First time I've been quarantined. Sorry, that's boring.
Nah, that's a very timely answer! Relatable as fuck.
Kytami: This is weird. I've been in this electronic world for so long. I actually rented a CD-J setup over the holidays, around Christmas, and I started trying to actually DJ. I DJed at a little clothing store. I found all my tracks, I DJed and played the violin over it. You think I would have done it by then. It was just for myself.
PO: She headlined her own birthday party! The dope part about that was that I saw it start to make her think about our sets differently. She's always pretty good at coming up with ideas but she's all stoked getting her own tracks and piecing together other tracks now.
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