Inspired #68 - Raven
Emerging London via Margate composer, producer and multi instrumentalist Raven has just released his new EP ‘Jeté’ via PRAH Recordings. His music sits there between electronic and orchestral, and has collaborated with the likes of Kate Tempest, Paul Weller, Mica Levi, Kwes and Bullion. He took a moment to talk to us about his South East London music scene and the inspirations behind his EP.
Who are you top three musical inspirations?
Ah wow that’s a tough question…I’m constantly changing, I feel like each month something new is inspiring me so it’s hard to say.
Richard D James is definitely up there. The musical breadth he covers is really incredible, his production and ideas are incredible. I love it when artists have extremes in their music, the beauty and the intense stuff, that’s how life is and I like to see that reflected in peoples work. Probably not many producers who haven’t been inspired by Aphex in some way
My friends in what I think of as the South East London music scene always inspire, the whole Curl crew (Mica Levi, Coby Sey etc) Kate Tempest, Tirzah, Kwake Bass, too many amazing people to mention. It’s a really incredible thing that’s going on there that I’m proud to sometimes be a part of. Endless inspiration!
Recently I've been really into Pavel Milyakov (buttechno), again he’s got a really amazing range of music he makes, really love all of it and have been listening to lots of that recently.
Finding new artists is such an inspiration, nothing quite like the feeling of discovering someone’s sound world for the first time.
Is there a certain film that inspires you?
‘The Stalker’ by Tarkovsky is one of my favourites. The way it looks, the atmosphere it creates and the supernatural themes. From the very first frame it grabs you, it’s something else. The way he holds the shots for a long time is amazing, it’s like techno, the repetition becomes more and more interesting, it just takes a hold of you.
It’s one of those films that I could watch over and over, there is very little dialogue and it’s just so visually and thematically intriguing.
What city do you find the most inspiring?
London for sure, it’s where I was born. The music scene is great and it’s multicultural.
I actually really enjoy both the city and the country in tandem, too much of one place gets to me a bit, thats why I’m living in Margate. You have a nice influx of people from the City, but you also have the Sea.
Who is the most inspiring person to you?
My Daughter, she’s 1 1/2 years old and is the best thing ever. I think kids are essentially born as these perfect beings and as we get older life can make you forget some things which are really important. She keeps me in check.
What were your inspirations when writing the EP?
I wanted to make some music using mainly hardware, reaching for pedals not plugins, spending time tweaking sounds with my hands rather than with a touchpad
How would you like to inspire people?
To be yourself and try and shake off the things in life that aren’t useful for you. I’m not sure I can do that with just sounds, but hopefully my music might take you on enough of a journey to have a different perspective when you return.