Getting To Know Brighton-Based Producer Black Square
After the release of his debut album 'Silent City' in 2016, rising Brighton-based composer and producer Black Square (AKA Andrew Beaton) from the UK releases his second album ‘Beggars Opera’ via Blind Colour, along with a video directed and produced by Friend London, best known for their award-winning work for Childish Gambino, Charlie XCX and Christine & The Queens.
We sat down with Andrew Beaton (AKA Black Square) to find out a little more about him and the album.
Tell us about your new album 'Beggars Opera’
‘Beggars Opera’ is my new album continuing to explore different areas of music that I love and is an opportunity to work with same great singers and musicians.
How did the collab with Laville from the legendary Acid Jazz records and Graziella from hip hop group Foreign Beggars start?
So my debut album Silent City, was mixed by an engineer called Alex Evans. He’s mates with Graziella, Laville and Se.V.eN who all feature on the album. We had some studio time and I had some new material so we started to look around for new vocalists. Andre’s name came up and I was immediately impressed with his vocal style so we got him in and recorded Coral Blues. Graziella came much later as we were finishing the album and I wanted to get a female MC and she was perfect.
What do you do to keep your mind busy these days?
As I work as a composer I’m still working everyday, self-isolation comes naturally to certain creative jobs. I’ve been doing this for years.
What do you want people to take away from the album?
Hopefully they will enjoy the range of music as I do. What’s been a nice surprise is that everybody has their own favourite track.I hope people find the album worth listening too as a whole. I didn’t want to make something which was a single or two and then filler.
Some of the tracks are dark but hauntingly beautiful, how did you manage to picture this sound?
This kind of texture is something which always comes out when I’m messing around. I grew up listening to Portishead and Trip Hop like that and love that dark, moody feeling so some if it always sneaks into my music.
Did it shape up the way you intended it to?
Yeah, I’m really happy with the way it came out. It was a lot of work over a few years.
What's one object that we take for granted in life?
Anything connected to technology.
What stimulates your soul?
Music and good conversation.
You can purchase ‘Beggars Opera’ via Bandcamp, iTunes and all of the usual places:
Visit Black Square’s website.