In a candid conversation at Hellbender, BusCrates opened up about his latest musical project "Altitude," set to release on March 21st. The album represents a culmination of about a year and a half of work and follows his previous releases "Blasting Off" and "Control Center."
How did you come up with the name "Altitude"?
BusCrates: I don't know how this happened, but there's a theme throughout my last couple of releases. My first record was called "Blasting Off," then "Control Center," and this one's called "Altitude." There's some kind of theme of space. I think subconsciously that might be a couple of things. It may be related to how I would describe my studio room, my synthesizers and everything surrounding me—it's like a control center. But also subconsciously, maybe I think it's related to escaping Earth, you know, getting into a rocket, blasting off, operating in the control center, and getting at a high enough altitude to be away from all of this madness.
That's cool. It reminds me of The Flaming Lips, with their alien, spacey themes.
How long have you been working on this album?
BusCrates: This album is a culmination of a period of about maybe a year and a half.
Oh, okay, so relatively recent.
BusCrates: Yeah, really recent. I guess I had a period in my life where I'd gotten really depressed and lazy, and I think it took much longer than it should have to come out. So now that it's going to be out, it's a relief, because now I don't have to think about making deadlines—it's done, it's in, it's about to be out there. I'm gonna be on a nice little promo campaign. As you know, we're doing a release party for it here at Hellbender.
That's on the 22nd, right?
BusCrates: Yeah. Next Saturday. That Friday (March 21), I'm going to do a Twitch live stream, just play the record straight through. If anyone has questions, or wants to gain some sort of insight to my process, or how I came up with this or that, or what synth I used, or whatever—I'm all in for that. Anyone can ask questions.
Is there a song you like the most or that means the most to you?
BusCrates: This is like picking your favorite child. I think for me, it also depends on the time and what I'm going through in my mind and in my life. I think right now, given all that I'm dealing with, I would probably have to say the one that sticks out to me the most is probably "The Prize," which features a wonderful young artist named Princess Nostalgia.
I'm very fortunate to have her on the record. She doesn't really do a whole lot of collaboration. She has her thing, but she was graceful enough to allow me to include her in this project. I remember her from when she was much younger, just getting started in all of this. We would connect every once in a while, record songs, and we did a couple shows together. Thankfully, our friend, the late great Hill Jordan on trombone—my man Hill—we had a show he put on. He was playing trombone and doing his thing. I had my samples and my synths out, and she did her set. It was really nice. She and I stay connected over the years, and now we got this collab on deck here.
When and where can people get the album?
BusCrates: It'll be out March 21 officially, digitally. Vinyls, too. You can get them on different websites. Juno has them. They may get some over here locally at the Government Center, too. And if you see me in the streets, I may have one or two on me.
Please grab tickets to BusCrates' listening party here at the Hellbender plant March 22. It's gonna be a great time ;) https://events.humanitix.com/buscrates-vinyl-listening-party
