How have you been?

Yeah, not too bad, I’ve been trying to finish university. My dissertation is due on Friday, after that, I've got two more deadlines next week. Pretty stressful at the moment, but nearly over the finish line, which is good. Haven't been able to work on much of my music. Well, apart from the music we’ll discuss today.

I've been following you since the near beginning, chronologically of your career and we're in a time where as an artist when you're making other genres, you don't necessarily have to change your alias. Some do but others are freely making whatever under their main alias, so what’s the reasoning behind creating this separate entity?

I have released non-Drum & Bass under Niallo, but for this kind of project and what I'm doing, I feel like it's so different from what I usually make. Stylistically and sound-wise. The non-Drum and Bass stuff I released the other month, I felt like it sounded like me. It kind of kept on with my kind of style. The idea behind this new project is going to be mainly focused on non-club orientated, and non dance music. I created this EP and I kind of just wanted to release it under something completely different. The style was so different, it didn't fit what I'm trying to push with Niallo. I found my brand, my identity, my sound, and where I want to go with it clearly, and what I'm making for this new project just completely goes against that. So I thought I might as well start a new different alias for it.

So you’re telling me I won't be able to tell it’s you?

To be fair, it's going to have characteristics of myself. It’s a new sound, when you listen to it, I think you can tell it's made by me, but I feel like the kind of mood and the styles of the track are so different it doesn't fit with what I wanted to push with Niallo. I wanted to have something else where it’s a bit less professional and stressful. With the Everdone project, I want it to be purely expression, having a bit of fun writing different music to self-release with no labels or anything. A whole other outlet to express myself.

Glad you brought it up, how is self-releasing going? What are the benefits and challenges you’ve experienced?

I've done two so far and the benefits are that I don’t have to wait to release. Some releases I've been waiting months and months to release but with this I put them out when I want to. Also the benefits of Bandcamp as well. For my first self-release, I put it out on Bandcamp Friday and I think I earned more from it than any other releases I've done so far. That's a big thing towards it all and it's taught me new skills like graphics, and a bit of marketing, so it's given me more of a deeper insight. On the other hand, it was very stressful because everything was done by myself, learning to make graphics and all these strategies. It’s a long process but in the end, I’m learning.

It's a good choice in my opinion, especially nowadays in our digital world.

It has been worth it. The first one didn't do too well streaming-wise apart from the sales. The ‘Floating Away’ single, the second one, it’s done pretty well streaming-wise, it was added to quite a few playlists but then the sales didn't do very well. It's odd but it's been worth it. It'd be nice to learn new skills to find a balance between both. The main indicator in the first place was that I get to keep all the money for simply believing in my own thing, and not having to listen to feedback from labels. Learning these new skills has been really handy and it's something I can put into projects in the future.

How would you describe your own music?

It's a tough one. It's something that I had thought a lot about recently and I'll describe each Niallo and Everdone. What I pushed last year was very weird, whatever wacky sounds I can do. Now I've learned about how to size my ideas down, and how to arrange that properly. I describe it as like I'm trying to blur the lines between mainstream pop kind of style with more experimental material. A good example would be someone like Flume, poppy vocals, bright chord progressions then blending, mangling it up, and making it weird. I describe it as melodic and weird. The best thing it's myself, it’s the most expressive and true-to-myself music that I create.

The new project Everdone, it's darker and more thought-provoking. A bit more serious than the fun in Niallo. Darker and moody, suited to a kind of home listening environment. In bed before sleep, kind of music.

Starting this other alias, what ambition led you to do this?

Well for my final university project, we have to create a product, whatever that may be. I decided to create an EP. It took me a while to think about what I was going to do, where I was going to take it. Then I thought, you know what, I've been meaning to kind of have a reason to write music that I wouldn't release under Niallo for ages. I always start stuff like that, but would never finish it. The original reason was obviously for UNI, it gave it a bit of purpose to create the new alias and the EP which works as a new outlet.

So having this sort of structure to balance out your ideas helps?

Exactly. It kind of contradicts what I was saying about how this is a lot more serious and fun. Niallo is more fun but I take it very seriously. Everdone is a bit more of having fun, but the music sounds more serious if that makes sense. It’s myself but not taking it too seriously. Where the music is a bit more serious and moody.

Do you have a routine when you make music?

No, I try to, but my sleeping patterns are wild. It depends on the day and what's going on. This morning, I couldn't sleep so I was up till like seven working on UNI stuff and writing music, so I couldn't sleep. It comes in waves for me. I struggle sitting there and concentrating for long periods. I'll sit at my desk for most of the day, but it's just short bursts of like half an hour or so where I'm feeling creative. I'll write tunes then feel a bit lost and I'll procrastinate for a couple of hours then back to it. It's wild. I don't have a set routine. I feel like I tried it. I don't know, it’s the way my brain works, I can't just kind of sit there and come up with ideas. It's one of those things where it happens entirely randomly. I can be anywhere, come in, and then put it down. Whenever an idea comes to my head, or when I’m messing around it’ll come out.
Are you the type of person who finishes every project?

No, I finish probably like 10%, 20% of what I come up with. To be fair, a lot of my projects end up being kind of sketchbooks. I’ll write loads of ideas because I'm not making new whatever every time. So let's say like drums, for instance. I might make a chord progression, then I'll whack some drums over it and then might write another chord progression around those drums. I’ll use one project to keep writing ideas down and then I'll pick out what I like from that. If I really like something, I’ll wind up finishing it because I'm fully behind the track. I will finish it but the amount of project files compared to what I finish, I barely finish anything and it takes me a while to finish it off completely.

What is your outlook on having a social media presence with your brand these days?

My view of that has changed massively since I've been doing self-releases. A few months ago, I would have said it's bullshit, pretty much. Obviously, I knew it was important, but I was like, I don't need to do that, I'm doing enough, I can share my stuff. Now promoting my music is a bit of self-reflection and just being like, if I want to get somewhere with it, I've got to have a big social media presence. It's definitely something that I've started to look into more and I was posting clips on TikTok pretty much every day, but I've kind of stopped doing that while I'm working on UNI work. I don't have the time but once I finish UNI, I'm going to put quite a bit of time into it. As much as people hate it, it’s very important. People don't like it. I don't like it. I don't think anyone likes the fact that you have to do it, but the thing is, you can make it fun. The amount of content that you make every day could just be doing sound design, working on a track, and maybe even going on a podcast. Take little clips of that and post them daily. So much content which is fun because you're doing something you like doing and all you've got to do is upload it. You don't overly rinse that. You don't have to be on TikTok dancing in front of a camera. That is not me. I'm not going to do that because that's not me as a person. It might get me some views, but I'm trying to find ways of what I enjoy doing and upload it that way. My views changed. It is such an important thing and that's how you see artists start to grow, simply through their social media presence.

I want to go back to your two guys. How do you balance both when you're writing music?

Yeah, it's been a hard one.

Where does the mood come from?

I don't know if it is necessarily directly influenced by how I'm currently feeling. It might be subconsciously, but if I'm feeling shit, moodier, or whatever, I tend to not even write music. It depends on what I'm feeling at the time, a lot of it is the music I'm listening to at the time as well. I bounce between different kinds of music so if I listen to loads of really brighter, more fun electronic music, I'll be writing more Drum and Bass. If I’m listening to a lot more, like darker, Burial, and Lorn types of people, that's where I found I've started this Everdone project. I made a whole playlist on Spotify behind the inspiration for this EP. If I'm feeling a bit stuck writing Drum and Bass or whatever, I'll go work on Everdone. It's quite a nice balance of going from a really intense kind of technical music to a more mellow, darker kind of music. I suppose I mess around with both.

I know you're pretty focused on school right now, but what are you looking forward to after university? What are your plans?

It's hard because I don't know where I'm going to work so I'm going to start a Patreon. I started doing lessons so I’m going to push that more. Music wise this EP will be out at the end of June I think. It'll be nice to launch that project and see how people take it, I suppose. See what the reception is. It'll be interesting to see what people think of it and whether people dig it or not. For Niallo, I've got an EP with DIVIDID that just released. Buzzing off that. It’s been a goal for mine for well, probably since I started producing, to be honest. It’s been in the works quite a while, I sent them tunes in September last year, one or two tunes and then it eventually ended up being a whole EP. Absolutely what I'm most excited about at the moment because I've been working hard to try to get a release of that caliber. I wasn't expecting it to be kind of this early, but yeah, it's happened!

Massive, I’m so proud and happy for you! I know we chatted about it in our last interview so I’m thrilled to see you’ve achieved a major goal of yours.

Other releases-wise, I haven't got anything else planned yet. Probably do some more self-releases. I want to try and do a release each month for the rest of the year once I finish UNI. I'm not going to force that if I don't have tracks and I'm not going to force a self-release. There are other labels that I do want to like to get some tunes on, hopefully, get some more gigs as well because it's being pretty quiet.

What are your long-term goals?

I guess within a year I'd like to be doing music-related stuff as my full-time job. I don't know how it’s going to work because it's expensive to live in Bristol. So we'll see! I'm going to try and push doing like one on one stuff. I enjoyed it when I started doing it during Christmas time. Trying to build up a nice community on Patreon would be nice. It’s hard nowadays but I’d like to create a community and spread my knowledge. I’ll work on Everdone a lot more and then with Niallo, two labels are the big aim after this. Vision and Modus you could probably have guessed them. They're the two and I'm going to be sending them one of the tunes by the end of the year. I've got a lot of music that is a bit more pop-focused in terms of arrangement and it's a bit less heavy. I'm not sure, I'd love to release with some labels, which I wouldn't think that I'd be releasing with, some unexpected ones.

Being US-based myself, I honestly think your sound would do well here. Have you thought about trying to come over here?

I would love to

The cliche thing to do right now is to be signed by Deadbeats from what I’ve seen from others.

I think some of the music I’ve been making is very kind of suited to the US. It's a thing that I thought about a lot, whether it's trying to actually kind of build a fanbase out in the US. I feel like a lot of people will be more receptive to my music a lot more than the UK. I think a lot of people like my music in the UK, but it's not something that does well here. No problem at the moment. I don't know where I fit in, which is good. I like that, being different. I don't think I fit into any category. I suppose that's kind of the exciting bit, that I can hopefully build something myself and hope people appreciate that. I'm writing a lot of the music at the moment, it's musical and melodic, but it's written to be played on a dance floor as well.

It's quite depressing when you don't get to play them out. I played my first set in six months the other day, the DIVIDID EP for instance. I hadn't even made three of the tunes the last time I played out so it was the first time I ever got to test them out. If I had more gigs I could test tunes out more to see what works, and what doesn't and see how it sounds on a sound system. I think going back to other goals, my main goal is to continue pushing this sound that I'm making at the moment. I feel like in the last six to eight months, I've solidified my direction and my sound into something which I think is unique to me. It's something fresh. I guess it's up to other people whether they find it fresh or not, but I think it is! I’m hoping that people like it as much, it's not like I make tunes for myself and my enjoyment, but it'd be nice for people to enjoy what I'm making as well.

When do you experience moments of joy when you're making music?

At the moment when I've written a chord progression. This year I've been loving writing chords and melodies, it gives me so much whenever I'm feeling a bit down. I'll sit here and if I can write a chord progression, it instantly lifts my mood. It's my favorite way to start an idea and vibe at the moment with writing chords and doing the sound design after. Developing the sounds together. With the latest release, I really like this sound I made and I’ve been recycling that same idea over and over again but each time kind of progressing it and changing it up, adding different sounds. Progressing that idea to the next one gives me a buzz. Another big thing is writing music through arranging and composing when I feel like I've done something which works so seamlessly, that's another thing which is like yeah I’m having buzz off now.

I've been focusing this past year on getting good arrangements. All of the stress of it is paid off a lot more now. I'm trying to write stuff that is kind of slightly unconventional, but also it's quite easy to understand. It doesn’t fully stick to rigid rules because I think that's a big problem in Drum & Bass and a lot of other Electronic music. This rigid kind of structure, it's uninspiring and boring. The main things which do bring me joy are writing chords and melodies, sound designing, arranging, and pretty much everything to be honest. Even do stuff like mixing I love as well. It is painful at times but it's also really satisfying when you're trying to work something out.

Absolutely, you’ve paved your own path sonically and it’s extremely unique, unlike anything else out there. Is there anything else you want to add?

I think the EP will be out at the end of June. I mean, by the time this is out, I think the socials will be out. You'll see what's happening. I'll probably post a few teasers. I hope people like it and people understand why I've gone this route. Why I've gone in a new direction and made a new alias because, as you said, you don't need to nowadays. I will continue to release non Drum and Bass music under Niallo, but I think stylistically, a lot of the music will fit better with Everdone.

Thanks for joining me again, always a pleasure hearing from you and I cannot wait to hear the music. People will love it, cheers!