It was another gloomy day in Portland, Oregon, perfect for creating dark and discordant bass music — uncanny to the average listener, though visceral to producer Ross Mcpherson. Seated at a long wooden table, Mcpherson snaps his fingers into his Macbook to see if it’s picking up audio. In lack of a voice recorder, I am grateful to be in the company of a music producer who instinctively thinks to record into Ableton.
Though now a resident of Portland, Mcpherson grew up in Healdsburg, California, a working class town about an hour North of San Francisco. Under the moniker “Phers,” he creates a dark breed of bass music that makes you feel blissfully free in your mind, yet somehow pleasantly confined to enigmatic techno-culture and black clothing. He delivers layers of distorted sound design over throbbing bass lines while still maintaining a groove that keeps your head bobbing. I am infinitely curious about how one comes to create this sort of art.
“I was born into music”, he tells me. “As long as I can remember, I’ve been surrounded by guitars and pianos and people singing.”
Both of his parents are musicians, as well as his dad’s parents, his mom’s mother, and all of his parents’ friends. They played primarily folk, jazz and classic rock. As he grew older, the natural inclination to explore music beyond his parents liking was fittingly met with four wheels and the sidewalks of suburbia. “I used to skateboard, and so that gave me a reason to start listening to tons of music while I was skating. And then when I was 11, I traded my friend two pairs of skater jeans for an ipod nano. It was probably a bad deal, in hindsight,” he laughs.
He discovered electronic music at age 12 or 13. In the midst of playing an “unhealthy” amount of World of Warcraft, he connected with the older brother of a friend who always had early dubstep playing in the background.
“I knew electronic music existed but I just called it all techno and didn’t like it. But then I heard, I remember the exact song, it was ‘Enter the Machine’ by Pantyraid, still a banger, and I was just like, ‘what is this, this is wild’. He was like ‘it’s called dubstep, it’s this new shit, it’s from England.’ That 140 BPM moved me immediately.”
He began listening primarily to the works of Pantyraid, Benga, Caspa, and shortly after, Skrillex, Datsik, and other more modern projects that brought dubstep into the spotlight. “I searched dubstep on Limewire and just downloaded anything that came up.”
He went to his first show at 15 when a group of guys, one of which is now Oakland-based producer Bleep Bloop, rented out a small venue called The Phoenix Theater and booked San Jose-based artist Nit Grit. These shows were called the Shwomp Sessions, and Mcpherson started going to as many as he could. “Dude, I fell in love with it,” he remembers. “I wasn’t the most social or popular kid, and so going to these electronic shows where everybody liked the same music and everyone was on the same vibe, it was comforting.”
He was almost 17 when he started going to bigger shows in San Francisco. “That’s when the kandi and the light gloving started happening. I was full blown rave kandi kid. I’ve scrubbed many photos,” he laughed. “It was a time of a lot of self discovery.”
Shwomp Sessions was the driving factor in inspiring Phers to DJ, though he remembers not understanding the distinction between DJing and producing, or even that there was a distinction. “I just wanted to be the guy up there having a good time and moving a room full of people,” he said. He started calling people, asking, “How do I be that guy? How do I make music?” A friend told him to download Fruity Loops, the music production software that is now referred to as FL Studio, and to start making rap beats.
In 2015, Mcpherson moved to Emeryville, a small city in between Oakland and Berkeley, to pursue music. He took a community college class on the intro to Ableton, and then entered SAE Institute’s audio engineering program. That same year, a friend suggested he do a back-to-back set with him at a show on Treasure Island — a manmade island between San Francisco and Oakland. Mcpherson remembers having little equipment and no idea how to begin. He was told to “download rekordbox, download cool music, get a USB and figure it out.” He describes being thrown to the wolves, learning to beat match without hot cues or a sync button, playing on ten-year old CDJs and navigating a world without the quick fix of youtube tutorials. These days, though, he’s grateful for the opportunity to have learned on CDJs. Aside from a year long stint using a Traktor controller, he hasn’t strayed far since. “When you are DJing on real, metal, heavy CDJs and not a plastic controller, it feels more real to me.”
He released his first track on Soundcloud in 2016. His early tunes portray a colorful atmosphere in contrast to the darkness his new tunes exude. “I was younger and so full of wonder. I really loved bright, colorful bass music.” It didn’t take much time, though, for the heady and hued to descend toward the monochromatic.
“I love that all-black culture. People love to make fun of it because we all just stand in the back with our drinks looking serious, but I love it; that all-black, but still fucking be yourself culture.”
The transition from kandi kid to basement dwelling creature represents a wider trend that I have examined in the underground electronic music world. Regardless of what you wear, where you party, or which artist puts you in that blissful state, though, the hope is that the original ethos of acceptance and compassion still exists. In the end, we’re all just weirdo’s, connecting over weird music together, right?
Our conversation takes a turn regarding the state of the scene today, notably around how the use of Twitter and other social media platforms can create an almost cult-like environment of negativity.
I can’t speak for all electronic music, but at least in my little corner of the bass music community, some of these fans get more and more insufferable every year, which has led me to start to reject the ‘fam’ aspect of all this. I just like the music and I like who I like.
He refers to an incident where a newcomer commented on the popular Yheti facebook page. This supposed outsider mentioned how Ohio-based artist Yheti could take a “minimal” style and make it so good. He was verbally attacked by fans for use of the word “minimal”, and Yheti had to step in. This brought to mind another harmful incident last year when dubstep artist, Getter, was booed on stage by fans for playing a slower style of music that wasn’t the hardcore tracks the audience expected.
This increased trend of hostility toward change and differing opinions playing out on social media challenges the inherent nature of creating art, which is self expression and connection.
“It boils down to, some people take this all way, way too seriously. If you like an artist, it’s okay not to like where they take their art. But you respect them. We’re not machines.”
I noticed a DIY sticker on Phers’ Macbook that speaks to the testament of creating and interacting with art. It reads, “Don’t stress bro, you’re just making music.” He says, especially in the early days, it helped him to not take the creative process too seriously. In fact, he claims not to have a creative process. Like many artists who deem this sort of liberation, the process is sitting down and letting the art create itself.
Since moving to Portland in 2019, he has been releasing a steady flow of rhythm driven tracks that truly set fire to a room. He names duo Shades as his most consistent, long running musical influence, though also mentions Zimbu, Mythm, Smith. and Reso as inspirations. These days, he’s focusing primarily on creating beats, halftime and dubstep inspired tracks, often fusing multiple genres together to create a new, cohesive sound. He uses Ableton 10 and a variety of other virtual synths, though he specifically names Phase Plant as a recent favorite. “It’s the most versatile and powerful soft synth I have ever used. Everyone who makes electronic music should crack it open and try and use it. Some of my most insane, almost accidental sound design is from Phase Plant.”
His newest track, “Akatsuki,” represents mastery of the union between bass music and dubstep. It maintains a certain dark, mysterious quality, intertwining longer, driving bass lines with shorter wubs reminiscent of Austin-based producer The Widdler. This track certainly represents his talent for creating slow, deeper dubstep, though his niche as an artist remains in the fusion of both, if not multiple, genres. “I don’t want to pigeon hole myself,” he says.
Indeed, no artist should be pigeon-holed into any genre, style or stagnant expectation.
Phers is releasing a new track every month, so be sure to give him a follow on Soundcloud, Bandcamp and Spotify. Also, catch his set this year at The Untz Festival.
Photo Credit: Devin Tolman