Citizen's Most Wanted: Peace Of Mind

Our latest Most Wanted feature is penned by Citizen, an artist who has quickly risen through the production ranks over the last three years. Working tirelessly to define his sound in a busy world of club music he's been doing a pretty good job of it, winning over Kerri Chandler with his sound, his early productions came housed on the deep house master's Madtech imprint and more recently Citizen has found himself a home at Ralph Lawson's imperative 2020 Vision imprint - affirming that his productions have got what it takes to impress some of the most in the know producers. Citizen’s next visit to Farringdon will be as part of Lawson's label’s Content tour, a series of shows rounding off the year of celebration for 2020's 20th year of operation, so for the inspiration for the theme of his Most Wanted entry the London based artist looked to his own drive and his struggle to create a sonic identity in a world where easy fix production tactics are awfully commonplace… What I want, mostly is peace of mind. I've always taken a rather tactile approach at production. I like to be able to throw few elements In. Daw and massage them into working with one another, eventually building up arrangements and structure, accumulating or omitting elements as the track begins to take shape. I began to become complacent with this technique in that I thought I wasn't pushing myself as far as I would have liked, sat gleefully in my comfort zone using the same methods. This led me to seek out new ways to create music. The process and subsequent obsession with collecting gear had begun. And I've been through it all recently. Staying up for days on end (missing meetings and appointments) tweaking knobs and sliding faders, patching, chaining and pinching, a lot of swearing and temper tantrums. It turns out after all of this time I had made around 1 and a half tracks to show for all the bidding, scrimping and saving. Hardly productive. As producers we all strive for our own signature sound, as saturated as the scene is right now. On speaking to many other up and coming producers this seems to be the main concern, rather than the music they are making or the process and timeline it took them to get there. I feel this is the gap the manufacturers tend to exploit, new ways of making music "efficiently and reliably". I've found that various products have actually homogenised the process and those that openly talk about using them tend to produce music that sounds quite similar feeding that insecurity that they have not yet developed their own sound, their own way of doing things. I feel it's important as producers to have a certain sense of peace of mind. A confidence that allows you to proudly put out music that you know defines you and only you and not things that make you Cringe a month down the line because you took a hit on creativity for gadgets and gizmos you didn't need. I think that we need a new Renaissance of taking it to the raw, stripping things back and keeping it human and our approaches minimal and untainted by excessive outside influence and what's happening within the scene. I feel Clarity of the mind is essential for this if you intend to do this music thing full time. You are not what synthesiser you own.