Bogdan Raczynski (Interview)

It’s Friday so we’re listening to something more upbeat. Today we’re listening to Bogdan Raczynski, an electronic music producer from and based in Poland. In the late 1990s, Raczynski was in Tokyo and was kind of randomly discovered by Aphex Twin, who signed him to his Rephlex label. That backstory piqued our interest in his new LP from this past October, You’re Only Young once But You Can Be Stupid Forever, his first collection of new music in 17 years.¹ We’re also playing Boku Mo Wakaran, his 1999 album consisting of 26 tracks that are all called “Untitled.” An offbeat conversation with Bogdan follows the streaming links – his answers are “funny, grumpy, insightful and enigmatic” as

Stephan Kunze

characterized his own interview.

You're Only Young Once But You Can Be Stupid Forever - Bogdan Raczynski (35m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / Tidal

Boku Mo Wakaran - Bogdan Raczynski (71m, a bunch of vocals esp. on early tracks)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / Tidal

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Your previous lists of influences (such as in this post) cite a lot of artists who don't make electronic music. Have there been artists in electronic music, going back to the '90s, who have influenced the music you make?

None I care to credit given the lack of any of them speaking up about any one of the geno…, excuse me, mass murders slash ethnic cleansing of predominantly children, taking place today. They have my utmost and undying disrespect.

People mistakenly treat creatives as untouchable demigods but the truth is that... actually, hold on, it just clicked - maybe they actually are like demigods, in the same impossibly vacuous way that there are people on this planet who believe that all genocides and atrocities and the worst possible crimes and injustices you can imagine, past, present, and future, are part of God's plan... abso-fucking-farce

Tell us about meeting Aphex Twin and signing to his label.

That story will be in my upcoming book titled “3 WAYS MY MUSIC CHANGED FOREVER AFTER THE APHEX TWIN LOOKED AT ME.”

How'd you get into video game music composing, and how's your process different for that music v. your studio stuff?

Imagine writing poetry in a spreadsheet, I love it and wish I could do more of it; hire me someone!

Where's this title come from: You're Only Young Once But You Can Be Stupid Forever?

It's a feeling. It's like trying to explain a poem. It's like talking about music. But I will tell you one funny story.

The original album title was going to be something really dumb. Actually, there were about 23 album titles we spitballed and they were all crap except for the first one and the last one. Sometimes I wonder if I should've just stuck with the first...

Anyway, the way I came upon the final one was during a rambling interview not dissimilar from this one. The interviewee was quizzing me about, you guessed it, The Aphex Twin. I suppose it's true what they say, everything that The Aphex Twin touches is special, even when he isn't actually touching it; it’s like some kind of goddamned spell, all you have to do is utter the name to spawn a vapour that coats your soul in an impenetrable and everlasting patina of unmatchable cool; if you hear even just a millisecond of The Aphex Twin's tracks the spiritual wonder experienced will reverberate in your being for time immemorial until one day that essence divines that it’s time to rise and grace you with its creative supremacy, at which point an impossible quantity of inspirational froth flows from your belly like that time you drank too many Jägerbombs at that deep house party in Toronto back in the early naughts and for a split minute you achieved a quantum state of being and unbeing... 4am here we come, bring on the night sweet daemons of sound and youth.

Anyway, who knows what creative powder I will be able to shake from this interview's word toss... couldn’t get worse than reality could it?

What gear did you use to put together your latest record?

Here's the list:

4ms: Percussion Interface, Spectral Multiband Resonator, Pod64X, Stereo Triggered Sampler, WAV Recorder

Arturia: KeyStep Pro

Bastl / Casper Electronics: 1983, Basil, Bitranger, Dark Matter, Ikarie, MicroGranny 2, Neo Trinity, SoftPop 2, Waver

Bitwig: Bitwig DAW

Blinksonic: AETONZ, CATALIZ, COLLIDZ, FR3TZ, RUIDOZ, SUBSTANZ, VOZ

Clatters Machines: Garden Listener

D16: Various audio plugins

Erica Synths: Black Spring Reverb, Black VC Clock, Drum Stereo FX, Sample Drum

Herbs & Stones: Liquid Foam (Euro Foam)

Landscape: Noon, Stereo Field

LOM: Elektrouši

Making Sound Machines: Stolperbeats

Modbap: Osiris, Per4mer

Music Thing Modular: 8mu

My Volts: Various cables and adapters

New Systems Instruments: Harmonic Shift Oscillator

Plinky: Plinky

Nano Modules: Caixa 104, CEQ, Performance Mixer and expander

Polyend: Medusa, Play, Preset, Poly 2, Tracker

Shakmat: Clock O Pawn, Four Bricks Rook, Knight’s Gallop, Time Wizard

Squarp: Hapax, Rample

System80: 880, 881

Tascam: Portacapture X6

Torso Electronics: S-4

Tracker: Impulse Tracker, Schism Tracker

Tubbutec: 6equencer

XOR Electronics: IO Expander, NerdSEQ, Video IO Expander

Name an underrated artist from the past 50 years.

The Aphex Twin said I'm underrated. Who am I to argue with The Aphex Twin? Are you going to argue with The Richard James?

What are you working on next?

Social anxiety, dishes, organizing my indefatigable todo lists, and dealing with my unabated frustration of not being more successful while at the same time uncontrollably further sinking my career and burning every bridge and listicle and interview in sight.

1. Moonbuilding Weekly noted: “We had a 12-year hiatus following the release of ‘Alright!’ in 2007, which he claimed was due to a ‘bass drum accident’ that damaged his hearing. And even then the return in 2019 was a collection of old Rephlex tracks, which makes ‘You’re Only Young Once, But You Can Be Stupid Forever’ (Disciples) his first new music in 17 years. Bloody ages.”