[Interview] dBiscuits Doesn’t Know What a Chat Room is, But Can Tell You All About Advanced Dynamics Processing
by Kara-Lis Coverdale
Looking back over my original interview transcription, Dan Shore (Toronto/London/Port Perry producer dBiscuits) and I killed nearly 40 minutes bantering back and forth about cross-dressing, the existence of Kalamazoo, and Master P after we finally sorted out Dan’s overt -- and painfully hilarious -- demonstration of g-chat illiteracy. It’s pretty fair to say that modern lap-top oriented producers are pretty technologically savvy and spend a lot of time in the digital realm, so I couldn’t contain myself when he kept writing stuff like “This is weirding me out hard -- I don’t know if my mic is activated or what the hell is going on...” and “How do i get my webcam kicking, like can you see me on your webcam right now???” and “Can you hear me??” while we were being hosted by what is, like, the most simple chat room in existence these days.
Conversation is never boring when Dan is around. He’s full of questions, random facts, stories, unique and esoteric observations, and is also probably one of the plain jolliest people you will ever meet. Yet while you should maybe know this in and of itself -- I mention his character here distinctly because I think Dan Shore, as a personality, shines through everything he does musically as dBiscuits. The two -- Dan and dBiscuits -- are actually inextricable entities, and I can’t help but find it fascinating how I actually hear Dan in the music he makes.
If you keep up with The Come Up Show, I’ve mentioned this transparency in a couple reviews I’ve written of his work, mainly for his first album Biscuits & Logistics Vol. 0: The Medulla Oblongata, a sample-based collage project that oozes humor and surfs juxtaposition in funky ways. Yet figuring character into his music is seemingly a natural affect of learning the craft and techniques of production first. Dan just wrapped up a two year masters degree at UWO, and The Medulla Oblongata is sort-of the equivalent of this program’s thesis. To compliment the record, he wrote a huge-ass paper about the dynamics processing techniques he used to acquire the sounds you hear.
Neat, huh? Read the interview below to read what this always-already student of music had to say about his background, creative process, and hip-hop academia.