weirdcore

“When people ask me what I do I tend to struggle a bit to be honest with you,” Weirdcore tells It’s Nice That. “I guess I just do anything that’s visual in some way. I think of myself as more of a designer, but it’s open to whatever medium. It has taken me years to get to this point though.” Originally studying graphic design, Weirdcore began working in computing, then marketing, before going back to graphic design when he moved to London, designing websites and DVD menus in Soho. In his spare time he began to create live visuals in clubs, “it was more like a hobby, well maybe not a hobby, but just something I would do at the weekend, not for the money,” he explains. “It just grew into getting bigger fees and became what I could do professionally.”

Weirdcore’s success in creating mind-altering visuals for the likes of MIA, Radiohead and Tame Impala, is the result of “perseverance really,” he says. “I was really struggling for ages, ages, but I just stuck at it. Suddenly it all came at once, it’s like London buses. It had got to the point where I was going to give up, that was it when it happened. I find that happens a lot in life, with various things, it’s when you take it to the point that you think you can’t take it anymore, that’s when it finally happens.”

Each of Weirdcore’s creations always represent the musician’s sound with a warped sense of personality. “One thing I’m quite good at is trying to figure out what the artist likes. Initially I tend to send them a few different things, so I can channel through their taste in stuff,” he explains. “These days I rip tonnes of stuff off of the internet. I find my particular style is trying to uses digital techniques, but in styles that existed before computer generated graphics.” In working with Aphex Twin, this sense of style makes their collaboration straightforward: “With Richard, I kind of bombarded him with loads of different references and once I’d figured it out what he liked, it was fairly simple. He’s got a similar taste to me so I’ll be like let’s try this, I’m pretty sure he’ll like it.”

Weirdcore has been providing live visuals for Aphex Twin since 2009, joining him and the same crew on tour since. “I would describe it as the best job in the world on so many levels, but the actual gig, it’s the hardest job in the world.” This difficulty grows from the fact that the designer mixes the visual elements on the night. “It’s all live generated stuff, lots of it is footage from the crowd, fed into my computer and manipulated in real time, with some 3D generated stuff too,” he explains. “When it works, it’s fantastic but if there is one thing that doesn’t go quite right, it will affect the rest of the show. It’s a bit like the difference between theatre and cinema. With theatre there’s all these things that could go wrong on stage, but when it works it’s magical. Whereas with cinema, you’re safe, you know exactly what you’re going to get.”