OTTO
Otto Benson, better known as his pseudonym OTTO, is an electronic musician and engineering student whose music and visual art style is ticklishly playful and eerie.
His introductory EP, World Greetings, is an alien-istic interpretation of a traditional upbeat contribution to the pop world and a prelude for more to come with independent dance label, PLZ Make It Ruins. Here, OTTO plays with house and trance structures, bending the rules to create his own aesthetic. Each track is accompanied by its own cartoon visualiser, reflecting the energy and chaotic absurd that is OTTO’s music world.
Embracing the idea of an amateur artist, OTTO designs much of his own artwork which he likes to call, ‘deep-fried digital art’. He is a true creative who uses his teachings as an engineering student to forge experimental equipment, with the intention of building a more immersive experience at his live shows. We can hear his hand-made solenoid drum machine in About You Now, the first single from World Greetings.
Although OTTO says he doesn’t take his work too seriously, his projection into the music space is a fine-tuned beauty that proves otherwise.
World Greetings is the child horror, electronic music version of watching David Lynch’s Lost Highway— everything is at 10x speed and before you know it, the songs hit stop.
What’s your first musical memory?
Hard to pin down a “first” memory but I remember bouncing to OutKast in my living room while gripping a chair to hold my balance. Also dissociating and feeling really disturbed while listening to The Model by Kraftwerk in the back of my parent’s car.
How and why did you start making music?
I began playing guitar when I turned 10 and it just felt like a natural progression to record ideas I came up with. I made a lot of confused, reverb- heavy Garageband projects. But, in high school, my parents gifted me a Focusrite recording interface, which came with an Ableton Live Lite license. This led me to experiment with more deliberately electronic music. I also played in a number of bands into highschool and began to record demos for those projects. At some point in this timeline I made a SoundCloud account and self-released lots of little things, which got my music out on the webs. People seem to enjoy it and now I’m making music for PLZ!
How did you get involved with PLZ Make It Ruins?
Vegyn reached out to me over instagram a few summers ago. I think Sydney, who now does A&R for PLZ, showed him some of my stuff on SoundCloud. We exchanged emails and I sent over some unreleased music that I had been working on with my buddy Max. It was all super lucky.
Can you tell us a bit about your debut EP, World Greetings?
Yus! So, World Greetings is a collection of tracks that I made mostly in 2018, around my freshman year of college as an engineering student. I built a simple solenoid drum machine, which actuates three solenoids with USB- MIDI. For this device, I made a lot of tracks at really high tempos with breakcore-esque drum patterns. I then had the intention of playing sets where I would place solenoids on pipes, light fixtures, and other found-objects within a given space. Then, the solenoids would “play the room.” I did a few performances where they’d hit springs or pill bottles set up on a table but it was awkward and I never got around to making the system large enough for a full room. This was one of many attempts at making more engaging “performances” of electronic music, which is something I’ve always struggled with. Anywho, I had these jelly fast tracks meant for my solenoids, which Vegyn heard and enjoyed, and we compiled them along with About You Now, a cover of the Miranda Cosgrove & Sugababes song, made with Max and woodwind legend Ben Cohen during the summer of 2018. The whole project is supposed to be a prelude to my LP, which comes out on PLZ in September.
Your music is accompanied by some amazing artwork; how do you harmonise the imagery with your music? What’s your creative process?
Thank you! This is maybe an uninteresting answer but I literally just try to paint what a track feels like or means to me. This also works in the opposite direction: making music or sounds based on a specific image. All my music for PLZ is supposed to be shameless “laptop” music, so it felt natural to make all the art digitally on my laptop. I used a lot of GAN-generated faces and images combined with bright shapes I messily sketched out with my mouse. A big aspect of my work, exemplified by this process, is that I am trying to embrace the idea of an “amateur” artist. For me, this involves taking technique a lot less seriously and creating expressions with whatever mediums or technologies are abundantly convenient. I find this way of working much more sustainable because I use what I have until the last drop and I end up working more “divergently,” if that makes sense.
You have quite a strong visual identity for someone who is just starting out, where does your inspiration come from and how did you get to the stage you’re at now?
Thank you! A big inspiration for me over the past several years has definitely been Michael Hurley. Aside from his incredible songwriting, he makes accompanying cartoons and watercolors that I find really funny. I had the great privilege of seeing him perform in Greenfield ~2 years ago and it was a very healing experience. But, medieval paintings and tapestries are also a big source of inspo for my visual art. I love any ancient art with faux “3- D” 2-D environments, tons of stuff going on, and cartoonishly awkward faces. I have always loved to draw, especially surrealist or grotesque scenes with creatures and uncomfortable looking white men. But, more recently, I’ve been making more “deep-fried” digital art with the same themes and inspiration.
And for the age-old question, where do you see yourself in 5 years? Have you set a personal goal or ideal for you and your creative practice?
Hm, tricky. Hard to say because I’m still figuring a lot out at the moment. I’ll always be pumping out music and art regardless of my circumstances; it’s a coping activity for me. But a dream of mine is to uplift some kind of pop star. I’d love to use my addiction to the production process to help someone or something become a stadium act: we could make giant found-object costumes, write megahits, build a robot band, etc. I’m exaggerating but I would love to contribute whatever I can to a larger entity, and hopefully instill a little bit of my aforementioned “amateur” approach into a broader audience.
Would you care to leave us with a song?
I’ve had this Elysia Crampton demo stuck in my head through quarantine: https://elysiacrampton.bandcamp.com/track/for-t-o-demo-2018 Buy her music and give her lots of money!!! She’s unacceptably underrated. Her new record on PAN is amazing as well.
interview ANISHA KHEMLANI
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