Black Market Karma | Interview | “To take you on a journey”

Black Market Karma is a London based band formed by Stan Belton. The group recently released ‘The Technicolour Liquid Audio Machine’.

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Their latest album is quite a departure from their previous albums being completely instrumental. You don’t want to miss it if you’re a fan of lo-fi electronica fused with atmospheric psychedelia.

“I’m still involved directly in every stage of the process”

You have a brand new album, ‘The Technicolour Liquid Audio Machine’. This is the first time you made a completely instrumental album as Black Market Karma. Would you mind sharing what’s the story behind it and why you decided to go instrumental?

Stan Belton: My grandad died at the beginning of 2020 and I desperately wanted to make a tribute to him. At the time I was moving home in the middle of the lockdown meaning that most of my gear was in storage. All I had to hand was a keyboard and some old drum recordings from previous sessions. I wanted to make something for him so badly that it pushed me to work with the bare minimum. I had to work in a different way, almost like a hip hop producer or something. It really inspired me and I was so amped with how it turned out that I decided to push forward with a whole record using that style. It’s fully instrumental apart from a few vocal samples (including one of my Grandad) and has basically no guitar on it.

There were originally no vocals because I didn’t have the equipment to do them but after a while I realised that it was working great that way. Something free from language and that as a listener, you have to meet half way and let yourself get lost in. A definite departure for me and probably the most atmospheric BMK record.

 

It’s got a nostalgic, lo-fi electronica, breakbeats thing going on. I also released every track as I made them with a new video for each one. I incorporated vintage footage and also shot new footage of my own. You can see them all on The Flower Power Records TV YouTube channel in the form of a playlist just called ‘The Technicolour Liquid Audio Machine’.

Your approach was going DIY since the beginning of Black Market Karma. Are you still working that way?

Yeah I’m still involved directly in every stage of the process. I was always inspired by artists who knew how to do it all. Write, arrange, produce, multi instrumentalists et cetera.

Just being able to get into a room with some gear and make an album totally off my own back and have it be what I envisioned. That was my goal and it’s still endlessly inspiring for me to be able to work that way.

How did you originally start the band? Your first release was almost ten years ago. When did you decide that you wanted to start writing and performing your own music? What brought that about for you?

It’s a bit foggy but I think I first really started to want to write my own stuff when I was about 16. I was finding a ton of music and my brain was at that perfect age where it’s just a sponge. I felt super inspired and was just like “This is what I’m here to do” You know? Figuring out the rest was just a complication.

I had the BMK name very early on, maybe 2007? It basically started as a moniker for me to create and release music under, with members joining later on when it came to wanting to play live.

Was your musical journey going straight to psychedelic rock or are you influenced by other genres?

Some of the earliest music that ever really moved me was definitely tied to psychedelia. Bob Dylan and the Velvet Underground being the big ones. Dylan’s music isn’t really what you’d traditionally think of as psych but some of his lyrical work in the mid 60’s was very surreal and dream-like. And The Velvet Underground had a massive effect on me, a key band in my youth that set me off on a path of discovery to so much more. I found other artists like Spacemen 3, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, My Bloody Valentine et cetera because of the Velvet Underground.

Can we expect more physical releases of your music via your very own Flower Power Records in the near future?

Yes you can. FPR’s gearing up to release some new records very soon. Our next album will be among them but I’ll leave the other things as a surprise for now…

“I just make what I feel will be best”

How do you usually approach music making?

From a place of sincerity and always aiming to do what’s best for the song I think. I try not to get bogged down in thoughts about genre or wether it can be done easily live. I just make what I feel will be best each time and try not to force it. It’s a difficult thing to distill into any kind of formula really, I just let it roll.

What are some of the most important musicians that influenced your own style and what in particular did they employ in their playing that you liked?

Like I said before Bob Dylan and the Velvet Underground were big ones at the beginning. Bob’s stuff just moved me in a way that nothing had before that. I was really young and was hearing his full band stuff for the first time. That almost irreverent air of nonchalance and bite in the vocal delivery / lyrics and just the sheer electricity of the sound hit me like a train.

The Velvet Underground was more of a steady thing, I’d never heard music like that at that age and it seemed off kilter and enticing to me. It grew on me until I found myself playing it daily. The way it could be beautiful but rough and full of the texture at the same time really appealed to me.

“My aim was to make albums that really take you on a journey”

Would you mind going through your discography and sharing a few sentences about each of your albums?

So I recorded and released these first 4 all in 2012. It was a real stream of creativity for me…

‘Comatose’
The first full album I ever recorded. I was still learning the process as I went along so you can hear me flying by the seat of my pants on it. Captain Beefart uploaded it to YouTube back in the day and it’s had a lot of love ever since. I’ve remastered it and cleaned it up a bit recently, I think FPR will reissue it at some point in the near future.

‘Cocoon’
There’s more of a shoegaze / noise pop element to this one. I was influenced by that kind of stuff at the time and you can feel it for sure. It’s pretty heavy and fuzzed out but super melodic and upbeat.

‘Easy Listening’
This is where I really started to settle into using the studio and began to expand the arrangements of the songs. I also approached it in a different way. Before I would fully flesh out every aspect of the songs beforehand and then record them as planned but with this record I was going in with almost half formed songs and writing as I went along. For example I’d be like “there needs to be a change in dynamic or something here, I’ll leave a space and figure it out later” and then I’d kinda put it all together like building blocks. I found it super inspiring as the songs still felt new as I was laying them down. It gave me some distance from my own work and the ability to be more objective as opposed to already being overly familiar and burnt out with the tracks by the time of recording.

‘Semper Fi’
I leaned into that yogi Beatles thing a bit on this one. Expanded the arrangements more with tonnes of keyboard sounds, percussion, sitar et cetera. It’s a proper wig-out. We still play a lot of tunes from it live too, the title track being a staple of our set.

‘Upside Out Inside Down’
I see this one as very much an extension of the last album. It also has some of our most played tunes like ‘Heady Ideas’ and ‘Skullgroover’.

‘The Sixth Time Around’ & ‘Plastic Hippie’
I’ve put these together as I made them basically back to back.

I think they’re sort of companion pieces. Probably the most mammoth work I’ve done. Super dense arrangements and a lot of songs on each. My aim was to make albums that really take you on a journey. Together I think they cover a lot of ground. I’m really proud of these two.

‘Animal Jive’
After the last two I wanted to make something more concise and poppy. You can also hear the beginnings of what I call the “aquatica” sound on tracks like ‘Shaking Sad’.

Something I’ve taken further on our next album coming in 2022…

Let’s end this interview with some of your favourite albums. Have you found something new lately you would like to recommend to our readers?

I’ve been into a fair bit of lo fi electronica stuff lately (as you can hear on the new album). ‘Musik Von Harmonia’ by Harmonia I keep coming back to. That record really transports me to another place. It’s so sparse too that it’s great for inspiring new ideas, there’s a lot of room left to take it elsewhere if you know what I mean.

Another is Black Moth Super Rainbow: ‘Falling Through A Field’. Got into this when I was living in Paris, always takes me back to hazy late evenings in summer over there. I would walk for miles around the city with tunes in my ears doing my best to get lost.

I’ve been listening to Boards Of Canada recently too. A band I’d always had in my peripherals but never delved into. When I started releasing tunes/videos from our latest album ‘The Technicolour Liquid Audio Machine’ people kept telling me that it reminded them of BOC so I decided to go take a proper listen. They in turn started to inspire some aspects of the last few tracks I made for it. Funny how that works eh? ‘Dawn Chorus’ is a massive tune. I listen to ‘Diving Station’ a lot too. Super short track of theirs but it’s magic.

Thank you. Last word is yours.

Be lucky.

Klemen Breznikar

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Headline photo: Dan Briston

Black Market Karma Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / YouTube
Flower Power Records Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter