In this interview, we virtually sit down with UK based New Mantra to discuss musical styles, influences, and their newest project.
Full Q&A, links, and streams below.
Let’s dive a little deeper into You, the artist and your music. What attracted you to this genre(s) or style(s)?
Ill be completely honest, when I first started making music, I wanted to make hip-hop beats as that’s what influenced me throughout my whole life. As I started getting deeper into producing music, the style just kind of organically came out. I find it quite hard to go into a session and create a specific sound. I like to just go with the flow and go with what sounds good and feels right within the moment for the most part.
What led you into this journey with music? And further, what drives you to push it out to the public?
I’ve always wanted to create music from a young age, I just never really had the confidence to do it. I learned the guitar and aspects of the piano from either copying my favourite artists or just messing around with what sounds good. So where I wasn’t academically trained I was always nervous showing my music to people. As I got older I just thought screw it and just put what I wanted out there, as long as I was personally proud of it, I wasn’t going to let anyone else tell me otherwise.
Who or what influences your creativity? Have your tastes in music changed over time?
My influences can completely change day to day. Sometimes it can just be a melody I have in my head, sometimes a certain situation can influence it and a lot of the time its music I’m listening too at the time. At the moment Ive been really liking the NAO record and her style has been influencing my recording sessions recently.
My tastes have changed over the years, I loved hip-hop throughout my youth. The first album I remember truly falling in love with was 2001 by Dre, over the years though I’ve got into a lot of other genres and styles, I try and be as open minded as I can with music as some of my favourite artists now were bands I never thought id get into on first listen.
Were you trying to accomplish anything specific on this new project? Creatively or otherwise
I know this is going to sound like a slight contradiction but “All Over Town” was the first song (and only song) I created where I pictured what it sounded like before I created it. I had the synths down and I just knew exactly where I wanted it to go. I wanted Barnaby on it before I even asked him, I just imagined him right at the end of the track, almost like an outro. It all fell into place perfectly.
What was the last song you listened to?
Just before this interview I was listening to the Beach House record “Depression Cherry”. I love “Space Song”.
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
Well, I was illegally downloading music at 12 years old so that’s kind of evolved into me streaming all my music nowadays haha.
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
This is a hard one. Ive used Spotify for a long time, Ive been using Apple Music recently. The services are at their core pretty similar to me, the only big plus for Apple is the radio shows. I love Ebro.
Other than the digital era overwhelming us with access to an abundance of music, what is the biggest challenge you face when trying to connect with or find new fans?
That’s a good question. I’d say its getting people to stick around, its great that you get a few plays on a track but are they going to listen to your next release or next single? I find that’s the hardest part, getting people to stay along for the entire journey.
Where is the best place to connect with you online? Discover more music?
Soundcloud is good, I’ve got a few things on all the streaming services (Apple, Spotify, Deezer, TIDAL etc) I try to make my music as visible as possible so hopefully any service you search me on will do the trick.
Anything else you’d like to add before signing off?
Go follow me on something! Hopefully a lot of new music to be heard from me by the end of the year.
