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Interview: Arts The Beatdoctor

Interview: Arts The Beatdoctor

For those of you who can’t get enough of the sound of vinyl, old samples and a feeling that’s similiar to DJ Shadow’s ‘Endtroducing…’, we have one recommendation for you: Transitions. Based in Holland, producer Arts The Beatdoctor brings genuis jazzy instrumentals with an antique touch.

Arts The Beatdoctor, a skilled producer from Holland, released his first album ‘Transitions’ in 2007. Today, more than a year later, Arts’ new EP ‘Progressions’ released on Beats Broke Records. Next to that, a new album is coming in the near future and he will focus on more experiments with his live-band. Reasons enough to talk to him and put him in this month’s spotlight. ‘I honestly don’t know where I’ll end up this time.’
 
Sometimes you just can’t put a label on an artist; Arts The Beatdoctor is one of them. Transitions is a beautiful combination of jazz, hip hop and even a little bit of soul. He puts jazz into his music by using lots of samples, which is an important ingredient for his music. ‘The album that really showed me the possibilities of sampling was DJ Shadow’s “Endtroducing”. At the time I honestly didn’t have a clue how he made his tracks, but I got very interested after hearing it.’ Arts’ way of using samples can be defined as unique. Lots of artists just sample an already perfect sound, but Arts chooses to use a ‘bad’ sample which he fixes into something better. ‘It’s not about spending days and days looking for the perfect sample to loop, but investing that time in combining whatever you can find into something good. This makes you less dependable on the samples, which for me is proof that my songs are “my” creations instead of an easy remake of an already good track.’

Doctor
The name ‘Arts’, dutch word for doctor, refers to his way of using samples and loops. The name originally came from his practice of spending hours on tweaking samples and effects, and building complete compositions from simple basic sketches. ‘From rappers and other people coming to my studio I often heard they couldn’t follow which exotic stuff I was doing while they were watching me work “like a medical program on television”.’ Speaking of rappers, Arts has some great guests on his first album. All of them are Dutch, so they may not be really familiar to international listeners. Some might know Pete Philly though, who’s not unknown in the international hip hop-scene. ‘I always said Pete Philly was on the top of my list to work with, even if I could pick anyone worldwide. We haven’t recorded anything new yet but I don’t rule out the chance of doing new tracks in the future. I am working with some different artists at the moment too – but details about that will be kept until later.’

Preview: Pax & Pry – Sleep (Arts The Beatdoctor Remix)

Concept
The album ‘Transitions’ is kind of a concept-album. It consists of fifteen tracks, but because of the smooth transitions and fades, it gives you the feeling you’re listening to one long ‘mix’ instead of multiple tracks. But what about Progressions and his upcoming album? ‘Progressions is a fun project after the “serious” Transitions. Not so much that the tracks are more happy-sounding (maybe a bit heavier), but in the way that instead of spending months in making every little detail perfect and working on the overall story and picture, I just threw together some songs that were fun to make. This EP marks a little change from Transitions; a higher sound quality standard, and more electronic sounds without losing soul. I’d like to continue that route for my next album, but I honestly don’t know where I’ll end up this time.’

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Words by: Danny

More info: Arts The Beatdoctor

 

 

 

 

 

Just an ordinary guy always on the hunt for extraordinary music. Not just as the founder of The Find Magazine & Rucksack Records, but also as a freelance music journalist (bylines at Tracklib, Bandcamp, Wax Poetics, DIG Mag, among others) and—above all—out of love for all kinds of good music.