Listening to ‘Your Affect’, Reue’s latest record, one could easily dismiss him as a bedroom Dj and producer, akin to fiddling with software to create clubby stuff. Instead, the Austin native is the furthest away from that: he’s a true scholar, a sound design expert who uses his musical experience and multi-genre prowess to craft ethereal compositions, timeless pieces balanced on eclecticism and poignancy.
Championing a strong career in ‘production music’ (videogames and sync material), the Texan talent has refined his skills at the prestigious Berklee College of Music, while having his previous EP ‘Acid Patch Kids’ hitting #7 on Beatport’s Techno Charts.
After knowing all of the above, you would be hard-pressed not to give Reue a chance. ‘Your Affect’ is a dreamy journey through soft and alt-techno, blended with avant-garde soundscapes and innovative sonic elements.
Intrigued by the project, we caught up with Reue to find out more about his artistry and future goals… Interview below!
Hey Reue, how is it going? Have you been up to anything cool lately? 🙂
Yeah! I’m currently in the middle of self-releasing 27 songs biweekly (over the course of a year) and I’m getting ready for a festival set on November 11th!
Listening to ‘Your Affect’, it is clear that you have mastered electronic music. Where does your passion for music-making come from?
I’ve just always been around it. Sound is basically wiggly air interacting with your brain and I’ve always been fascinated by *what* that process actually is. You know… how specific frequencies hitting your brain in the right order can make you physically feel an emotion or connect you with another person you’ve never met. I feel like it’s our shared “human” language.
A question for music nerds (like us) – what tools do you use to produce? Are you an external-synths dude or an in-the-box warrior?
Overall I use a hybrid approach but pretty much all the sound generation is done with a large collection of hardware synths and other instruments. My Moog Sub 37 is the magic that makes the bass… Its filter knob sometimes shorts so it glitches open and closed at random moments. Really makes for a unique and musical “happy accident” that no other Sub 37 can do. Once it gets into the box I stay there to mix. Mainly using Waves and Soundtoys plugins with a few others vst’s to really lock everything in. Learning about buss mastering has absolutely unlocked a new level of clarity!
While ‘Your Affect’ is obviously a clubby, dance track, we also recognise a deeper layer to it, one that borrows directly from avant-garde and leftfield. How did you reconcile these two aspects?
I reconcile by accepting it’s just “my sound” because I come from a very wide range of music. Basically grew up in blues clubs; made dubstep from ages 10-17, been a part of groups in multiple genres including jazz, rock, and symphonies which lead to professionally singing opera and barbershop in high school; and attended Berklee College of Music where I surrounded myself with world-class musicians of every background. After moving home I found myself struggling to not incorporate all of the influences I fell in love with so I threw my hands up and stopped trying. The result is what you hear today – a blend of Rocks aggression, Techno’s rolling hypnotism, Blues’ “in-the-pocket” depth, Opera’s majesty, and the human instinct to push boundaries and explore further.
Do you usually write alone? or in session-based environments?
Almost all of my music is written alone in the studio. Jack White once quoted Michael Jackson saying, “You’re an antenna and you have to let God in the room.” White then said “You have to let the music tell you what to do, you don’t tell the music what to do. It’s not an ego trip. You’re not in control. You sit there, set up a scenario, and the music tells you what your actions should be.” It’s not something I heard and decided to live by, but rather an explanation of what I had already been doing. It’s a therapy of mine to sit back, let go, and let the music flow from the ether and into Ableton which I generally find the mood for at awkward times that most other musicians don’t click with. That’s not to say I don’t love a good jam – blues and jazz wouldn’t exist without groups of musicians in the same room synchronizing their brains and feeling the same song.. but most of my songs have a story like “oh I was awake at 4 am on a Tuesday and none of my homies wanted to hang” so most of my music is written solo.
Which artist is your biggest inspiration in music?
Daft Punk for one – they blew my 9 y/o mind with their 2007/08 tour and have been the go-to since then. Deadmau5 is an EASY second, followed by Skrillex (left field influence for my genre but his explosive and unique early sound always gets me going). David August is the epitome of “flow”, SNTS has absolutely hypnotic lessons to teach, Stephan Bodzin leads the charge on more aggressive melodic techno, and countless other independent artists taught me how to just be “me” in my music.
Artistically speaking, what challenges have the last two years presented you with?
Locking in the final magic steps to be able to present “my sound”. Within the last couple years, I’ve been exploring new ways (pioneered by Skrillex) to completely deconstruct the engineering process down to the individual frequencies of various instrument groups, processing the bands through different types of limiter busses depending on where I want those bands to sit on the “soundstage”, those busses through other summing busses, and then finally through a main master stage. It spreads the limiting throughout the mixing process to affect the instruments only in the ways they need to be. Slammed sub and main instruments, light background and secondary instruments, then glued together at the end. This has given me the direct “placement” and massive physical “sound” that I’ve always wanted in my music.
What are the next steps for your project? Anything exciting on the horizon?
First I have to finish this 27-song project – I’m about 1/3 the way through and I’ll be done by June 2023. After that, I’ll put out a full-length remix album, a proper live album, a few EP’s and singles here and there, and by spring 2024 it’s anybody’s guess. Other than releases I’m playing the upcoming Seismic Dance Event at The Concourse Project in Austin. It’s a boutique house/techno festival with all the kings of the underground – I’m extremely excited to present my art there, even creating new “live versions” of all the songs I’m going to play!
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