As revealed this morning, Philadelphia’s Starkey is set to release his third album this year, Orbits.
With grime and hip-hop closer to the forefront than on past albums, and song structures more spontaneous and unpredictable, often breaking down into entirely new tracks and not always coming back, Orbits showcases Starkey at his most composed and confident. FACT caught up with grime’s finest space cadet to find out more.
Listening to the early version of Orbits, it sounds really free in terms of structure – long ambient moments, a lot of tracks that don’t do the standard intro/drop/breakdown/second drop formula. Was this the freest, or most comfortable you’ve felt making music?
“I’ve always been a producer that’s not afraid to make the style of music that I want to make. I don’t try to force myself to write a particular kind of music, because everytime I’ve ever tried that, it turns out pretty horrible. And I think coming off of the Open the Pod Bay Doors EP, with the title track being so very different from the other tracks on that release in that there were guitars, real drum sounds, etc… I just wanted to continue to explore what I could do in my songwriting and how all of this music could still gel as one cohesive outlet. That being said, yes…
Full interview and sampler at FACT