Richardine Bartee
When we [my former boyfriend, family and I] were pushing my print magazines across the nation on the Southern coast of California in the late 2000s, there was a sonic revolution going on. Whether we knew it or not, we were doing what felt “right”, but it also added to the heartbeat of the urban experience across the globe. What do I think made us all “wake up” and want to create? I don’t speak for others; I don’t have the perfect words to explain it, but for me, I can best describe it as a divine or seraphic ruling. I didn’t want to do what I was doing. I needed to do it. I guess it’s what one refers to as “purpose”, and what it feels like to find yours.
Visionary record producers like Daddy Kev, Daedelus, Flying Lotus, The Gaslamp Killer, Suzi Analogue, and everyone else from the all-star scene who massively influenced us with the beat of their drum kits, were on the rise or activating their mentorships to guide and teach us as the youth. The faceless producer we’re highlighting today doesn’t have more than three followers on his social media accounts, but something tells me it’s not his first pass at creating music. The Los Angeles-based artist is probably creating and releasing under a new name to share another dimension of his creativity. If he isn’t finding a way to self-satisfy, he is probably under a contractual constraint, which isn’t foreign, or abnormal, in the music business.
‘Clara’, an otherworldly composition from 1-800-lost’s spanking new debut EP—irusu—carries my lofty soul back to the fulfilling days that we lived in and frequented Los Angeles for months at a time to do business, visit friends, attend local parties in the hills or downtown, and walk on the beach for spurts of inner peace. There’s no place like LA. If you’re a music, you have to make it to LA. It’s a destination that isn’t like New York City or any other metropolis. Most of the creative people who live there are considered to be as “chill” as 1-800-lost’s five-track effort, or skittish as the LA businessman in that one episode of nineties sitcom, Martin, where Varnell Hill (Tommy Davidson) tells him they’ll “do lunch” or as seen in the adept Los Angeles Times article written by former Disney executive, Martin Kaplan. It’s the nature of the business for many. Kaplan does a great job explaining the psychology behind that sort of behaviour.
