Last year two local electronic music enthusiasts, Tarik Moody of Radio Milwaukee and John Goelzer (aka BTS.WRKNG) of WMSE, created one of the city's most ambitious music series: Unlooped, a monthly event that paired electronic artists with unlikely collaborators from outside genres. The demands of putting on a form-breaking monthly event began to overwhelm the promoters, however, and like so many other other well-intentioned monthlies, the event soon went dark.
This month, the promoters will give Unlooped another go, as the event returns with a new theme, "Versus." Each event will now be structured as a tribute to a given musician. The series begins with a Saturday, Sept. 17 concert at the Stonefly Brewery honoring the late J Dilla, the pioneering hip-hop producer whose minimalist, loop-based beats re-shaped the sound of turn-of-the-century independent rap.
You can watch video of a motley sextet of local musicians rehearsing for the concert here. Tarik Moody shared some background about the event in an email conversation with me this morning.
Why did Unlooped take a hiatus, and how did you decide to resurrect it with the "Versus" concept?
We just wanted to take a break. We felt doing it monthly was a lot of work and pressure. I went back and forth on whether or not I wanted to bring it back. Then several people kept asking me about bringing it back, so I decided to re-structure the event and spread it out to do them every 3-5 months instead of monthly. I also decided to create the "Versus" series to give the artists a framework to create the compositions from instead of creating the music from scratch. Plus it would be fun to see how the artist re-interprets other musicians' material.
Why did you choose J Dilla as the theme for the first event?
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As you know, Unlooped always has an electronic slant whether it is the musicians involved in the collaborations or the DJs spinning before or after. J Dilla not only influenced a lot of hip-hop artists but a lot of electronic based producers such as Flying Lotus. J Dilla also loved collaborating. For example, his collaboration with Madlib for Jaylib. A lot of people might not be familiar with Dilla, but they have heard his music and productions. I felt Dilla would be great beginning to the series.
How did you come up with the band for this event? Was it hard finding the players?
The inspiration came from a Suite For Ma Dukes, which was a classical musical interpretation of some of J Dilla's music. Suite For Ma Dukes featured a 40 piece ensemble lead by Miguel Atwood-Ferguson. I thought be interesting to see how Milwaukee musicians would re-interpret Dilla's music with an classical, electronic, and hip hop twist.
I initially approach the idea with two people in mind, Alida LaCosse, who is on violin, and Barry Clark (Adoptahighway, 1/2 of Omega Clash), who is on double bass. They both were excited and wanted to be part of it. Ironically, I wanted Barry to be the electronic producer for Unlooped vs Dilla, but he wanted to play his double bass, which worked out great. Then I asked Dave Olson, from Plight Of A Parasite & Figureheads (Unlooped alumni) to be the producer. Then cellist Peter Thomas from I'm Not A Pilot and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and Allen Russell on violin joined the ensemble. Then the final piece was Old Man Malcolm on turntables, who was suggested by Alida. Then I invited spoken word artist Nigel Wade, who recorded a Dilla tribute poem for my Rhythm Lab Radio show on 88Nine to read his piece during one of the compositions. It worked out better than I thought it would because everyone involved was very excited about the concept. All the musicians are amazing and have been enjoying working together.
Do you know what the focus of the next "Versus" event will be?
Right now I'm in the planning process for Unlooped vs Bon Iver/Gayngs, which is tentatively schedule for the early part of December. I have a few people involved. We just need to set a meeting time to discuss the details. Then the third one, which I can only give you a hint: “Two HEADS are better than one."
