by SCOTT C

I remember running into Sixtoo on the street about a year and a half ago, just after he had relocated to Montreal from his Halifax home. Like most newcomers, all he wanted to do was slag the winter, unable to see the merits of this funny little town for the icicles and subzero temperatures.

Now, on the edge of yet another Montreal summer, I work my way up the stairs to Vaughn Robert Squire's top-floor apartment, where we'll talk about all that's happened in such a small amount of time. There's been an awful lot of music on his plate for the last little while, and people are just starting to get a taste of what he's been up to since transplanting himself here.

There are many that would sing the praises of his former incarnations, such as the combined mid-'90s prowess of the Sebutones and other collaborations with down-home boy Buck 65. Working their own particular angles from the basement on up, these two were able to successfully make the indie-hip-hop Internet game work for them, accumulating a legion of loyal and open-minded fans worldwide over the years and along the way.

Sixtoo's a modest yet confident guy who feels no way about the fact that his brand of hip hop might buck every convention that you hold dear. That's part of the point. He's done his time with the purist heads, did the artist-in-residence thing with the leftfield heads, and now aims to simultaneously infiltrate the worlds of prog-hop and instrumental IDM in one fell swoop. His recent Antagonist Survival Kit album on U.K. experimental label Vertical Form has proven that he's constantly pushing boundaries as well as buttons, which we'll see in his live set at Mutek this year. His recent signing to Ninja Tune should help as well. Standing in Sixtoo's place, I ogle his well-manicured studio setup and realize that this renaissance man is not only a DJ, producer and MC, but his own technical support as well. He has everything that he could possibly need to aid in the work he has ahead of him.

Mirror: I know you came to Montreal for a lady -

Sixtoo: And the records, of course! (laughing)

M: And the overabundance of great records, but did the fact that Ninja Tune is based out of here draw you here as well? I mean, you've been here a year and you've already signed a deal with them.

S: It's funny, man, because anyone I've known whose hip hop tastes have always been a little left of centre grew up listening to Ninja Tune stuff, y'know? Amon Tobin has been my favourite producer ever since I first heard his records, and as a result of that I've been sending tapes to Ninja Tune since I started. It's funny that once I get it into my head that these fools aren't even interested with where I'm coming from is of course the time when it happens. But if I'd never moved to Montreal, it never would've happened. When you do your own thing, opportunities will arise. I'm pretty honoured to be a part of the history that Ninja has. It adds a lot of validation to what I've been doing for the last 10 years.

M: It seems to me that you're the kind of guy who has all kinds of shit recorded that nobody has ever heard or will hear. Is that the case?

S: I've got some terrible, terrible demos from back when I was listening to Leaders of the New School, but basically the first five years of me making music were only released on tape. I would sell to friends, or hustle hand-to-hand. All through high school, me and this dude DJ Moves would sell mix tapes, and we made a lot of money.

M: Oh yeah? I never made any money selling tapes.

S: We were in this New York record pool and would get all the new shit from NYC, and in retrospect, make terrible mix tapes and sell them to people. It was all about tapes then, putting freestyles and you own beats out there for people.

Days of dot-com dollars

M: How quick were you to get up on the whole Internet, selling-your-music-online thing?

S: I think I was honestly one of the first guys. As far as when underground hip hop in North America was really flying, we got in with ATAK, the first distributor that was selling L.A. and Bay Area underground tapes. That's where underground hip hop started, I think. Up until then I had really only been into New York shit, but when I saw that there were fools making money, I started whipping off CDRs as fast as I could, and they were selling like crazy. Sebutones' 50/50, the Psoriasis record, my Psyche Continuum and Intangible records -

M: You were really seeing sales?

S: That shit was flying off the shelves, and it was the heyday for independent hip hop, so the floodgates were wide open. It was the first wave for the Fondle 'Em and Rawkus stuff, and as far as moving 12-inch vinyl, it's never gonna go back to those numbers. The market's just saturated.

M: So when did you start to feel like it was over?

S: I think it peaked when Company Flow's popularity began to spread. I guess about four or five years ago. It just seems like people who were doing things independently before then were moving a lot more units then than they are now. It's just harder.

Keeping his mouth shut

M: Most people who have given your music a minute will attest to the fact that you're not your average hip hop cat. How would you describe your de-classification?

S: The stuff that I do probably lends itself to free jazz, musique actuelle and '70s electronic music as much as it does to hip hop. That being said, I grew up listening to rap in the late '80s and early '90s and I'm never gonna stop using a sampler. I dig for records, my whole shit is rocking real drums, and I grew up with Pete Rock and the SD50s, y'know? I think I have a different reference point for the music I choose to sample. It sets me apart from a lot of other artists, I think. I've been making music long enough that I don't want to keep doing the same thing.

M: I understand that you're going to take a break from MCing?

S: Antagonist Survival Kit is the last vocal record you're going to hear from me for quite some time, I think.

M: Why's that?

S: The deal that I signed with Ninja is gonna find me doing mostly instrumental stuff, and I just finished an instrumental record for MUSH that's really slow. It's got P-Love doing some stuff on it too. Really, I'm just focused on production right now. That's where my brain's at, and since I started focusing on production, it seems like things have gotten complex and much better without feeling contrived. A lot of people try to make things complicated or abstract for that very purpose. What I'm doing now has influences from dub and reggae to krautrock. It's really broad, but it's definitely turning into my own thing and really new sounding.

M: Are we ever gonna get a chance to hear the corny side of Sixtoo, y'know, step away from all the introspective seriousness?

S: I've got some stuff in the vaults but it'll never see the light of day! I'm meticulous in what I let out, and it's caused as much of a backlash as it has helped me. People know that I have a sound and my music is what it is, and that's what I choose to put forward.

With Montag, Ototo, [sic] and Pierre Crube at Mutek, at Studio (Musée Juste Pour Rire, 2109 St-Laurent) on
Friday, May 30, 5pm, free

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