Artist DIY is a series of videos made by artists in collaboration with FACT in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last month, South London producer and visual artist patten released GLOW, a beatless album recorded over a few late nights in lockdown. GLOW’s uneasy stillness is the antithesis of last year’s FLEX, an album of rip-roaring club music that provided the debut release on his 555-5555 imprint.
“The process was four evenings, just sketching out loads of stuff out really fast, just really calm pure melody and textures,” patten says. “I jammed stuff out and when something worked I’d just record it down.”
In this episode of Artist DIY, filmed, directed and edited entirely by patten himself, he takes us behind the scenes of the making of GLOW. He also gives us a look back at his career so far and digs into his extensive archive to provide an insight into how he creates his videos, artwork and AV shows.
“Visuals have been a massive part of patten since forever,” patten says, and he shows us how he used a video game engine to create the animated artwork of GLOW, as well as looking at the work of his design studio, label and forum, 555-5555.
“Obviously with COVID there’s no live shows really, so it’s been about working with that reality and still trying to make stuff that can really feel like something out there.”
Find GLOW at patten’s Bandcamp. Since the release of the album, patten has also released a drone-inspired inversion of GLOW called GLO))).
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