Apollo’s Harp is the three piece art collective established in 2015. Ulises Valadez Contreras, Achille, and G.Rola are three genre bending producers who have set out to create their own sound and lane. Everything from website design to album artwork is done between the three artists, even the label illustration is done by their own G.Rola. That shows just the tip of the iceberg that is the chemistry between this collective. Dawn is The Enemy is a three track EP released on April 24 and is just a hint of what the trio has to offer. All finding their own way to manipulate the same sample, Contreras, Achille, and G.Rola all prove to have their own sound to present to the world. We sat down to discuss everything from their beginnings to their creative process to what is coming next from this talented collective.
Enjoy the interview;
How did you guys meet?
Contreras: It was all on twitter.
Achille: I remember Ulises tweeted something about starting a collective so I just DMed him like ‘Hey, can I do that?’ I found Noir (Contreras 2014 album, that was remastered and re-released earlier this year) just a month before I even found Ulises on twitter, I heard it on Youtube, so when I saw you wanted to do a collective I was like, shit, yea.
G.Rola: Same here for me, I think he (Contreras) followed me and I went on his page and I was expecting like Hip-hop or boom bap stuff, and when it wasn’t that I was like ‘Okay let me keep an eye on this guy.’ Then he sent out that tweet and I was like ‘what’s good.’
So Ulises is sort of like the guy in charge?
Contreras: I just try and keep everyone together and let people know what’s going on. But if anyone else wants to take charge be my guest.
So was it immediately a label? How would you describe the relationship?
Contreras: I would consider a label something that does physical releases, we haven’t done that yet, we want to. But with the Covid stuff going on that's been delayed. I’ll consider us more of a label once we start doing that. Right now we’re definitely a collective.
Who came up with the Apollo’s Harp name?
Contreras: That was me, I think it sounds cool but lots of times when I watch interviews of certain artists, sometimes they can say like ‘oh I made this song in 5-10 minutes’ and it’s one of their best songs. I feel like artists in general can just connect like that. Music has this great connection and if you get lucky, you’ll get a great song sent your way. Also the greek god of music was Apollo, so that's where that comes from. I added ‘harp’ since we’re the musicians we’re kind of like the instrument to him, so Apollo's Harp.
Achille: I remember when I first saw the name too, when I was younger I used to be a big greek mythology buff so I was like ‘Ah, i see what that is!’
Contreras: Yea dude greek mythology is dope. I don’t know how my parents came up with my name because we’re Mexican, I think Ulisies is kind of a common name. I’m glad I ended up with that name, it connects with a lot of stuff.
Achille: That worked well for me too because my name is Achille, so that's another connection to greek mythology. So I saw Apollo’s Harp and thought ‘oh that makes sense.’
Is this the debut project from the label?
Contreras: Yea because everything else has been solo, it’s a little EP, just three tracks. Each track is a beat from one of us. The style I do it is trying to connect songs in a certain way. We’ll have more in future, we have other stuff planned. This is just to get the fire started.
Why release the debut now?
Achille: We’ve had it done for a while.
Contreras: We’ve had some technical difficulties. We were planning on releasing this back in early February.
Achille: Yea we didn’t just start this, we finished it and have just been sitting on it for a while.
Were these songs made for this project?
Achille: It was made for this, Ulises found a pretty lengthy sample and sent it to us and was like ‘if you find anything send it in, let’s structure something off the same type of sound.’
So you all flipped the same sample?
G.Rola: It was maybe a 20 minute track.
Contreras: It was a mix of ambient tracks.
Acille: I think it made it better as a whole instead of just a compilation of ‘here's some random stuff that we just have.’ It made it feel like a more formal release.
Is there an intended horror theme to the label's artwork?
Contreras: I’m the guy that makes the covers for the collective, I think I just naturally gravitate towards dark things. I don’t try to, if somebody asks me to do something else I can. The Noir cover is pretty old. The cover for Dawn is the Enemy is something I've had in my vault for years, I thought it looked so cool and I really wanted to use it.
Achille: I remember you sent us that a while ago before we talked about Dawn is the Enemy.
Contreras: I just really wanted to use it for something. In the future you’ll see a variety of different styles. That’s just how I do things, I never have one theme for anything. The Precursor (Achilles’s beat tape from last month) cover is different.
Achille: That one feels a little more cartoony, which is noticeably different than the other stuff. I feel that they are still vaguely similar in structure. Especially with Precursor and Noir, the text off the covers and other aspects are similar.
Contreras: I just like text, it’s a big thing of graphic design, other than the picture of it. I always try to add text and stuff. I’m big on text, I try and keep it minimal sometimes.
What’s the creative process of having to work through the internet?
Contreras: I don’t think it's been bad, so far we haven’t made a track on the same project file. I've tried doing it before, I don’t think I know how. I’m pretty sure a big part of it is having your files organized, I kind of suck at that.
Achille: My files are terrible, they are all just named like ‘2020_3.’
Contreras: I know I can’t just send you an Fruity Loop project file and it’ll open on your computer. We have to figure that out. That's a big thing we have to do, collaborate on one track. As far as sharing ideas that's been pretty easy.
Achille: It feels like we’re kind of on the same page on how we do stuff together and on our own, which makes it easy and quick. I’ve never worked on a project file with anyone either, so I have no idea as well. Whenever I’ve done anything with the group, what I do is just send a version of it over and get feedback on it. That's really the type of collaboration that has happened so far, rather than direct ‘let me add this or that.’ It feels more like ‘oh maybe you should try this instead.’
Contreras: Which has been really helpful.
It’s more of like a safe space to get feedback
The crew unanimously agrees.
What is the sample picking process for you guys?
Achille: It’s something you learn over time.
G.Rola: I remember when I first sat down to try and sample something I was like ‘oh this is ten times harder than I thought it was gonna be.’ I played guitar and that was more ‘oh play these chords and you got the song down.’ With sampling you gotta train your ear, then you have to find stuff that hasn’t been used to death, it’s more or less when it subconsciously clicks. Even when it does click like ‘oh I can sample that’ when you go to do it, it sounds differently now that I’m trying. It’s a lot of trial and error before you learn how to do it.
Contreras: My process is different, it’s hard for me because I clash a lot with my own ideas because I’m always trying to make different styles of music, I don’t try to just do like hip-hop and stuff. You never know which direction a sample will take you. I don’t really care if the sample has been used to death, my trick is trying to make it as indistinguishable as possible, nobody will know where it comes from unless you really catch it. I sample whatever, as long as I can make something out of it. In my Fruity Loops studio I have like 500 samples all together, completely different from each other, but it's a mess.
Achille: It depends for me, if it's something super obvious I’ll try and obscure it, but with loops especially I like to keep it pure. My approach really depends on what I’m making. For my classic, boom bap beats, it’s about digging through as much as I can find and finding loops or just parts of songs that are really good. A lot of the samples I find, I save them then don’t even use them, I might not hear it now, but I hear it enough that I’ll know later. For me it’s mostly feeling, I like sampling outside of the stereotypical soul and R&B. I like sampling ambient, I like sampling house music a lot. I also make ambient music, for that I look for texture more than anything. I like ambient and drone music and a lot of that is super texture based, it’s looped a lot of the time, that means it has to be deep enough to work on multiple listens. For that style I try to find something very textured but clear, so everything can be heard and actively listened to or it could sit in the back and you could not pay attention to it.
Contreras: I wouldn’t have guessed you sampled for the ambient tracks.
Achille: “Prestige” (a track posted to Apollo’s Harp Soundcloud last month) is sampled. Both of the ambient tracks I’ve released have been samples, the one “For Zachary” which I released a while ago. I’ll send you that one later Ulises that sample is one of my proudest moments. It’s a weird one but I liked it a lot. That’s another thing too, make something crazy with the sample and just be like ‘wow that doesn’t line up at all’ it’s fun to do that.
Where does the inspiration for the ambiance come from?
Contreras: That might come from me, it’s a personal preference thing. I’m very big on taking the listener into the world I'm trying to make in my music. Building up ambiance and an environment in a song is a big thing for me. I don’t think G.Rola does it as much.
G.Rola: Not really, I kind of started doing it once I was in Apollo’s Harp. That one week I was dropping a beat everyday, I was taking a lot from Achille and Ulises because I was going through soul samples like nobody's business so I wanted to try something different, so I was like ‘oh these guys do this so let me try.’
Achille: I noticed that on your track on this EP because you have a switch up in there, it’s not long but moments like that are cool.
Contreras: It’s its own wave basically. Ambiance is really big for me because a lot of my favorite albums build a great atmosphere, like Madvillanly, that album is just a whole universe on its own. I really like stuff like that. When people listen to an Apollo project it’ll stand out like ‘that album is its own self.’
Achille: My old stuff was basically just compilations, when I first started releasing music it was like ‘here's 9 tracks that I did.’ It wasn’t really until Precursor or the new stuff I did with Apollo’s harp and my newer solo stuff that I’m working on that I started paying more attention to transitions and empty space because I grew up a drummer. The most important thing I learned is when to not drum so when I started to get a better grasp of production and making beats, that's when I started to apply that lesson to it like ‘okay when is the correct time to not, rather than to’ and I didn’t start doing that much either until I was with Apollo’s Harp. On my old stuff there are moments like that but it just doesn’t connect, it’s like single flips or single beats. Now it’s different, you can hear that with Precursor too, there's not really a silent moment in there even during the transitions.
Contreras: I think it is so much better like that, nothing is wrong with just releasing a normal album. When I’m working on a project, at least for me, I try to make it as personal as possible. So if the album is 30 minutes you’re gonna be listening to 30 minutes of something. You’ve heard silence before, this isn’t the moment for silence. I always try and fill in the gaps whenever I can to add more.
For a new listener, how would you describe the sound of Apollo’s Harp
Achille: I know early on Ulises and I talked about wanting releases to be cinematic, or thematic I guess, if that makes any sense. It hooks into what we were talking about with the space and ambient stuff, something that feels like a complete experience. Along the lines of dramatic I suppose. It also depends on which one of us you’re listening to though.
Contreras: Technique style I think Achille is more of the loop style, because those loops are beautiful, he also has great production style, but those loops are just perfect sometimes. G.Rola is really good at chopping samples up, he is a lot more MPC. Which is great, that’s something that I can’t even do. I wanna learn how to do it!
Achille: I’m spotty on that as well.
Contreras: It really depends on who you’re listening to. Just know it's gonna be great.
Achille: I feel like all of us do have that bigger style though because G.Rola did a flip of “2 Seater” and that had the same energy, it was very big, it was very layered. It was very cinematic I guess. For me, being more on the loop side of things I think that's why I like loops so much because they feel like that to me.
You guys really bounce ideas off of each other well, is there a certain lesson you learned from one another that really changed how you make music?
Achille: For me, with G.Rola especially, your flips for quarantine really changed the way I approach flips. Early on, I used to try to be super complex and there was too much going on instead of just focusing on how it sounded and how it worked. Also just how many you made, it made me clock in a realize maybe I can not take it as seriously and just release them like ‘fuck it, heres this, heres that.’ That was a big thing for me and also the way you did it on Twitter with the fucking Omelly flip, that was so hard. I was like ‘okay maybe I need to stop taking this as seriously.’
With Ulises, it was about creating a full project with scope in mind as a concrete, full piece compared to here is like 15 beats I made. Which is great, I’ve released music like that I will continue to release music like that but I like having that option as an approach to a project. There are a lot of really good albums and beat tapes that do that by nature. Israeli Salad by Alchemist is like that, a lot of Knxwledge is like that.
Contreas: In terms of transitions?
Achille: Exactly
Contreas: Lil Ugly Mane is good at that too, Oblivion Access is an example
Achille: And Third Side of the Tape too, which is crazy because it’s literally just losies. It's just random stuff like there's a black metal song on there, there’s just a straight up acapella track. That was a big lesson from Ulises, was to stop telling myself ‘it’s just a beat tape so just put these beats together.’ Instead be like ‘it’s a beat tape but I can still take it seriously on that level.’
G.Rola: I learned the exact opposite from them, I’m used to playing it fast and loose where i’m like ‘yeah it sounds dope let me put it out’ but I learned from them that it’s not just a couple of beats I made. At a point, I would just create, create, create for rappers specifically and whatever wouldn’t get picked up would go on a beat tape. With the one I'm working on now I worked with the intention of making it a cohesive project, we’re just learning from each other. Achille and I just balance each other out.
Achille: We taught each other the lessons we needed to hear.
G.Rola: Like the Omelly flip, I just thought ‘wouldn’t it be fucking hilarious if I just made a hard ass beat and made this guy sound good,’ and that was a challenge. People were tuning in expecting to laugh but they were like ‘oh this is actually kind of dope.’
Contreras: The lesson I learned from these guys is to create more. I feel like everytime I make a song or a beat right away I would start thinking about the future and how big this song would be or what would be the perfect project for it, so it would just get thrown into the vault and it would just sit there for years. I’ve done that with so many songs. I’m learning from them to just relax more. When I make something, a thought pops in the back of my head like ‘okay i’ll never be able to make something again,’ so like this is probably it, so I end up hoarding the songs. Watching these guys create, they make a lot of music, so it gives me the confidence to release something like ‘okay i’ll make something else eventually.’ I have random bursts where I can go a week and make a lot of music, but then just be dry for like weeks or months. During that time I’ll still practice and try and learn new things, but to make a song and sometimes a loop it could take a while.
Achille: That's how I used to be too, I would make something and be like ‘fuck, that's it, it was a good run.’
Contreras: I was surprised last year because last year I feel like I made a lot of music. And this year, like when I was freaking out the other day because I couldn’t find that file I was working on, I was checking a lot of the dates because I knew what dates I made it. For 2020 I think I only have like three songs I made so far. Trust me, I keep trying, I feel like if someone throws me an idea or someone tells me ‘try and make something like this,’ that gives me more of a direction to head towards. That’s a big problem for me too because when I open a file, that's like a brand new canvas so it’s like ‘what the fuck am I gonna do today.’
Achille: I like having some sort of reference. Usually what makes me want to make music the most is other music. I hear something and i’m like ‘oh I want to make something like that’ and along the way I find things that make it turn out completely different but it’s nice to have that ground zero base. I do that with mixing a lot, like ‘oh I like how that snare sounds let me try and make a snare like that’
Contreras: That’s what happened with Dawn is the Enemy. I thought of it but it was still a group project and it gave me a good idea of what direction to head. Right now there is a lot of stuff going on. We have a lot of stuff planned, but sometimes, music wise, I don’t know where to head towards so we’ll probably make more stuff. We have an idea to do like a compilation of beats so that would be more like ‘let’s try and make a style beat like this’ and we can send them back and forth like that, something that we really like and want to try and do.
When do you guys consider one of your songs done?
Achille: For me it’s feeling, I usually go by feeling and I’ll finish something to a point where I think it’s done and I'll let it sit for a while and then go back and listen to it with fresh ears. There's this old video that Alchemist put out with a drum kit he released where he talked about how you can put too much into a beat. That’s kind of the approach I try to take because a lot of the time I'll try different things with the beat and over do it and be like ‘nah that's too much let me take this out,’ so it depends. Other times I’ll like to find the right thing and get it done in 15 minutes and the rest of the process is just mixing so it just depends. I usually like to take time before I put something out. Unless it's like ‘oh i flipped this let me put it on Twitter real quick’
Contreras: You can't rush things too, you can really think something is done but if you give it enough time you’ll go back to it later and probably hate it. That’s what happened with Noir. When I released it back in 2014, I made it in like three days so that's why I remastered it because I released it and I thought it was so cool, maybe like the first week it was out. I would go back to it like a month later and just with the better equipment I have now, I would think ‘this sounds terrible.’ I don’t even think there was mixing involved the first time I made it so you gotta give things time. I don’t think I’ll ever do that again where I make something and release it the next day. Nowadays, I like to have the song on my phone and play it like any other song by any other artist and see if it fits good in my life or if it hypes me up or if it fits a certain feeling.
G.Rola: Same here, you make a beat and you let it sit there for awhile then come back. Sometimes, I like doing that the same day, because I like to keep moving on so I’ll leave my laptop for like 10 minutes and if it’s trash, it’s trash. If the 10 minute memory isn’t good enough just leave it in the hard drive. Just keep making and creating and the files you keep coming back to, those are the files that stand out. I’ll go back to beats I made a year ago, that still might be trash, but I've grown since then so I can think of a new way to flip it now. Letting it grow on you over time allows you to know when it’s done.
Your bio on Soundcloud describes you guys as “An Audio label for artists, bands and anything else that creates” can you expand on that a little?
Contreras: I came up with that in 2015 after I was done with Flawless Leauge (a past collective Contreras was apart of), It was kind of like a start over because I don’t mind rebuilding or going over what went wrong and what went right. Apollo’s Harp is more like this is it. I’ve learned from the last couple times that it should be done right this time. It was hard for Flawless Leauge because it was a lot of different styles in music and people would circle us in as a hip-hop collective. There was a guy who made instrumental hip-hop and that was really great and then there would be me and I would try to do the experimental hip-hop which is like Noir and stuff like that and then there was another member making this industrial type music which was interesting and cool but it was starting to get weird. Which is what I want but people are gonna get stuck on it being a hip-hop collective and not go towards the weirder, more genre pushing stuff and lean more to the safe hip-hop stuff.
That's what I was trying to do with Apollo’s Harp, anyone can join. Especially me because I want to work in so many styles of music and I always have different stuff. I’m sitting on this really cool reggaeton session right now and I’m trying to figure out how to do it so if this is done right in a couple years Apollo’s Harp can have hip-hop projects under it and maybe noise projects under it, ambient projects, and down the line we can do pop projects, If it sounds good and you’re passionate about this, yea you can be apart of this.
Achille: For me I’ve always been really fascinated by labels and collectives that don’t really stick to one genre and are only overarchingly similar in a more general sound or approach. That’s what I like about that tagline, whoever can come.
What’s next after Dawn is the Enemy
Contreas: I’ve got Cult Radio, that’s definitely not gonna be a hip-hop project, I have it labeled now as synthwave, there are other type of genres on there but it’s hella inspired by that because it’s still sampled based i’m always gonna be sample based somewhat so it comes a lot from that style of music. I have another project I’ve been working on but that’s not gonna be for another year because I want to work with many styles and genres I can push in there.
Achille: Mid-May I have a tape of Drake flips that’s gonna come out and I’ve been working on a full tape for a while now that’s hopefully gonna be out within the next couple of months, but there's not a date for it. I have a few ambient things I have sitting around, I eventually want to get to an ambient project. I have a few collaborations with some rappers that will be coming out that I've been working on over time. But the big one is a tape of Drake flips, which I'm pretty proud of. I’m not even a Drake fan but that’s how I like to approach flips. I like the way their voice sounds rather than the complexity of lyrics.
G.Rola: I’m working on a project right now that's more rapper based, I made a lot of beats with the intent of getting rappers on them, the beats have been sent out to I’m just waiting to get all those back then I’ll start piecing together an album.
Listen to their new EP Below and purchase it here: http://apollosharp.net/Dawn.html
Follow the collective @itsApollosHarp;
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