HiDERA | 4 January 2022 | 720 MB
Brooklyn-based 22-year-old musician umru returns with the third installment of the sounds cache series. umru emerged into the pop music zeitgeist with his first production credit on Charli XCX’s 2017 mixtape Pop 2, recruited at 18 by A. G. Cook to co-produce the highlight track “I Got It”. This quickly brought umru from high school and online music circles to joining XCX’s US and EU tour dates and collaborating with some of pop’s most forward-thinking acts.
The release of his debut EP “search result” on Cook’s PC Music label revealed his strength in merging intense, somatosnareal production with earwormesque performances from a lineup of protohyperpopular vocal talent including Laura Les (of 100 gecs) and Lewis Grant. umru’s sound cache sample pack has become a staple among modern producers. His most recent work includes production for Dorian Electra, Rebecca Black, Tommy Cash, and Fraxiom, as well as scoring for artist Hayden Dunham‘s performance at MoMA PS1.
Though umru started out in Soundcloud’s beat and bass music scenes where he was making “producer music” that focused on sound design rather than songwriting, he has settled into the producer role. Today, he focuses most of his releases on collaborations with vocalists.
He shared, “Most of the material for my packs comes straight out of projects I’ve started—I do a lot of sound design in the process of writing or producing rather than sitting down to separately make samples, and I think that ends up being the best material that I already know can be used in the context of a song. Of course, I have hours of totally random harsh noise sound design as well, but I’ll even try to shape those into specific uses like risers or impacts. If it’s something I find useful or inspiring myself I assume others would too.”
Demo track by William Crooks, underscores, Petal Supply, Fraxiom & Kai Whiston