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A.Poco.Lips (aka Kyle Wilson) is in the midst of a prolific summer of music creation -- like three-projects-in-six-weeks busy. And whether that's in spite of the heat or because of it, his mellow grooves might be the official soundtrack of trying to remain motionless in a kiddie pool while drinking beer. "I played a lot of instruments throughout my life," says Wilson. "I was never able to fit into a band who wanted to do what I wanted to do. When I started to figure out electronic music and the possibilities, I realized I could do something that was entirely my own."
While he found his way into electronic music on his own, it's been collaboration and community that have driven his outburst of musical output lately. His latest effort, released under the alias Karl Jefferson, is a collaboration with Jeff Jani of Ape Tit. The pair released an EP this month that is grounded in the type of blunted-beat production that shows influences like DJ Shadow and Fat Jon.
Wilson's frenzy of music creation kicked off with a collaborative project produced with Sean Geisthardt of Goer and Tulip Wars titled What is Why? The album vacillates between blood-pressure-lowering and psychedelic, mingling electronic bleeps with sturdy percussion and buoyant guitar lines. It's the musical equivalent of watching the sunset while smoke from a grill and a joint mingle in the air.
Beyond a general love of making music as often possible, the other factor spurring Wilson's flurry of projects has been the community of local producers and beat-heads all pushing each other stylistically. "It's not a competition," he says. "We fuel off each other and we get excited about the things we create. It's something that's in all of us. We've got an inherent need to make music."
It was the ever-growing network of "friends and friends of friends" in the local music scene who were the crux of his third project. A handful of heads took stabs at remixing tracks from the What is Why? album, and those remixes turned into another EP.
While it's been collaboration that's gotten him juiced to create all summer, the next A.Poco.Lips album will be a solo project due out sometime this fall. "I'm not featuring anyone. It's just going to be my solo work with no samples or anything. I want to give people a taste of what I'm trying to create. The music I make by myself sounds different than what I make with other people. I think it's some of my best work to date. I'm excited to let people hear it."
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