In SOUND CHECK, we check in with some of our favorite musicians.
On first listen to Jim-E Stack’s 2012 “Come Between,” a bouncy bass beat complete with surprising, sophisticated breakdowns and just the right amount of swing, it was clear the then 20-year-old was just getting warmed up. Flash forward two years and some syrupy-yet-soaring remix work on A$AP Rocky and Sky Ferreira’s tracks, and Stack is back with a serious bang. His forthcoming debut full length Tell Me I Belong––out July 28 via Innovative Leisure––draws from varied veins of club traditions, masterfully weaving these diverse influences into a cohesive and emotionally poignant body of music. There’s only seven other apartments in my building, but you can be damned sure every one of them knows “Reassuring,” Tell Me I Belong’s lead single, at the rate I’ve been blasting it.
Having just wrapped a tour with fellow young gun SHLOHMO, I caught up with Jim-E about digging for different sounds, the cities he’s called home, and his favorite middle school bangers.
EMILY MANNING: Tell Me I Belong draws together sounds from a wide variety of genres—some house, techno, Baltimore club, grime, '80s R&B. How do you dig for your sounds?
JIM-E STACK: I have a folder on my computer of crap—random sounds I like or acapellas and vocal parts of a song—that I’ve accumulated over the years. A good deal of samples found on the record—whether they’re drum sounds, some vocal parts, or even piano melodies—I ripped from records in high school and held onto. It’s more about finding the right things to draw from my already existing collection of music and put them together in ways that make sense to me.
What makes something click for you when you’re putting it together?
If it just sounds different. Something that doesn’t sound normal: a drum that doesn’t sound typical of what you’d find on a normal record, a vocal with a voice that’s kind of weird, or a piano that’s been recorded shitty but turns out sounding kind of cool.
Can you tell us a little more about Innovative Leisure? What motivated your decision to sign to the label?
Once I finished the demos of my record, it had been circulated through a select number of labels for consideration. Innovative Leisure was one of those labels that had voiced interest in me as an artist pretty early on—they really liked what they heard in terms of the record. But, the one thing they said to me that really stood out when I was talking to them and considering them as an option was that they recognized my record as having a lot of soul to it. Jamie Strong, who’s a co-owner of the label, said that’s something they try and look for: music with soul.
What’s the first piece of music you made that you remember being really proud of?
I was in a band in
On first listen to Jim-E Stack’s 2012 “Come Between,” a bouncy bass beat complete with surprising, sophisticated breakdowns and just the right amount of swing, it was clear the then 20-year-old was just getting warmed up. Flash forward two years and some syrupy-yet-soaring remix work on A$AP Rocky and Sky Ferreira’s tracks, and Stack is back with a serious bang. His forthcoming debut full length Tell Me I Belong––out July 28 via Innovative Leisure––draws from varied veins of club traditions, masterfully weaving these diverse influences into a cohesive and emotionally poignant body of music. There’s only seven other apartments in my building, but you can be damned sure every one of them knows “Reassuring,” Tell Me I Belong’s lead single, at the rate I’ve been blasting it.
Having just wrapped a tour with fellow young gun SHLOHMO, I caught up with Jim-E about digging for different sounds, the cities he’s called home, and his favorite middle school bangers.
EMILY MANNING: Tell Me I Belong draws together sounds from a wide variety of genres—some house, techno, Baltimore club, grime, '80s R&B. How do you dig for your sounds?
JIM-E STACK: I have a folder on my computer of crap—random sounds I like or acapellas and vocal parts of a song—that I’ve accumulated over the years. A good deal of samples found on the record—whether they’re drum sounds, some vocal parts, or even piano melodies—I ripped from records in high school and held onto. It’s more about finding the right things to draw from my already existing collection of music and put them together in ways that make sense to me.
What makes something click for you when you’re putting it together?
If it just sounds different. Something that doesn’t sound normal: a drum that doesn’t sound typical of what you’d find on a normal record, a vocal with a voice that’s kind of weird, or a piano that’s been recorded shitty but turns out sounding kind of cool.
Can you tell us a little more about Innovative Leisure? What motivated your decision to sign to the label?
Once I finished the demos of my record, it had been circulated through a select number of labels for consideration. Innovative Leisure was one of those labels that had voiced interest in me as an artist pretty early on—they really liked what they heard in terms of the record. But, the one thing they said to me that really stood out when I was talking to them and considering them as an option was that they recognized my record as having a lot of soul to it. Jamie Strong, who’s a co-owner of the label, said that’s something they try and look for: music with soul.
What’s the first piece of music you made that you remember being really proud of?
I was in a band in