Talking To: Highlights of Our Modern World
Myles Bartholomew is a musician and producer from Portsmouth who releases under the name Highlights of Our Modern World. We talked to him about tech, graphic design and not hating on your home town.
Take us through your setup.
I basically live on Ableton. I used to use Fruity Loops years ago but I've been a mac user since 2007 and I've never looked back. I'm a guitarist by nature, so I have an awful lot of guitar equipment, I tend to incorporate that as much as I can.
When I perform live I like to use a Kaoss Pad 3 to help mix my tracks together and add some extra spice with some effects.
What’s the Hip-Hop scene like in Portsmouth?
There's not a huge scene but I think there are a fair number of listeners. There's a cool promotions company called Word of Mouth that host regular rap battle nights and cyphers but its pretty slim when it comes to the beat scene. I've been working hard to try and grow that myself by putting on the odd show here and there. We’re getting there… slowly.
I love your name, what’s the story behind that?
When I first started this project it began with more of an experimental ambient/prog rock focus, nodding to bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor and the like. I wanted the name to have a positive tone, without being too cheesy or short, which is why it's a little out of the ordinary for a beat scene producer. The general idea was to reflect on the positive parts of the modern world, as I feel we as humans often tend to be lead to focus on the negatives, what with the way news media guides us to think about the time in which we live.
You’re also a graphic designer. Do you find the creative process for graphic design and music are similar or are they totally different experiences?
Most definitely. I remember one of my lecturers at Uni mentioning that a lot of Designers often have another creative hobby, with his own being music. There are a lot of similarities between songwriting and design. Careful consideration of sound design, composing, mixing and mastering are all similar steps to creating a design fit for purpose. I would argue that the principals are nigh-on identical.
You just released the album ‘Enjoy Where You Are’. What does that album mean to you? What were its major influences and inspirations?
With that particular record I wanted the focus on the feeling of contentment with your current life situations, particularly your residence. I come from a particularly "marmite" town, being that people either love it or hate it. I tend to get a bit sick of people moving away and then immediately bad mouthing it on return. I've been to most places in the UK and I think everywhere has pros and cons.
The parts of life which we can are what you make of them and so I wanted this album to look at the positive side of that.
I made a small run of tapes for this release, that came with an accompanying photography booklet. The photographs are of the place I'm living at the moment, Southsea. They were taken by my friend Karl Bailey, whose work has started to get quite the following (Instagram @karlbailey).
Finally, what's your favourite track right now?
Right now, I have been listening to a lot of Ivy Lab. I'm really digging the new Space War EP but the track getting most of my plays is Hotline, a split track they made with Two Fingers. Its heavy!
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