In 2011 I interviewed UK producer/DJ Lapalux (aka Stuart Howard). At the time he’d just released his incredible Many Faces Out Of Focus EP via Pictures Music. Since then Lapalux has gone on to sign with Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder Record, along the way becoming a respected and internationally recognised name.

Lapalux (aka Stuart Howard) constructs music which is mercurial in terms of both melodic playing and sample based construction. Equally relevant to the avant-garde home listening circuit and the slightly skewed modern beats club scene, since releasing the Many Faces out of Focus EP earlier in the year, his pictorial soundscapes have been providing a quiet antidote for those disappointed by the post-’CMYK’ comedown of James Blake’s debut album.

“I focus so much attention on the detail it actually drives me insane sometimes,” Howard explains. “I like to make music people can listen to several times and still find something new, buried in there somewhere. I enjoy complexities and getting immersed in sound so you forget who and where you are. I like to focus on moments in my music instead of alternating sections and formulaic structure. Like having little moments where a massive bass drum swallows up the mix or little pitch/ time slips here and there. I hate anything that sounds too perfect. Biology is massively complex and never perfect. I like that idea and enforce it in my music.”

And while the intricate sonic frameworks Howard describes have actually been kicking around the underground since a limited run cassette release called Forest in 2008, his aural vision didn’t click into sharp focus (excuse the pun) until this year, and the release of Many Faces out of Focus. Aligning futuristic synthesiser tones with found field recording samples, murky chopped and screwed processing, and the rhythmic clicks and pulses of UK Garage and Post-Dubstep, the cinematic (or perhaps painted) quality Howard imbues his works with can be traced back an actual process, one which almost places his soundworlds in closer relation to the cubist paintings or Picasso and Braque then any existing electronica trends.

“I sometimes sit here with a picture that I’ve found or have lying about and try and make myself feel like I’m there and what it should sound like,” he offers. “There’s a very close relationship between visual art and aural art. The two can be played about with pretty easily. I like a lot of photography and art but its severely hard to name my favourites. I am fascinated with some of the more experimental sound art installations like ‘Zimoun’ or the ‘Talking Piano’ where sound and visual art is cohesively linked like I was saying before. I think it’s important for me to have something visual either physically looking at something or making myself believe I’m looking at an image in my mind.”

A lifelong music enthusiast, Howard hails originally from Stansted, Essex, in the UK. “I’ve lived in Essex the majority of my life,” he reflects. “I went to Scarborough to live there whilst I did my degree in music technology. I think where I live at the moment is good for me because it’s about thirty minutes from London by train. I like it because I can go into London and come home to get away from it all again and really focus on what I’m doing. I work on music nonstop. It’s always been that way. It’s all I have ever done. It’s a habitual thing for me to just sit in my room all day creating bits and pieces, ideas, loops, seeing what works, what doesn’t, and develop those ideas.”

As his enthusiasm would suggest, Howard has been making music under different aliases for as long as he can remember. But alongside this developed, all consuming passion, runs another underlying, yet under fulfilled love. “I’ve always had a little passion for photography but never really get round to pursuing it because music has always been the focus for me,” he says. “I usually end up trying to do stupid modifications to equipment I have to try make it do something it shouldn’t. For instance I tried to make a tape loop for my old VHS-C camcorder the other day. It didn’t work but I spent all day trying to figure it out and why It wouldn’t work.” And listening to the dense, colourful, layering which gives form to songs like ‘Time Spike Jamz’, ‘Cousin If’ and ‘There Are Monsters In This Bed’ one begins to wonder if Howard has subconsciously compensated for neglecting photography by loading his tunes with environmental subtext.

However, given the length of time he has been submerged in music, and the depths he goes to in his songs, it’s really difficult to make a clear analysis. “I think I must have been about three or four when I got a My First Sony cassette player/recorder,” he recalls. “It had loads of buttons with animal sounds on them that you could mix in and out of the music playing on the cassette. My granddad used to collect Weetabix cereal tokens and send them off to get the Weetabix compilation cassettes. He gave me the cassettes to play on my Sony. I remember listening to the Tears For Fears — ‘Head over Heels’ track over and over again on that thing. Mixing in animal noises as each song played out. It was truly awesome. When I was older, I was hooked on a PS1 game called Music. You could make all sorts of beats and loops with that thing. It was like a super primitive version of Cubase that allowed you to make little songs and loops. That’s what got me into making music I think. The progression from that to using proper computer software was where I really found myself thinking, this is what I want to do with my life.”

Connecting on a listening level with the works of Dorine Muraille, Aphex Twin and the golden era of 90s hip-hop, Howard now sees himself as informed by everything he listens to. “I take something away from it all,” he says. Having picked up some choice co-signs from the likes of DJ Rupture and XLR8R Magazine, he is now connected with a cutting edge boutique label by the name of Pictures Music, the label who released Many Faces Out of Focus. As such situated alongside the likes of Koreless, Darksky, Seams and Chairman Kato, Howard is building himself a fearless sonic reputation. Release by release, remix by remix, his artistic goals, dreams and visions draw ever closer. “It’s looking good baby,” he laughs, concluding our conversation.

www.lapalux.com