With Evident releasing his first album on his own label Soundhitectures we catch up with him for the latest episode of 12 Questions.

How old are you, where are you living and how long have you been producing and Djing?

I’m 24 years old and from 2012 I live in the capital city of Slovenia, Ljubljana. I just finished my degree in computer and information science and I kinda took a year off from worrying too much about anything and I just try do what I want.

How did you come up with the name Evident?

I was at the point where I had to come up with an artist name, before that I was using my own name. I had hard time coming up with a decent name so I’ve decided to read a few music books and I hoped it will hit me. At the end the word ‘evident ‘ stuck with me the most and I’ve decided to use it – even if it’s far from the optimal.

Where do your musical roots lie, what are your first memories of electronic music and when did you know you wanted to pursue it seriously? Are there any particular productions or artists from the past that really made you think to yourself ‘this is what I want to do.”

Somewhere at the end of elementary school and at the start of high-school. With the best friend at the time I got into electronic music, which was trance and harder techno that was popular at that time. Then it rose to some housier rhythms and the peak of bad minimal era. From that I got into slightly deeper stuff like old deep-house, dub, minimal and techno. I must admit it took me quite a lot of time to dig through to the ‘good’ part of electronic music which makes a little more sense right now. The first biggest shift was hearing Trentemoller and that really hit me. Then later came the organic-slow oriented Jaar which was fantastic time too. Then I kinda got bored of club music a year or two and now for a year or two I’m fascinated about it again with no extra-specific direction. It too much good music coming out all the time which is great 🙂

This is your first full length album. How long did it take you to make it and what was the concept behind it?

Most of it was produced in January and February, which was quite intense. But I like to work very fast and make quick decisions. Otherwise I get stuck. I found out it’s better to make a lot of mistakes and produce more music and then filter it after a while. I had a lot of sketches from the summer 2016, that’s when I first decided I want to make an album.

The production on your album is pretty great. How difficult was learning to produce for you in the beginning? Did you take any Audio Engineering programs or production courses to help you out or are you pretty much self taught? And did anyone give any advice early on that really helped?

Thank you! It was mostly fun with a lot of mistakes. To be honest I only now feel I’m at the point where it’s solid enough. I think the hardest part is training your ears, everything else you can learn relatively fast. I taught myself with a little help of internet and other people’s opinions. And became introvert in the process haha 🙂 There was no-one specific, but everyone put a few good advices into my head. I’ve learned the most by watching other people and then trying to do it a bit differently myself. I still believe failing as much as you can and then doing it better is the best learning process for anything and I try to advise everyone to do the same. Teachers usually try to teach you their own way, but it’s good to be careful and just take the bits that works for you, not everything.

What’s the music scene like where you live and how much are you playing?

This season I’m playing once a month at Klub K4 and that does it for me, right now. The scene is very small, which is the main downside. We could talk for an hour what to do about it, but that never seem to help haha. The scene is mostly concentrated in Ljubljana (capital) where we have a few solid clubs for electronic music in the capital. But in my opinion it’s very broad and has a lot of good stuff to offer. There’s always upsides and downsides. We can’t compare with the big European cities, but there’s still a lot of potential with an ongoing generational shift happening – which is extremely apparent. I’d love to see more unity between people of different generations and aspects. That’s what electronic music should be about (romantically haha), with a step back from the ultra-commercialization on one side and ultra-underground on the other side.

Which other DJs and producers do you admire right now?

Right now I’m in the state where I pick a little good pieces from almost anyone and I don’t have a big musical crush. In the past those producers and live acts were Trentemoller, Recondite, Nicolas Jaar, Bonobo, David August and a lot of not so well known artists, right now to my mind comes Azamat, Jan Nemecek,Hiver. I must say I feel very connected to more organic and live approach to electronic music. If we talk about DJ’s then last year I’ve enjoyed Alex Do, Four Tet, Pablo Bolivar, Mano Le Tough, Jogarde & Felver, Dixon, Valentino Kanyzani, Zip and Ricardo Villalobos. I like how most of those have something very specific in their music and act.

You’re a live act; what does your setup look like? Do you have a video you can share?

I just deleted two videos where you could see my old setup. To be honest it’s still changing a lot between gigs, because I don’t play live that often. It also depends if I’m playing “club live” set or “concert stage live set”. The center of everything is always macbook pro with an audio interface to which I connect drum machine and a synth. I connect instruments with microphones to the interface and use internal processing to achieve specific sound that I’m after. It’s pretty standard I think. For club sets I just reduce this to midi controller and drum machine if I feel I need it (for harder sets). Right now I like to achieve the most with as little equipment as I can.

What’s been your biggest achievement to date?

I never give up.

What are your aspirations for the future?

To travel more and to make music more. And to be more consistently present,.. That never seems to work out 🙂

Tell us something about yourself that might surprise people?

Um.. haha.. I love snickers chocolate.

If the final DJ/live set of your career was next week what would your last track be?

Uf, that’s a tough question to even think about it. Normally I’d pick an old & epicly strange track, but right now I’m in the morning mood after coffee and let’s do something different and a bit cheesy. Ok, seriously, I cant do one, lets do three:

Aphex Twin – Tha
Cymande – Dove
Nandu – See You feat Vâlvâ’

@evident
www.facebook.com/EvidentMusiq
www.instagram.com/evidentmusiq/

More of the recent posts about Evident:
soundhitectures.com/artists/evident/
www.solvdmag.com/101-with-evident/
www.electronicgroove.com/eg-artists/e…014-evident/

@soundhitectures
www.facebook.com/Soundhitectures