Photos by Blair Smith // Words by Raman Gill

Toronto’s Harrison has been on the scene for a few minutes now, and if you’ve been trying to ignore the talent pouring out of the 6ix as of late, now is the time to start paying attention. After being recognized as more than just a SoundCloud sensation, Harrison was finally signed by the end of last year to Last Gang Records (home of other Canadian sweethearts Ryan Hemsworth and Purity Ring) and is already getting more comfortable playing the club circuit and choosing to ignore the sometimes uncivilized party lifestyle that comes with being a DJ.

Whether being praised by his underground fan base, or from the ongoing support from his family (who of course, are his number one fans), it’s hard not to be seduced by his tranquil approach to electronic music. He has slowly started evolving from a basement producer hiding behind the internet, to playing sold out shows alongside artists he grew up admiring. Harrison is light hearted and attentive in his surroundings, character traits which transcend through his music, and his dynamic personality will certainly help him continue his journey.

It’s somewhere in the mix of the new age freeness and deep rooted outcast culture at Ile Soniq that Harrison found himself performing. Most of us assume that at an EDM festival you will only hear loud house music, but Harrison knew he wasn’t asked to play today to blast thumping bass lines over pitchy drops. Instead he kept to his classic low-fi demeanor, creating a much more ambient sound with a touch of fantasy vibes for the early afternoon festival goers.

We started talking over a couple of cold beers, and a few cigarettes later, we began to peel back the layers on this heavily engaged producer.

He lit up a smoke and quickly diverted his attention to some more local Montreal talent hiding out backstage, “Oh yeah! Those are the girls from Heart Streets!” he lets out enthusiastically, “I have been following them for a few years now.”

He’s already familiar with the love that from local scenes too. He just recently played Toronto’s Keys ‘N Krates birthday party alongside producer Just Blaze and Virgil Abloh’s musical alter ego Off/White. We get to talking.

Tell us a bit about your experience playing at that party?

Fun! It was in a poolside house..I made the foolish mistake of wearing black pants, like I did today.. Keys ‘N Krates are so nice though, serious sweethearts, and Just Blaze is one of my main idols. He’s just so cool. It was also Ouici’s first show, but I think he's like me and a SoundCloud guy, he makes like awesome soundtrack music, that's almost like.. ambient but not?

Would you consider yourself more basement producer or more club?

There's a point time when I was single and going out a lot more, and then all of a sudden you're out at the club and are like, wait what am I doing here? I don’t like this stuff, I'm not a big trap hip hop guy either, it's not like I’m opposed to it, it's just not my forté.

Is there a big underground SoundCloud clique?

Like a SoundCloud Illuminati? Not actually, but I do talk to a lot of people through it like Cavelier, Whispa, Y2K, and Electric Mants. They’re just a bunch of cool guys. We’ve been in touch for the past couple years in a group chat, just discussing producing, and where music is going. Did you hear SoundCloud just wiping everyone's remixes?

Completely wiping! WRG does a monthly mix with guest DJs and they got rid of them all ... so we are wondering do we go to another platform?

[To answer our own question, yes we moved to Mixcloud].

There's one called “ Yungcloud." I don’t know, it’s gonna happen to them too, it’s inevitable right? I mean it doesn’t have to be, but people like Sony and Warner are like… “ Give me the money!” but they are doing remixes that maybe the masses havn’t heard and they get like 1 million views or whatever and then suddenly it's gone. That was just free exposure for your artist.

Yeah they don’t see the reciprocity.

These people aren’t usually selling them off SoundCloud, I mean I guess some do it on Bandcamp, but just don’t do that? You can’t sell other peoples work. People get mad at SoundCloud, you can’t be mad at them, they have nothing to do with it.
I’m pretty sure they called it “The Great SoundCloud purge,” like some sort of holy thing of people getting their shit taken down. You know, it does encourage artists to make original works, but what people need to understand that they are making original works. It’s their interpretation of the song, and for one reason or another, it’s what listeners really like.

You tried the whole school thing out?

A while, 3 months!

How come it wasn’t the right fit?

The school just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
A little behind on the times maybe? Just not understand the new sound of young producers?
Yeah, I mean, it didn’t feel like a rip off, it's just it wasn’t for me. And then I got offered a record deal from Last Gang, so it worked out in the end.

That’s pretty similar to what badbadnotgood felt after trying the Humber music program. People may have been classically trained before but with newer ways of education should be incorporated.

Absolutely. I taught myself everything off Youtube. Well actually, hold up- from my mentor Seamus too, but he also taught himself off of youtube, and he's probably the best producer I know to this day. It’s just like I feel school gives you a template. I have to state though that I’m not dissing higher education by any means, but for higher education of music... how are you supposed to think about the box if all you’re given is templates? How do you think of something new?

I guess it’s suppose to be like we give you the “base” and then you branch of the fundamentals, but you can’t explore that during school, just on your own time.

Completely, it’s all about you and your inspiration, what keeps you going you know what I mean? A lot of time, like the last 4 months for me, you just stare at your computer obsessing, not really being able to make anything, and then you find something, even something small, that really inspires you and you run home and do something, whatever it is! Draw a building, create a garment, make a song, just whatever. I think that’s really cool. If you’re inspired to learn you can pretty much find it all on youtube if you know what to look for for- especially in music production, all the tools are out there.

You’ve mainly been located in Toronto, is it a good fit? Do you think you’ll leave?

I was just ranting to Louie (aka Grandbuda) about this a few minutes ago. Montreal is just the most fucking beautiful city ever. I love Toronto very much, the people and the community and everything, but like when you look at it it's just an eyesore.

Concrete jungle

Yeah, and Montreal is too, but with the vines and greener spaces, buildings that are only 2-storeys high, cheap rent, it’s different. You can find places for $300, and in Toronto you’d easily have to pay $800 for an uglier version of the same thing.

Do you live on your own now in Toronto?

No at home, Jesus christ.. Maybe when I’m making 6 figures a year I’ll move out.

What do you parents think about your career choice?

They love it. At first I wasn’t gonna go to college at all, my mom was like “Well go to college, just go for a bit”, and then when I said that I wanted to leave, she's like “okay, if you believe you can achieve something without it, go for it.” Same with my dad, he's never told me he's proud of me, it's not like some sob story or anything, but the reason being “that would be me expecting something, and I don’t expect anything from you,I just expect to see you happy.” I’m hella lucky.

Do you have any siblings?

Yeah I have a brother who's training to be in the Olympics for windsurfing and a sister who's a paralegal. Family inspires me more than anything, my brother and his friends are seriously my number one fans, this is like the first show that they missed, ever. Last year when I played at Newspeak they just drove out to see me. They are more supportive than anyone.
And why wouldn’t your family be your biggest inspiration? I mean they care for you on a completely different level.

What's next for you?

I’m almost finished my album, I’ve never been this excited before to release something, It might shock a lot of people or show them that I’ve progressed a lot as an artist, which is normal right? You make music to reflect how your feeling at the moment.

Do you like to be involved in that part of the album designing process or do you prefer to hand that over to the record label and just focus on the music?

With my last EP I gave a couple colours, a couple of ideas, and the artist Kimmie Esther who is amazing, just killed it. She did perfect, it was exactly what I wanted, it's like she went through my brain.

You’ve obviously heavily influenced by anime and cartoon world, does that still hold a place in your overall aesthetic with this new project?

Oh yeah, yeah, but I’ve tried to stop using the whole niche video game music stuff, It’s fun, but it's just not the direction I keep going. It’s more like wave racer music, it's a lot of fun.. the video game stuff is fast hyper music and it isn’t really what I’m listening to right now, so why would I make it you know?