Stonx
by Mister Mime
25th May 2021
With solemn shoutouts to memes, music technology and heavy music, London duo Stonx deliver their latest EP ‘Rings’, a ballistic bombardment in the form of two D&B bangers, “Critical” and “Defiant”.
Having a solid equilibrium between self-learning and music education, they are equally at ease with producing cutting-edge tracks as they are at sharing their knowledge. No matter where the road may take them, the unswerving Abletoneers will continue their noble crusade to spread their colossal sound across the virtual and physical worlds.
MM: How did you come up with the name “Stonx”?
Stonx: Well, we get to a certain point in the process of naming things where we're just on the phone to each other shouting words at random. The word 'Stonx' is a result of that process. In addition, it also has some meme influence, if you search 'Stonks'. As life has been slowly but surely turning into a 'Meme' for the last decade, we felt this could only bring good things. What really finalised our choice is that a 'Stonk', is a military word for 'a concentrated artillery bombardment' which matches our release schedule and musical styling incredibly well!
MM: Why is the EP called “Rings”? What about the track names ‘Critical’ and ‘Defiant'? Are there any stories behind any of the tracks or the making of the EP that you would like to share?
Stonx: When we began writing and releasing our music, each release was a small concept piece, as a part of a greater story. The story itself is an abstract mirror of the current unprecedented world events and societies reaction to them. We've now moved direct storytelling to a potential graphic novel, but the EP and Track names still reflect the original concept.
'Rings' references the smaller and smaller circles people seem to be twisting themselves into mentally as the world contorts around them, 'Critical' and 'Defiant' are choice words within that generalised Zeitgeist. Honestly, the story behind our releases really are heavily intertwined with what either of us was going through at the time of the release, we've had quite a rocky road to travel to get this all started, but that's for a different, much longer interview haha!
MM: Can you tell us a bit about your musical background?
Stonx: Both of us have practised music since childhood, with James studying Creative Music Technology at University and Ollie teaching music privately full time in their adult lives. We met on a Music Technology course at our local Technical College and became fast friends, collaborating on projects there. A love of bass-heavy aggressive music brought us together. In addition, we are both lifelong fans of Metal and other extreme styles of music.
MM: Can you give us a glimpse into your music production process? Could be something you consider the main or unique aspect of your process, some techniques you like to use, go to plugins, any angles that you’d care to share really.
Stonx : Sure, our process relies heavily on the iterative and continuous improvement of our Ableton Live Production template. We heavily side-chain a large portion of our tracks and have pre-prepared sends for parallel compression, widening and saturation. Surgical EQ and heavy Glue Compression are our friends. We mainly use Ableton stock plugins, as they can emulate most third-party software, however, we are big fans of stuff like Serum, Vital and Massive for their versatility and workflow. However, the majority of our third-party VST's are either old 32-bit bridges and freeware. Glitch Machines and Spitfire Audio both doing some great free VST's.
MM: Can you share your thoughts on how music education has changed as compared to a few decades ago, from the perspective of an electronic musician?
Stonx : There's definitely been a huge influx in producers who are self-learning, rather than taking a standardised formal education into Electronic music. This changes the way we need to teach it. Teaching today can be more about concentrating and optimising the knowledge a student has already learned themselves, rather than providing the knowledge basis in the first place.
MM: Furthermore, your take on how music technology and accessibility, social media, platforms like Youtube, etc. have impacted the music industry and also the music itself?
Stonx : It's very hard to say that any human creation, has been particularly good for anything if you take the current global situation! On the subject of social media and other platforms, you've just got to remember at all times, these companies did not set themselves up so you could run your business more easily or fluidly, no matter how much they say that is their goal or mission. A necessary evil, but you've got to play with the cards being dealt currently, or the game will be over before you get a good hand. We certainly don't think social media's making anyone a better human being.
On the subject of 'Music Technology', there's definitely a market for quick results at the moment and being able to do everything from your bedroom, plug-in advertising seems to be heavily focussed on as little input for maximum output as possible. While this is great for accessibility and getting more people into making music, it can lead to a lot of music having a similar vibe, so you worry about creativity getting sacrificed. Technological advances always come with a complex set of pros and cons.
MM : Who/what are your musical and non-musical influences? (Musicians, artists, things, places, people, etc. that inspire you):
Stonx : We grew up listening to all the early 2000's Hard/DNB moving over to Neurofunk. Noisia has got to be the reason we do this, but we take heavy influence from Mefjus, Phace, Black Sun Empire, Spor and others. Honestly though, quite often it's just the two of us making silly noises down the phone to each other haha. Places that inspire us? Quite literally anywhere with Ableton where we can make growly bass sounds!
MM: What do you like to do apart from music?
Stonx : We're both pretty full time on the Stonx Music project. However, Ollie has a 3D printer with which he makes models in his spare time. Other than that he really just drinks coffee and talks to his beard, but it makes him really happy. James volunteer's for a local mental health charity drinks a similar horrific amount of coffee, and they both love a good PlayStation binge. This is definitely a lifestyle encompassing passion however, 90% of what we do is associated with our Music and Teaching!
