PREMIERE: Feel Free Hi Fi - Dragon Dance
We caught up with the Twin Cities sound system purveyors of Feel Free Hi Fi to learn about their multidisciplinary approach and process. Stream the title track of their upcoming EP Dragon Dance above, out via Digital Sting on November 30th.
How did you two meet?
Shawn Reed: I moved to the Twin Cities about ten years ago from Iowa City and met Derek when he started dating a friend of mine who had also moved from Iowa City around the same time as I did. I'm not exactly sure what year we met. I had already been in the Twin Cities for a few years I think. We hit it off by talking about underground music and specifically our mutual interest in custom-built sound systems. My interest is in Reggae/Dancehall history and Jamaican sound system culture and its influence beyond Jamaica.
Derek Maxwell: Yeah I think it was surprising for both of us we hadn't met before, having many friends and acquaintances in common through art and music. I do have a vague memory that we played a show on the same bill way back in the early 2000s at the Organ House. Like Shawn said we had a lot of mutual interest and I was really getting obsessed with building a custom sound system. Shawn was DJing and doing mix tapes at the time so I think we saw a mutual possibility in combining those passions.
Derek [left] and Shawn of Feel Free Hi Fi and Digital Sting Records.
How did Night-People Records evolve into Feel Free Hi Fi?
Shawn: Night-People and the bands I was in during the time I was doing that label were a big part of my life and it was a prolific time. I did the label full-time for a little over ten years and toured heavily during that era as well as being very involved in booking and curating touring underground music in Iowa City. The pace I went at with all of that and the side effects of that pace on my life and mental health had caught up to me by 2013 and I fully burned out. I ended up moving to the Twin Cities and over the first couple of years of being here gradually dissolved Night-People. The project no longer made sense as my life changed and it reached a natural conclusion. I spent the first few years living in the Twin Cities prioritizing my mental health, slowing down and processing how I wanted to go forward. I really didn't know if I would ever make music again let alone put out records, perform, etc. In the downtime from creating music, my love of Reggae/Dub/Dancehall kept growing and I really dove deeper into that music and the diaspora of it. I started collecting Reggae records in High School but it was just one aspect of a wide interest in many different types of music until it came to dominate my collecting many years later. The first few years in the Twin Cities I spent a lot of time watching old sound clashes on Youtube hunting for obscure 80's Dancehall records online and reading ancient Zen and Taoist philosophy. I did have some ideas floating around about what would end up becoming Feel Free but it was still very murky at that point. UK soundsystem culture was also something I was really digging into and Grime was a big revelation that came out of that, especially the early whitelabel/dubplate aspect, MC clashing, and just the overall gritty aesthetics in how much it related to but was different from Dancehall. Derek and I were listening to a lot of Grime, Gqom, and UK Steppers when we got going building the sound system. Overall my practice of constantly digging and my ingrained sense of DIY lifestyle is what transitioned between the Night-People era of my life to the Feel Free/Digital Sting era even though the musical style and approach changed.
Derek’s custom sound systems and your illustrations/design/silkscreens are a unique pairing. How did you two join forces?
Shawn: I've been evolving my design/silkscreen style over the course of 20 years and the focus of it has also been its adaptability to work with new projects, different pairings etc. So I think it was just a natural fit to apply it to Feel Free releases and visuals which is the Digital Sting side of things. I think there are also a lot of common flows between how we do every aspect of the project. The music production style in many ways is similar to how the artwork is generated by taking different elements and distilling them down and reworking them, taking parts to make a whole. Dub and collage relate to each other in the remix aspect of both processes. The sound system, the music, and the visuals are all modular in ways as well and can be set up differently, changed, taken apart, mixed etc. Coming from a printmaking background I think influenced my musical evolution to think about parts as much as thinking about the whole since printing is largely about layers, etc. DJing, selecting and mixing is also another collage way of working. Derek and I do inhabit different roles in the project so that's nice being able to cover more ground by splitting up duties.
Derek: Although I don't work on the artwork part of Feel Free/Digital Sting I also have a background in visual art, so when I saw the aesthetics/imagery that Shawn was putting together it immediately made sense to me. The sound system for me is a means to an end, having been part of DIY venues and shows for decades, I think about all the parts that have to come together to create a good show. In that example you have to have a great flyer to get people's imagination going and then with the sound it's the final culmination of all the energy that went into putting a night together. Even with the production of the records I think we both imagine sounds as visual elements and like Shawn said the collage brings them together as a whole. Building the speakers was part of a big change in my life, I had always done some form of building but now I am a full time independent carpenter with my own business. So this has become my artistic/creative expression and it's been great to really be able to bring these worlds of work and art together.
Feel Free Hi Fi released their first two records on wax in March 2021. What was that process like? How did that experience compare to this second set of releases?
Shawn: Record pressing takes a lot of time currently around a year at the pressing plant and in our recent experience plants can't really predict very well when the records will actually be done so that presents some challenges in doing the work that is needed to promote a release and time everything out properly let alone floating the down payments then waiting so long to recoup on the dollars put in. The records from 2021 had lots of delays, issues with test pressings etc. it was pretty much the worst experience I have ever had in my long history of putting out vinyl. That combined with everything that was going on with the pandemic, the uprising in the TC, Maga and facist politics becoming more and more mainstream a lot of questions and doubts were at play, like should we even be putting out records in 2020/2021, just lots of not knowing if music should be a focus or how to go forward. I think it took away some momentum in terms of the Prophet Noir records collaborative aspect with the vocalists on that record. We had originally hoped to keep that going in some way, especially after performing that material live with the vocalists right before the pandemic and the pandemic zapped that momentum.
The upside was the records via our Distributor Rub a Dub in the UK sold really well internationally to the point we had to do a repress and that also pretty much sold out. Trying to get any press coverage for the records didn't happen but the distro aspect really delivered and the response from that network seemed enthusiastic which was great. We were really blessed to do a record with Equiknoxx from Kingston JA for one of those first two records. They are really established internationally and are one of the best, most unique, next level musical projects going in the world. That connection helped give us more confidence as well and I think made those distribution connections easier.
This time around it's a bit unknown since it's unfolding currently. We were more prepared for navigating how it works in this current era this time around and the pressing didn't have issues other than just taking longer than expected which we kind of expected haha. A big factor right now is the economic crisis in the UK and the Euro cost of living skyrocketing because of Putin's war actions since those factors really affect the distribution and record store network we depend on. We had to lower the wholesale cost so it's going to make it even tougher to break even etc. The digital/streaming/social media landscape is a whole other giant convo I could go on and on about haha. In short it sucks and is a bummer haha. So even though records are ridiculous to deal with and are so expensive, risky etc. it's just what we gravitate towards doing despite the sustainability of it seeming more and more difficult. Fingers crossed we recoup enough to put out the next one.
How did the records Dragon Dance and Duppy Gun Meets Feel Free Hi Fi come together?
Shawn: Duppy Gun is a project/group of musicians that we have been fans of for many years. I have known Cameron Stallones and M. Geddes Gengras who started the project with IJahbar since my early days of touring etc. so when we got Feel Free going and started making our own tunes Cameron invited us to start sending instrumentals to IJahbar and the record is the result of that. Being a long time fan of Dancehall music it's really been a blessing to have collaborations with Equiknoxx and Duppy Gun come about so organically right out of the gate for Feel Free since both projects in so many ways embody the most forward progressive weirdo side of Dancehall music and we were big fans of both before we ended up working on music together. Being located in the upper midwest in a very removed location having Dancehall be a primary influence we have always been concerned with embodying that influence properly and in the most respectful manner and those collaborations and friendships helped us to continue to analyze and figure that out. Another aspect that is cool is IJahbar has direct family ties to the all time great Reggae group the Congos and the Heart of The Congos was one of the first Reggae records I bought and one of the great records of any genre to me so that's just a cool circular life thing.
Derek: Dragon Dance is the next iteration on the sonic ideas we started on with Prophet Noir. We wanted to keep developing the sound focusing on our interests in Steppers style rhythms along with industrial/electronic sounds and cinematic influences. We had both been listening to a lot of UK steppers, older instrumental versions from JA and newer music that had been influenced by these sounds. There is a sort of sonic warfare element to this style, but also a minimalism that really connected to what we were doing with the Sound System. By the time we started Dragon Dance we had a complete system that was really capable of putting out the full range from sub bass to sizzling highs. I think we were drawn to the idea of making tunes that could really utilize the full capabilities of the sound system. While the record is very rooted in the Steppers sound it definitely is its own thing. When we start working on tracks we often talk about films, and coming back to a visual, there is some idea of storytelling but in a very abstract sense.
Are y’all working on anything else at the moment?
Derek: Yes we are always working on the next thing. It's funny with the timeline of pressing records, we are well into working on the next one as this release shows up in the world. We have a full length of instrumentals that we have been digging into and getting pretty close to wrapping that up. We are also working on a video for the Duppy Gun release with our buddy Zach, who did videos for the last releases as well. I think the other thing that's on our mind is exploring live gigs more, we played recently in town and it definitely rejuvenated our interest in that side of Feel Free.
Tell us about your secret fishing spots.
Shawn: Haha this question... I try to keep my fishing thing secret but not secret haha. I don't have any spots I keep secret and have no problem sharing my experience of it. It's definitely a privilege to have access to the great outdoors on many levels and I don't take it for granted. I spend a lot of time on the river. It's my favorite so my recommendation for a spot is just the Mississippi river right at and near downtown Minneapolis. Despite the dams and the industrial urban infrastructure it still has that special magic of being the Mississippi river. There is a lot of great Smallmouth Bass and Walleye fishing right in the city along with many other species. I've caught a lot of fish in the concrete surroundings of the city. I find people are often surprised by that and I end up in good conversations about it. I'm a catch-and-release artificial bait-only fisher person and try to participate in fishing as ethically as I can even though there are some natural contradictions in it I contemplate. How I fish has a lot in common with music, art, performing, DJing, etc. There is a lot of collecting, selecting, practicing, pattern recognition, improvising and being totally immersed and fluid in the moment just like so many aspects of music making and performance. Beyond the fishing, the river is really special even in its concrete surroundings in the city. The history of the river in and around the city, its Indigenous history, etc. is important and worth looking into and not something easy to sum up and there is so much left for me to learn.
Dragon Dance is available to pre-order digitally and on wax via Digital Sting Records.