‘The whole thing is like feng shui’: the ways and art of Fredrik Fredfades.
by Nikita Chistov. Head over to my Telegram audio-diary to receive your regular dose of compact thinkpieces on music & the arts.
As I continue on with my conversation series despite the pandemic, now interviewing some of my favorite artists over FaceTime, I cannot help but think that corona never stood no chance. Fredrik Øverlie aka Fredfades, a key member of the Norwegian soul groove label-cum-clique Mutual Intentions (along with my previous interviewee, rapper Ivan Ave), seems to be of the same opinion, eager to keep the ball rollin’ in the independent music industry at all costs and largely unfazed by the whole situation.
As long as there are people like Fred — with an abiding passion for unearthing a rare music gem, as well as a genuine interest to deliver the highest quality product possible, at the heart of all they do — there will never be any shortage of great art. And that’s one comforting thought. Sit back, relax, maybe pour yourself your favorite brew of choice to sip on… and enjoy the interview. Peace.
Art in the time of cholera
Nikita: How are you? You are flying from Copenhagen to Oslo soon, is that right?
Fred: I am all well, back from Copenhagen now and having my four last days of the summer holiday right now, and I am going back to work on Monday. I work in UX app design.
N: How is the corona situation in Denmark and Norway at the moment?
F: It is pretty chill in both places, but in Oslo, it is very strict from the state’s point of view. They are introducing rules that make it impossible for people to run bars and work in nightlife. That kind of stuff is more laid back in Copenhagen. There all bars and restaurants were open, and they also still have concerts in places with a capacity of up to 200 people.
N: In light of this difference, it must have been nice for you to play a set in Copenhagen.
F: I didn’t play a set there this time around. I’ve played there previously, but this time I was there only for vacation — just to get outside of Norway to chill for a little bit. I was originally going to fly to New York, but, of course, that was a no-go because of the current situation, so I booked a trip to Copenhagen instead.
N: Do you feel that working under quarantine conditions have any impact on your creative process or the music output in general?
F: Not really. I usually make music alone, and when I collaborate with people, we just send Dropbox-files back and forth. I do have friends over sometimes, but it is rather chill sessions that involve maybe one guy being over at my place.
In regards to the music output, a lot of record stores have been shut down, so I guess that record sales are moving slower than previously. I have seen labels announcing the postponement of their vinyl releases, but I decided to put out our music as we normally do. If we do not put out music, the record stores won’t make money, and then they will be gone once this whole thing is over. It’s important to maintain the usual stuff that we do every day in the record industry.
Self-Portrait in Three Colors
N: To begin with, I’d like to piece together a kind of artist portrait, so that one gets a better sense of who you are. There are experiences in every person’s life that contribute to their identity and with that — help in shaping their worldview or, in your case, the artist’s case, their unique voice or vision. Do you have any vivid memories from your childhood in Norway that perhaps give you a sense of who you are as a person now or that inform your production?
F: There are no specific events I can remember, but growing up in Oslo, I was listening to Michael Jackson, electronic music, rock music, as well as classic rap stuff from New York. I got into skateboarding when I was ten or so, so I would say that my musical identity was shaped by the music we heard in skateboard VHS movies and skateboarding games.
N: As far as I could tell from your previous interviews and your Insta-page, the art of gastronomy — that is, of picking, preparing, eating good food — is of great importance to you. Did I get the right impression?
F: Yes, it has become a natural interest as I’ve gotten older and started getting proper money. After I got my current nine-to-five as a UX designer back in 2011, I started to go to restaurants a lot. One of my best friends is a chef. So we always go out to check out new restaurants, revisit the classic restaurants, travel to eat, and taste new wines.
N: Is there a Scandinavian comfort dish that you like to return to or a local eatery that raises your spirits whenever you feel down?
F: There is a lot of good traditional Norwegian food — especially super basic fish dishes and seafood. But unfortunately, that kind of food is not what the good restaurants are cooking but what the tourists’ places are cooking. My favorite places cook more classic stuff from France & Italy but, of course, with a Scandinavian twist. So when I bring my French friends to these places, they go oh my god, this is so nordic, but to me, it’s not and it still feels more like a Central European type of cooking. If I have people that come to visit me, I usually make them fish sandwiches, the kind of stuff you get at your mom’s place.
N: Which cities in the world, in your opinion, can boast the best pairings of groove music and food?
F: Paris. I’ve always liked the music scene there. It’s very open-minded in comparison to other European cities. It is less contemporary and less electronic, and they tend to play a lot of jazz music, reggae, island music, as well as funk and soul. Of course, it is one of the best cities in the world for food as well. I try to go there at least once a year.
N: There is definitely a lot to enjoy there. Also, French funk is something else.
F: Yeah, there are loads of 80s disco and boogie records from France. Some of the vocals can be quite fucked up from time to time, but there is a lot of good production there. Personally, I am a big fan of their jazz scene from the ’60s, ’70s & ’80s, everything from the free jazz they did to the island jazz, and the Afro-jazz type of stuff.
N: There is a killer afro-/ethio- tinged tune off of your Jazz Cats record with Kristoffer Eikrem titled Ethiopia. Is Africa on your influences map as well?
F: I don’t listen to a lot of pure African music. It would normally be things like Mulatu Astatke or Fela Kuti which is the only 100% African music that I identify with and love. But many of the records I’ve been buying in the previous years are from the islands that used to be the colony islands owned by The Netherlands and France. I am a huge fan of this type of jazz. It is African music, but it’s been shaped by the fact that the musicians were isolated on a small island and were not able to hear what the rest of the world was exposed to.
N: That’s something I haven’t thought much about previously — the concept of colony island jazz. Fascinating.
Mutual Love
N: Speaking of Jazz Cats, when one thinks about Mutual Intentions, the artists that usually come to mind, at least to mine, as the label’s main residents are you, Ivan Ave & Charlotte Dos Santos, while people like Kristoffer Eikrem remain largely unknown to the wider audience, although he wholly merits the same level of praise and recognition — could you please introduce me and the readers to this underappreciated figure?
F: We have loads of people doing different stuff. Erik Treimann does video –for Ivan and me, as well as for bigger Norwegian pop artists. We’ve got Mohamed Chakiri, our photographer & DJ; designer Dirty Hans who also does a lot of DJing at our events; and Stian Nicolaysen who works on the more classic industry and A&R tasks. It’s me, Andres, Hans, and Stian who do most of the label’s work, the actual record label work that no one wants to do. Paying bills, paying artists, writing contracts, handling the economy and legal issues, paying taxes, applying for grant/support money, doing PR campaigns, constantly working on how to brand the label and the releases, arranging events, handling mastering and artwork processes, pressing and distributing the records, shipping packages, producing merch…
And then there are creative forces. No one’s on a contract, it’s just a gang of friends. If someone wants to release their music on a different label, that’s totally cool, and if they want to stick with Mutual for their release, we strive to give them a better deal than what other labels can give them. For a long time, we would release our music on record labels in other countries, but it doesn’t make sense if we can do the same job ourselves, so instead of giving 50 percent of the money to someone we only have a distant relationship with, we can keep it ourselves and invest it in future releases on our own label.
We have Kristoffer Eikrem, a talented trumpet player and beatmaker. He is working on a few projects now — ambient, as well as heavily jazz-influenced beats. Then there is Bendik Baksaas who did an ambient record with Kristoffer last year. We have Bendik HK — a drummer and electronic musician, — and Arthur Kay Piene, in my opinion, Norway’s best contemporary keyboard player, who is gonna record a traditional jazz release on Mutual this fall. We have Yogisoul — he is a really good producer, but he’s moving real slow with his music at the moment; we have my good friend and collaborator in music, Jawn Rice, a prolific electronic music producer; and Aron aka Sun Raw aka SRAW from Sweden. Aron and I have a new record together that we are gonna put out soon. An instrumental hip–hop thing.
N: That’s quite a collective you have, thanks for the rundown. There is no way I would’ve gotten this complete a rundown of MI members otherwise.
F: It’s hard to figure out. But we decided to do it like this. We don’t represent a roster of people that are on a contract, we are not managers. We handle releases and arrange parties.
N: It feels to me that there is this great difference between other labels and MI in that you guys have this family quality to work where you work together, and there is no one force in power — there are many people working for the greater good.
F: We definitely collaborate a lot, yes. For me, the projects I’ve been involved in were more of a social thing rather than work. Very relaxed and natural.
Alone Together
N: You yourself have got quite a number of collaborative tunes and projects under your belt and not only with Eikrem but also with Ivan Ave, Jawn Rice, Fredrik Høyer, Mndsgn, MoRuf, and many others. Why is it important to experience creating something along with somebody else rather than alone?
F: Right now I am actually working on my first solo project since Warmth. I am trying to finish it up in a couple of months, and I am getting a lot of help from friends on this one, too: Arthur, a professional piano player, is doing keys; Jawn Rice helped me mix one of the songs. I feel that I am a good producer but not a very talented keyboard player — I can compose chords and lead lines, but I don’t feel confident playing long solos. I usually invite people over when I need assistance with something. I like to involve people who can inspire me to push the music in a better direction.
Regarding mixing — I prefer to do as much as possible myself, to keep the sound raw and banging, but in a few songs with a lot of complexity (many layers and many patches and elements playing around the same frequencies), I like to involve other people with fresh ears to help me out with the mix. But I rarely use their final mix. I take the stems back home and mix it over again, just to make sure that it bangs and still has an edge to it. I don’t like my shit too clean.
I make loads of music, at least 100 songs a year. I first dump the sketches into the computer without mixing them. I just let them be there, and I open them after I have forgotten about them. If they are good, I start to arrange them and may change the drums and such. It is the same when I work with musicians — they would come to me and contribute something to a certain track. The next time they hear a song, it will be something completely different. I might have changed the arrangement, the drums, or even the tempo or the key of the song. I focus on production a lot when I am alone, and I focus on the melodies and rhythm when I am working with somebody else. Pretty much.
N: Speaking of different producer approaches, it seems to me that you have quite a high-performance work attitude that is almost athlete-like. Am I getting the right idea here?
F: Early Saturday and early Sunday are when I do most of my music. I can be efficient on those days and make three or four songs. But it’s not like I make music every day. I create music maybe once or twice a week, but then I do loads in the session. From time to time when I come back home from work I put headphones on and make some more. I can also take a pause from music-making that can last 2 months, and sometimes I get back to it and make 10 songs in one day, especially if I feel mad inspired and if my girlfriend is away. If I have the crib for myself, and there is no need to clean up the apartment or anything, I just walk around in my boxers, making music. *laughs*
N: Sounds like a perfect Sunday afternoon. Speaking of collaborative work, are there any particular duos, be it in the music sphere, in the visual arts, in the movie industry, or anyplace else, whose work you get a kick out of and whose chemistry you find remarkable?
F: Don Rendell & Ian Carr, Pharoah Sanders & Alice Coltrane collaborations, Pharoah Sanders & Leon Thomas, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Gang Starr, Beatminerz are all huge favorites.
N: I like that you mentioned Leon Thomas, he is such a great creative force. I was listening to a record of his recently, and the arrangements are so tight. Pure excellence.
F: Can be quite disturbing in a social setting though. There is always somebody complaining…
N: …about the excessive yodeling, I suppose?
F: Yeah, he sounds like a Turkey!
N: Luv Neva Fades (2020) is a continuation of your creative partnership with Jawn Rice — when you started off with Jacuzzi Boyz (2019), was house music a natural direction for you or a bit of a terra incognita?
F: For me, it is the first complete house project I’ve been involved in. But I made tons of house tracks on my own before that without releasing almost any of it, except for one track on Jazz Cats. That’s the only one I released before the Jacuzzi Boyz record. I was always inspired by Jawn’s approach to electronic music because we have the same background — we always listened to the same hip-hop producers previously. So it was a natural type of music for me to check out and explore, as I had already been playing club music — disco, boogie, soul, proto-house, and house records while DJing.
N: How different was working on the first record from developing this new one, music-making wise?
F: We sent the files a lot more back and forth on Jacuzzi. On the new record, though, there is a song that was made by me entirely and one completely made by Jawn. It’s put together more dynamically this time; it’s not like we’re fighting about every element like the other time. There is a more personal touch to some of the songs.
Gotta look and feel right
N: I recently came across a curious video of 9th Wonder going over the main aspects of beat-making. He points out that sometimes people make beats and don’t understand that body motion means a lot, especially when it comes to the region you are making the beat for. Is this something you ever take into consideration when constructing a new groove? Also, are there any differences in terms of body motion that you are noticing between your DJ-set audiences in different countries?
F: Regarding my music production, I usually don’t think much about it. I just do what comes naturally. Everything I do is inspired by what I am listening to in the months around the period when I produce the music — my current playlists, my recent record purchases. With DJing, it is very different, though. You gotta figure out how old the crowd is and what type of crowd it is.
One thing I’ve always done that a lot of people think is weird, but it’s always made perfect sense to me. I go on Google and Instagram and try to find the pictures of the room I’m gonna play at the venue to figure out how tall the roof is. If the ceiling is really high, then there is definitely a different vibe in there than if it is low. This way I am trying to understand if it’s going to be an intimate night with a small packed floor or a night in a huge room with a disco ball, lights, and a super high ceiling. If it’s the latter type of thing, then I would want to bring a little more accessible and commercial material, more vocal stuff, better-mixed songs. If it’s a small underground space, then I can play whatever I want to listen to that day and keep it much more leftfield and playful. Overall, the whole thing is like feng shui.
N: That’s so fascinating, what a great pro tip!
F: Yeah, I’ve just been playing records for 17 years and have played all types of crowds and places. So I’ve noticed that this stuff really makes an impact. I don’t think the people there necessarily think about this themselves; they are there to dance and do not know why something feels good or bad. It’s up to the venue and the DJ to make it good for them.
N: Right, to make the experience singular, to customize it in a way that would fit that specific venue and crowd.
F: Exactly. Of course, not too many people think about these things. I’ve got DJ friends who don’t even clean up their apartment. I don’t think these are the guys who are measuring the height of the venue’s ceiling before packing their records. Haha!
N: I like that you’ve mentioned this very scrupulous approach to set-making because I can now make a perfect transition to the next bit. There is an attitude that is quite salient in both your work and that of Ivan; based on the things you describe in your previous interviews but also by just checking out your work and the way it is presented, I can tell how driven you two are to deliver the most quality product possible. Why do you think so many artists allow their final product to be half-baked and underwhelming or, as you have aptly put it yourself, like a good dish you’ve spent loads of time to cook, on dirty plates with a warm beer, whereas you and your crew can only rest satisfied after refining every facet of the record, be it the music itself, the packaging, or the cover art?
F: I think a lot of the design stuff is Hans’s merit — he’s a really good designer. We use him for most of our work. Just like with the music, he is not about trends. He might make a contemporary composition or have a modern type of color combination, but he always does it with old-school typefaces and he also has a timeless approach in his illustrations.
For me, it’s a little bit the same with the physical products as well. I’ve been buying records for more than half of my life, and I spend a lot of money on them. There’s been a few times when I found some music that I like on Bandcamp and ordered the vinyl because I wanted to have it in my record collection. And then I receive it, and it feels like such a bad product. Terrible artwork, super low pressing, a very thin disc, a huge bar code on the back — all these are major turn-offs. Sometimes I wish I just purchased it digitally because I am never going to like this piece of vinyl that I stored on my shelves.
For me, it’s about creating something that people want to have in their collection. Of course, everything we do is inspired by things we like — from all the heavy cardboard 60s jazz covers all the way to super cheap pressed 90s house records. It can be whatever. It just has to look and feel right. People do a lot of short-cuts to save a dollar, but I think it’s more important to create great quality products.
A digger par excellence
N: Speaking of your record searches and purchases, apart from being a DJ and a producer, you have fought enough on the diggers front and have earned the right to be called a seasoned vinyl digger. Could you please share some of your strategies digging-wise? What are your go-to record store sections, for example?
F: I am blessed with a very good memory, so I recognize artist names, labels, and album covers. I know how to spot the difference between a Japanese Strata-East Records pressing and an American one. So for me, it’s easy to keep track of things. I used to go to record stores all the time when I was younger. I learned really fast what I liked the most. That was the best thing for me. And I also learned other stuff like okay, these are huge jazz artists, but they are not inspiring to me, so I am not checking out their records anymore or this is a shitty label, I am not checking its stuff anymore, as I have already checked 60 of its records, and it’s all wack. I’ve always been curious to check out new types of music, from different countries and periods, particularly private-pressed material.
I buy a lot of music, and I can say that there is one thing I especially dislike — when it’s overproduced; when there are 10 guys playing sax on a song or 4 dudes playing the guitar. That’s not for me. I prefer a band with few members — trios, quartets, maybe a quintet. There are instruments and sounds I particularly like. I just learned the hard way what to not spend time listening to!
N: Serious digging is naturally a downwards movement, towards the depths of a certain scene, sound, or an artist’s discography — what is the deepest you have ever happened to dig?
F: I’ve been flying out of Norway to other countries to visit people in their homes to buy stock copies of rare records. I’ve been skyping with some artists’ kids because their parents don’t want to talk or can’t speak proper English. I have a lot of artists’ family members on WhatsApp. I just do deals with them — transfer them money on PayPal and get copies of a rare record. I take those records and eventually trade or sell them, to get more records.
I like to go directly to the source instead of buying through stores all the time and Discogs, as it’s very expensive, and it feels better to put some money in the artists’ pockets, instead of some pricey collector’s. If you are a serious collector in 2020, you’ve definitely been buying off some band members. Often when I contact artists, I can see they have already sold their records through a friend of mine, for example, which I didn’t know, so I have to contact my friend, who might sit on 20 copies.
All Dreams, No Sleep
N: Lastly, can you name one track that keeps your head bobbing and one drink that you really dig these days?
F: I just bought 4 bottles of this wine before I came here. It’s a Chardonnay from Chablis which to many people sounds really boring, but it’s a natural producer, so it is more complex minerally and it has also got a fattier mouth feel than a classic Chablis. As for the track — that would be Happiness by Errol de la Fuente. I just got the original from a friend in Copenhagen, a record I’ve been wanting for many years. One of my absolute current favorites.
N: As a collector, do you feel that there is this natural tendency to first start collecting records and then move to other spheres? Wines, food, clothing, you name it.
F: It’s for people who need to put effort into finding something, it can be anything in the world. It’s just a fun chase. I know some collectors who are into restaurants and wines, but most of them spend 100% of their money on records all the time, so there is not always a budget to collect other things as well. It’s a big problem for a lot of collectors. In this regard, there is a lot I have to do to support my collecting — I do my 9–5 as a designer, do the booking for three venues in Oslo, DJ which pays quite well, and make music which never really pays much off economically *laughs*. At least for now.
I am glad that I have my 9–5 because it gives me the flexibility to do anything I want with my music and not stress over releasing my records at the right time. That’s probably the best tip I can give to anyone who wants to create niche music — to keep a 9–5 because a lot of my fave artists who quit their 9–5 to pursue music are in a tight spot now. They have to force themselves to be productive at all times, which sounds quite unhealthy in regards to their music — at least for me.
Message in a bottle
N: There is one very last thing: could you please leave a message for the next person that I will get a chance to interview? At this point, I do not know who it will be, but you can rest assured knowing that your message will be delivered. It can be anything at all — a recommendation, a piece of advice, a word of encouragement, a challenge, a greeting, a recipe…
F: I want a non-Norwegian to find and recommend five Norwegian songs.
N: Oof, quite a challenge, but I guess it’s doable. Now I have to find someone outside of Norway!
