A Conversation With Music Artist “Sharp Waters”

Today on our hot seat we have a very enthusiastic and hard working artist “Sharp Waters” who has recently release his debut Album “Warrior Sound”. Lets have chat with him.

Twist Online : First Tell us a little about the starting of your music career.
Sharp Waters : My relationship with music is not a career, but one one I’ve shared in since childhood. Some of my earliest memories are dancing around singing along with cassette tapes. I was five years old when, for Christmas, my brother was gifted Green Day’s Dookie and Coolio’s Gangster’s Paradise. Those along with the Lion King Sound Track, the song “Big Rock Candy Mountain”, and my dad playing the chords to a well known song, the name of which escapes me, on a new Made in Mexico Fender Stratocaster he’d bought- the same guitar I record with now, no twentyish years laters. It whirled on from there. I can recall no time in my life when I have not felt a great enthusiasm towards or connectedness with music. It was in my early teens when I took to playing an instrument, the electric bass, and soon after took to other instruments and recording. It all been a rather predictable progression, looking back at it, of the drive to create, manifested as music.

Twist Online : You recently released your debut Album “Warrior Sound” tell us about that.
Sharp Waters : Warrior Sound sound is the product of years of prating the art of recording, shaping sound, delving into genre and soundscape. I’ve heard musicians in interviews say that if something doesn’t for out of the initial idea quickly, it’s time to trash it. This is not my case. I work and rework pieces, continuously revisiting them. Because of this, some of tracks, or pieces of tracks, we recorded as far back as 2007, while others were recorded in the finishing efforts of the album during the early months of 2016, and the many years between are too accounted for. I have enough roughed out to nearly finished recordings, in fact, to release another five full-length albums over the coming years. It’s the polishing and evolving the sound, and keeping it current and up to date without sacrificing its roots, vibe, or intention, that takes hundreds of hours. My stylistic interests continually change, so if the album where all recoding from one period, it would sound very different. Pre-2010, it’s still very raw- roots reggae and hip hop influenced- and far from release-worthy. After this I was focused on big room beats, trance, house, and dub step, while at the same time diving head first into the flood of emerging computer music modulation and mixing technology. In 2012, I found myself at my first big electronic hippie festival, and from then on everything got progressively more dubbed, chopped up, and electric, pulling from everything past and present, and visions of soundscapes not yet translated to this world. This coincided with knew understanding of sampling and synthesis that drastically changed my approach and arrangement techniques. So what Warrior Sound is, really, is a big mash up of years of original recordings, and future albums, which I already have named actually, as though they’re a saga, will share this characteristic. Time will tell if I bring them to fruition.

Twist Online : Out of these 12 tracks in album which one is your favorite?
Sharp Waters : No one track is my favorite, and frankly, at this point, I’ve listed to them so many times I’m a bit burnt out. There are bits that are my favorite though- like the intro to “To Get Around”- I love that bit, and details like transitions and modulations, those to me are what sparkle. A part of the album that stands out, however, if I were to point at only one, it the rocksteady dub cut that makes up the second half of the track “Civilization”.

Twist Online : Are you inspired of someone in music industry?
Sharp Waters : I’m inspired by life, all life, by existence, and certainly by inspiring people, business people and musicians alike, but more so from nature. Industry, all industry, be it the record industry or industrial agriculture, I feel strongly when I say that, we’d be far better without.

Twist Online : What’s your music genre? any particular reason?
Sharp Waters : I’ve spent a lot of time loving feeling deep bass, intricate rhythms, and sultry melodies and harmonies. I get a kick out of sound design and all the wonky noises we can create with computer processing. Genre though, no, it’s too confining. My music doesn’t fit well into one.

Twist Online : Do you write you own songs?
Sharp Waters : The music is original, recorded by myself and the occasional collaboration with friends. That’s not to say though that I’m not drawing from influences, be it a song or whatever. Originality is a strange concept, one that I’m not yet convinced we a capable of, because everything we do is building upon what has already been done, and outside of this context, could not be done. It’s been a long time since I’ve sat down and “wrote a song”. I did often in my teens. My process now is more recording based, and then molding it into a composition. Sometimes I sit down and write lyrics, but the sparse vocals on Warrior Sound were live and fluid, without forethought.

Twist Online : What’s your goal in life you want to achieve next?
Sharp Waters : Financial independence from wage slavery.

Twist Online : Any new project you are working on? When it will be released?
Sharp Waters : I’m a project-holic. It seems I always have at least eleven things in the works. People who feel board, get moving, life is short, and we only have enough time to experience the slightest little bit and to develop and real skill and understanding. The next album, if I do pursue releasing it, could come out as soon as next June, though probably not sooner. I’m in hiatus, involved full time in other aspects of my life until at least February of 2017. So if I do put forth this next album, chances are it will be form in Spring of 2017, just as Warrior Sound was formed in Spring of 2016.

Twist Online : Are you on Social Media? Your fans would love to follow you.
Sharp Waters : Yes, I can be found on Facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/sharpwatersmusic/
and on Soundcloud at
https://soundcloud.com/sharpwatersmusic.
Join the mailing list at
sharpwatersmusic.net
Purchase the album, Warrior Sound, from Street Ritual Records, at
http://music.streetritual.com/album/warrior-sound