Featured Artist 108
Goon
Giles
Goon has also been an active part of our valued community for many years. It's hard to associate him with one style, he's too versatile for that. But three attributes always apply to him: coolness, funk and danceability. Especially in the areas of House, New School breaks and Garage, no one can touch him. A special shout-out goes to his brother for the very special and creative artwork on his covers
Interview
I've been hanging out on Audiotool for about 9 years, and am currently based in the middle of a field in the south of England.
- About Giles:
- I've been hanging out on Audiotool for about 9 years, and am currently based in the middle of a field in the south of England. I'm happiest when I'm DJing or jamming. My life is consumed by the endless struggle of organising the disparate things in my music collection.
- Which artist has had the most influence on you (on and/or outside Audiotool)?
- When I started my account, I was only interested in making excessively loud bass music, but after discovering opaqity, I realised that I could have way more fun emphasising rhythm and harmony. Outside of AT it's hard to pinpoint the artists that really shaped my taste in electronic music, but Floating Points and Laurence Guy are right up there.
- Who would you like to work/collaborate with on and outside Audiotool, and why?
- I'd love to collaborate with nico at some stage, I'm sure there'd be some fun ideas floating around. Outside of AT, I'd be happy enough being in the same room and just observing Squid as they write music. I think they're brilliant.
- Which film/game would you like to produce the score for or contribute a song to?
- The soundtracks for Amanita Design games are impeccable! I don't imagine I could top something by Tomáš Dvořák or Hidden Orchestra, but should the opportunity to write a soundtrack for them arise, I'd be hugely excited to see what ideas their beautiful visuals would give me.
- Have you ever had a writer's block? If so, how did you deal with it and what do you recommend to your colleagues?
- If I'm stuck with a project, I reduce the number of notes, tracks, and automations until I'm left with a simple core idea, then I tweak that until it takes off in another direction. If I don't have a project on the go and I don't know where to start, I trawl through the back catalogues of record labels I like, Bandcamp genres, and SoundCloud/Spotify track stations until I find inspiration in newly discovered music.
- What has helped you the most on Audiotool to improve and widen your musical horizon?
- I've found that by sneaking a look at the activities of others on AT with vastly different musical backgrounds, it's been easy to find cool unfamiliar sounds. The chart party afterparty in the community run AT Discord, where anyone can play anything, is great for that too.
- What do you like most about Audiotool? Is there anything you would like to suggest?
- The best thing about AT for me, is that users are not only given the tools to create music, but also an online space to share it with like-minded people who can learn from and inspire each other. If it's possible to bring in additional methods of synthesis, such as implementing a granular or wavetable synthesiser, that'd be stellar.
- Your message to the community:
- Keep creating whatever makes you happy, and thank you all so much for supporting my music this whole time! I'm very grateful to be sharing a platform with some incredibly talented individuals. Big up yourselves!
“The best thing about AT for me, is that users are not only given the tools to create music, but also an online space to share it with like-minded people who can learn from and inspire each other.”
— Goon