Anon Speak, comprising of MC Lakonic and DJ Fokus, are a relatively new duo out of Victoria. Early last year the pair decided to bridge a pronounced divide in mentality and musical sensibility. The result is a very unique debut LP; Conventional Emporium. Lakonic’s lyrics are an esoteric bombardment, every verse packed with meaning. Fokus’ production achieves its purpose of delving into the stated mid-90s boom-bap sound but also works with a wider pallette including touches of indie rock and drums & bass. Lakonic elaborates…
From what I’ve heard, Anon Speak is a somewhat unlikely pairing. How did you originally meet and what led to a desire to producer music together?
Fokus and I met digitally actually. Since I live so far from the city(Melbourne), digital contact is all I have with the rest of the supposed ’scene.’ I believe he was scouring for emcees to rap on his beats and I was scouring for producers to make some beats, so we were both searching and just ended up finding each other at the same time. I know there’s a lot of purists out there that would call this process amateur or slack but to be honest, digital communication is just how it is now. As it was, we only met this way but less then a week or so after contact, we were underway, trying to just make some good music and see where it eventuated.
You’ve released a few solo demos and such. What do you see as the merits of both that and a group dynamic?
That’s the interesting thing. By the time Fokus and I had started working together, I felt that with the demo’s I’d done, I was at a comfortable enough level to start working on a feature length. Initially, it was my intention to bash out a dark, dynamic and somewhat different release and it was actually at this time that Ivens released his debut Sounds to Expire to, which resonated with me deeply-not so much because of it’s level of execution and quality, but because of it’s confident and bold move to stand out in this heavily jaded, outdated market. At the same time, it also crippled me a little because he had superceded any ambitions I had personally set for myself and even though I knew Fokus and I were travelling down a different path, the high expectations I forced upon this debut were catapulted over what I felt was realistically achieveable. Nonetheless, we moved on and I began to see that the sound we were concocting here was way too big of a step for my solo stuff to progress to so in the mixing stages, we just decided to share the load equally and create this side duo project. I guess because of this decision, only since we’ve started doing shows have we seen this as a group thing. It is the first time I’ve worked completely with one producer as opposed to just bedroom beats or producer friends so I guess in that respect, it’s been nice to have a much more cohesive, tightly fitted project together but yeah, group dynamic vs solo? Whatever sounds good.
What was it about DJ Fokus’ production that originally piqued your interest?
If someone had said I’d have been doing a release with DJ Fokus, I would have said bullshit. His production in general is the complete opposite to anything I’d choose to work with, but the funny thing was when I filed through some beats he showed me, there were a handful or so that were incredible, most of which you hear on the disc. They were progressive and had movement to them, structure, difference and they weren’t merely loops-that was the lynchpin. I wanted to create structured compositions and not just raps over loops because you find a lot of the time there’s no sense of connection there; raps will just run parallel with the production but they never fuse. I took a risk in thinking that Fokus could do something no-one else could and it most definitely paid off.
Over what sort of timeframe was Conventional Emporium recorded?
Conventional Emporium was recorded over about four to five months at the Magician Records lab. Given all the technicalities, mixing process, promo, distro, cover design etc, four to five months was when we had the skeletons done. But it’s been well over two years now since we started.
It’s certainly an abstract, philosophy-heavy release. Do you think this is a inherent feature of your lyricism?
No doubt. It’s incredibly hard to come from an alternative angle without sounding preachy, which is why I try and cloak my words in a level of ambiguity. It’s funny too because much like artists, you get critics that dissect your content, lay it all out across hundreds of pages of thesis’ and texts, all the while the individual sits there going “meh…it’s just a painting”. I like the idea of having a simple concept, and just stretching it and fleshing it out across the course of a song because what one person will see in it, another will see something else, and so on. To be honest, you find most people don’t even listen to the lyrics-if the flow is good and the beat is strong and/or suitable, people will enjoy it. I’m just trying to supply a cataylst to get people thinking.
The press release for Conventional Emporium states: ‘Anon Speak are…striving for originality in a stale and distilled local music scene, breaking down hip hop stereotypes.’ What paradigms do you see yourselves as having broken with this release?
I think the ‘Australian hip hop’ mould was set many years back and it’s unfortunate that everyone who releases product under this term gets predisposed as befitting of this title. Not the case. I’d say we’re not aiming to break certain paradigms as such, or even that we have, we’re just trying to expand the narrow minded ones so they know you can do something different, you can fuck about. We plan to progress to the point where we may not even be categorised under hip hop, and I think that’s where a lot of these guys miss the point-you don’t have to be the genre you’re creating music for; music is music.
“…I think that’s where a lot of these guys miss the point-you don’t have to be the genre you’re creating music for; music is music…”
Tell me about the significance of the trinket box in Broken World Of The Borderline.
I read a few different philosophical texts from time to time and at the point of receiving this beat, I was finding it difficult to think of some concepts that would fit it. At the same time, I was trying to understand all this philosophy so it was a fucked case of saturated writers block, but once I took a step back and realised that half of this philosophy is just about people thinking too much about the world, life, the big questions and whatnot, I decided to harbour all these thoughts as a single entity, hence the trinket box. Yeah, it’s bit of a large concept but that’s what’s makes it so easy to apply it to anything – the trinket box can be existence or the trinket box can be simply that, a trinket box. Up to you.
There’s a certain line: ‘…our lives are just rentals to the morgue…’ which captures the predominant mentality of the album for me. Do you think this is a fair evaluation?
Yeah, it would be fair to say that. I mean by no means is this a positive record, we don’t aim to please, and I guess since there’s already so many people nationwide and even worldwide trying to deliver their two cents through music, all you can do is throw yours on the stock pile in the hope it collects interest. This is not to say we’re down right pessimistic, but being realistic is better then gambling with false hopes.
You’re somewhat of a movie buff and it shows in the selection of vocal samples on the album. Is it a satisfying process to have something on the pad correlate with a profound exchange on the screen?
Oh yeah, definitely. I love cinema probably more then music and in fact, most of my inspiration for writing comes from themes or dialogue, cinematography or even sound effects from films. It is very difficult to get a quote that works within the context of a track though because often, a quote will summarise a track for someone who is unsure what the concept is about and if the quote doesn’t fit, people get altered or even conflicting perceptions about what the track is truly about. At the same time, if you can get them to gel, it can enhance a track just enough to improve it’s value and I guess much like crate digging, the obscurer the reference the better.
How did you go about being picked up for distribution by MGM?
Fokus’ label Magician Records was already signed to MGM distribution prior to our collaboration. With Anon Speak, we were keen to start afresh and see if we could lynch a deal with a more exclusive hip-hop distribution company, but we soon discovered that this was a real bad time for distribution labels. In the end, we just decided to go with MGM because of the unstable footing surrounding the more prominent distribution houses. We’re not complaining.
What was the desired concept when it came to the album artwork?
With the artwork, I wanted some crazy, fucked up illustration from the outset-I actually had more of a direction in what the artwork should look like then the music. Initially, we started looking international for some illustrators across the globe who could achieve what we wanted, but we soon realised we didn’t have the funds nor the convenience or prompt communication to be able to achieve something good. I then started browsing local art galleries until we came across the art of Pierre Lloga, whose amazing landscape stretches across the cover. It was interesting to see how well the artwork combined with the music and there’s a somewhat noticable death metal style to it, but I don’t think we’d have it any other way. It’s epic, dark, a little weird and suits the project better then anything I could have thought of.
Are there any plans to tour at this stage? How are things looking on the live front?
At this stage, touring is probably out of the question. We love doing shows, but we don’t have the credibility to pull the kind of crowds. We’re really just trying to get our live show right by doing a few hip-hop specific lineups, then we might branch out and try to jump on some rock, electro, heavy metal stages, basically anyone that will take us just to see how they react. We’ve done a few shows so far, most being well received so we’re just gonna keep doing shows, keep pushing the CD.
