Start Listening To: Lip Critic
Lip Critic Talks Hex Dealer, creative inspirations, and the future.
Welcome to an exclusive Q&A session with Lip Critic, the dynamic electronic music band from New York City that's been electrifying audiences with their high-energy performances and innovative sound. With the recent release of their debut album Hex Dealer we're diving into their creative process, inspirations, and what fans can expect from their upcoming projects. From their blend of electronic and hardcore music to their inventive music videos and collaborations, Lip Critic is redefining the genre with their bold style.
For those unfamiliar with your music, can you tell us who you are, where you’re from and about the music you make?
We are Lip Critic from New York City and we make fast electronic music.
Your debut album, "Hex Dealer," is set to release soon. Can you give us some insight into the creative process behind this album and what listeners can expect from it?
We started recording this record in 2021, lots of the creative process was informed by covid and how we made our projects before that (LCII and Truth Revealed), we built upon that idea of creating ideas separately and then bringing them to the rest of the band and building off of each other’s ideas as a group. Listeners can expect a 32 minute blast of both melodic and extreme electronic music pulling from many different genres of music.
"Milky Max" is described as a pulverizing slab of electronic hardcore. What inspired the sound and lyrics of this track, and how does it represent Lip Critic's artistic vision?
A lot of our music is about trying to extract our favorite things about electronic and heavy music and have them coexist. Milky Max is trying to sound like a tiny electronic band trying to play a rock song, having a very riff-centric rock song structure but it’s entirely sequenced and has no live instrumentation.
The music video for "Milky Max" features a fully playable video game inspired by the song. How did the idea for this unique interactive experience come about, and what was the collaboration process like with the game designer?
We all have a love for video games and have worked on another game for a prior project. I knew I wanted this game to be a 2d platform and be more focused and concise than our last one. The game designer was Jesse Natter, who is our drummer Ilan Natter's little brother and a good friend and supporter of the band so we just hopped on calls and talked and shared ideas.
Lip Critic has been praised for its energetic live performances and undeniable chemistry onstage. How do you translate that energy and chemistry from live shows into your recordings, particularly on "Hex Dealer"?
Lip Critic functions almost as two different projects, the live band and the studio band. All of the songs get reimagined in one way or another, either creating or deleting entire sections or playing wildly different versions than what was recorded. When we record music we try to evoke the feeling and energy of a live show into a much more controlled and programmed setting.
"Hex Dealer" is said to represent an evolution of your eclectic style. How has your sound evolved since your earlier projects, and what were some of the influences shaping this evolution?
It’s a lot of the same ideas we’ve been trying the last few years about pulling influence from anywhere at anytime it feels right without inhibition, we are just now starting to understand how to actually execute that. Hex Dealer is the most fleshed out version of the sound we have been trying to create on all the records leading up to it. Some of the albums we were listening to at the time of making the album were Ruby Vroom by Soul Coughing, Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress by Gulch, Fetch by Melt Banana, and Slow Wrist, Grave Shift by Cronies.
You've toured extensively, sharing stages with bands like IDLES, Screaming Females, and Geese. How has touring influenced your music and your perspective as a band?
Especially on support tours where the majority of the crowd isn’t there for us, it is awesome to see a crowd that is unaware of us turn either towards what we are doing or away from us throughout the set. Cannot win them all.
What are you most excited about for your upcoming headline tour and your performances at SXSW?
We are really excited to play these songs while the record is released, some of these songs we have been playing for a year and a half and it's been awesome to see the fans learn them that way but we are excited to have the connection made with the studio versions. It wasn’t planned this way that the fans would become so familiar with the live versions before the record and it is awesome.
"Hex Dealer" features collaborations with artists like Ghösh, ID.Sus, and Izzy Da Fonseca. How did these collaborations come about, and what did each artist bring to the table in terms of contributing to the album?
Ilan: We already had space on what is now Bork Pelly in mind for a feature when we first played with Ghösh, and during their set I immediately wanted to ask them if they were interested in collaborating for this track in particular.
Bret: ID.Sus is an artists I’ve worked on and off with for a few years. As long as he wants to do it, I would like to have him on every release because he’s one of my favorite artists. Izzy Da Fonseca is my girlfriend who has been sampled on a bunch of Lip Critic tracks and my own music. The track she’s on is my favorite on the album.
The album artwork for "Hex Dealer" is visually striking. Can you tell us about the concept behind the artwork and how it ties into the themes of the album
That face doesn’t care about anything.
What do you love right now?
Vladimir Dubyshkin.
What do you hate right now?
Pesticides.
Name an album you’re still listening to from when you were younger and why it’s still important to you?
Ilan: It's the 20th anniversary of American Idiot this year, which was the first album I purchased on my own and the first music I found myself without my parents. I certainly think it’s just as good as it is today as it was then.
Bret: Ruby Vroom - Soul Coughing, still some of my favorite production and lyrics.
Danny: Bad Brains - Bad Brains, the album that got me into hardcore music and really a lot of heavier stuff. Been revisiting it a lot lately, literally the template for a whole genre and scene.
Looking ahead, what are your aspirations for the future of Lip Critic, and what can fans expect from the band beyond the release of "Hex Dealer"?
We are working on another full length record, lots of shows, new clothing and merch, remixes, and getting better.
