Hipnotony: Beneath the surface with Garth Be

We get together with Garth Be over a much-needed pint to discuss album number two

Feature by Daniel Jones | 28 Jul 2015

Heat in Manchester is relatively hard to come by, so when the sun’s out you know about it. The streets fill up. Dogs pant. People wilt in Piccadilly Gardens. Sunken chests are on public display. Pasty faces go the way of the lobster and pollen runs amok. Meanwhile, Garth Be sneezes underneath the air con inside a vacant city centre bar.

It’s been a good year for the man known simply on his records as “BE”. Last March saw the release of debut LP The Seven Movements: a necessary album for the local scene that ended up at the top of many end of year lists. Now second album Hipnotony – portmanteau of hypnotic monotony – is prepped, ready to land… and it’s another doozy.

“To be honest, the response I got from the first record was incredible,” he admits. “It gave me so much confidence going into this one and made me believe I was doing the right thing. Maybe I overthink things too much but any niggles that used to plague the back of my mind were gone. I stopped thinking what was right or wrong – more what felt right or wrong, to me. Sitting down and putting tracks together with that frame of mind was freeing.”

He takes a swig of beer: “The main thought behind this album is the repetition of things that can, on the surface, seem quite boring; actually, there are so many subtle things going on that you can tune in to different elements on every listen. You might hear a hi-hat first, then after a few minutes suddenly realise there was another hi-hat there all along. I love being able to look into a piece of music in that way.”

Be’s introduction to the percussive side of life came at an early age, when he first got his hands on a pair of drumsticks. The only difference is that now he’s bashing out rhythms into a drum machine or trusty MPC. The off-kilter feeling that permeates his sound is something that has developed over the years and is the product of subtle tweaking here and there.

“Getting the rhythm down is probably what I enjoy the most,” he reveals. “Sometimes things can be really out of place, and you know that it’s not right, but I’m happy to leave some odd-sounding bits in there that are a bit woah. Nothing makes me feel more disconnected to music these days than the drums. A lot of the time people are using Logic, or whatever software, for their percussion and it sounds very rigid – it’s easy to lose the essence of rhythm that way. You’ve gotta remember that nature is never on time, and that’s reflected in music too.”

Searching for imperfection is a skill in itself and, as the man says, “the idea that everything has to be perfect is a bad one.” One of the driving forces behind his Sweet Sticky imprint is to challenge models that are supposedly set in cement. That means moving away from strict deadlines, run-of-the-mill brand logos and demands for “complete, polished products”.

“My good friend Rachel deserves a mention too. She was involved quite a bit on the graphic design front and her work really resonates with what I’m trying to do musically. One idea we had was to make sure we didn’t just present an immediately recognisable brand, like Nike or whatever, that’s shoved down your throat; we wanted to achieve a more interactive feel with the way it looks. The two records so far both have that. They both require a bit of a think, and encourage people to stop being so lazy. We wanted to challenge the idea of taking immediately the face value.

“That’s also part of the reason for releasing this record in August: everybody’s telling me not to do it and that it’s the worst time to put a record out… so I’m going to do it to see what happens. I honestly don’t believe that a particular month in the calendar is more important than the content of the record itself. Ask me at the end of August, anyway!” he laughs before sneezing again.

Brave guy, and you can’t say that freedom to decide when to release material hasn’t been well-earned. Going back a few years, Be’s first real break actually came through Myspace back in 2007. Chicago label Stilove4music picked up four tracks from his page, which then became the Nocturnal Jam EP.


“The idea that everything has to be perfect is a bad one” – Garth Be

Despite the early promise of that initial coup, things unfortunately took a turn for the worst and Be went through a pretty difficult few years by anybody’s standards. Following the passing away of his girlfriend at the time and getting all his studio gear nicked, music understandably took a backseat for a while.

It was only after a bit of time away from production that the idea for Sweet Sticky gradually started to brew. Launching his own label was always on the cards, but it was after some gentle prodding from his close mates that Be decided to ‘push the button’ and go for it.

“During that time I released a few things with friends that had sat for years and years but, in a way, it didn’t feel right to do the same with the album [The Seven Movements] because I always saw the music I was making as part of something bigger, something tangible and something I could define myself. I hate to use the term creative agency… but that’s kind of what I mean. The ultimate direction of Sweet Sticky is to use it as a platform to develop an approach to art that stands on its own – the label is just one side of the coin.”

There are a few other guys on board with the artistic side too: Joe Whitmore, who handled the A/V side of things at the first album launch – expect another shindig soon – and Darren Newman, another graphic designer with a broad portfolio who’ll soon be joining forces with the label. It’s clear, then, that Be is going for the whole artistic effect, rather than just one facet. And, while he admits production serves an insular purpose in relation to his “sensitive side”, bouncing off other people remains an integral part of his creative process – and that’s evident on Hipnotony.

He cites tracks From S to R and Rachel as particularly poignant for him. The latter, named after the aforementioned designer, “was part of a creative session and really didn’t take too long to pull together. It’s one of those tracks that seemed to turn out exactly how I intended it to, which doesn’t happen often! I like the last track too, All to the Fools: it’s a bit of a cheeky piss-take of the egocentric feel often found in hip-hop. It’s slightly louder than the other tracks too, which adds to the boastful feel. It plays with the idea that the loudest man in the room is also the weakest.”

If that’s the case then we’re certain there’s plenty more Garth Be is keeping under wraps; or maybe we just have to look a little closer, and listen a little keener, to breathe in the full effect of his handiwork – come to think of it, he wouldn’t have it any other way.


Hipnotony is out 3 Aug via Sweet Sticky

http://www.sweetstickyrecords.com