text-interview with lilienfeld! -- magenta
HEADLESS BLOOD IDOL 10.24.2022



LILIENFELD- talks about music, chewing water on datafruits, moving coast to coast, talks a little about art tools, touches briefly on being an OG in the US breakcore scene [sickmode 4 life] plus gives some tips about EQ and not spending too much on hardware!

i'm notsleeping: lilienfeld is lilienfeld:

<let's get into it!>

notsleeping: hi hi whats going on this is magenta skull (she/they) interviewing for the Headless Blood Idol website!

so who am i talking to right now, and what are your pronouns? do you wanna take a sec to introduce yourself?

lilienfeld: ayo hi whats good! this is rb aka rbxbx aka lilienfeld aka a buncha other names but those are the most current lol. (they/them)

lilienfeld: i've been involved with underground music stuff since i was a wee babe in like 2003 or so (sweat smile emoji here)

notsleeping: where can readers get some of your music?

lilienfeld: i haven't been "properly releasing" a lot of my solo stuff lately, most of the albums are in a collaborative context. that said, https://neondoom.com, https://teensmoking.bandcamp.com/, https://nriii.bandcamp.com/

lilienfeld: my soundcloud is https://soundcloud.com/lilienfeld, though that is largely sketches and shitposts these days :shrug:.

notsleeping: you have a show on datafruits right, do you wanna shoutout a link and your timeslot information?

lilienfeld: yes! with my longtime musical co-conspirator louie applesauce aka r.reno from the aforementioned nriii and teen smoking projects, not to mention countless others.

lilienfeld: We've been doing a bi-weekly show with datafruits (absolutely lovely people, every show is a delight) for almost 2 years now.

lilienfeld: We're on every other Thursday from 7-10 EST (4-7 PST). Almost all past shows are archived here -- https://datafruits.fm/djs/chewing_water

lilienfeld: :anysong:

notsleeping: so what have you been up to lately, music/projects-wise?

lilienfeld: hmm let's see. the most recent solo release is this split I did with my friend colmkil
(https://neondoom.com/album/split-5) who I met through the lines (https://llllllll.co/) community.

lilienfeld: other than that I guess there are the most recent [teen smoking](https://teensmoking.bandcamp.com/album/party-clown) and [nriii](https://nriii.bandcamp.com/album/approximate-man) albums (the former i had a heavy hand in, the latter not so much).

lilienfeld: I also play random URL and IRL shows semi-frequently (like the upcoming HBI halloween show!)

lilienfeld: i think datafruits is putting out an archival dnb ep i did ages ago that never got released due to label woes

lilienfeld: oh also my friend Trash Panda QC and I are organizing a Schaffel revival compilation right now. It'll probably come out on Neon Doom. HMU if you wanna submit something, here's a [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq0yR_YcVw5LjnlXiugEYEDQJsxhSitkq) for inspo

notsleeping: you just moved right? how did that go?

lilienfeld: yeah just recently moved to long beach california after a decade in brooklyn. it's a lovely change of pace, idk if it'll stick tho.

lilienfeld: i bought a car for the move, was pretty great to have a chance to road trip across the country, reconnect with old friends, and maybe pick up (figuratively) a few new ones along the way.

notsleeping: you were talking about the west coast vibe being different from the east coast vibe, are you getting used to it ok?

lilienfeld: yes and no. i will say IME la county has the most east coast vibe of the west coast cities. I don't hate it.

notsleeping: hows the weather like where you are?

lilienfeld: as a hater of cold places this is the main thing socal excels at

notsleeping: so how long did you say you've been making music?

lilienfeld: hmmm. i don't think i started putting stuff in front of people til 9th grade or so. was maybe a bit more fully formed by 11th grade. Which would have been like,,, 2003-2004. So a while now :X

lilienfeld: weirdly i still keep up with decent bit of folk i met through this / in this period online. More than I can say of people I actually went to school with lol.

notsleeping: do you have a name for the style of music you make? can you describe your sound

lilienfeld: uhhh super heavily dependent on the project. i have no attention span and get bored of things // move on a lot.

lilienfeld: my background is punk/metal/noise, and then breakcore after that, which led me to more properly clubby/dancey things like jungle/dnb/house/techno -- I've had a many years fixation on footwork at this point.

lilienfeld: that said i can never really do things straight and proper so most everything tends to incorporate all of this, to some extent at least. to my ear :)

notsleeping: and how much has the style of music you make changed since you started?

lilienfeld: probably a lot and not a lot. I've never been a purist and have always done things wrong and mashed up influences. production quality has probably gone up, but also has gone down since its dnb obsessive peak, cuz that wasn't particularly fun or expressive at the end >> of the day

notsleeping: have you always recorded under your current moniker?

lilienfeld: lol no, not at all. it's an active struggle for me not to start a new project every time the sound changes more than like 20 degrees. trying to stick with this one for a while tho.

lilienfeld: some past names for solo efforts: robad pills, deadisdeadisdead, cat hands, moth mouth, brrrapture, wiz∆rds, etc. there are probably 3 times as many if we include work with other people.

notsleeping: what are some trends youve been liking in music/art

lilienfeld: honestly the biggest one is that people seem to finalllllllly kindaaaasorttttaaaa be getting past strict genre lines and pigeonholing everything super hard.

lilienfeld: makes my life easier as someone w/ no attn span and tons of musical interests (both making and listening and djing)

notsleeping: do you prefer to collab or work solo

lilienfeld: i started making electronic music because i was tired of how unreliable band/music people are/were (myself included) when i was like 15 but ultimately collaborating is still where I'm happiest, if you find the right person/s to do it with

notsleeping: the question: hardware or software

lilienfeld: ya sure why not.

lilienfeld: longer answer: you can do whatever with whatever. for the longest time everything was just the shittiest old HP tower ever running cracked software (shout out cooledit and fruityloops).

lilienfeld: had a pure hardware phase when i was so fed up w/ how computers had permeated every bit of my life (work, social, creative, etc), but now I have a pretty healthy relationship with both and like both modalities of creation and expression, depending on my mood

lilienfeld: (and physical space!) at the given time.

lilienfeld: but yeah definitely don't let some forum or youtube dork make you think you need to buy a bunch of shit to be creative

notsleeping: what are some of the tools you use to make your music/art?

lilienfeld: renoise, live, fruity loops, max/msp, tidalcycles. pedals. trash. dollar bin records. that broken sax I bought for $40 on craigslist. frustrated screams.

lilienfeld: the hardware side kinda fluctuates but i'll give a special nod to the monome stuff, largely because the community i've found there is at least as if not more important than the gear itself.

notsleeping: youve been in the game for a lot of years now, and you've worked on a lot of stuff. whats your favorite thing that you worked on that maybe didnt get the spotlight that you thought it deserved

lilienfeld: honestly any shine i get i'm happy for. this stuff is going to happen either way, so when it lands on welcoming ears all the better.

notsleeping: so youre cofounder of a legendary OG US breakcore/coreshit label, and you were pretty young back then. what was that like?

lilienfeld: sickmode 4 life baybeeeeee.

lilienfeld: it was great. approached one of my underground music heroes (turb0slut aka deathbomb aka brandy alexander aka psychic slime) who ran irk media (a netlabel i wholly loved) and was like "hey let's do a thing".

lilienfeld: gotta love the hubris of youth! he said yes though and then we went on to do the thing for a decade and got like 61 releases out.

lilienfeld: it's not always the best having your edgelordy teen years preserved online forever, but i'm proud of what we did.

notsleeping: what type of media besides audio do you like? what are some of your favorite books/shows/movies

lilienfeld: i like a lot of sad girl and queer literature. overly purple prose about depression and disillusionment lfg.

lilienfeld: film wise I've been pretty into indie horror lately, it just feels like the most expansive genre and the only place where directors are able to get funding to try things out these days. i'm horrrrible with jump scares tho, damn.

lilienfeld: all time favs would be like, the films of john waters, gregg araki, and uhhh. hackers / party monster / but i'm a cheerleader. love a solid romcom too, sorry not sorry.

notsleeping: what are some of your biggest musical influences

lilienfeld: any genre that emphasizes rhythm and timbre.

lilienfeld: some deep seated influences would be like -- crass, emperor, einsturzende neubauten, lil wayne, odb, and kid606. (note i don't necessarily support any of these people as _people_).

lilienfeld: other than that, it is and always has been what the homies are doing and listening to.

notsleeping: what are some styles you really like that might not be obvious at first glance/listen

lilienfeld: sad indie folk stuff (palace music, magnolia electric co, etc)

lilienfeld: deep house (too many to name, theo parrish and moodymann)

lilienfeld: i assume the punk/metal/noise influences are more obvious, but maybe not. can't even begin to elaborate.

notsleeping: do you have any production/recording/cooking etc tips you wanna pass on?

lilienfeld: there's no one right way to do something. judicious eq'ing is your friend if you want things to pop (subtractive, additive is RISKY (but also no right way)). learn how to use a compressor, actually. (the compressor chapter of "mixing with your mind" is worth the

lilienfeld: price of the book alone, but dm me somewhere if you want and i'll send you the text of it cuz it's an expensive book lol).

lilienfeld: like any other creative endeavor, or perhaps even life in general, follow your joy and keep doing it.

notsleeping: before we go is there anything else you wanted to talk about that we didnt get to? any links you wanna leave the reader with?

lilienfeld: thanks so much magenta for interviewing me! love what you and the other headless blood idol folx have been doing, it's so great to get (re?) involved with y'all.

notsleeping: well awesome! we got some excellent answers here-- Thank you for taking the time to do this interview, and for throwing down with us here at HBI! It's been great to get reconnected!

--

excited for the next set!
10/29! HBI BDAY BASH 2022

follow Lilienfeld on twitter! twitter.com/rbxbex


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Lilienfeld interviewed by Magenta Skull
for HEADLESS BLOOD IDOL ~ 10/24/2022