Deskhop

September 12, 2010





*Name: Deskhop

*Are there any additional names used to describe this project: No

*Do you use a pseudonym? Deskhop

*Members: Ian Wells

*Founding Members: Ian Wells

*Tape manipulations, digital deconstructions or turntable creations: I don't use tapes or turntables, so 'digital deconstructions' I suppose.

*Another genre descriptor: No -- this sort of music has gained a lot of popularity, and you don't really need many descriptors to get people to know what you're talking about anymore.

*Is there a story behind your name? The creation of "Deskhop" had something to do with combining white-collar, boring stuff, like desks, with its apparent contradiction, hip hop. I'm pretty sure that was the though behind it. At any rate, I think the theme of contradiction -- or pairing of opposites -- has played a big role in this project from the start. I never thought about this theme, explicitly, but it emerged maybe as a consequence of the medium I work in, or of the desire to see things conflict, to imagine the worst that can happen and to turn that into a reality.

*Location: I go to school in Ithaca, New York, at Cornell University. So that's where I'm from, for now.

*Original Location: Massachusetts.

*What is your creative/artistic background: I used to go to a drawing class, when I was 10 or 11.

*History: About six years, though I didn't start releasing music to the internet until 2009. Back then, it was just me and a friend recording guitar, sampling ourselves, cutting things up and messing with it. I gradually got deeper into the digital side of production -- this was what really excited me from the start.

*Born: 1989, in Massachusetts.

*Motivations: I'm not sure why I make the sort of music I do. But making music on the computer, in general, is more like a nervous tick for me. I'm not so much motivated as I am drawn to it. It can be fun, a lot of times, and it keeps me excited. But other times it's more of a habit. I'm trying to break out of that habit and reexamine why I do this -- not with the intention of stopping (that would never happen), but maybe of changing directions. So it's a good question and I have no real answer right now.

*Philosophy: I think it should be clear, even from a preliminary listen, that my work presupposes a sort of strong version of eliminative materialism. Granted, the early stuff (circa Spaceheater) was definitely more reductive. But the album I'm working on now -- the album I've been working on for the last year -- takes a more radical stance.

*How would you like to be remembered: As a noble savage.

*Web address:
www.deskhop.net
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Deskhop/99672323789