Godmode

Interview by Roxy Merrell

Moving on doesn’t always mean letting go. Feeling the world didn’t need another hot take on a Killer Mike album, music journalist Nick Sylvester followed the urge to get his hands dirty and channeled his critical and technical insight into producing music with GODMODE. The Brooklyn-based record label, run by Nick Sylvester and Talya Elitzer, has since been inspiring musicians to take risks with their darlings, killing some and bringing others back to life.

As with many things in life, the creative process is often about letting go of good things in search of better things.

Kill your darlings, right?

Exactly.

One of the first websites I ever built was called ‘kill your darlings’ actually. It was a website for writers to put up the sentences that didn’t make the cut, completely anonymously and without context. They were all just super funny. Three out of every seven that got cut were just a really bad pun, and thank god they did.

‘Kill your darlings’ is also about being objective about things that are precious to you. Working as a music journalist, did you ever have to squeeze out a bad review of a band you love?

‘Killing’ is a word that is very short and punctuated and you think kill just happens. But I think that some darlings die a slow and painful death. A band and a listener can grow apart. I kind of felt that way about my favourite band of all time Deerhoof. I was such an ardent fan and when I was writing for Pitchfork I made it a mission of mine to champion this band because I thought if more people hear this band and took something from it, then music might just get a little weirder and more ambitious. But they ended up taking a direction that wasn’t as interesting for me and I felt distance.

About a year ago I ran into Greg (Saunier) at an art opening, and knowing I was the biggest fan of the band, he straight up asked me to produce his next record. It put me to the test because I was forced to ask myself, what would a Deerhoof record have to sound like to make me a megafan again? It was a really exciting experience for me as a fan, a musician and a producer… you very rarely have the opportunity to bring a darling back to life. The record just came out a few weeks ago, it’s called La Isla Bonita.

So stepping away from journalism to pursue a record label. Was journalism a darling for you?

There was a very distinct moment for me that it became increasingly difficult to write something that was honest emotionally without being very technical or very boring. It became clear that I was enjoying and thinking about music on a very technical level – on making things rather than understanding why they work or why they make me feel a certain way. I was just ready to get my hands dirty, make the mess myself.

What does that creative process look like at GODMODE?

A writer friend of mine, Sam Hockley-Smith, said something very honest that has helped me inform GODMODE – he felt that every band on the label was making an argument of sorts, and I think that’s true. On a macro level, I think that my process is to listen with my heart and find what I feel is missing. Like the band Yvette, pretty much the first band on the label, are really aggressive and paradoxically catchy for a noise group. They were my favourite New York band because what they were doing was so different, but no one would touch them and that struck me as a problem. I wanted to give a band like Yvette a context.

A larger project we’ve got with GODMODE is to create a community in an industry town. Get a group of people together who are excited, supportive and even play in each other’s bands. You’ll see that at the show, everybody on this tour is playing in three of four different groups. Everybody is in Shamir’s band, everybody is playing in Montreal Sex Machine, Courtship and Soft Lit are in there too. That’s key to GODMODE, to have a place where a bunch of weirdos can thrive and make stuff that is exciting to them.

That interaction must yield unique results, like GODMODE’s eclecticism.

The eclectic nature of things is really deliberate. I think if you go to a party and its just jocks or just theatre kids, it’s kind of boring. I respect labels that are dedicated to one aesthetic and a lot of them do it well, but I don’t think it gives an artist the opportunity to be unique. And not just to be unique, but to feel unique. It’s important to feel like what you’re doing isn’t just for nothing…

Not just another version of the same thing?

Exactly.

Would you say that GODMODE is trying to fight monotony?

I don’t think it’s the monotony of music, because I think music is incredible right now. I mean, even while waiting for this Skype call to load, I heard the ring tone and thought ‘this is really cool!’ . I think there is a much greater sensitivity to music wanting and needing to be good at all times right now. It’s not about the monotony of music, but about creating an environment in which musicians themselves don’t get bored and feel empowered to take risks. Take Adam from Fitness. He loves guitar music, and the idea he ditched guitars to buy a bunch of electronic gear and learn how to make complicated and weird dance music – that’s a thing I want people to feel comfortable doing. I want people to really think of music as a way to express themselves, and not as this sacred thing that needs to be worshiped.

Shamir, Soft Lit and Fitness will play at OT301, Amsterdam on 3 December