Koal Harrison is not the first producer to hail Madlib as a ruler of rhythm and beats, nor will he be the last. But the Toronto-based musician, who records music as the Kount, can claim the distinction of catching his favourite living musician's ear with his all-original sounds, which have received the revered producer's stamp of approval.
Last November, Harrison checked his inbox to discover that the hip-hop icon born Otis Jackson Jr. had purchased a selection of custom drum sample packs from his online store. Though initially unsure if the name on the receipt was legitimate, Madlib himself weighed in weeks after on Twitter, with two flame emojis confirming that Harrison's beats bring the heat.
"My sister framed it for Christmas," Harrison tells Exclaim! of Madlib's fiery co-sign, before carefully taking an enlarged print of the post out from behind his drum kit, housed in a detailed gold frame. It will assuredly soon hang on his studio wall, should he trade hand drums for a hammer.
From Madlib's Beat Konducta release series, to the revered Madvillainy, to the eccentricities of Yesterdays New Quintet, Harrison cites the producer's combination of percussive force and feel as the driving force behind his fandom. "He just has the best pocket and his drum sounds are so raw," he expresses. "Some tracks are so overtly raw, just nasty sounding. Then he'll have another track with some of the polished, crisp drum sounds you'll ever hear. Just incredible range."
Last November, Harrison checked his inbox to discover that the hip-hop icon born Otis Jackson Jr. had purchased a selection of custom drum sample packs from his online store. Though initially unsure if the name on the receipt was legitimate, Madlib himself weighed in weeks after on Twitter, with two flame emojis confirming that Harrison's beats bring the heat.
"My sister framed it for Christmas," Harrison tells Exclaim! of Madlib's fiery co-sign, before carefully taking an enlarged print of the post out from behind his drum kit, housed in a detailed gold frame. It will assuredly soon hang on his studio wall, should he trade hand drums for a hammer.
From Madlib's Beat Konducta release series, to the revered Madvillainy, to the eccentricities of Yesterdays New Quintet, Harrison cites the producer's combination of percussive force and feel as the driving force behind his fandom. "He just has the best pocket and his drum sounds are so raw," he expresses. "Some tracks are so overtly raw, just nasty sounding. Then he'll have another track with some of the polished, crisp drum sounds you'll ever hear. Just incredible range."
"I was driving an upstairs tenant mad with the noise," he admits. "I was never making beats at night, but during the day, it was kind of a constant rhythm of bass looping — which I understand could drive anyone mad. I had, like, four hours a day to work on music using monitors. I'm not much of a headphones guy."
Harrison's studio desk sports a pair of ADAM A7X monitors and a Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol keyboard, with which he triggers samples using Logic Pro. Instruments including a C&C Custom drum kit, Behringer Poly D, Roland Juno-106 and Sequential Prophet-6 synths, and an Akai reel-to-reel tape deck flank his workstation. Recording is handled with a Warm Audio WA-47 condenser microphone and a Focusrite Scarlett audio interface.
Underneath the desk lies a chest chock-full of auxiliary percussion, amassed from digging through Kijiji and antique shops. To his ears, these treasured finds "sound miles better than anything from Long & McQuade."
"Percussion is the toughest to buy if you're new to it and don't know where to look," Harrison says. "I love going to those odds and ends-type stores where things are strewn everywhere, where it feels like the whole place is going to collapse on top of you. There's always a really weird cowbell or something in there that sounds dusty and awesome."
When asked about his strangest sonic find, Harrison brings a homemade, staff-like instrument in front of the camera. Two sets of sleigh bells are attached to the top of the wooden post with L-brackets, and as the webcam comes into focus, a set of strings and tuning pegs are revealed. Harrison notes that an orange demon face affixed to the post, smiling away for decoration, has led studio visitors to deem it cursed.
In terms of an indispensable piece of gear, Harrison points to a pair of '60s-era Zildjian hi-hat cymbals plucked from Toronto's Century Drum Shop. "As long as I have live hi-hats, my life is so much easier," he shares. "I feel like when I work those in with programmed drums, I can approximate whatever kind of drum loop or pocket I want." Outside of the skins, it's his Fender Rhodes: "That sound is just timeless, and it fits in almost every beat that I make."
Among the ear and eye-catching instrumental stars of Harrison's recent videos are a guzheng, a Chinese plucked string instrument with moveable bridges, and a sitar that fellow Torontonian Sameer Cash brought back to Canada from a trip to India.
"It's exciting to get a new instrument and be super inspired with it," he says of the former. "If I can make, like, two or three beats with it, then it's worth the price." As for Cash's sitar, he jokes, "He hasn't asked for it back as long as I keep supplying him with the bangers. I should bust that out again. I need to tune it and it's a real pain in the ass."
As his sounds continue to circulate, Harrison is more than happy to help his supporters march to the beat of their own drum. Social media followers get to put their production skills to the test with the Kount Challenge, in which Harrison offers up a drum loop for use in a creation of their own. Of course, Luna Li's "Kount Challenge" from her Jams EP is the instrumental that captured the top prize in the inaugural edition.
"It's inspiring," Harrison says of sifting through entries. "I like seeing other people work, too. 'What you're doing looks like fun, so I'm going to go do that now.'"
"People can be pretty secretive with the plugins or gear. For me, I could tell you every single thing that I'm doing, and what you make is not going to sound like me. It's going to sound like what you're doing, and speak to what your influences are. I feel like all that technical stuff is meant to be shared."
Harrison's studio desk sports a pair of ADAM A7X monitors and a Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol keyboard, with which he triggers samples using Logic Pro. Instruments including a C&C Custom drum kit, Behringer Poly D, Roland Juno-106 and Sequential Prophet-6 synths, and an Akai reel-to-reel tape deck flank his workstation. Recording is handled with a Warm Audio WA-47 condenser microphone and a Focusrite Scarlett audio interface.
Underneath the desk lies a chest chock-full of auxiliary percussion, amassed from digging through Kijiji and antique shops. To his ears, these treasured finds "sound miles better than anything from Long & McQuade."
"Percussion is the toughest to buy if you're new to it and don't know where to look," Harrison says. "I love going to those odds and ends-type stores where things are strewn everywhere, where it feels like the whole place is going to collapse on top of you. There's always a really weird cowbell or something in there that sounds dusty and awesome."
When asked about his strangest sonic find, Harrison brings a homemade, staff-like instrument in front of the camera. Two sets of sleigh bells are attached to the top of the wooden post with L-brackets, and as the webcam comes into focus, a set of strings and tuning pegs are revealed. Harrison notes that an orange demon face affixed to the post, smiling away for decoration, has led studio visitors to deem it cursed.
In terms of an indispensable piece of gear, Harrison points to a pair of '60s-era Zildjian hi-hat cymbals plucked from Toronto's Century Drum Shop. "As long as I have live hi-hats, my life is so much easier," he shares. "I feel like when I work those in with programmed drums, I can approximate whatever kind of drum loop or pocket I want." Outside of the skins, it's his Fender Rhodes: "That sound is just timeless, and it fits in almost every beat that I make."
Among the ear and eye-catching instrumental stars of Harrison's recent videos are a guzheng, a Chinese plucked string instrument with moveable bridges, and a sitar that fellow Torontonian Sameer Cash brought back to Canada from a trip to India.
"It's exciting to get a new instrument and be super inspired with it," he says of the former. "If I can make, like, two or three beats with it, then it's worth the price." As for Cash's sitar, he jokes, "He hasn't asked for it back as long as I keep supplying him with the bangers. I should bust that out again. I need to tune it and it's a real pain in the ass."
As his sounds continue to circulate, Harrison is more than happy to help his supporters march to the beat of their own drum. Social media followers get to put their production skills to the test with the Kount Challenge, in which Harrison offers up a drum loop for use in a creation of their own. Of course, Luna Li's "Kount Challenge" from her Jams EP is the instrumental that captured the top prize in the inaugural edition.
"It's inspiring," Harrison says of sifting through entries. "I like seeing other people work, too. 'What you're doing looks like fun, so I'm going to go do that now.'"
"People can be pretty secretive with the plugins or gear. For me, I could tell you every single thing that I'm doing, and what you make is not going to sound like me. It's going to sound like what you're doing, and speak to what your influences are. I feel like all that technical stuff is meant to be shared."
