nitroii interviews... #1: Cex

Cex is the everchanging, everlasting, sporadic and unpredictable but nonetheless indulgent project of irresolute soundboy/’#1 entertainer’ Rjyan Kidwell from Baltimore.

With roots in IDM, self-described drill and bass, and later on industrial punk rock, he’s got countless releases of various styles on labels like Tigerbeat6 and Temporary Residence, and even collaborations with artists like Kid606, Venetian Snares, and Electric Company. He’s taken some time out to sit down and talk to head honcho Olti (nitroii) for an interview (that pans out more like a casual conversation) – just for the South England Hate Club. Whatever it is, copyright laws, UK grime, genre boundaries, graveyard shifts, drugs, social media, it’s all right here. Dig in…

[This interview was conducted over a video call; words in square brackets indicate assumptions thanks to unstable internet connection.]

O: Hello Rjyan, how are you?

R: I’m alright. Most of everything’s been good.

O: That’s good. I’m not quite sure where to start, but I reckon the best thing to do would be to go about this chronologically, because I know you’ve been doing this quite a lot longer than I’ve even been on this planet!

R: Yeah, that’s probably true!

O: I guess we should start all the way back at Role Model – I remember I must’ve been about 12 or 13 when I first heard that album, and I could hear a very do-it-yourself, gritty vibe coming through, which I really loved; I think the sounds on it are amazing – likewise with most of your works, but I think that was a standout to me. I love ‘Am I Soundboy’ and ‘The Angels Are There’; I’m pretty sure the latter appears towards the middle of DJ /rupture’s ’58.46 Radio Mix’, if you’ve heard that. He mixed it in with ‘Defluxion’ by Venetian Snares.

R: Is that the one where he… oh, I have to check it out. But I definitely heard a /rupture mix where he mixed ‘Am I Soundboy’ with Eightball and M.J.G. – yeah, that one was so good! For most of my life, I’ve felt like ‘Am I Soundboy’ is the song that I was put here on the earth to write, and everything else is just fucking around.

O: I think that’s great, but then obviously, your sound really did evolve – you’ve got records like ‘Oops… I Did It Again’, which sort of retains elements of that prior sound but tends to delve into more of an IDM direction. The production on that one’s great, and the artwork’s fucking sick as well. Is there a backstory for that cover and that whole little booklet on the inside?

R: Yeah, so when was that – like 2000? 2001? Britney Spears had an album – her second album – it had just come out, and it was called ‘Oops… I Did It Again’, and that was the funniest album title in history. I just started laughing everytime, and [someone said I should do something with it], so I was like: ‘I gotta do it, I gotta put out a record with that same title’, but you know, for the artwork I felt like I wanted to change round what it meant. I guess with Britney, ‘Oops… I Did It Again’, I think it was like, in the song, she kissed some guy that’s not her boyfriend or something like that? But you know like, my version of ‘Oops… I Did It Again’ was like, ‘Oh no, like, I killed another person, hahaha. It happened again.’ You know, that was like the first thing that came to my head, the idea of someone washing blood off their hands thinking ‘oops, I did it again!’. That was funny to me. Like that with Britney – sometimes you gotta just straight up jack… sometimes stealing things is the funniest way to go. Just straight up, ‘oops, I did it again’, now that’s my thing too.

O: Of course, yeah, like, I’ve done that too. There’s a lot of things that aren’t mine that I’ve stolen, musically. But it's cool, and normal.

R: Yeah; it’s fun, and funny, when you just commit brazen acts of theft. You know, with Tigerbeat6, a lot of what was going on at that time was like, that N.W.A. [compilation], and then there was like a Missy Elliott compilation, where it was just all like, totally unauthorised remixes, then the ‘$’ series. Well, when we did that, back then, people used to be like, really, legitimately afraid that they would get sued if they did unauthorised [remixes]. It’s hard to imagine it now, but back then, people thought that that shit was real outlaw shit. They really thought that you’re gonna get in trouble and the cops are gonna come for you if you sample Missy Elliott and sell a CD with your remix on it.

O: Yeah, for sure. You can’t say the same nowadays though, nobody gives a shit. I’m hearing a lot of bassline, house, and dubstep bootleg remixes of Flowdan and Skepta and people like that.

R: Yeah, of course, it’s like an obvious thing that everyone should be doing, but it’s crazy because it was only like 25 years ago when we lived in a world where it was weird to suggest you could just steal somebody’s acapella, and no lawyers would come into it.

O: Definitely. About all these bassy bootlegs – I had a chat with you at some point, and somehow we deviated into the topic of grime music, and you were talking about Newham Generals – Footsie, D Double E, and Wiley and all of them lot. But you being from Baltimore, and that being a very, you know, UK sound, how did that make its way over to you?

R: Well, I guess I was always checking for what was going on in the UK since I started getting into electronic music! Like, when I was in high school and I first realised how much electronic music was out there and how much of it was sick, the first labels I really got into were Skam, and of course Rephlex, and I was trying to find all the Skam records to get them, but I couldn’t – it was tough to find stuff like that over here. But I was always kinda checking on UK music, and I just never stopped checking on it, you know? When I’m listening to shit I’m always looking out for that stuff. But for grime, I forget who… I guess it was Wiley and Dizzee [Rascal]’s production that made me say: ‘I need to hear more of these dudes’, then I got into Newham [Generals].

[At this point the connection cut out for a good minute, which we blamed on Zoom.]

R: They’re trying to make us pay for like, the premium version. It’s an intentional sabotage to shell out some money, but I’ll never do it! But about Newham Generals, I only ever found that one CD by them, that was like: ‘Now, what do you know about violence’, and those tracks on it, like ‘Bell Dem Slags’, and that record, I don’t know, I just thought that record was kinda perfect. And D Double E’s voice is amazing! He’s got a unique sound in his throat.

O: Hahaha, yeah man. D Double’s the greatest. It’s weird though, because you’ve trekked so many genres, like you were rapping yourself at some point. I heard your record ‘Tall, Dark, And Handcuffed’, and I saw that for some reason Pitchfork gave that a really shit review – they gave it like a 4. But on the contrary, I don’t think it’s all that bad; I kinda like it.

R: I mean, it deserves that, hahaha. But the thing about that record is, it is what it is, which is cringe as fuck, but at that time, when I was doing that material live, those were the biggest shows I was playing – they were getting the best response, and it was kind of like a ‘you had to be there’ thing. Because it was more like a comedy show on stage, it was just like a relentless story of dark comedy when I was doing that live, and I really couldn’t bring that to the CD the same way, so… I’m not trying to make it sound like [you had to be there], but it was better if you were. But then I got all like, I had a chip on my shoulder, and I thought ‘no, I gotta do this real good’, so then ‘Being Ridden’ got all kind of moody, and then ‘Maryland Mansions’ was at the end of it, and made it all worth the trip.

O: Yeah, it’s a very evident sound evolution, which I find interesting, and I love that. That’s what I really dig about the whole Cex project – your sound is everchanging. I really liked your album ‘Sketchi’ as well. Really interesting album cover though, hahaha.

R: Oh, you mean the Twin Towers blowing up?

O: Hahaha yeah, I think your visual stuff is great though, a lot of it really resonates with me and the cover for ‘Sketchi’ was actually what made me listen to it – I’ve done a lot of collage stuff like that in the past and I’m always doing art just like that.

R: That’s sick!

O: Thanks! But I didn’t catch everything about the unauthorised remixes earlier though. I wanted to say that I’ve got a few of those records on hand. I’ve got the ‘Freakbitchlickfly’ record and a few 7”s from the ‘$’ series.

R: Oh, did you get the one with Kevin Blechdom’s Sisqo remix? That was at the beginning of it. I think they’re doing stuff again, Blechdom. I’ve seen, they’ve been doing some shows!

O: Oh, nice. I didn’t manage to get the record with your Sisqo remix on it, ‘Got To Get It’. I love the Baltimore house style on that track. I actually clocked one day, I must’ve been skimming through your ‘DJ No Evil Baltimix 6000’ mix for Violent Turd,

and I realised you used the same drums from that track at some point in your mix, which I thought was cool. So I gave that mix a whole listen, and from then on, I got pretty deep into the whole Baltimore house/club style. I love it because I think it’s really barebones but it’s got such a good energy to it, if you know what I mean?

R: Yeeeeah.

O: It’s probably the most stripped down style of music that I’ve heard that still retains that danceability. I know it might sound weird, but there’s a spectrum in my head: Baltimore club, house, electro, disco, then it’s like, dubstep at the top, and that’s kind of a more abstract experimental type thing where we all dance with gun fingers in the rave.

R: Haha, yeah… brrap!

O: Hahaha… it’s weird though because a lot of breakcore producers kind of took an eventual shift towards bass music, like Cardopusher, he started doing grime stuff. Atki2 used to do breakcore as part of Anarchic Harddrive, but his bassy stuff I really fuck with. skimming through your ‘DJ No Evil Baltimix 6000’ mix for Violent Turd,

I love his ‘Sweaty Palms’ EP. Have you heard it?

R: Oh nah, I gotta check that.

O: It’s really good, as is most of his stuff from that era. It was kind of an offshoot of grime that they called ‘grimdub’ or ‘grimstep’ or whatever it was, but it was really heavy, kind of blown out grime, with fragments of Amen break too. Him, Matt Shadetek and Drop the Lime, I think, were the people who first brought Skepta to the US in around 2005, which is nearly unbelievable to me, because Skepta’s huge now! I’ve always loved Skepta and Boy Better Know, I was into grime before I was even into breakcore and IDM and stuff, actually.

R: Woah. Skepta is JME’s brother, right? His older brother? And Natasia Demetriou used to do makeup for Boy Better Know?

O: Oh, is it?

R: That’s what I saw on my feed, that before she was in comedy, she was a makeup artist, and she did makeup for Boy Better Know.

O: I don’t know much about them wearing makeup – they had that one Halloween freestyle cipher video where Skepta’s in face paint. You should check that, it’s great.

R: I will!

O: It’s weird though, because you being a contemporary producer who was really closely tied to Tigerbeat6, a mainly breakcore/IDM label, and knowing of all this UK music, and that shifting to other artists too… what do you think caused this volta around the mid-2000s, where so many breakcore producers… would you call yourself a breakcore producer, actually?

R: I always thought that my style was drill and bass. That was like, the term that I had used. And so, when I met breakcore dudes, they were all kind of like, crusty, you know? They were, at least in America, a lot of breakcore dudes were like, trainhopper kind of punks, and so for some reason in my head, it was like breakcore has kind of a ‘crusty’ element. And since I’m not clean by any means, but I’m not like a crustpunk, so I was like, oh, so if it’s not crusty, it’s gotta be called drill and bass. I don’t know how I got that in my head, but that’s how I always thought about it. Because breakcore is like a scene, you know? You just dip your toes in it, so I was like: ‘yeah, I make drill and bass’. I’m trying to make it again right now, because it’s been years. Had to get back to chopping breaks again.

O: You’ve gotta do something like that again. But because you’ve hopped so many styles, I’m thinking that might come easier for you now. I’ve only been doing this a few years, I’m 16 and I’ve only got a Kaoss Pad to my name. I’m not the most skilled… a lot of the sounds and genres that I incorporate into my own music come from elsewhere because I sample so heavily, but you can literally do that all by yourself. You’ve got people like Shitmat, who can play like, 10 seconds of a track uninterrupted in his own track, but I’m trying to use samples and incorporate them into my music with effects and stuff, so that they sound like they have purpose, and are smooth. Kind of like a DJ mix in track form, you know?

R: Yeah! And, I mean, we live surrounded by sound all the time, and it’s just coming out of every hole – it’s like part of being alive right now – just taking in all this different stuff and pumping it back out.

O: Of course, yeah. In the same way, when I go back to Kosovo and visit my family, it’s pretty rural in some places and I try to do some field recordings.

R: Oh sick, yeah. Yeah, field recordings, you gotta have them on every track now – just sidechain it to like, the bass drum or whatever, and have a little field recording in the background.

O: For sure. But nowadays, with all this talk about recordings, have you got any works lined up on any labels? Are you returning to any labels, or any particular genre you might have barged through in the past? How is Cex looking?

R: Right now, the thing I’ve been working on – well, I’m gonna start working on – I had a neighbour who looked me up on Spotify, and was like, ‘when are you gonna do the breakcore stuff again’, and I was thinking that was probably a sign that it’s time – because that’s all that’s been kicking around in my head; I haven’t made crazy cut up breaks in… it’s probably almost been 20 years! So we’re going back that way, and I knew I had to go back sometime, and I figured my neighbour saying something like that was a sign. The problem is though, I like to listen to music late at night, and so listening to real crazy loud stuff right now – I can’t listen to it super late, you know? I’m gonna wake people up. So I work overnight – one of my jobs that I have is an 11pm to 7am graveyard shift, where I can actually set up my little USB speakers and listen to music, you know, as long as it’s not nuts, nobody’s gonna give me grief for it. So, I like to listen to wild stuff down there, but I can’t be super loud. So what I wanna do is, I wanna make some fast, like 180bpm, cut up breaky stuff, but try to figure out a way I could still put it on at night. Late at night, when everyone’s asleep. Like, I don’t know, I kinda feel like I have to… but I’m messing around with some stuff. I think, maybe if I like, what’s it called, high pass those breaks, so that they’re all way up in the high frequencies, maybe you still get some of the excitement of those fast moving snares and shit. But also… you can play it at 4am.

O: What about headphones, though? You can’t just slap on the headphones, lean back and smoke whatever?

R: Oh, like smoking? I don’t smoke anymore, now I just take it in edible form. Yeah, I got worried about my lungs, and now, over here, it’s like, really easy to get these gummies. You guys have these over there? It’s like a gummy…

O: Yeah, CBD ones and all that. They're everywhere.

R: Yes, with THC and CBD and all that shit.

O: I don’t know, I don't play with that stuff at all. It can really fuck with your head.

R: Haha yeah… because I’m old and my tolerance is super high, it really works for me, because you know exactly how much you’re getting… 10 milligrams, 20 milligrams…

O: Yeah, for sure. But that type of stuff and experiences like that, has that influenced any of your music in the past?

R: Oh yeah, definitely. Like, I think I read that Aphex Twin did an interview one time where he explained it, and he was saying that the reason you get into that kind of stuff as a musician – messing with drugs… it disables the critical part of your brain and you can just enjoy. When you’re a musician, it’s really easy to listen to music and be thinking about how it got made, and be thinking and having critiques about this element and that element, but when you lose your ego, you can just hear the sound, and just enjoy the sound. I’m not saying anybody needs to do drugs – you got a whole life – you can do it way later, it’ll be way easier, you know? But, it’s definitely a thing; when we think about the Beatles, we think about LSD – those things are wrapped up because they’re not the reasonable part of your brain – they hit that instinct – the real animal. Music, drugs, sex – all that stuff talks to a person who is pre-civilised. They talk to the thing in you that was a living creature before, you know, society got a hold of you and told you what your shape was gonna be. I mean, it’s dangerous though – music, drugs, and sex – they’re all dangerous, you can ruin your life with any of them. The secret is that we think we make the music, but actually, the music is making us.

O: Yeah, music might be the most dangerous thing – that can lead you down a lot of dark paths that come out of the blue – it has a strong influence. But I think we’ve covered all grounds here, and I have one final thing I want to ask you. Have you got any words for all the people out there, following, maybe, in your footsteps, trying to do a little Tigerbeat thing – trying to do a little Cex-y thing? Hahahaha.

R: Yeah – I mean, where we’re at right now, everything’s getting squeezed into like, a little tube. Everybody that you see online, and that you see on your screens, it’s about emulating success, you know? You see what other people do that works and then you incorporate that into your own thing, then all of a sudden, everybody’s the fucking same. So, [what you should do] if you wanna make music… my advice to somebody would be to do something that nobody else is doing, and you should probably do something that nobody should ever do, haha. Because that’s how we make the world a bigger place. You know, when you try to emulate success, you make the world smaller – you make yourself more like things that already exist. But outside of that shit, there’s just infinity – infinite things exist outside of the world of smart decisions.

O: Exactly. I think I’ve made a lot of decisions far from smart – I’ve mashed up Dizzee Rascal, Crazy Titch, and Oasis, all into one track, and it’s stuff like that – complete nonsense and mentalism.

R: Yeah, that’s what music is for. It’s for doing the things that cannot be done in real life, because they are too, you know, brazen or awful or sad, or whatever it is. You do that in the world of music.

O: Of course, just be you, even if it may be brazen or awful or sad.

R: Yeah, it’s hard, it’s really hard now, because there’s a lot of people filming you, so when you do something messed up, your video might be out there, and you might never be able to live it down, so you gotta keep yourself going.

O: Absolutely – I mean, you’ve still got them old pictures of you shirtless on stage, so… but of course, everyone’s bound to do something like that at some point, maybe in the name of music. I’m probably about doing that stuff too – I might think it’s cool at the time – you might have thought what you were doing at that time was cool, but you might regret it now too, you know what I mean?

R: Yeah, like, even the cringe stuff I did, like, I’m glad I lived, you know? I’m glad I went for it, and it’s tough – when you think about the past – if I was to go and start changing the past, who would I be? I wouldn’t be the same person – I wouldn’t be who I am – I’d rather be here with all my dumb mistakes in some theoretically better place.

O: I hear that, for sure. Well, thank you so much – Rjyan, Cex. It’s been great to talking to you.

R: Yes, thank you! Likewise.

O: I appreciate all the comments and the food for thought. A very nice, deep cut on all things Cex-y and musical. I’m always digging the music. Keep it going, keep it good!

R: I’m gonna get back to it right noooow.

O: Hahahaha, alright, cheers!

R: Alright, see you man!

O: In a bit.

You can find Cex's Bandcamp here.
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