008 - ISHQ
The latest Métron Musik Mixtape is something of an unusual treat. Not much is known or written of UK based artist Ishq, and fittingly his music is as hard to pin down as the artist himself. It’s therefore an honour that he was willing to provide us with this mixtape, a 90 minute exploration of unexplored aural pastures - showcasing old and new music from the mysterious producers wonderfully rich and beautiful discography. Within it Matt Hillier spans the depths of planetary oceans, searches the far reaching vacuums of the cosmos and prods at rarely accessed parts of our own reality.
‘Ishq’ roughly translates as ‘love’ but the word is used in Persian and Arabic literature with a broader definition, a relationship between man and its creator. There’s a sense of the divine and spiritual in the 90 minutes of music here. The Cornwall based producer taps into something seemingly larger and more cinematic than our every day existence. Somewhere out there that we kind of know but rarely visit.
Turn it up, close your eyes, and explore his world.
If you want to hear more from Ishq check out the bandcamp and soundcloud pages
JH: The word 'Ishq' broadly translates to love. Why did you chose this name?
MH: The music came first and I was looking for a new name and that one came up in a book, I chose it really as I liked the word and how it looked, I found out what its meaning was about 2 months after I started using it and then it made more sense and I worked to the name a little more maybe with projects and energy in the music. I think these things are predestined as I didn't set out to choose the name or work to that energy and meaning but then the music seemed to gel perfectly with the name, it seemed right and like the name i was meant to use, maybe its just synchronicity.
JH: Unlike the majority of modern artists you lack any social media presence of note. In fact it is difficult to find out a whole lot about you in general. Is this a conscious artistic decision?
MH: Well to be honest I am not the greatest lover of social media at many levels and in general I always loved music that was kind of faceless, people like The Black Dog, Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia etc. I dont have a great deal of drive as an artist to achieve more than make music , sell some and sustain doing that but its becoming more about social media and constant self promotion with music now at every level so its tricky! I like aspects of the social media thing but other aspects drive me nuts.
JH: Many people take up music in a fairly uniform fashion. They learn an instrument, join a band, play a certain style of music and so on. I sense your journey into musical creation is different - can you tell us a little about the history of your sound?
MH: Here I was always quite into music, my family were and I was a music listener from an early age, bought and collected records from a very early age and so it was high up my list of things to do. I then eventually bought an electric guitar off a friend and was involved with some old friends in acid jams we would do all night , this was as I got into psychedelia and the 90's electronica and ambient took off and I then got pulled into recording music and building a home studio off the back of all that really. I never had a master plan, just loved the gadgets, experimenting and exploring sound and seeing what came out and thats really where my heart is still. I am untrained musically and just work by ear and do what I like really and what sounds interesting. Its for me all about being free to explore and enjoy the process, I didn't really choose it as a career but kind of fell into it and I've been doing it ever since and will all the time I can sustain it economically .
JH: Your music appears to exist beyond traditional musical frameworks - does this make the creative process less prohibitive?
MH: I find frameworks often work against my idea of creativity as a form of totally free expression but your never totally free and some rules are quite important, I do like total freedom to explore and experiment and just often see what happens, I love chance/chaos/synchronicity in creative work and its where the excitement lies for me so I don't have fixed ideas of what I will do or follow frameworks unless I am looking to achieve a specific result which is the case with some Ishq music like the more melodic and harmonic structured work. I really like formless and experimental sound art and things so I do that a lot as I love to but its a one way road to obscurity and slowly here I am drifting back to where I started a bit.
JH: Can you recommend us some music that we might not have heard before?
MH: Blasthead, Spatialize, Experiments in silence, Nacht plank, Metamatics, Norken, Material object, Mick chillage. The list could go on forever so I named a few people I know or worked with and also I respect for what they are doing but theres so much good music out there now.
JH: Thanks so much, and thank you again for your excellent mix.
The original artwork below was created exclusively for the mixtape by Jack Hardwicke.
