corto.alto on making ‘SOME SMALL FORTUNE’, ‘I used to play it quite safe’
corto.alto chats to TOPNOTE in Kingston. Image credit: Bethany Cordery
‘You can’t look at any time as wasted when you're making music. You're always learning something, you're always having fun.’
corto.alto’s new album is cohesive as ‘a bottle of superglue’, despite its breadth of music styles and collaborative essence… hitting Number 1 on the official UK Jazz & Blues Album Chart on the week of its release last month.
TOPNOTE spoke to corto.alto, or Glaswegian solo artist Liam Shortall, before his in-store Kingston show celebrating sophmore album ‘SOME SMALL FORTUNE’, on the creative process going into making the record, the rejection of genre hierarchies, and setting yourself free from expectation.
Read the full interview here, and check out the best snaps from his basement gig.
corto.alto, or Liam Shortall, celebrating ‘SOME SMALL FORTUNE’ at The Fighting Cocks, with Banquet Records in Kingston. Image credit: Bethany Cordery
This interview has been edited for clarity.
TOPNOTE: What brings you to Kingston tonight?
Liam: We're playing an in-store performance to promote and celebrate my new album ‘SOME SMALL FORTUNE’, which we released two weeks ago on Ninja Tune, the label. It's been amazing. We've done loads of gigs, this is the last one and then I'm gonna sleep for four days in my bed in Glasgow for the first time in months.
TOPNOTE: We’re gonna keep you awake for a little bit longer! …Congratulations on getting a Number 1!
Liam: Thank you very much, only lasted one week because Ezra Collective released their album the week after, which is fair, we knew they were going to beat us. But I was very happy to get number one for one week. I'm just grateful we got enough people listening to the music and supporting this album that it went to number one. Because my first album was very much an instrumental, I suppose kind of future jazz album, way more jazz than this one.
But when I went into making this one, I didn't really want to restrict myself, genre-wise. I knew I wanted to collaborate with loads of people. I just made a list of people whose music I loved. There's folk musicians, there's Mick Jenkins, the rapper from Chicago. There's a rapper from Lagos, there's soul influences. There's Oscar Jerome. There's a bunch of different stuff. I like to think it's connected through the production and lyrics. But I’m happy people have gone with me on that journey and been up for an album which is all over the place genre-wise.
TOPNOTE: You’ve made a name for yourself in jazz as a boundary-breaking musician. Was there a figure in your life growing up or in music who encouraged you to be rebellious?
Liam: Yeah, because I didn't really used to be like that. I think I used to play it quite safe with my early music. I was always worried about what other people would think of it, especially other jazz musicians. Because when you are in the academic cycle of learning jazz music specifically, there's that kind of sentiment that jazz is superior to everything else. It’s better than pop, country, blues… and that's just not true.
You can learn so much from all styles of music. I’ve learnt how to appreciate anything, even if I wouldn't expect myself to, I'll really try and listen, try and find interesting things. That's been really inspiring for me. I've been very lucky, obviously you lose some people along the way when you change your sound so much, but I've had an audience that are very gracious and generous.
“When I went into making this one, I didn’t really want to restrict myself, genre wise. I knew I wanted to collaborate with loads of people. I just made a list of people whose music I loved.”
But to name a few people that I really loved, Flying Lotus's music, I was a huge fan of him and his production. Hiatus Kaiyote are another band that I'm completely obsessed with, I rinse their albums so much. I think for me it's just freeing yourself from your own expectations or other people's expectations of your own music. That's when you get to have fun and play around and make weird shit.
TOPNOTE: Sounds like you actually inspired yourself, then?
Liam: I suppose. I mean that sounds more profound than it actually is! It's just me goofing around in the studio being like what if I put this Skrillex synth on top of this funk jazz horn. I'm not really thinking I need to be polite, I need to do something the jazz world will like… although they did like this album [laughs].
It's nice that people like it, but I don't think you can think like that when you make music. I'm really just grateful to be collaborating with all these artists on this album. It's been the biggest learning curve, the biggest lessons, the biggest growth I've had as a musician over the last year and a half making this record.
“I’m not really thinking I need to be polite, I need to do something the jazz world will like… although they did like this album [laughs].”
TOPNOTE: What would you say to artists who are struggling with creative block at the moment?
Liam: I think the main thing for me is just not making music and having expectations of it being good. Make some music and then don't save it, even if it's really good. I’ll produce a whole demo and then delete it afterwards because you really get back to the kind of, why are you doing it in the first place? You should do it because you love the process, and you're not doing it to get on a ‘We Out Here’ lineup or on Radio 6, or whatever it is.
I think incentives come into the back of your mind when you're making music. You have to do it because you love it. If I spent eight hours making a demo and I listen to it the next day and it's shit, I don't really judge myself on that anymore, although I really used to. That’s a really bad road to go down, because you can’t look at any time as wasted when you're making music. You're always learning something, you're always having fun.
It's not that deep, you know, You don't need your first album to be the best thing ever. I'm proud of [my first album], but if I were to do that now, it would be completely different. Just release it. Stop holding it in the hard drive. Learn how to mix, learn how to master. It'll be shit, but just release it and then move on!
corto.alto is currently touring Europe, with more live dates slated for the UK next month.