In this interview feature, we get to know the most radicalist up & coming stars on the planet.   

This time it’s 24-year-old singer and electro-soul producer, Krrum.

Formerly a butcher hailing from the fantastically mystical-sounding Dark Peak in South Yorkshire, Alex Krrum has found his niche in Leeds spinning melodious yarns of quarter-life woe over gargantuan productions worthy of Glaswegian powerhouse, LuckyMe.

Kitted with muscular bass throbs, rambunctious electro-brass stabs and smokey vocals, this music sounds as if it’s been written by some kind of deranged marching band…and if we’re being unclear, this is absolutely an endorsement.

Hot on a stellar run of jaw-to-the-floor singles including his wonky breakout single ‘Evil Twin’, its gyrating follow-up ‘Hard On You’, and an additional feature on (37 Adventures label-mate) salute’s ‘Weigh It Up’, Krrum leaves us in equal parts floored and hungry for more.

We caught up with Krrum following the release of perhaps his best song to date, ‘Still Love’, to find out what makes this ascendant artist so unstoppable.

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TMR: From an outside perspective, the Dark Peak sounds about as mystical as places get. How was the experience living in a more remote landscape in comparison to your life in Leeds now? Would you consider moving back?

Krrum: Growing up in the countryside was pretty testing. When all your friends live in different villages that you can only get to via rare buses or lifts from parents, it’s pretty restrictive. So moving to Leeds was a blessing for being so well connected to everything. There’s obviously so much more going on musically in a city too, which meant I could immerse myself in it properly. In the Peak we just made the most of what we had, when we could. I can’t see myself moving back there but I definitely appreciate it a lot more when I visit. It’s beautiful in small doses.

TMR: Not to put too fine a point on it but what exactly is Krrum, or how do you perceive this project? It seems quite loose and collaborative, for example, I believe your bandmate/cowriter Harrison sings on ‘Evil Twin’.

Krrum: Loose and collaborative is a pretty good way of putting it to be fair. The project started off as my baby but it grew into Harrison and I writing pretty much everything together and him singing on all the songs. We write really easily together and share the same vision for the project so it made sense for him to become a permanent fixture. We sometimes write with our friends too as they all make mad different music and bring interesting takes on our world. The project is set up to be changeable to keep it interesting.

TMR: Your music has the muscularity of electronic textures but retains a very strong organic feel. How do you typically approach writing your music?

Krrum: We don’t have a specific method, we tend to just mess around until we find an idea we like. I think the reason it sounds organic over electronic is because most of our influences use organic instruments and we’ve both been in bands with traditional arrangements before we started writing electronic music, so it sounds more natural to us.



TMR: In addition to enormous production, lyrics play an important role in your music. Where, or from who, do you usually find inspiration when writing lyrics?

Krrum: Our lyrics pretty much always come from our own experiences of relationships and rarely the good aspects of them! There’s usually plenty of fuel for that fire but if not then I personally sometimes look to films for inspiration or just dig into the past for stuff to write about. We write the odd diss track too…

TMR: A while back you hilariously gave away your Gameboy Advance SP and a horde of games in exchange for Facebook likes. A love of gaming somehow actually makes sense listening to your music. Do you think gaming is present somewhere in your music? Also, what is/was your favourite game?

Krrum: Oh wow, you’ve been digging there! I’m not really a gamer, apart from Mario Kart. That game has pretty much got us through writing our album. I’ll confidently take anyone on at that game. My favourite growing up was Spyro the Dragon though. Nothing can top it.

TMR: Do you have any ridiculous stories from your experiences as Krrum yet?

Krrum: Unfortunately, no. We’ve been locked up in our basement writing the album since we got signed a year ago and so we only really came out to play the show in Leeds in June. Apologies for being boring.



TMR: How is the live show coming? Is there anything you’re particularly excited about in the setup? At points it looks like you’re playing some mad synth-bass…

Krrum: The live show is finally ready. There’s a lot of work that goes into turning electronic music into a convincing live show as you can imagine. We really wanted to maintain the organic sounds that the record has, so figuring out how to do as much as possible live was the main strategy. I’m just excited to play live in general. For us it’s the pay off so we just try and enjoy it. And yes, I do play a mad synth-bass-guitar for some of it.

TMR: There seems to be a strong visual component to the Krrum project. A mini-graphic novel as well as your cut-and-paste collage videos (and single covers) suggest a more than fleeting appreciation of the visual arts. Is this the case?

Krrum: Yeah, definitely. We have a really good team for the visual side of things. I sent Matt De Jong (who does the artwork) a lot of collage-style influences when we were looking for artwork and he did an amazing job of creating the aesthetic for this album. Camille and Sara Summers-Valli continued the themes for the videos and perfectly expanded on what Matt did. So I can’t really take much credit for it but it’s important to me that everything fits and luckily we’ve got the right people for the job.

TMR: We’re a blog specializing in new music so are there any up-and-coming artists you’re really enjoying lately?

Krrum: I’ve got to shout out some of the bands that have come out of Leeds with us. Trudy are essential listening. They’re a lot of fun too, so make sure you see them play live. Heir are great for fans of proper pop songs and Caro have got a great sound and live show too. As well as that, I’ve been listening to our label-mate salute a lot. We recently collaborated with him and he’s just proper talented, basically.



TMR: What does the rest of 2016 hold for Krrum?

Krrum: We’ve been announced for Beacons festival in Leeds on the 3rd of November and hopefully we’ll have more shows booked in before the year ends. I’m sure you’ll hear a bit more music from us too.

-Karl Jawara