Glossalia - Do what you love. [An Arpwire Artist Spotlight]

Glossalia is a producer with a talent of drawing inspiration from a broad range of artists that cover basically the entire iceberg of indie electronic, and cloud rap. Producers who are able to recreate a song with their own unique touch are frequently hired or compensated, and Glossalia is capable of doing just that. Their music and beats cover a wide range of genres, eras, and tones. Some of their best works are the result of a series of efforts to improve their mental health, with a recent emphasis on not overproducing. With the rewards that come with it, we are witnessing an incredible achievement of an artist leaning into themselves.

Tell us the story behind your artist name. 

There's this black metal band that I like called Glossolalia, but I kept getting their name wrong cause I thought Glossalia made much more sense and sounded nicer than Glossolalia. Then I realized I can use Glossalia for myself, because it fits me and my music very well. Its also a very elegant, powerful and magical name I think.

How did you get started in producing and making beats?

I've always been interested in music and arts, and at 15 I realized I was quite talented so I just decided to start producing music on my pc. I just do it for fun because I love it and couldn't live without creating. 

Your thumbnails that you use on youtube to post your beats are insane. Where do you find all of these?

Just find them on pinterest mostly, try to find a picture that fits the vibe of music. 

What software, hardware, or gear are essential for your signature sound?

Not much, I mostly use stock fl studio stuff, and just a gaming laptop and some decent speakers all in my room. You don’t need good equipment for this sound.

You seem to pull lots of inspiration from  many different artists. Who has been on repeat for you recently? 

My biggest inspirations for my beats are probably yabujin, islurwhenitalk, cartier god and cloud rap people like black kray, yung bruh, bladee, lil b etc. I like all kinds of music so I draw inspiration from other genres also, and recently I've been experimenting with other genres too, like idm in my style, trance, and different weird electronic genre fusions. I also want to make music with real instruments in the future, maybe some screamo, black metal, bossa nova or anything really, i love all music.

I'm not too keen on the beat selling side of music. What's something that you love about it? I feel like you'd be able to connect with a huge variety of artists. 

I just do it to make money tbh. I really love making beats, and I want to live off music so I upload to youtube to make money and to grow my "brand". I don't like what most people make on my beats so I'm gonna make more solo music in diff genres, but I'll probably always make beats too because it's fun.

Any goals that you've set for yourself with the new year? Either creatively or even personally? 

I didn't really make any concrete goals, but I'm really focusing on my mental health right now, that's why I'm not posting as much music as usual. It's been working. I am already happier, more productive and learning a lot of things every day. 

With a lot of beats under your belt. Which one holds a special place for you? Any of them that you feel like you popped off on or any that just stands out?

I really like the ones that are simple, yet interesting and unique. Sometimes I overproduce because of fear that the beat will be boring, but lately ive realized the best beats are the ones that doesn't use too many sounds but are still very interesting and unique so it gives space to the vocals. Overproducing was just to compensate for my lack of skill/fear of making something mediocre, but I didn't realize it often ruins the beat. Few sounds, with interesting/unique sound selection and mixing is the key. My favorite song i've made is probably glossalium²™ synthesis experiment #1, because I think it's the most unique thing I've made, doesn't really sound like anyone else. Its like idm with sigilkore sound selection and mixing, a very interesting style that I will experiment more with in the future. Real alien music.

What have been some collaborations that you've enjoyed doing? Any stories to go along with the collaboration?

Not really a fan of collaborating because I always have a very specific vision and I like to just make whatever I want. I like making music with my girlfriend though because she's actually talented. We like similar music and she does vocals while I do the instrumental. We will release a lot of music together in the future and it will be good.

What's next for you? Excited for anything that's going to be released soon? Any big projects coming up? Or anything you want to shout out? 

Experimenting with new stuff now and i have a lot of almost finished tracks releasing in the next weeks. Also gonna put most of my stuff on spotify, plus a lot of my beats on spotify too and see how that goes. One thing I'm really excited about is to start working on my soundkit in 2 months. It's gonna be done in a few months, at the start of summer/ late spring probably. It's gonna be full of very unique sounds that u won't find anywhere else cause i made them. Very unique drum sounds, mixing presets, 808s, sfx, and mixing presets. The sounds and style will be inspired by sigilkore stuff, yabujin and other weird stuff. gonna be like 30$ probably and very expensive. Gonna send it out for free to some good producers to make preview beats with it too. Hopefully it will help revive the sigilkore and yabujin sound because I think it's some of the most unique music of all time and the style died out way too soon, it can be explored and evolved a lot more.

- Trace Davidson

Writer, Curator