A Quick Chat with Lliam

Lligament moves between trap, lo-fi, boom bap and electronic influences. Do you consciously set out to blur genre boundaries, or does that happen naturally when you're making music?

It definitely happens more naturally, I often set out to produce a certain style for a track, but then quickly get sidetracked exploring sounds within the tools I use. I also think sonic boundaries can stifle creativity by limiting the sounds artists can acceptably explore within their pre-established genre. I often find myself asking questions like ‘Why can't I use a pan flute in trap music?’

The album explores everything from loneliness and identity to car culture and mental health. What was the central idea or feeling you found yourself returning to while making it?

I write mostly from a place of lived experience, whatever I am thinking or feeling at any given time usually works its way into my lyrics. I had to take a month off work due to an injury which allowed me the time and space to really put this album together. I spent a lot of time alone thinking about my purpose and realised, very acutely, that it was not to spend 5 days a week at the cyclical, meaningless day job. I realised that the time is now or never to make my artistic dreams come true.

I guess the central idea of Lligament is ‘self actualisation’ - If they can make it, so can I.

You're outspoken about your dislike of automated art and machine-generated creativity. What do you think we're losing as more of the creative world becomes automated?

This is a big one for me that deserves a whole essay but I will try to keep it brief.

Environmental, economic and cognitive concerns aside, AI is built on regurgitating existing human material in a very distinct yet soulless way. My concern with it as a tool for creativity is that; if we all use the same assistant brain to write and format, if we all use the same assistant eyes to churn out lifeless design, then all media will start to feel the same. I fear that if we relinquish the effort part of making art then we will lose the ‘human’ part of human expression.

Your production has a distinctly underground quality, while your influences span artists like BONES, atlas and YNG Martyr. Which artists or scenes have had the biggest impact on your sound?

My music taste has always been eclectic and I assume it bleeds through into my production. In terms of specific influences, I will credit a lot of the late 2010’s Soundcloud rap with providing the foundation for the music I make today. I grew up on artists like Lil Peep, Terror Reid, $uicideboy$, BONES, Corbin and others in the trap/darkrap/emo scene. In recent years I have taken much inspiration from British alternative rappers Onoe Capone and Gao the Arsonist to push the boundaries of what hip-hop can be.

Though, if i had to pick one, I would choose the lofi rapper turned hyperpopstar atlas. She showed me that if I wrote from a place of honest authenticity and with enough dedication to the craft, I could become a real wordsmith.

This is your third studio album. How has your approach to making music changed since your earlier releases, and where do you think you've taken the biggest creative leap?

I don't hear it spoken about that much in the media, but I believe dedication and time spent refining skills is such an important thing. I released the first album just to prove to myself that I could and then, in the years since, I spent over a thousand hours on FL Studio actually refining my craft. I learnt (mostly through trial and error) how to create music that I am genuinely proud of. I am still free falling off the leap that involved prioritising my career in music as opposed to a career in a job that makes money.

I am broke and I wont say I am happy but I definitely am me.

If someone discovers lliam for the first time through Lligament, what's the one thing you'd want them to understand about you as an artist?

The most important thing to understand about Lligament and lliam is the nature of modern reality. The person on your screen doesn’t exist in real life. Sure, the music is all tied to real experiences and real emotions but lliam is a character built to help express myself in a digital world. I am an artist who makes physical art but must conform to the separate digital reality if my music is to become something self-sustaining. I want to share myself and my art with others, as millions of humans have wanted to do for millennia, but for the first time in history, I must do it in a space that influences the physical world but exists separately, alongside reality. This modern separation of identity is something that I am sure a lot of people grapple with and something that I will continue to explore in my music.