Bido Lito June 2021 Issue 114

“Everyone has
the capability
to make art”
It’s easy to forget that life is supposed to be fun.
Music is a good way to remember. PODGE went
about becoming a musician all backwards. “Before
I considered myself good enough at guitar to start
writing music, I was thinking what wacky shit I would
do if I was having a TV interview,” they begin. “The
reason I started [making music was for] the results that
come from it – it kind of gets all the wires crossed. As I
tried to get better at music, I learned that perspective is
counterproductive. I feel like I started off making music for
kind of selfish reasons, I was just trying to impress people.
Then I fell in love with it. It’s like starting a job because you
want to make money and then falling in love with the job
over the years after you learn what it actually is.”
It’s hard to imagine Podge as a self-conscious
teen suffering under the yoke of elitism. Their new EP,
Samuso, released via NTS, feels joyful, light and casually
personal. It sounds like it was made by a heartbroken
robot living at the end of time, who misses humans, so
makes music to commemorate the living; scanning what’s
left of the internet for cultural ephemera still in orbit –
samples and feelings.
Podge joins a growing contingent of magpie
producers who don’t mind whether something’s
expensive as long as it’s shiny; they’ll take anything from
anywhere, choosing to ignore the confines of genre
and intellectual property. “It’s weird that people are still
against samples. It just feels weird to take ownership of
stuff. I feel really weird about trying to make a living off
music,” they say. “I’m pro pirating – I don’t know whether
that’s just the internet mindset, but it feels weird to stop
people from wanting to enjoy your art just ’cos they don’t
wanna spend the money.”
The genre-bending this cutpurse attitude results in
does away with old hierarchies that draw a line between
the significant and the trivial. Samuso features Podge
singing catchy hooks, rapping, sampling all manner of
things – Auto-Tuned voice notes; anime. Sugary synths,
bleeps and bloops weave among acoustic and distorted
guitars. So many influences thread themselves through
the songs that it’s hardly worth getting into it. You just
need to hear it. “You wouldn’t need to make the art if
you could describe it in the first place,” they say. “It feels
pointless making stuff that’s already been done, just ’cos,
well, it’s already been done.”
Pursuing the crooked, less-travelled road has its
own challenges; the context of a commercial industry
rewards what is quickly recognisable and easily summed
up. “It’s hard to develop that kind of confidence when
you’re doing something that you can’t draw parallels with
what other people are doing,” they begin. “There’s not
many people I can look at and think, ‘That guy’s doing
it, so I could do it’, but when I do find people like that,
I really latch onto them.” They are wearing a 100 gecs
hoodie when we meet in the park today, a band who are
a definite example of those who’re ‘doing it’ in a guise
Podge is interested by. “Last year I was obsessed with
JPEGMAFIA and Vegyn because they seem like they’re in
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