Producers to Watch #9: XI

XI hails from Toronto, and was an early one to catch on to dubstep, putting on some of the genre’s first Canadian parties. He’s been producing as both XI and Ultragamma for a while now, operating in an increasingly coherent Venn diagram of moody dubstep, sawn-off hip-hop and fizzing synth jams. His next single, ‘Gamma Rain’ for Orca is some of the most realised music he’s made yet, and judging by the new material in this mini-mix, just the start.

XI, introduce yourself.

“My name is Christian, I am a beats producer from Toronto with projects currently out and forthcoming on Orca Recordings.”

You’ve been kicking about for a little while now, but ‘Gamma Rain’, to me, seems like the most striking material yet. It’s a precursor to a bigger project on Orca, right?

“Thanks for that, I’m excited with the direction things are going at the moment. Gamma Rain is certainly the harbinger of a style you can expect to hear a lot more of from me. Very raw and combative sampling techniques piled under layers of atmospherics and other assorted rhythmic weirdness, there’s mostly new material in the mix.”

You also do music as Ultragamma – what’s the relationship between XI and Ultragamma?

“A few years ago, out of boredom, I created this alter-alias, basically making anything not rooted in DJ friendly, or dance-floor formats, mostly hip-hop and house oriented. Some of the music got some nice attention from heavies like GLK and DJ Nobody down California way, and a few others around the globe which was dope. These days I find the two aesthetics I had been separately cultivating in myself are blurring together more and more all the time.”

How would you describe the direction you’re going in, and what you’re trying to make right now?

“Some kinda east coast hip-hop, UK garage hybrid with healthy doses of awkward silence, I like to sample a lot of vinyl so there’s usually a pretty organic element to things. I grew up on a good bit of metal, jungle, and video games, so there are sure to be some semblances of that in there. Mostly right now I’m just vibing off the skippy beats and brain candy.”

You’re from Toronto, is there a kind of scene there to contextualize your music?

“The scene here is pretty diverse, with a very big jungle and drum ‘n’ bass history. The sound here is generally pretty gritty and metropolitan in the clubs, so thats definitely had a big influence on all the producers here I would say. You can see it in the work of producers like Bombaman, Egyptrixx and Kevin McPhee, a very wide range of sounds but definitely with a similar thread bred from this city. Things are really good here right now, plenty of variety and great amounts of support.”

Tracklist:
XI – Medicate
XI – Nitelite
XI – Gunnery V
XI – ArmourHP
XI – Virtualayz

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