Chromeo On Their New Album 'Adult Contemporary,' Taking Risks And 30 Years Of Friendship

Laid back, curious and easy to chat with, U.K.-born, Berlin-based electro-chill artist Bearcubs, a.k.a. Jack Ritchie, embodies the relaxed, bubbly music he makes. Growing up playing drums, piano and guitar, he started producing chillwave-leaning electronic tracks in his final year of college in 2012, posting them to SoundCloud during that golden age of bedroom producers.

His second EP, 2017'sUnderwaterfall, featuredsteel drums, water drips and enchanting moody soundscapes andsaw major outlets comparing him to James Blake and Jamie XX. Not long after, in 2018, he moved from his longtime home of London to Berlin, released his debut album, Ultraviolet, and scored his first film.

This May, while quarantining in Berlin, Ritchie released his sophom*ore album, Early Hours, 10tracks of effervescent, cloud-watching daydreams inspired by memories from his final months in London and first yearin Berlin.

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GRAMMY.com caught up with the British artist to chat about his latest album, moving to Berlin, scoring for film and learning to limit screen time during quarantine. Ritchie also shares how discovering Flying Lotus in college inspired him to produce electronic music, how he believes art as a major platform for social change and more.

You recently released your sophom*ore album, Early Hours. How are you feeling about sharing this project, and what was your main goal with it?

I'm pretty excited to share it, to be honest. Before I put these three singles out, I hadn't really released any of my music in about over a year and a half. So I took quite a long pause between previous projects and this one, just because I didn't really know exactly what I wanted to do. And I did a film score, which took up a big chunk of time. I had a lot of time to think about what I wanted to do musically. Also, when I moved to Berlin, it was a bit of a growing point in my life, because I was living in London for years before then and was leaving some of my friends and family behind.

I wanted to use the album a bit to sum up my past three or four years living in London and the experiences I had there, going out and working in pubs and living with a bunch of mates from home. All of this stuff, I just wanted to get this feeling into the album. Maybe a little bit nostalgic, yeah. I didn't want to go into that too much because I think you can overindulge nostalgia. It's a kind of bridge between my life in London a few years ago and then moving to Berlin and meeting new people and getting to terms with that whole situation.

That's so cool. When did you move to Berlin?

It was just about two years ago now, August of 2018.

Do you like Berlin?

It feels like home now. I love it. It's such a chill place to live. I was coming here on holiday and I realized I was coming here more and more often. It was every six months, then every three months, then every few weeks, and then it was like, "I might as well just live here." For me, it's got such a chill and kind of impossible feeling. And there's lots of interesting creative stuff going on. It's quite a 24-hour city. All of those kinds of things made me want to be here.

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Last year, you scored the German filmRelativity. How was the creative process for that project different than with Bearcubs, and is scoring something you'd like to do more of?

I was a bit nervous actually, because I've never done a film score before. But it was one of those things I just couldn't say no to it because it was too much of an opportunity. And it was a real challenge, but it was a lot of fun, because I'm used to working within I guess what you'd call a pop writing structure, with five-minute songs. To work with a film score, I had to think about things in terms of 15, 20 minutes and moments happening in the music—things have to become intense and then the music has to fade into the background and not interfere.

It was definitely a different process. The way I started most of the music for the score was I got a rough cut of the film and then I just sat with the piano and watched some of the main scenes. I sketched out the idea of what the mood would be on the piano and tried to get some of the timing right. And I had a lot of contact with the director, Mariko Minoguchi. It was basically a collaboration with me and her because it was her first film as well, so I was like her baby. And I think she entrusted me to make the music because she thought I could do something a bit different and interesting with it as opposed to going with a hardcore experienced composer.

When I went to Munich, she took me through a lot of the story and broke down what she wanted the motives of the characters to be and stuff. I made a lot of music that I sent to them where they were like, "No, that's not quite right." We did a lot of back and forth until we got to a good place. It was really fun to do.

How do you feel like moving to Berlin has influenced your art and/or creative process?

Well, it definitely just gave me a bit of time—for some reason, here compared to London, it feels a bit more relaxed and less hustle-y. Even though it's good to hustle sometimes because it drives you to do you stuff, in Berlin, I feel like there's a little less competition and it's more like people boosting each other up, like a community thing. I've definitely been influenced by that, as well as by the people who I've met.

I've met a lot of really cool, interesting artists here. One of the first collaborations I did when I got here was with a producer and a friend of mine, narou. Literally the first stuff we did, we ended up making "Overthinking," which was the first single on my new album. So yeah, I've done collaborations with people here and the vibe of the city and the people I've met have influenced me.

I feel like being in a new place can really do that. How long did you live in London? Or is that where you grew up?

I feel like I've always lived in London even though I didn't, because my hometown is just above London, about 20 minutes away. It's a smaller town called St Albans. It's quite a nice place. Growing up, I was always going into London, and later I lived in various places in London, for about six years in East London and Tottenham. I mean, I love London, but I felt like it was time for a change. I wanted to mix it up a bit. Especially since coming here to Berlin, I've felt new surroundings is always good for creativity and giving you new ideas.

You shared that you wrote the lyrics for one of the lead singles, "Everyplace is Life," while on a train in the U.K. Can you tell us more about that moment that inspired the song, as well as the creative journey that led to the finished product?

I often do this thing of making loads of notes in my phone. Sometimes it's just a word, literally, or I see a book title and I write that down, or a little stupid poem or something like that. I kind of use it as my little second brain that I can go back to. For "Everyplace is Life," I think it was a couple of summers back, I was on the train down to Brighton to play the Great Escape festival. And I don't know, it was just one of those days when you're in a really [good mood] and everything's just wonderful.

It was kind of that. I was in a good mood, and it was that thing when you're on public transport and you look around and you see everyone else—sometimes you forget that everyone else has got their own life, and there's all these stories. And you're like, "I wonder where that person's going. I wonder what they're doing." And you kind of imagine these stories about everyone's lives. It is kind of about that, about those little moments in life. And about slowing down and appreciating little moments, whether they're good or bad at the time, they're all kind of meaningful.

I love that. You said you wrote the lyrics a few years ago, right? And then when did you pick it up and create the beat and the melody?

Yeah. I can't remember exactly [when I revisited it]. I think it was maybe six months ago. I don't quite know what made me do it, but I was like, "Oh, I've got a song that I wrote a while back. I still haven't used it." And I remembered the feeling when I wrote the lyrics and just started from that and started making the beat and the chords. My influence for the track was the Little Dragon song "Ritual Union." I've never heard a track before that's very constant all throughout. The beat keeps going and it's very driving and repetitive, and I wanted to make a song like that, that kept going and didn't really stop. "Everyplace is Life" is me trying to do that, because the beat and everything is relentless through, and then the lyrics are the thing on the top that give the changes and make it interesting.

And then for the album overall, about how long was the process?

Yeah, it was maybe spread across a period of a couple of years, but I'd say in total it was probably only seven months of doing it. I wrote a couple of the tracks a couple of years ago, "Everyplace is Life" and "Diversions." And then I moved to Berlin and spent six months doing the soundtrack, so that took up all my time. After that, as I'd had a while off from making my music, I desperately needed to make something.

Basically, the whole of the rest of the album came in about a period of a few months. It came in a flurry. After that, it was choosing the tracks and refining them, and all of the boring technical stuff at the end. But yeah, it wasn't actually very long. It all came together at the end. I was just looking back at stuff over the past few years, and mixing that with the experiences I've had sincemoving to Berlin.

You launched the Early Hours podcast this year. What is your vision for it and what did it feel like to step out of your "comfort zone," like you said when you shared it, in that way?

Yeah, it was definitely something out of the box for me. I'd never done anything like that before, so it was a nice thing to do. Whenever I do something that I'm a little bit nervous of doing or I wouldn't usually do, I always feel like I get something more out of it. Once we started, it felt really easy. Especially because I was with narou and another friend James Hersey, who's a singer and also based in Berlin. It was kind of like hanging out with your mates, talking about music, which is kind of what I wanted the vibe of the podcast to be.

I think in the future, I want to make it a bit more centered around having a record player in the middle of the room and everyone brings in a vinyl. When I was at uni, I had a record player and I'd go to the record shop with my housemate and we'd buy a record and then put it on and drink a cup of tea and listen to a whole vinyl. And just look at the front and back covers and the lyrics on the inner sleeve. I feel like that's kind of lost from streaming stuff online. That's my future vision for the podcast. It's kind of something which enables you to slow down and listen to music and chat about it in a relaxed way. Who knows what's going to happen with it, we'll see.

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When did you first start making music? And at what point did you think it was something that you wanted to do professionally?

I mean, I've kind of been making music most of my life. I started pretty young playing drums, at seven. And then piano and guitar, and in my teenage years, I was in quite a lot of bands. I played guitar in a funk band and I was in a '90s hip-hop band playing bass. I played in some hardcore punk bands as well. I didn't really get into electronic stuff until I was at university, because I did digital music and sound arts. I got introduced to electronic music by people who were in my course and I was going to university with.

That opened my mind up to electronic and dance music, because don't think I really respected it fully before. I was always into hip-hop and some electronic stuff like Prodigy and bands like that, but I was never really fully into it. But when I heard some of these producers, especially the early beat scene people like Flying Lotus, the way they make their beats, you can't tell what's going on. You're like, "How on earth have they made this?" I think that's what made me want to start producing. Now I've become a bit more jaded I guess, because I know how things are made and I've got my producer's ear a bit more, but if I don't know how some things were made, that really excites me.

I started putting stuff up on SoundCloud and getting a bit of a following, somehow. I got a paid remix, and I was like, "Oh my God. Someone's paying me to make music." That's what made me think, "Oh, I could do this professionally as well." So I started devoting more and more time to it. Before then, I might have made one song every six months, and now I'm trying to make one song every day almost.

I always love hearing about the evolution of the music that someone is into. When you started university, what did you envision you would be doing at the end of it?

I don't think I really knew. I kind of went to university for the sake of it. I didn't know what to do. I was into music, but I was also not really sure what I wanted to do musically. When I was 17, I wanted to be a guitarist. But after uni, I kind of stopped playing guitar and was way more focused on electronic stuff. I think I was just exploring and figuring things out. And then when I did start making more electronic stuff and when I started the Bearcubs project, then I felt like I had more of a goal of like, "Okay, this can go forward and can go somewhere."

Who was the first remix you did for?

It was a weird indie duo from the U.K. Their label got in contact with me and asked, "Do you want to do a remix?" And I was like, "Yeah, definitely."

And it was because of the music that you had put out yourself on SoundCloud?

Yeah, exactly. It was just people finding me through my SoundCloud stuff, which I was amazed about, like, "How have you found me?"

Do you remember when you put your first song up on SoundCloud?

It would have been 2012, the year I was leaving university. Yeah, it was kind of dumb, I only really got into electronic music when I was leaving the electronic music course. That's the way it was. It was a track called "Measures," I think, and it had a "Breaking Bad" sample in it. I hadn't even watched the show, but there was this awesome vocal sample where he's like, "You either take a half measure or you go the whole way," or something like that. I guess it was like chill wave. I was listening to stuff like Toro y Moi and Flying Lotus and Baths.

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What do you feel like is the biggest thing you've learned about yourself during quarantine?

That's quite a good one. I think I was getting way too much screen time before. I realized I was waking up, looking at my phone, then having breakfast, then working on my laptop all day, while looking at my phone in between when I was taking breaks on my lunch. Then having dinner and going back on my phone, and watching Netflix or films and stuff. So I'd literally spend my whole day on a screen. I don't know why quarantine taught me that, but I think it's because I was indoors so much that it just became more realistic to be [on] the screen so much.

Now I have a policy where I don't check my phone until like 10 or 11 in the morning, once I've got up and done everything. I've been trying to look at my phone less and read more and not be on the computer as much.

How do you think music and art can bring about social change?

I think the power of music and other art forms is that it can sum up a mood of a time or generation in such a subtle but precise way. It's such a powerful platform for change and rebellion because everyone in the world is consuming culture on a day-to-day basis. We are all affected by the events going on around us even if we don't realize it consciously. As artists, this manifests itself through what we create, and as people through what we want to see and hear. It resonates with our current mood and sense of place in the world. The '60s was such a big period of change in women's and Black people's rights as well as freedoms and the opposition to power structures—the culture, fashion, music and the ideas of peace and love were completely reflected in that and tied together with the political message.

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In your opinion, how can the music community contribute to dismantling racism?

I thinknow it's about going above and beyond to support and boost up Black artists. It's disappointing that the music industry has benefitted from Black music without acknowledging its culture. It's about checking our privilege and becoming aware of how we perceive Black and non-Black music; making space and giving Black artists a voice across the music industry; demanding more diverse festival and gig bookings; and making more of an effort as artists to collaborate with and lift up our Black brothers and sisters. In an ideal world, we would embrace all colors and races, but the level of inequality and racism now is so ingrained in oursocieties that we must face this and make conscious efforts every day to change it.

Chromeo On Their New Album 'Adult Contemporary,' Taking Risks And 30 Years Of Friendship | GRAMMY.com (2024)