Harbor, in hindsight it was a collage of beats I had laying around in my harddrive, ram packet into a 12'' record. No idea or thought behind it...
Tell us about tomppabeats.
Just a name, which someone might introduce me to a stranger instead of tomi, who made jokes so good that it turned someone's brain into a raisin. A toe dancing shadow partner listening to plock songs with. Just a name honestly that i've considered hanging up too many times for a while now!
I'm 25 now and got adult brains! I'm just tomi and i walk with a voice not the best but its mine so that counts for something.
Tell us about your 2016 release titled 'Harbor.'
Harbor, in hindsight it was a collage of beats I had laying around in my harddrive, ram packet into a 12'' record. No idea or thought behind it. I just wanted to put as much music in a single disk as possible, since personally i think double lp's are bothersome and unnecessary. Looking at the record gives great joy! It looks like a trunk of an very old tree.
Many of this album's tracks off of 'Harbor' stand out for being some of the most iconic from this era of Lofi music.
When you pull the genre (lofi hip hop) up on rate my music, it is one of the genre's most recognized/highest-rated works, along with 100s of millions of streams on the project on various platforms.
How does it feel to have a project that has reached so many individuals' ears?
People ask for ''harbor 2 ''now but I have no idea what really drove me to make that kind of music in the first place.
So you tell me i guess, what is stood out the most for you when you heard it first?
Can you talk to us about your most recent album, Habits (2022)?
Habits, anagram for toshiba, a toshiba harddrive which contained all my music and ableton projects of the years back to my teenage-self, ecided to break on the border of Scotland (the last song of the record on the last moments contains the field recording of the harddrive taking its last breath, and my friend ashley asking us to walk up stream, keep walking on!'' is a 5 year struggle of depression and self-doubt, bits and pieces of music found in old emails, remastered and reworked. Which is a perfect metaphor what i've been up to for last years hahhahha, since I was a quite quiet and a sad soul for the biggest time, walking by the sideline not making a peep of an sound.
I can safely say that I have found myself in a beautiful and genuine place currently.
Time for the new. Creation of wonder!
What sounds have been inspiring you recently?
I really have enjoyed connie converse a bunch lately! Works ofaleksi perälä, bogdan raczynski, daedelus ''congrats on fatherhood by the way!'' and his past project the long lost and of course stereolab! but too many to mentions as always.
What would you like listeners to take away from your music?
Wonder!
But you decide what to do with my sound, there is so much of it out there! Don't not get lost and drown now. Morbid huh.
It says on your Bandcamp that you are based in Finland. Do you think being in a Nordic nation affects the type of music you make?
Directly i'd like to say no! but I cannot say, i've traveled a good bunch in a short period of time and i've found it pretty impossible to actually make music on the road, so always living in Helsinki, it is the place where everything is created. Of course I try to grab pieces on the way to somewhere, is it a squeaky shoe on a walking park man or a record found in a shop.
I know the need of the seasons, if i lived in constant heat i would think id go insane, no change, no growth, no wilt! Surroundings are important. Summer of the stone smoothed out by the sea and salt in your lips and the cold gut punch of the winter. Silence of the people also calms down a bunch.
Without silence there is no appreciation of sound, without sickness there is no love for your health.
What's next for tomppabeats?
What is next is unknown!
I am still in process of therapy. I just wish I don't waste away the true sound. Or worse yet, never find it to begin with.
ARTIST LINKS: BANDCAMP - SOUNDCLOUD
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