THE PLAYLIST #14 | Bantum and the music that makes him Move
Welcome to THE PLAYLIST, where HeadStuff staff and friends siphon through exciting art to craft essential listening experiences you didn’t know you needed.
To celebrate the release of Bantum’s sterling second record Move – out today~! – the man himself Ruairi Lynch has documented the sounds and people who influenced his latest work in the below playlist. Enjoy.
I found myself going back to a lot of electronic music I listened to as a teenager when working on tracks for Move.
Metal was my thing as a shy awkward teenager, but I was always intrigued by the likes of The Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk and Leftfield. The Prodigy were one of the first bands I ever saw, supporting Oasis at Pairc Ui Chaoimh. I remember being blown away that they were swearing! I eventually gathered every Chemical Brothers album I could find and devoured them, often buying the same CD/tape twice.
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Unlike most rock bands with a “guitar, bass, drums, vocals” setup I was clueless as to how electronic acts made their music. In my head, Liam Howlett sat in a space ship-type setup surrounded by flashing switches, levers and buttons. Back in the 90s, I’m sure it wasn’t far off. Later, I discovered the likes of David Holmes and Death In Vegas, with the Contino Sessions album making a big impression in terms of depth and atmosphere. I came to the Beastie Boys pretty late with Hello Nasty, but it was the beginning of a life-long obsession. I just love their “kitchen sink” approach to production, sampling everything, even themselves, while keeping a sense of humor that you rarely hear in music, let alone hip-hop.
A newfound love of instrumental hip-hop led me to DJ Shadow. Endtroducing is one of my all time favourite albums, but ‘Walkie Talkie” from The Private Press is one of my favorite Shadow songs. It’s just badass! Working on ‘Pacing’, I listened to a lot of DJ Shadow, Jon Hopkins and Conor Walsh. I was teaching myself piano at the time, and ‘Pacing’ was my pretty ham-fisted attempt at sounding like Conor, on top of an instrumental synth line that came from listening to Jon Hopkins religiously. An obsession with Jai Paul brought me to UK artist NAO, whose album For All We Know featured the production work of his brother A.K. Paul.
Jungle, Prince and D’angelo featured heavily on my playlists towards the end of the album, as did tracks that have an addictive electro funk rhythm to them like ‘Black Belt’ by John Grant. The final track on Move – ‘Already There’ – is an homage to Moderat, really. The instrumental came about from a bit of noodling while teaching Ableton classes at Block T in Smithfield. It wasn’t until a spur of the moment trip to London on the insistence of my cousin that I met the eventual singer, Adam Townsend aka. Weisman. We had an album.
