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Image via Ateph Elidja
We don’t cover dance and electronic music all the time on Pigeons & Planes, but when we do, we bring you the best of the best. Each month, Plugged will take a look at certain aspects of the electronic landscape, filling you in on the artists, scenes, and music that you should be paying attention to, whatever your taste.
A few months back, we took a look at some of the more captivating albums that’d be dropping this year, one of which was Brodinski’s resplendent Brava. On it, he further blended the worlds of electronic music and hip-hop to the point where you can’t tell where on starts and the other ends, with utmost success. His label and collective, Bromance, has been building to this point for a while, and the addition of Paris, France’s Ateph Elidja further solidifies the future of this sound.
Elidja’s name has been hitting our radar since late 2013, which is when we first heard Ateph’s remix of Brodinski’s “Take Back the Night,” but he’d been making tunes since 2007. “I started to produce music quite early,” Ateph says, “however I started to do it professionally when I turned 18, under the name, Rhaft. It was more like beat-making, though, as my background is more in hip-hop.” While Elidja is admittedly a fan of Madlib, there was something about Brodinski and the Bromance camp that got him open: “When I heard their first track, it literally blew my mind. I felt an open-mindedness in their music, and I actually got extremely inspired by the dark side of their output too. I subsequently sent my sounds to Brodinski—who instantaneously appreciated it.”
I felt an open-mindedness in their music, and I actually got extremely inspired by the dark side of their output too
I personally remember getting buzzed off of Ateph’s remix of Que‘s “OG Bobby Johnson.” The song had already blown up, and some producers were slow to the draw (I think his particular rework was a good six months ahead of others). There was something about the tension in the track; the original was already turnt as could be, with some wild ad-libs and insane imagery, but pairing it with that hard techno-infused sound, with twisted melodies weaving their way in and out of those skittering hi-hats? It was a new sense of hood paranoia that only someone in tune to what Brodinski, Gesaffelstein, and other producers of that style could make.
When asked about his sound, Ateph states that he “genuinely composed by instinct. I like to experiment and to use very metallic sounds, hence why it sounds like electronic music. I wouldn’t say it is aggressive music, but I love to attach an emotional component to tracks that deal with violence and nostalgia. However, my music perfectly displays my inner personality, a bit psychotic and quirky.” Truth be told, that “OG Bobby Johnson” remix sounds like the perfect embodiment of how Elidja describes his sound.
My music perfectly displays my inner personality, a bit psychotic and quirky
One thing that feels key in Ateph’s career is that he’s not inundating you with a multitude of tracks every month; his SoundCloud hasn’t even hit 10 tracks. Aside from the split Bromance #13 release (with Birdy Nam Nam’s Little Mike) and a pair of tunes on Bromance compilations, he doesn’t have a massive catalog of tracks like many of today’s producers, which not only creates anticipation for his next moves, but allows him to release the right tunes at the right time.
That said, on May 4, Ateph Elidja is giving away a four-track EP, Hurt. For those of you who think that electronic music is just mindless noise for drug-addled freaks, there’s more than meets the eye with this release. “This EP holds a long history, considering the choice of title as well as its creation. It depicts a huge deception I suffered from.” Ateph goes on to say that he “hesitated to release it, to be honest, but it just happened at a time of my life when I eagerly wanted to present myself in terms of who I am as an artist. I’ve composed lots of stuff, but I hold those four tracks because they are truly what I want to show.”
While we didn’t press on him to elaborate on what real life situations he went through that influenced this release, listening to tunes like the recently-released Hurt track “Epoch” could give some indication of, say, the pangs of the heart when one has been done wrong:
Heavyweight material, indeed.
With the May 4 release of Hurt looming, one has to wonder what Elidja has on deck. As per his current pace of release, he has no solid plans for future releases: “I’d rather take my time for the next album, but I will definitely produce other artists.” His shortlist of dream collaborators includes A$AP Rocky and Kendrick Lamar, as well as Madlib, an artist Ateph considers “one of the best artists in the world.” Until then, we’ll have the quirky, intensely personal soundscapes of Hurt to tide us over, giving us time to not only mull over our own hurt, but to dream of what Ateph Elidja is cultivating for the future.
