Chósta is an Irish electronic producer and artist from the seaside Dublin town of Donabate makes music inspired by his coastal surroundings. As music was always a form of identity and expression as a kid, this is what drew him to music, in-turn, now creating and releasing his own music.
Drawing comparisons to Mount Kimbie, Burial and Leon Vynehall, his music taste has always been quite eclectic. Chósta spent much of his formative years listening to a combination of Bowie, alternative hip-hop and indie-rock bands like LCD Soundsystem, Arctic Monkeys and Grizzly Bear. He discovered electronic music when he was in college and dove further into that world. Nowadays, his musical influences range from sample-based hip-hop producers like Madlib to Leonard Cohen, and left field electronic bands like Severed Heads to punk legends The Fall.
Chósta’s latest single ‘That Object Spoke to Me’ has a dreamy, melancholic feel to the downtempo, electronica production. The track is a collaboration with legendary Irish artist Jape (AKA Richie Egan); he was a fan of his material way before he made his own music. The story goes, “I thought I’d chance my arm and email him to see if he’d work on a tune with me. Happily he agreed, and we sent demos back and forth before settling on the final piece.”
The track stems from his early insecurities making music, where he feared that his lack of playing ability and technical proficiency would prevent him from creating the songs he had in his head. Eventually, he found sampling and other methods which worked for him, making music in almost collage form. Reading about collage art led him to the cutup technique popularised by Wiliam Burroughs and it clarified in his head that there are many different methods of creating.
The vocal sample at the beginning of the track is from an interview with Burroughs talking about this style. He sent Richie an instrumental and he sent him back the track with his vocals and a couple of different other parts. They went back-and-forth, eventually settling on a final cut. It was his first experience of a proper collaboration and one he will remember extremely fondly.
The track will feature on his forthcoming debut album, Twilight Transmission, to be released early 2023. It’s a concept album about a fictional collection of interconnected radio stations. Most of the collection was made in 2021 when Ireland was in the midst of a bleak lockdown during the global pandemic of COVID-19. “During that isolation, I was listening to a lot of radio but found much of it painfully bland and that the same five to ten artists were shoved down my throat. So I came up with the idea of a radio transmission that had eclecticism and was actually good,” Chósta comments.
With the high demand of using social media to market music in today’s day-and-age, Chósta comments that the impact and influence of social media in his music career has been negative. “The constant need to create ‘content’ for social media is great for comedians or podcasters, but it just isn’t feasible for most musicians.” With the rise of TikTok only catering to artists who write short, catchy pop songs with a hook that can fit in a 30-second video, it’s hard to keep up with the trends and wanting to create music that reflects who he is. He describes Instagram as a ‘wasteland’ these days. Although he has more followers than he did a year ago, fewer people engage with his post. “The organic reach is non-existent unless you post their TikTok rip-off reel videos, which is quite ironic for a platform that was originally a social media app for photos.”
Moving forward, he discusses that he has made some great friends and contacts through social media, but feels meeting people at gigs or festivals is a much more personable way of building relationships. “Obviously social media has some benefits, but I’d much rather do without it if it was possible,” Chósta finishes on this particular topic.
Chósta wants listenters to feel something when listening to his music. “That’s all you can really ask for as an artist,” he comments. He finds his drive to move forward with his music as an artist with the determination to improve and evolve with what he does in the same way Bowie or Scott Walker did. “I think the biggest virtue I’ve learned is persistence. There will be setbacks and failures, you just have to keep going.”
Closing out the interview, Chósta comments that he wants to do stuff that interests and excites him regarding his music. “Although it’s great if people like what I do, I make music for myself first and foremost.”