“NYC & London link-up nrg pushed thru fibre optics.”
patten is tearing through an incredibly prolific streak. In the space of a year the south London producer and visual artist has released no less than seven projects, including GLOW, Aegis, 3049 OST and now BURNER, a new EP featuring a ferocious collaboration from Beans, co-founder of NYC rap weirdos Antipop Consortium. ‘Eat Smoke’ sees the MC going in hard over an energetic instrumental that patten describes as “NYC & London link-up nrg pushed thru fibre optics.” He explains: “the rap was recorded in an NYC studio, and sent back here for the final processing & mixing. Like everything since FLEX onwards, that was all just done on phone earbuds and a laptop.”
For the track’s DIY visual, patten transplants the online connections that allowed the collaboration to happen into his own bit-crushed aesthetic. “The original footage was shot by Ms. MASHA in a single take, with Beans performing the rap at night in NYC,” he says. “He just knocked it out of the park in his usual way. They sent over the raw footage and I processed it into this kind of hyperactive thing where it’s like he’s fused with a data network or something, with loads of zooms and camera stuff done in post to push this feel. If you pause the video at any point, you can barely tell there’s a figure there – it’s pretty ADD. In the end, it has the same kind of energy as the track itself – just all out from start to finish.”
The EP takes its name from large, elaborate pieces of graffiti, designs that are said to be burning out of the surface on which they are painted. patten provides a definition of a burner from legendary street artist Skeme: “the shit got def style, it got a def cloud, and the colors is bright…the colors is def, the letters is def, and the def cloud and shit. A burner is connections, arrows.” Fittingly, the rest fo the EP sees patten putting his unmistakable touch on high definition hip-hop and trap instrumentals, layering distorted drums and vocal chops with ecstatic synthesis and dense sound design.
‘Eat Smoke’ is taken from BURNER, which is out now on 555-5555. You can find patten on Instagram.
Watch next: Artist DIY – patten
