Thomas Cade

Thomas Cade is an electronic artist who splits his time between Toronto, and London. Respected in the music scene for his unusual approach to electronic music, Thomas is making his way over to Hamilton tonight to show us what all of the fuss is about! Find all of the details – here.

I caught up with Thomas to learn more about him and his glitchy, lo-fi, insomnia inspired music.

Q - I understand you split your time between Toronto, and London. How do the two electronic scenes compare, in your opinion?
I think it’s pretty tricky to compare the two scenes along any really meaningful or at least unbiased criteria. They both have so much to offer in terms of talent, style and audience each with incredibly unique, vibrant and growing sub-genres in the electronic spectrum. That said, I think the most honest comparison can be made along the lines of maturity and mood. London’s electronic establishment is certainly the older and darker of the two, with the music finding reception in a wider age range and social context, often drenched in brooding. Toronto’s scene is noticeably younger and still quite a social niche, while perhaps a little more pop-leaning, but nevertheless with its own flavour of thump + wobble that’s equally engaging.

Q – Can you take us through how one of your tracks are put together?
It’s a fairly organic process that usually starts with a basic groove or riff I’ll play out on guitar or keys, or if away from the studio, I’ll sing into my phone to recall later. The tempo + key get cemented early on, then I build up rhythm, melody, lead, verse, build and drop variations to get a feel for the range I can generate out of the idea. The bulk of the process takes place at this stage, experimenting with combinations and movements, modifying almost everything as I go. Final arrangement, sub-mixing, post-mixing + mastering follow, and more often than not the final product bears almost no resemblance to the initial concept. Keeping the process fluid and evolving are totally key for me; it’s far too easy to get hooked on an idea and spend the next three days smithing it to death!

Q – Can you tell us a bit about your non-traditional approach to sound engineering?
It’s a bit too easy today to buy a 500gig sample library and produce tracks that sound amazing right out of the box. But I’m by no means a neo-luddite; in fact I’m the complete opposite. I’ve always been obsessed with sounds and ever since I could manage a hammer, I’ve loved deconstructing (destroying?) electronics and seeing what’s inside then re-building, testing and experimenting. I think this interest in the innards of electrical wares really spawned my passion for experimentation in sound design and engineering. So I’ll often re-purpose common electronics or custom-build contraptions then sample the results which become the building blocks for synths, kicks, leads, you name it. The really wonderful part of modern DAW’s is they’re powerful enough to transform any sound into whatever-you-can-dream-of.

Q – Where do you draw your inspirations from?
Short of sounding like a fluffy, hand-waiving mystic, I think inspiration is an inseparable function of awareness. But not just being aware of the world around you or of social and cultural concerns, but of the world inside your head, because this is the seat of the reality that we act upon. My fascination with this human condition factors really heavily into my artistic practice and because we’re always in a state of change, forms a constant flow of inspiration. You know, it’s all really quite mysterious once you start to scratch the surface.

Q – What have you been listening to, lately? do you have any tracks /artists to recommend to us?
Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of glitch, ambient, tribal, minimal tech/house – anything electronic. I always get this weird urge to recommend Mr. Oizo, but I won’t do that here, instead I’ll suggest having a listen to Teebs, Lorn, Nautiluss, and label mate Ladyfrnd, their track ‘October’ is an instant laid-back, summer super-chiller.

Q – What do you have planned for the rest of the year?
With a bit of luck I’ll be between Toronto + London, playing a few gigs there and a few festivals here, all the while working on new materials. A series of remixes from the most recent record Greenwich Mean Time are getting set to drop through Mindwarp Records in the near future, along with a few new singles on Hybridity in the coming months.

Thanks, Thomas! - Cut From Steel

The Scion Sessions have kept the new music coming in 2013, and this continues with some new goodies from Humans in the form of an exclusive mix and a Thomas Cade remix.

The Vancouver electronic duo put together a synth-driven, danceable 48-minute mix. It's called Tour De Ciel, and the band described it like this in a statement: "This is a mix to take you places — it's for driving, biking or riding. It's to get you into the mindset of that summer destination — the beach, the cabin, the campsite; all of the above. Think of it as a reset button. It will help you melt away the stress of all those city rectangles. Keep in mind though — sometimes the journey is the best part..."

As for the remix by the Toronto/UK-based Thomas Cade, he transformed Humans' thudding, minimal dance-pop track "De Ciel" into a slow-moving, eerily pulsing mood piece that sounds a bit like it's being played underwater.

Humans and Cade are performing with Beta Frontiers in Toronto on August 2 at Parts & Labour. Get more information here. - Exclaim.ca

Thomas Cade, a young producer who splits his time between Toronto, Canada, and London, UK, went to work on Humans’ “De Ciel” and came up with this tough remix.

At this point in time, “dubstep” is a dirty word for a lot of folks. Nevertheless, Cade seems to have few qualms with respect to integrating certain distinctive elements of the style into his sound on this cut. Rhythmically, the track is driven by a menacing half-step groove with a big reverberant snare on the ’3′ and warm synths that pulsate with side-chain compression. When the soulful vocal hook from “De Ciel” kicks in around 1:31, I find myself squinting and raising my trigger finger high. - Low-Life.ca

HARD AS YOU find this to believe, there were folks in Vancouver who saw Skrillex when he was playing the Pit Pub at UBC, as opposed to BC Place. On the same tip, believe it not Deadmau5 didn’t play one of Vancouver’s hockey arenas when he first surfaced in Vancouver, but instead the Commodore Ballroom. And yes, we were there at the beginning with stories about both future EDM giants.

If you’re looking to discover tomorrow’s big names today (or more accurately, Friday [February 7]), then you’re no doubt planning to make your way to Open Studios in Vancouver for Hybridity Music’s two-year anniversary party, thrown by the folks at Scion Sessions. To celebrated the release of a double 12-inch compilation album featuring the best and brightest upcoming talent in EDM, you get live sets by Nautiluss, Sabota, Thomas Cade, 8prn, and Heartbeat(s).

You also get to say “I saw them when.” - The Georgia Straight.com

I just came across this unknown genius. Thomas Cade is the name. He brings you the finest electronic music you can ask for. Cayley is his brand new track and that's also the only thing I can find from Cade, this track is the first single on Greenwich Mean Time. It will be released in January, I'll keep you posted on that. I really wanted you guys to get to know him. And when his first LP comes out next summer we will be first in line to review it. Enjoy! - The Music Beam

Thomas Cade, the London(UK)/Toronto-based electronic musician channels a dark and eerie place with his wobbly spine-tingler ‘Cayley’. I can only imagine the horrible things that girl did to this poor soul to evoke such a grimy, dank, elusive track. ‘Cayley’ reminds me of the brilliant tracks spanning Aphex Twin’s Come to Daddy EP, especially ‘Iz-us’.

Thomas Cade will release Greenwich Mean Time January 15th on Hybridity Music. - Drunk Pineapple

So excited to hear new music from London/Toronto’s Thomas Aston, now going by the name Thomas Cade. Here’s his first single, a lilting melody over a somewhat aggressive beat and badass gurgling synths. His debut album Greenwich Mean Time is out in January on Hybridity. - Silent Shout

Gritty static hums avast Thomas Cade’s vocals along with an oscialting deep bassline.

Recent work includes an interactive soundscape for A Place To Reflect (Nuit Blanche-Toronto), producing massive volumes of noise art at the Victoria and Albert Museum for the Moving Forest (Furtherfield-London) and an electronic A/V performance at New Forms Festival 11 (Vancouver).

He will be presenting the collaborative project “Evil Media”, at Transmediale (Berlin) in January 2013. Cade recently graduated from Goldsmiths College with an MA in Interactive Media.

Thomas Cade’s debut LP, Greenwich Mean Time, will be released in January 2013 for Hybridity Music. - AudioDrums

Thomas Cade is an emerging sound artist and electronic musician based out of London, UK and Toronto, Canada. His album promises to be a cerebral listening experience. Create your own Thomas-Cade-flavored space trip with the "Apophenia" TRAKTOR Remix Set. - Native Instruments

There's a sense of decentralization to Thomas Cade: his life story is divided by place. The Toronto-based producer was born in the U.K., raised in the southern Ontario greenbelt, educated in Montreal and London, and is releasing his debut electronic LP - out now - on Vancouver label, Hybridity Music. You can even hear it in his implaceable accent, which bears traces of all of these places.

Time and place are so significant to Cade, a former physics student, that he named this record Greenwich Mean Time. It's a titular ode to London, where the record was written while he was writing his MA, and a bit of a sonic dedication as well.

"I was inspired by a lot of stuff that's coming out of London and the U.K.: Four Tet, Burial, some of the early Radiohead stuff," says Cade. "And I was lucky because one of my MA tutors was good friends with Steve Goodman of Hyperdub and so it exposed me to a lot of those glitchy, minimal underground sounds."

Cade acknowledges that he's somewhat of a neophyte when it comes to electronic music. While living in Montreal — "a very fun, safe place to explore art" — he was writing acoustic, singer-songwriter music. "But I'd be playing and look out and see these very static people," he says. "The desire to make people move and dance is a lot of the motivation behind this record."

Still, listening to Greenwich Mean Time's debut single, "Cayley," it's obvious that this record isn't a pounder but a progression, or bridge, between acoustic and electronic. It feels more like a macabre experiment: peculiar melody lines swan through arrhythmic, textural atmospheres, backing Cade's damaged vocals. It's a songwriter's approach to electronic music, mirroring the ethos of projects like Caribou or James Blake but with less austerity.

It's a theoretical approach to album-making, with the inclusion of very peculiar found sounds. "I'll take basic noise-making circuits, or build a circuit, and sample sounds off that to incorporate back into the production. For example, some of the rhythm on 'Apophenia' is the sound of the sun, believe it or not. I used a very low frequency antenna, which is often used for military communications, and as the sun rises and sets it ionizes the atmosphere and results in these byproduct glitches in sound. So what you're hearing is the sound of the sun striking the Earth, through the medium of that wavelength."

But GMT does bear traces of another time. "What stuck from the earlier stuff I did, the singer-songwriter stuff, is the vocals and lyrics," explains Cade. "My vocals primarily get run through a guitar processor. But I'm not really downloading a sample pack off Ableton: it's very much about building something, testing and experimenting."??

Stream GMT below and buy it here. - CBC Music - Electronic

Other CHYZ charts: Top 30 Electronic Hip Hop Jazz Loud
Other Electronic charts: !earshot | CFRC CFRE CFRU CFUR CFUV CHUO CHYZ CILU CJAM CJLO CJSR CJSW CJUM CKXU CSCR
TW LW Artist Title Label
1 3 Thomas Cade Greenwich Mean Time Hybridity Music
2 5 Atoms For Peace Amok XL Recordings
3 1 PVT Homosapien Last Gang
4 6 Mister Lies Mowgli Lefse
5 7 Blue Hawaii Untogether Arbutus
6 8 Benjamin Damage Heliosphere 50 Weapons
7 2 Doldrums Lesser Evil Arbutus
8 4 Toro Y Moi Anything In Return Carpark
9 9 FaltyDL Hardcourage Ninja Tune
10 10 Kris Menace Features Compuphonic
re = re-entry to chart
- !EarShot

Thomas Cade is putting out an early release of his debut album, Greenwich Mean in February, 2013, under Hybridity Music. The album promises to be a cerebral listening experience, for fans of James Blake and Jamie Lidell. Cade has recently graduated from Goldsmiths College, UK with an MA in Interactive Media. - What People Play

A sneak peak at Thomas Cade‘s debut album Greenwich Mean Time was premiered today. The track “Cayley” is available at We Are Hunted for stream or download. Greenwich Mean Time will be out on January 15, 2013. - Hybridity

In many ways, music is the primal language of mankind. While words offer the precise, denotative expression of concepts that is required to drive an advanced rational civilization, music reaches into the base of the brain and communicates directly with what lies beneath our conscious selves. It is a direct communication that unites us in a visceral way that even the most adept use of language rarely achieves.

Thomas Cade understands this truth, and seeks to make use of it to convey an exploration of the human condition through music with his forthcoming album, “Greenwich Mean Time.” I found both the album and the artist to be intriguing and communicative, and was able to discuss Thomas’ interests and music in the following interview. Unfortunately, we were unable to communicate using music due to technological limitations, so words will have to suffice.

As always, be sure to stick around after the interview for Video Rodeo and a sample of the many shows happening over the coming weekends.

Enjoy!

Where do you consider home?

Wherever my heart is! I’ve had the good fortune of moving around a fair bit, but Toronto has grown on me pretty quickly.

Tell me about yourself and your background:

Born in London, UK, emigrated to Canada with my family when I was quite young. Grew up in the countryside near Brantford and in the suburbs West of Toronto. Did my undergrad in Montreal and just finished a grad degree back in London. I’ve been obsessed with music as long as I can remember, and now I’m lucky enough to be doing it full-time

How long have you been performing?

Well over a decade now. I think my first gig was for a D.A.R.E. event in elementary school. That’s probably where I became addicted to it…


With which companies or organizations (if any) are you affiliated?

Label based out of Vancouver, BC by the name of Hybridity Music, but we do much more than just music. The label is part of a larger concept centering on trans-disciplinary art and collaborative practice. Music, performance, technology and culture all intersect to produce whole works which are far greater than just the sum of their parts. It’s run by a group of incredibly talented, super hardworking and wonderfully bright people.

Tell me about the music you’re into:

I listen to everything. For years I was really into folk-based acoustic music, but I’ve moved pretty far from it now. At the moment I listen to a lot of glitch, ambient, tribal, minimal, techno, electro, house, dub…anything electronic. I’m a sucker for melody, rhythm and bass.

How did you get into this music?

I think I sort of grew tired of the apathy and unhinged introspection which my earlier taste in acoustic music evoked. I found electronic music provides a broader, more dynamic platform for dealing with affective and intellectual content, you know, the sorts of fears, questions and desires we all have but usually never voice. There’s simply more potential range and variability with it. Electronic sound lets me deal with these sorts of things and make people dance while doing so.

Where can you usually be found performing?

I only moved to Toronto a few months ago and finishing up the LP has been a pretty full-on experience. I’m playing a small show at the Holy Oak Feb 8th. There’s plenty of booking underway and so much more to come for Toronto…

What are your musical influences?

Caribou, James Blake, Jamie Lidell, Nosaj Thing, Burial, Four Tet, Nicolas Jaar, Portishead, Radiohead…the list goes on and on.

What motivates you to perform?

There’s really nothing like having people move and react to thoughts and sounds that would otherwise only be found in my head. It’s such a thrill. Music is the only medium I’ve found that lets me have raw, unique and meaningful interactions with complete strangers.

What differentiates you from other performers?

I try to do as much of the sonic production for a set as possible live and on the fly, especially for vocals, loops, etc. Of course certain elements need to be sampled and automated, but this approach makes every performance unique and have a type of organic and improvised flavor to it which the audience always really responds to.

How do you integrate visuals into your performances?

Visuals always play a central role in my performances. I like to think of them as additive but non-narrational, often abstract and always interactive. But this last word has come to have a sort of double meaning since I’ve begun incorporating RF motion capture devices into my video board. The audience’s movement drives the visuals which paints the music that makes them move. This sort of interactivity has launched my performances into a pretty bizarre and exploratory realm.

How do you see yourself as an artist?

My work explores the intersecting fringes between technical, cerebral and somatic experience. I’m totally obsessed with the human condition and never really sati - Toronto Is Awesome - The Bassment

The British-Canadian artist will release his first full-length through Hybridity next month.

A UK-born Canadian artist, the producer, songwriter and composer is already a decade deep into his musical career. Despite his experience, Greenwich Mean Time will be Cade's first album, and will be released through Vancouver imprint Hybridity. His sound blends acoustic and electronic elements, mixing his own vocals with beat-driven soundscapes made from synthesizers and guitar effects pedals. For a taster, you can stream the album's downtrodden closer, "Cayley" here.


Tracklist
01. Lines
02. Metaphysic
03. Apophenia
04. Figures
05. GMT
06. Sides
07. Half-Way
08. Cayley - Resident Advisor

Hybridity Music is a new Vancouver-based label which launched earlier this year with releases of Calamalka’s All the Way Up and Humans wonderfully popular Traps EP. Founded by New Forms Festival’s Malcolm Levy, the label is aim to include a publishing house, an album release vehicle and to be involved in other digital-oriented arts projects such as the interactive software and application Circles. This bit of tech which aims to make accessing all manner of audio and visual content on the Net easier for all-ages to experience largely served as the launch pad for the label and other ideas.
Hybridity is looking ahead to a big year of projects and one of the first to land on my radar is Thomas Cade’s Greenwich Mean Time. Cade – who spends time between Montreal, Toronto and London, UK – took the time to answer some questions. Get more info on the label at hybriditymusic.com. They have upcoming releases scheduled for Humans Possession Remix EP Nine Tenths (Feb. 18, 2013), Dreamboat (March 2013), BCBG (May 2013) and Fantastic Modern (June 2013).
Question: You’re among the first wave of artists to release through Hybridity Music. How did you come to be associated with the label?
Thomas Cade: I had the good fortune of collaborating on some rather experimental performance work with Sarah, one of the leads of the label, a number of years ago back in Montreal. Over and above solidifying a wonderful friendship, that experience really catalysed a working relationship that has continued to today. She was hugely responsible for motivating me to leave behind the acoustic ethos of those early days and push into electronic sound. So when the label got up and running, it seemed a perfectly natural fit to do a release with them. We have a pretty special relationship and the other folk at the label are all such talented, inspiring people, I feel so lucky to be working with them!
Q: Your last.fm bio made me laugh when I read you “grew up on a slew of guitar-based effects processors in grimy back room venues along the Montreal-Toronto corridor.” Care to expand on exactly which of those effects you still use on Greenwich Mean Time’s tunes?
A: I think the first pedal I picked up was a used and pretty banged up Boss chorus effect. It was a mind expanding purchase to say the least, which I began leaning quite heavily on for vocals. I soon after started drilling reverbs, delays, loopers, wahs, drives, distortion pedals etc. into a piece of plywood that I’d lug around to venues, giving my acoustic work a sort of unexpected edge which the audience would really respond to. I eventually picked up the now-defunct Digitech GNX3 multi-effects workstation which led me into to sound design and programming. Despite it now being totally hacked and partially functional, I often use it on my main vocal chain. Necessarily, all the composition and production work I do now is done on a laptop in a DAW, but outboard effects let me retain some of that physicalism which gets too easily lost on a computer keyboard.
Q: A lot of the past work you’ve done is of a more sound installation nature. But much of Greenwich Mean Time is full on pop tunesmithing. What made you head that way?
A: Sound art and installation work hold a special place in my heart. They allow for more context-sensitive and participant-centered artistic expression, which is often critical and in some ways quite academic. But these features also make it much less accessible to a huge portion of listeners, not to mention the difficulties in reproducing and disseminating live, interactive works. I found electronic music provides a broader, more approachable platform for dealing with similarly affective and intellectual content. To boot, there’s so much potential range and variability with it. Electronic sound allows me to touch on the same sorts of things but make people dance while doing so
Q: Right from the vocals coming in on the opening track Lines, I’m thinking that you must have more than a bit of a taste for early Roxy Music and Brian Eno. Are they influential to you?
A: Ever since I heard the record a few years ago, Eno’s Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks has haunted me. It’s so lush and beautiful and has a sort of careful disregard for auditory expectation. His ambient compositions really widened my conception of what’s possible with electronics and inspired a lot of my soundscape work which has fed into the new album. As for Roxy Music, they’ve had a more indirect influence, setting the stage for experimental electronic…if only I had even a touch of their fashion sense! Contemporary artists like Caribou, Jamie Lidell and James Blake have also had a big influence, showing there’s enough space to write a record which offers a more cerebral listening experience than commonly available in electronic music.
Q: Where is the album available and will you be touring in the new year?
A: The album Greenwich Mean Time is set to drop Feb 12 in digital format. It’ll be available thro - The Province - Entertainment