Words by Jim Ottewill

“Classical music often feels like it lives behind closed doors,” laughs Californian creative Teebs. “I like the idea of working towards a future where we can challenge what it’s all about.”

From his LA home, Teebs is unravelling his forthcoming live collaboration with the London Contemporary Orchestra (LCO) at the Southbank. This performance, set to take place on 16th September, is the latest port of call on an eclectic musical mission that has seen his creativity shift between technology, art and music. Initially colluding with Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder collective in the world of beats and ambience at the start of the 2010s, his recent Record Seed experiments have seen him explore blockchain and the potential of this technology to build a digital community around him. 

“A lot of my work has spawned from my own personal tragedies so I have a lot of connection with people who have had things go wrong in their lives,” he explains. “They communicate with me which is incredible but I’ve never really tried to maintain the conversation. Once I saw blockchain happening, I thought that this ability to establish relationships with people digitally could be really exciting.”

Brought up in the rural area of Chino Hills just outside LA, Teebs has taken a suitably woozy path of musical experimentation, initially via his older brother’s love for hip hop, then through skateboarding videos. 

“Skateboarding was a huge thing when I was growing up,” he says. “I loved it and would watch skate videos all the time, then look at the credits to find out about the music. I was exposed to a wide array of different sounds from around the world.”

Teebs’ transition from music fan to producer came after watching a live gig from eclectic artist Daedelus. Daedalus’ off-kilter approach blew apart any preconceptions about what form music can take and the processes surrounding its making.

“When I saw him play, I was really confused,” says Teebs. “I didn’t understand how he was doing it by pressing buttons. I wanted to get involved and the Roland SP-404 sampler was affordable so I started with that. I’ve never looked back.” 

The Brainfeeder connection came via the Red Bull Music Academy. The imprint’s head honcho Flying Lotus was on the lookout for new talent to champion and had his eyes and ears locked on artists affiliated with the initiative.

“My friends told me to apply and I got in,” Teebs says. “At the same time, Lotus was planning on launching a label and paying close attention to whoever was attending the academy. I remember he hit me up and asked me to be a part of it.”

“It fast-forwarded my focus on music to see if it was for me,” he continues. “It was also great to be around Lotus as he’s so prolific. Before, I had no one to look to, but now I was seeing people creating sounds every day. That changed everything for me.” 

Teebs’ musical approach orbits around a sampler, a DAW such as Fruity Loops or Ableton and borrowed hardware. He then knuckles down for lengthy recording sessions, layering and tweaking a vast tapestry of sounds until shapes begin to emerge.

“Most of my music-making comes out of long hours in the studio and I often come out with a lot of gibberish, to be honest,” he states. “Then I take it into the sampler and DAW and that’s where ideas start to form. The ideas for songs that eventually get released usually come really quickly. I spend most of the year working on bad ideas.”

None of those made it onto 2019’s Anicca, Teebs’ latest album, and a bold psychedelic statement featuring the likes of Panda Bear and Thomas Stankiewicz across its 13 tracks. A deliberate effort to connect with fellow musicians and artists drove the vision for the ambitious record. 

“I wanted to work with other instrumentalists as my other LPs were very much me on my own,” Teebs explains. “I wanted to be more useful and less in my own head space. I started reaching out to people I had known for years and put myself out there in a way that would work for them in terms of how we collaborated.”

When it came to the themes and inspiration behind the album, Teebs’ young daughter was at its heart with her voice featuring on the album alongside her mother’s.

“I wanted this to be something my daughter could listen to when she’s older,” he states. “I wanted it to be like a message and the album wrapped up with me trying to communicate with her through the songs.” 

The sonic warmth of the record is very personal yet manages to demonstrate not only Teebs’ openness to connecting but also his ability to put himself out there without fear of failing. 

“I don’t get hurt from inserting myself into these kinds of creative situations,” he states of his approach to collaborating. “These artists are incredible, I’m very open to whatever they feel like doing. I want them to be free and people don’t have to follow their usual narrative when working with me.”

Teebs’ latest project is Record Seed, an ‘ongoing audio-visual collection’, that invites collaborators to engage themselves with his art and music. Born out of the Covid-19 lockdowns, it is an NFT project of 404 abstract paintings made using a generative adversarial network known as StyleGan. 

The collection was created from 500 of Teebs’ paintings daubed on old record sleeves. These sleeves were taken from record shops around Southern California that were being thrown out due to weather damage. Utilising machine learning generated these different images which he has likened to “a sampling process of my paintings' data” and similar to how he uses his trusty Roland SP-404.

“This project was the first run of taking a lot of paintings, turning that into data, running a few lines of code and creating these images,” he states. “It's interesting with this token-based system that people are getting these cool pieces of art they can enjoy. From then on, we continue to stay in communication. I also like the idea of crossing over into the physical realm so future projects will always tie into those people who have them.”

A connection with LA-based community radio show Dublab means those who have invested in his art get access to other opportunities and innovations through this platform. This exciting medium is just one way that Teebs has half an eye on the future and where he can push his artistry next. 

“I’m super curious about other new technologies,” he states. “We have platforms like Spotify giving music to so many people so quickly. Also, in some fashion, this system is broken so I’m keen to see how things can keep moving forward. For live shows, I’m interested in the idea of using visuals and looking at making something people can take home from the performance that they can hold onto for a long time. Nothing degrades and potentially there’s a lot less waste which seems incredibly exciting.” 

Although there’s a push and pull between Teebs’ art and music, he’s drawn to those who digest what he creates separately without being aware of the existence of the other form.

“It’s interesting when people come to a show and pay to get in, they don’t actually like my music, they just want to talk about it,” he says. “It’s amid this kind of creative mess where someone can make something interesting. I like doing both art and music, treating them with great respect even though it might get confusing or harder for others to understand.”

Taking place at the Southbank, Teebs’ most pressing venture is a live tour of Europe. He’s stopping off in Paris and Brighton alongside the capital and it’s the first time he’s worked with an ensemble like the LCO. 

“It’s such a high level of professionalism,” he laughs. “We’re working with an orchestrator and I’m stressing him out as I have so many beats. These are only a couple of minutes long so for the contemporary classical world, they are very short. But I want to push the music as much as possible.”

Joining Teebs will be Thomas Stankiewicz, a guitarist and composer whose influence and musical skill shone through past album, ‘Anicca’. “We’re bringing in some of his music too and I want to continue this conversation into the future, me and Thomas working together,” he says. “We want to learn from this experience and have fun with it.”

While this is a bold step for Teebs, the LCO certainly have previous when it comes to collaborations. Their list of past musical partners includes everyone from Actress to Goldfrapp.

“It’s a huge platform and I’ve been spending some time questioning what this form of music is all about,” he states. “I want to discover and learn about this side of music, to really explore what it’s all about.” 

With more creations in the pipeline, he’s also considering developing a dedicated studio space at some point in the LA area. Bending technology and sound to his whims, few others have crafted such a unique way of operating as a 21st-century artist.

“I come from a non-traditional music background, very much homemade tool sets for music making,” he says. “My route has been a mixed bag of learning and embracing new opportunities. That’s what it’s all about. Just believe in yourself and this will help you grow.”