Interview: Lee Scott
Blah Records overseer Lee Scott reveals exclusive insights into la scala, To Tame a Dead Horse, Tin Foil Fronts & more.
Lee had recently returned from performing his first Australia / NZ tour, visiting “Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, then we went over to New Zealand, hitting up Wellington, Auckland, and Christchurch,” said Lee. “Shoutout to Joe, Musty, Dee, and all the friends we made along the way.” Whilst in Australia Lee gave fans the opportunity to hear a project called la scala before the official release day, pressing CD copies in Australia exclusively on sale for fans that bought tickets to his shows. “I’d never been to Australia or New Zealand,” explained Lee. “I wanted to give them something special: exclusive early access to la scala.”
la scala was recorded earlier this year, at “a barn conversion somewhere in the West Country,” recalled Lee. “It had a little stream outside the window, loads of little pheasant bastards bopping around and a few deer that would come and stare at me through the window.” Whilst these details lend into the concept behind la scala, the title derives from a derelict building in Runcorn that was also called La Scala. “At one point in time—before my time—it had been a cinema, a bingo-hall, a ballroom, a whole bunch of different things. It’s the nicest building in that end of town, the Old Town, I thought it was a shame it was left to rot,” said Lee. “Anyway, I imagined this fictionalised building I’d dubbed with the same name, only in all lowercase, ‘la scala’ - on the outside, it’s this small rickety shed, but inside, it stretches up into infinity.”
Last week Lee released a music video for a single from la scala - starfish, which was actually the first track Lee recorded for la scala, followed by the next track on the project; next door. “They kind of follow on from each other conceptually,” added Lee. The starfish video was filmed in one take, by Louis Mackay. “Louis had the idea to live-feed the camera through the cinema screen,” continued Lee. “We also filmed the last shot of the Gingko Biloba video (from To Tame a Dead Horse) in the same location.” Laced musically with the funky, jazzy influence which Lee has become renowned for, all tracks for la scala were written, produced and recorded by himself. “I made one of the beats on the SP-404A—the intrusive thoughts joint,” revealed Lee. “But mostly for this, I was just using Ableton and a record player.”
Alongside this project Lee included a statement, that la scala may be the last project of its kind with regards to its tempo - which averages around 78bpm. “Time will tell, init,” shrugged Lee. “I think when I said that, I was thinking maybe I’ll try my hand at ’80s new wave or something or just shouting dead loud over gabba.” Despite the mellow tempo, each track is quick in terms of duration, no longer than three minutes long - however many pearls of wisdom are contained within the lyrics. When asked if he had any intentions for how the project was to be received, Lee replied, “How someone will receive it is not even a thought during the creation process, I block all of that out.” He explained that he often disappears when making music in solitary isolation, content only with impressing himself. “I’m just trying to make something I’ll like for a week or two,” summarised Lee.
Packaged with la scala are acapella and instrumental versions of each track, which Lee generously included however now somewhat regrets, due to the number of off-beat mixes he has been tagged in online. “If I never do that again, blame anyone who mixed me off-beat,” laughed Lee. “My soul can’t take it.” The sole feature on la scala is by Blah affiliate Black Josh, who appears on the merry karma single. Lee revealed that Josh recorded the tune in the studio he was currently standing in, also that Josh’s verse was actually from another of Josh’s projects that Lee has been producing alongside Sumgii. “This joint he was working on had like three verses and that particular verse was the odd one out,” reminisced Lee. “I had this beat there that was originally intended for la scala and it just so happened to be the same tempo, so I put his verse over it and it sounded even better, so yeah, I laced my shit after that and there we go - cool story, bro.” la scala climaxes with an instrumental outro called cathedral breeze, motivated by Lee’s metaphoric La Scala building. “There’s a little vocal clip at the end—from some old audiobook that subtly sums it up,” continued Lee. “Looks can be deceiving; inside that tiny, rickety shed, you’ve got yourself a grand old cathedral breeze—or something.”
The conversation turned towards Lee’s first official release of 2024: To Tame a Dead Horse, significant for being a non-digital, physical only release via vinyl, CD, cassette and even USB drives - all of which have sold out. “To Tame a Dead Horse is packed to the brim, every space filled,” began Lee. “Skits within skits, rooms within rooms—labyrinthine. Kind of the opposite to la scala.” The only insight fans have into the 12 track, feature laden album without purchasing it is a single called Gingko Biloba. “The concept for Gingko Biloba was born out of the frustration of memory degradation,” confided Lee. “I had an extended period when, I guess, lack of sleep and whatever else, maybe overconsumption of media, started to take its toll, and my memory recall suffered.” Lee further explained that the entire project is a concept: the content, the artwork, the way he released and presented it. Lee wanted listeners to dip back into an era when music wasn’t available to snap up with zero effort, realising that this project would not be for everyone as a result. “I just wanted to recreate that experience and wanted to make a project that would up the chances of the listener taking the time to listen from start to finish,” continued Lee. “I felt like the best way to do that was to make people invest something into it, plus, power to the people, the independent artists - shouts to everybody who featured on it too.”
To Tame a Dead Horse has multiple guest features, including Breeze Brewin from The Juggaknots, Jehst, Cappo, Jam Baxter and a number of Blah affiliates. This alone makes the project standout from Lee’s other works, which typically contain few features if any. Conceptually, To Tame a Dead Horse focusses on ‘paranoia, media consumption and the increasingly blurred lines between fact and fiction.’ “It’s less concerned with hooks and niceness,” continued Lee. “It’s not like I haven’t delved into these chambers before, but this one is just way more focused in that specific realm.” Since the album dropped in June, it has been repressed three times on vinyl as well as CD and Lee confirmed that if the demand is there, he will undoubtedly repress it again. “I want people to hear it, but I want them to really want to hear it, as opposed to it being just one of the many things they skip through that day,” explained Lee. “A lot of time, effort, and love go into this shit - if you have a copy and you’re reading this, you should go to the To Tame a Dead Horse page on my bandcamp and leave a review.”
Another highlight for Lee’s fans was the 10 year anniversary of Tin Foil Fronts, regarded by many as Lee’s holy grail of music - winning Wordplay’s 2014 Album of the Year. To commemorate the occasion, Lee re-released Tin Foil Fronts by pressing it on vinyl for the first time, which has since sold out. “I just wanted to show you could bash a whole load of styles together and make something cohesive, it was my response to the zeitgeist of the time.” summarised Lee. The album stood out for its experimental nature, during a period where boom-bap was becoming a conventional part of UK hip-hop releases. The array of producers, Reklews, 2late, 19.Thousand (R.I.P.), Drae, Cruicky, Sniff, Sumgii & Lee Scott himself, all contribute to the variation of sound throughout the 16 track duration. “The first track on the project was Foil Fronts,” recalled Lee. “I originally recorded it over a Samiyam beat in Tony Broke’s studio somewhere in Liverpool, then asked Reklews to make something original for it, then we re-recorded it to his beat, which is absolutely nothing like the Samiyam one. But yeah, big up all the producers that pitched in.”
The hook for the Foil Fronts single, ‘Money, Hoes, Drugs and Foil Fronts’ was where the concept and name for the Tin Foil Fronts album came from. At the time Lee revealed he was experiencing bouts of poor mental health, realising he had to do something to change the situation he was in. “I won’t go in too deep; it’s right there in the lyrics,” continued Lee. “But probably in poor judgement I officially registered as self-employed, for a long while, it didn’t exactly help—I continued on a bit of a spiral, living off next to nothing, barely leaving the flat.” This was around 2012-2014, which Lee describes as ‘a crazy couple of years musically,’ however despite this Lee still managed to put out 3 acclaimed projects: Stupid Poignant Sh!t (2013), Tin Foil Fronts & CactusOwlMoonGoat. “I kind of made all three of them simultaneously,” said Lee. “But I can officially say I lost my mind during the creation of Tin Foil Fronts, if anyone finds it - keep that shit.”
Interview drawing to a close, Lee was asked which projects are dropping next on Blah Records that fans should keep an eye out for. “We’ve got a couple of Black Josh projects produced by me and Sumgii,” revealed Lee. “The first of which is an EP titled YSL Bootleg EP, you heard it here first! That shit is going to be a cult classic, la, and then yeah, the big one, the album but we’ll get to that further down the line. We’ve got a crazy Sly Moon self-produced solo album, a Shakes EP, and then a King Grubb album I produced. There’s a fire Stinkin Slumrok album I produced which I’m just wrapping up now. Loads of shit, the old guard back in full effect. Sleazy’s got a sick EP too.”
Lee Scott, thank you for your time.
”Nice one, Ethan laa.”
Photography by Lyza Jane.
Catch Lee Scott perform live at Camden Assembly on November 28th alongside Black Josh & more.
After this interview was conducted, Lee released another CD version of To Tame a Dead Horse.
