HEADS KNOW TAPE 019: Braille
An interview and DJ mix from the Brooklyn-based producer.
HEADS KNOW TAPES is our mix and interview series, curated to introduce you to the most exciting tastemakers, selectors, and artists from New York City and beyond.
Braille's smile immediately brightens up the Zoom call. The room he's in looks small, but it's filled wall-to-wall with production equipment only someone who's just as obsessed with music and technology could relate to.
With production credits on the soundtrack of Academy Award-winning Black Swan and a rare "Best New Music" accolade for his work as one-half of Sepalcure (along with Machinedrum), Braille's lengthy tenure in music hasn't gone unnoticed. Launched in 2011, Braille released his first full-length four years later. Mute Swan—a noise project far further left than initially intended with his "house-centric" Braille moniker—is now approaching its decade-long milestone.
Almost ten years later, Braille is finally going all-in on his project, and with music far more personal, too. On August 8th, Triple Transit, his second studio album, is coming out via Hotflush Recordings. Ready to let go of the past and step into his own spotlight, Braille is showing people who he really is.
Ahead of his album release, he talks to HEADS KNOW about how the Triple Transit came together, dealing with big changes, and how he found joy in making music again.
ARIELLE: You texted me if I was going to Paragon over the weekend, but I couldn't make it! How was it?
BRAILLE: It was dope. I rarely go out these days, to be honest. But Martyn Bootyspoon was playing and I haven't seen him in person—like face to face—in so fucking long. He did a remix for me, so I wanted to make sure I made it out there. It was dope. The lineup was good. The crowd was good. It was a really fun night.
That's good to hear. Well, I first have to thank you for being a part of this.
Thanks for having me. I love it. I love what you've been up to!
Likewise! I've just been listening to your new album, Triple Transit, over the last couple of weeks. It's really good and feels very personal. I read that the record is about you coming back to New York City and leaving your past behind. So to get straight to the point: Does this mean this is the end of Sepalcure?
Yeah, it definitely does. It's been a really interesting year because it's been the first year that I actually focused on Braille instead of Sepalcure. To be honest, I've been working with Travis for the last five to six years on an EP. And it's a shame that it's not going to come out. I feel like it's some of our best work. But at some point, I think Travis [Machinedrum] realized that didn't align with whatever he was trying to do with his career. And it's an interesting thing. It was hard for me not to take it personally. But then I understood, and it actually reminded me why I do things the way I do things. When you're doing music full-time at the level that Travis is, every move you make is potentially going to impact your source of income. So it impacts your creative decisions. And I've always made sure I don't have that I've always had something on the side that's bringing me my main source of income.
Creativity and art to me have always just been like, "I just I need to be kind of selfish with this shit." I want to make what I want to make. It came to that unfortunate point. Unfortunately, I realized at that point that I've got to focus on Braille. It's been so many years where I've just had it on the backburner, and I have a lot to make up a lot of time to make up for.
I'm the type of person that when I put myself into a creative project, I have to live and breathe it or I feel like I'm not doing enough. How do you separate that so that it's not all you have to focus on?
I'm with you. There was a brief moment during the peak Sepalcure days where it was pretty much everything, but I had some life goals. I thought, by now, I'd have kids and a family and I needed to support them. That was one of the main reasons I always kept some stability in my life. It's become apparent that it's not gonna be happening, so there's definitely been a pivoting of priorities. But I think I'm a very full-on person. I'm similar to you. It's the only way I'm able to do all these different things at a high level.
It's hard to think: "If I spent more time on this, what would I be making? Or what would I be doing? Would I be doing something better?" What I realized was it's not necessarily how much time, it's about the quality of the time. So this year, like I said, is the first year in a very long time that I focused on Braille, and really put everything into Braille—developing as an artist both on the technical and non-technical side. I found that approaching all of this from a mindset of just wanting to do it because I want to do it has made everything better, instead of coming at music and creativity from an "oh shit, I gotta make something people are gonna want to hear and it's gonna be successful" and [wondering] what people want to hear after Sepalcure.
Those days, especially the five years I was in San Francisco, were brutal. It wasn't about me and my music, it was about everyone else. I feel like I was actually getting worse at everything. Now that I'm like, "fuck all that," I found a system where making music is bringing me joy, I'm getting better at the craft, and I'm doing it my own way. Everything's better—the music I'm making is better, my mental health about music is better, and my relationship with the audience is better. So I think that the main thing is to try and figure out a way, whatever it is—your art, your creativity, or even just work—to have it bring you joy instead of all the other negative shit you can always cloud your brain with.
That's good advice. It's been over 10 years now since you started Braille, and I was reading that you started it as a house project. How have things changed since your initial vision?
Again, it's just a shift in priorities. I'm getting older, to be honest. I still love house music and when I play out I'm usually just playing house, but I realized making music solely for the club isn't going to bring me joy. There's a reason you're making the music, but it's not necessarily for you, and that might sound selfish, but that's what I need. I need to be making music for myself first. I took a real hard left with Mute Swan, that first album of mine, which was not club-focused at all. And I think that was kind of a mistake. I was like, "See ya!" and everyone was like, "What the fuck are you doing? Where's where's 'The Year 3000?'" I wish I'd done that more strategically, but now I'm, slowly trying to find a nice middle ground where I'm doing it for myself, but I'm not trying to like to alienate everyone.
When you say you want to make music for you, where are you actually listening to this music?
I think about this a lot because I wonder if other people do this. I listen to my own music way too much. And it's usually what I'm working on. And it's it's a bad thing. I've been doing all this YouTube shit recently and I'm making a video where my advice is not to export your shit too early because you're just gonna sit there and listen to it. And then that's the version you're gonna release. You're never gonna get past that version. But that's what I mean when I'm saying I make music for myself. I make music that I want to listen to, all the time. It's the soundtrack to my life. And now if other people want it to be the soundtrack to theirs, that's amazing. I'm honored. But if it's not the soundtrack to my life, then why the hell am I making it?
What about your edits? How, when, and why do you choose a song?
That's funny. Because those "love step" edits of the R&B tracks—I made those for a bunch of reasons. A lot of the music I'm making is increasingly distanced from the club, so I needed to do something that still provides value to all my friends who are DJing. So the edits are my escape from the egocentric creativity, and an outlet to make something that's gonna make people dance and have a good time.
Back to Triple Transit, how did the album come together?
It was a long time coming. The reason I called it "Triple Transit" is because there are three periods that went into the album. So there are songs on there that are pretty old—at least to me—they're from the San Francisco days. And then there are songs I made when I first moved back and kind of started having this musical renaissance when I finally [decided] I was gonna focus on Braille. And then there are a few on there, which kind of connect to where I am now with all the modular insanity and finding this system of creativity that really does bring me joy. So there's like this thread throughout all of that.
You mentioned earlier that you were Indian and Puerto Rican, and I was wondering about your ethnic background because I could hear some South Asian influence on the album. Did you listen to Puerto Rican and Indian music growing up, or how does that play into your sound?
It's funny, when I was growing up, we had a lot of Dominican friends in the family. There was a lot of Latin music in the house. Indian music has been in the house more recently. When I go visit my dad now, he's always blasting Indian music. He's had a really interesting life where he left India to go to the States and kind of swore off everything to be an American. This is a very first-generation type of thing. He wanted me and my sister to be American and now, in his old age, he's like: "But I'm Indian" He's going hard back into the Indian society culture. I think personally, I relate more to Latin music—the rhythms and the energy there speak to me more. But there are some rhythmic elements of Indian music, like Tabulas and poly-rhythms, that I've been leaning into more recently.
For someone who's going to listen to Triple Transit for the first time, where's the best place they should do it?
That's a great question. I think the music I make is best listened to when you are alone and traveling. That can be in an urban environment or even in nature. I just feel like that sense of possibilities and potential that you might have when you're heading somewhere is the best environment to listen to my music.
Which producers, DJs, artists, groups, or collectives should heads know?
I feel like anyone who's reading this already knows. Honestly, like anyone who is into HEADS KNOW is already ahead of the game. I usually like to shout out some New York crews and artists: Ayesha—the Kindergarten grew in general, like Masha. AceMo. Outside of New York, louf and Ivy Lab.
What can we expect from this mix?
A lot of amen breaks. I wanted to make something more energetic than some of the stuff I've been playing recently. It's a lot of unreleased music of my own and also some of the remixes people have been doing for Triple Transit,
Is there anything I haven't asked you about that you want to talk about?
I definitely want to promote the YouTube channel. It's something that has actually been really fun. I'm trying to give back. We all learn so much shit on YouTube these days and also a lot of what I talked to you about today, like, realizing how important mental health is, dealing with all the shit we deal with as artists, and trying to make creation and creativity a positive thing instead of a stressful thing. I'm really trying to give a perspective that hopefully makes people feel less alone when they're like in the studio or making shit. So the YouTube channel has been a big part of that.
Follow Braille on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, SoundCloud, Bandcamp, and YouTube.
TRACKLIST
Braille - Blanket Sleep
Unknown / Hate - Pretty Boys Don’t Survive Up North
SWV - Rain (Braille’s Lovestep Edit)
Braille - Unreleased
Pleasure Jail - Love Has Boundaries
Bodhi - Reformat (Braille Remix)
Braille - Regression (Martyn Bootyspoon Remix)
Braille - Cloud Monger (Bodhi Remix)
Braille - Unreleased
