Intersecting with a:xus

>> >> Austin Bascom's love affair with music and colons

by KRISTA

The story of Austin Bascom isn't quite the same old "I grew up listening to music and decided I wanted to make it" like the average producer. Born and raised near Hackney in London, Bascom (who records under the names a:xus and Abacus) moved to Canada at the age of 17, and it wasn't until several years later that he started noodling around with machines trying to make tunes.

Having grown up in an East London suburb rife with West Indian culture, listening to reggae and rare grooves, Bascom initially found himself rather confused by North American pop culture.

"I didn't really know what to make of all of it at first," he tells me from a friend's house in Toronto. "I grew up listening to what people nowadays associate with [Talkin' Loud label head] Giles Peterson--lots of jazz and funk. I moved here and it was all about breakdancing and it lost me. But then I heard 'Numbers' by Kraftwerk and I started listening to the music coming out of Detroit and Chicago."

Once the clean hook of the Motor City's electro-techno and house music sound was firmly planted in Bascom's ear, he started making regular trips across the bridge into Detroit to the legendary Music Institute club. There he heard and befriended the great pioneers like Juan Atkins, Derrick May, Chez Damier et al. At the time Bascom had been experimenting with studio work, engineering hip hop tracks for local guys in Toronto, but he was drawn in by the "melancholy yet triumphant sounds" of the then-new techno luminaries.

"The first hook was when I went over to Derrick May's house. He had this fly crib and this crazy setup where you just pressed a button and all this great music started playing. I mean, the sounds were just incredible. I had never heard anything like that before. After that I started looking for more equipment and working on more dance-

oriented music."

Shortly thereafter Chez Damier released Bascom's first record, the Relics EP, under the Abacus pseudonym on the Prescription Underground imprint. "It was the first complete song that I ever did. When I look back now it seems very basic, but I was really happy with it when it came out. I had been making a lot of bad music for a while," he continues, chuckling.

After the Relics EP came releases on labels like DNH, Fragile, Crammed Disc and Chicago's Guidance Records. Most recently Bascom, as a:xus, produced his first full-length album entitled Soundtrack for Life for Guidance. A far cry indeed from the simple chord structures of his early productions as Abacus, for his debut LP Bascom drew upon elements of R&B, jazz, Detroit techno and Chicago house. The final product is a stunning collection of richly-textured dancefloor jazz, the highlight of which is a remake of the theme song from the cult film Bagdad Café, with vocals delivered beautifully by Naomi Nsombi. It's a favourite at NYC's Body & Soul club.

"It's never been just about house music for me," Bascom says. "Now I'm working with an Afro-fusion band and doing a little more electronica. And I've started up my own label called re:think and have the first three or four releases ready to go, so I've got work for a good year or so. We'll see what happens."

Oh, one last thing: what's with all the colons? "I just like how they look in print." :

A:xus and Naomi Nsombi open the new Gospel night at Jingxi this Sunday, June 25, 10pm, $10 at the door, $8 with pass