Music Industry News

TL Stamp is the musical project of Tony Stamp (he/him), a producer, engineer and award winning broadcaster based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa.

For two decades Tony has been behind the mixing desk, engineering at radio institutions 95bFM and RNZ. Stamp is an on air talent too, hosting 95bFM’s Totally Wired and co-hosting Saturday Drive show Carnival In Rio. In 2021 Stamp was handpicked as Nick Bollinger’s replacement for RNZ’s The Sampler and is now a music critic and producer of Aotearoa’s flagship music show Music 101. Stamp also wrote and co-presented a science fiction film show for Sky TV, featured on TVNZ’s U-Live (and later U-Late), is a contributing writer on Flicks.co.nz and has a monthly Totally Normal column on David Farrier’s Webworm. In 2022 Tony won the inaugural NZ On Air Outstanding Music Journalism Award at the Taite Music Prize.

For the past decade Stamp has been bashfully uploading minimal electronica, field recordings and aural experiments to Soundcloud & Bandcamp, gaining the recognition of the taste makers and early adopters. Now teamed up with Sunreturn, TL Stamp shares his new 15 track album creases out today on all digital platforms. The title track is accompanied by a visualiser made by film critic and award winning animation filmmaker Liam Maguren.

Across fifteen tracks, TL Stamp dismantles the boundaries between organic and synthetic sound, shaping these disparate elements into his distinctive sonic language. Songs like ‘Miracle Mile‘ and ‘Cyprus‘ gradually unfurl, allowing their layers to reveal themselves over time, while ‘You Used to Set Yourself on Fire‘ and ‘Creases‘ arrive fully formed, built around chopped drum loops and cinematic samples manipulated almost beyond recognition.

“Initially the name ‘creases’ was just a word that felt right,” says Stamp. “But I think it’s referring to the songs, these kinds of small things that hopefully leave an impression.”

Inspired by years of listening to IDM and Avant-Garde Electronica along with Aotearoa’s 4-track D.I.Y. legends, creases sees TL Stamp pick up whatever instrument is at hand and gradually build and layer performances through an additive approach to sample-based DAW composition. The magic, in other words, is happening in ‘the box’.

“I like to try and blur the line between analogue and digital: putting live instruments through digital processes, putting artificial sounds into real spaces, things like that. Usually I have a sort of texture in my head and I’m trying to figure out how to emulate it; something about manipulating audio in that way really clicked with me.”

“Creases was inspired by musicians like Teebs and Shlohmo, who make beat music feel so human and intimate. I listened to a lot of Ninja Tune and Mo’ Wax compilations as a teen, then later DJ Shadow’s Entroducing, and I think all those are sitting in my subconscious. I hear Mogwai’s sense of melody and drama. Chris Knox and Tall Dwarfs’ approach to percussion and home recording. And bands like Sebadoh and Voom, particularly their 4-track recordings. The record became a kind of speed run through all these different modes. Often I make things where the duration is part of the point, but here I really wanted to get in, drop a nice little melody and get out.”

Accompanying the album’s title track is a cosy hand drawn animated visualiser by Liam Maguren. Shapes, lines and colours shift, stir and gesticulate throughout the duration of the clip.

“All of TL Stamp’s music has a real brain coolant quality to them,” jokes Maguren. “The track felt like an empty room with pleasantly dimmed lights, gradually introducing a star or two until the universe filled the space. I tried to replicate that feeling but with nerdy maths stuff.”

“There’s been an avalanche of commentary on AI-generated imagery and the way it always tries to ‘perfect’ the imperfect world around us. I essentially wanted to flip that by drawing perfect geometric shapes with my own shaky, imperfect hand.”

“My process for making the video started by laying out a basic plan for the geometric line work, timed meticulously to the track. Once that was done, I kinda freewheeled it with all the coloured stuff in between. No real rhyme, reason, or forethought into those parts. Just running with a feeling.”

Reflecting on the release of creases TL Stamp says, “Making music is the closest thing I have to meditation. It brings me peace no matter how much horrible shit is happening in the world and hopefully some of that translates to the listener.”

Stream creases here.

Check out all things TL Stamp below:
Instagram
Spotify
Bandcamp
Soundcloud

Photo credit: Cole Eastham-Farrelly