From what I could find of your older work, you started out in a much more straightforward hip-hop lane than where Reducer sits. Is there anything specific that brought about the change?

Not really… I think I was boring myself. I wanted to take what I was doing before and advance it.

I can only guess at sources of samples, but a lot of Reducer has the same vibe as a nightmarish cartoon or something. Where are you finding that stuff?

I’m into sound art, sound collage. I basically make an archive for myself, full of samples. I don’t really search for samples that much, I just happen to run into stuff that I like. I don’t really put in the effort to look for stuff anymore, you know?

Everywhere I look online, people are falling over themselves to describe you as this anonymous, mysterious producer figure. Is that something you’re going for?

[laughs] No, I just haven’t taken any good press shots yet. I don’t care about being seen, really. Maybe that’s mysterious, but unintentionally mysterious.

As far as visuals go, though, you’ve got a really distinct style – I saw a mix you did for Kaltblut and it had the same repeating black-and-white deal as your album. Have you been doing the art as long as the music?

Yeah, about the same. I always want to completely match what you hear with the image, like that Impose mix cover was red, and that’s the way it sounds to me. Even when I’m making the music, I think about what it looks like. I like ugly stuff; it sounds a little off-beat, kind of sloppy, and I like that visually. I like old, dirty-looking cartoons and stuff like that.

Would you call your music ugly?

It’s not really intentional, but a lot of the things that I sample aren’t really dark at all. The way I sequence the music sounds really random, but it’s calculated, a lot. The way I place them, my ear for it, makes it that way.

Doing research for this, I found mostly just names of your prior projects – the music itself was gone. Was that just because your style had changed so much?

I used to put out demos on the internet, so those were earlier versions of the songs that ended up on the album. I like to work out the tracks over time – I don’t mind sharing it, but Reducer is the final product. That’s it. I’d rather focus and put my energy into a project rather than just throwing things out there. Everything I make is for a project, something with a specific sequence. Some places, you’ll hear like three seconds of a song that comes later on in the album and then later you get the rest of it. I like the fact that I can make an album disappear off the internet.

How’d you end up linking with Tri Angle?

I put Reducer out last fall, and somehow Robin [Carolan, the label’s founder] heard it and approached me. He was interested in what I was working on in the future – did I want to take music seriously and really work? He put out the idea of putting out Reducer on his label and getting it properly mastered. I made slight changes to it, and got that final version how I wanted it.

Are you at the point where HANZ is your job, or is it still to the side of anything?

[laughs] Yeah, I’m HANZ now, all the way. I think of HANZ as a project, kind of like a play on those old-school graffiti names where it’s like four letters and they’re all capitalized.

Have you been playing shows in the area or elsewhere for a while now?

I’ve done local shows here, but not that much. Maybe ten performances that I’ve done ever. It’s just the laptop and MPD26 – I like to keep my setup really minimal. Even what I use to produce, in order to make something really complex I think I have to keep everything as simple as possible. I don’t want to overwhelm myself with too many buttons, you know?

Do you view yourself as a part of any larger local scene?

Yeah, I think so. It’s mostly a rock scene around here but electronic music is growing. It’s not there yet, but it’s here at the same time. I was gonna see Mumdance last night, but he cancelled. I’m seeing Pusha T later – I’m the biggest Clipse fan. Hell Hath No Fury, that’s one of my top five favorite albums. I like that balance, you know? Like street energy, otherworldly but also down to earth.

I’m kinda from his area – we have all these locals out of Southeast Virginia and then they go out and fall out of favor. Nobody’s heard from Timbaland in a while, Missy disappeared, Chris Brown for obvious reasons.

The Neptunes are from there, right? Imagine radio without them, though. It was just strange stuff – Drop It Like It’s Hot, like what is that? If that song were to come out today, it probably wouldn’t get radio play. Which is weird, because it came out almost a decade ago.

We’ve got weird hits today too, but in different ways. It’s almost like there’s a flavor-of-the-year weirdness that the radio tolerates.

Yeah, that’s what I mean – it’s like this is weird, but it’s in-a-box weird. But like, a song with a guy making percussion with his mouth? I don’t think that would fly today. But it doesn’t sound dated at all.

That’s the cachet superproducers had back then. Was there a hit that didn’t have Just Blaze, Timbaland, or The Neptunes behind it?

I’m more of a Neptunes fan, but, man, I like Timbaland too though! For Hell Hath No Fury alone, and Fam-Lay – Skrung Owt, that song? That’s my favorite Neptunes beat, this long, evil-sounding synth drone and the dude’s just rapping over it. I bought Hell Hath No Fury on vinyl – they call it coke white vinyl [laughs] – and then I bought it on CD again because I lost the first one. Matter of fact, Reducer is coming out on vinyl soon, so it’s an actual proper release – I’m excited because it’s my first physical… thing, you know?

Are you tapped-in to the Tri Angle network now? Do all of you guys from the label hang out or talk? I know you just had that showcase up in New York.

Oh, yeah – that was my first time meeting all of them. I talk to people from the label here and there; I was familiar with all their stuff before I signed, so when Robin approached me I was like, they want me? At first I thought of myself as too messy-sounding – it’s not listenable, it sounds like a balled-up piece of paper. I sent myself out to labels, but I don’t think they knew what to do with it. Tri Angle, I think they’re spot on, you know?

Day-to-day, are you still listening to hip-hop primarily? Is that where your inspiration is rooted?

Yeah, I like hip-hop and I like punk music. I like hip-hop from the 80’s, 90’s, punk from the 70’s. I like old dub reggae from the 70’s, lots of late 70’s stuff. I bring those old sample techniques, like The Bomb Squad from the Public Enemy albums. I don’t think anything will ever sound like that anymore because of sample clearances, like under the name HANZ I could put out stuff and take it off the internet. Whoever downloaded it, that’s for you – if you got it like two years ago then hang onto it because you probably won’t see it again. It’s there for that moment and it’s gone. A lot of that stuff is on the mix, plus some new stuff of course.

Is there a particular rationale behind the mixes you put out containing only your music?

I think because I have these different styles, all with a common thread, I just use my own material because it sounds like it’s different people anyway. Some of my stuff is 200 bpm and stuff, so I don’t expect to hear people using my stuff as much.

I’m still curious about life on a label – how much of your immediate future is planned out? Tours, collaborations, remixes that you’re waiting to reveal?

Right now, I’m doing some remixes, like in the pop direction – some of that is in the works, and I’m working on this new project. I’m taking what I did with Reducer and I’m advancing it again. I’m focusing on the density of it, trying to one-up myself. I want to beat my other album. I haven’t been signed for very long, so as time goes on I’ll be more active. I’m gonna do some shows for the Reducer vinyl maybe, and later in the fall. Still trying to work that out, and be present physically in places. I think in Europe, they appreciate that stuff more. I think they appreciate hip-hop, bass, I know they had Kraftwerk – they had an influence on American hip-hop. I can see that correlation between European technology and US hip-hop. Sorry. I sound cluttered.

What else are you checking out this weekend?

I play tomorrow, so I’ll be at the CAM (Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh) all day. I might try to get out of there at some point to get some air. I guess I’m gonna check out Pusha tonight, and TV on the Radio. I wish Deerhunter hadn’t cancelled. I saw them play here a few years ago, I was kinda bummed out they didn’t show up. That’s like the best rock band I’ve seen in concert. I think they have something coming out too.

That’s what I’m really hoping for from Pusha tonight, he’s gotta be pretty close with some new material. I remember when the hype was building for the last album there was that crazy rumor that Joaquin Phoenix had produced the single.

Oh yeah! That rumor was put out and I think it was Joaquin’s brother that produced it, I think.

Didn’t he die a while ago?

No, no like his friend. Not River Phoenix but like his friend or something like that.

Did you hear that one Pusha track that leaked a couple months ago with the Kanye beat that sounded like he’d just gotten into PC Music?

No! What’s it called?

I forget – the sample sounded like someone finishing a milkshake through a straw.

Oh! It had that [imitates sound]? I forgot about that sample, I picked it up immediately. Gang Starr used it for Just To Get A Rep and I heard it in a L’Oreal commercial before that.

That’s a crazy pull. It seems like we’re finally at the point where you can start flipping old hip-hop and it’s fresh, like the whole Atlanta thing with that Quincy Jones sample.

I grew up in Georgia – I’m from Augusta, where James Brown is from, so that city appreciates him. I’m sure Atlanta does too. That whole scene is what other people wish they had, like they’re all connected and they have people supporting whatever’s going on. One person blows up and they bring the next guy in. They’ve had that building up for decades. Think of Jermaine Dupri and So So Def, it’s been going since back then. The first beats I made were when that snap stuff was going on back in 2007. It didn’t stay the same – I evolved, but eventually hip-hop will get back to minimalism. It’s already getting there. I think about early Def Jam, like Beastie Boys – Paul Revere or early LL Cool J – Rock the Bells, you can pay attention to what they’re saying.

What’s your understanding of the structure of Tri Angle itself? Are you in touch often, or do you just go off and come back with something done?

Robin runs the whole label himself, so we talk through email, maybe Twitter sometimes. It was based in New York as of recently, but made in England. I think it’s still based in New York. You talk to the label directly, no middlemen or anything like that. It’s a real independent label.