Sometimes applying our skills as musicians and producers to unfamiliar ends can influence us in ways we never imagined. For Henry Greenleaf, an opportunity to work as a sound designer for children’s cartoons opened the door to new techniques, repurposed for use in his bass-heavy, experimental club music.
Inspired by the concept of hyper-reality – where sound designers produce radically overexaggerated versions of real-world sounds that can end up sounding more ‘real’ than reality – Greenleaf applied this same philosophy to crafting his drum sounds, resulting in the kind of mind-bending percussive constructions found on his latest EP, Kirkstone.
Since his 2018 debut, Henry Greenleaf’s intricate and immersive club tracks have found a home across ARTS, Version and the label he runs alongside Agrippa, Par Avion. Released this month through Edinburgh-based Redstone Press, Kirkstone redeploys the hyperdetailed approach required of commercial sound design to more hedonistic ends, resulting in four meticulously produced, unruly shellers that careen through techno, dubstep, garage and IDM with reckless abandon.
When did you start making music, and how did you first get started?
“I started making music at 11. My family got a new computer in 2006 that had GarageBand pre-installed. I made a track from the stock loops with my dad and
