Back in 2011, Michael Volpe was a physical therapy student in New Jersey, interning at a hospital full time. That same year, he released the influential Instrumental Mixtape–his first beat tape as Clams Casino. It compiled the instrumentals for songs he sent to rappers he’d never met–like Lil B, Soulja Boy, and Main Attrakionz–but connected with online. The tape showcased a particular style of woozy production that stretched obscure vocal samples to become ghostly noises in his mix. Volpe’s music fit somewhere between electronic ambient music and hip-hop, and it defined the emerging cloud rap movement of the era. But despite the widespread acclaim for the tape, Volpe told Pitchfork at the time that he did not plan on becoming a full-time producer. “I just do it for a hobby,” he said.
In 2012, Volpe released Instrumental Tape 2, and in 2013, 3. By the third tape, he was sharing tracks–like A$AP Rocky’s “Palace” and Lil B’s “I’m God”–with reputations preceding the instrumental releases. Volpe would go on to work on Vince Staples’ Summertime ’06, FKA twigs’ LP1, Blood Orange’s Cupid Deluxe, the Weeknd’s Echoes of Silence, multiple releases from A$AP Mob members, and lots more. He did official remixes for Sia and Florence and the Machine, among others. Music was most definitely no longer just a hobby.
On July 15, Clams Casino will release his debut album, 32 Levels, via Columbia Records. It’s an album full of guest vocalists: Lil B appears on “Witness” (watch the just-released video below) and other tracks, and A$AP Rocky and Vince Staples are also among the contributors. (32 Levels will also be released accompanied by its instrumental tracks.)
Last week, Pitchfork spoke with Volpe about the new record, working with Lil B in person for the first time, the emergence of a “Clams Casino” sound, and more.
Pitchfork: In your Rising interview back in 2011, you said you would find samples by typing random words into LimeWire and downloading songs. How has your process changed since then?
Clams Casino: I still use the same tools as far as programming stuff, but now it’s a lot more recording myself, recording sounds and samples, making my own samples rather than finding them. So on this album, I found maybe 20 percent of it or so is found stuff, or not even. A lot of it is me recording samples.
For example, the first almost full year I started working on it, I wasn’t even really making beats. I was just going to studios. All I was doing was collecting sounds. I was playing drums. I’m playing drums all over the album, just chopped up and sampled. Playing a lot of instruments. The majority of the sounds are sounds that I make, and try to make them sound like old things that I found. It’s all me starting from scratch mostly now, rather than finding it.
You worked with Vince Staples on his album, and he has now worked on yours. What was that process like?
All the stuff from his album came about from working on mine. We actually had spoken on Twitter years ago–2012 maybe, just saying what’s up. Vince had reached out like, “I’m a big fan of what you’re doing.” That was a few years ago. And then, I had this beat sitting around and I was trying to figure out who to get on it. And I was thinking of guys that I like, and I reached out to Vince, and he wrote it on his own. Then we met up in the studio and recorded it and stuff.
Just from doing those sessions, that was at the time when he was finishing his album, and he was like, “Yo, I need some beats for my album.” So I was like, “We’re in the studio working on this song,” and I played him four beats or something.
So it was kind of cool how it just intersects. All of that came about from working on mine, and not really intentionally thinking about working on Vince’s album or something.
So your track “All Nite” was done before his album?
Yeah, that was done. It’s been written for a while. Summertime ’06 stuff, that all happened around this time last year. Gave him those beats about May last year.
That’s really fast turnaround for him! Summertime '06 was released last June.
Yeah, he wrote them real fast. And that was some of the last stuff that was going on the album. Because they were like, “We need a few more things,” and I was like, “Alright.” I gave four. I think they ended up using three of the four I left them with that day.
Which vocalists did you work most closely with on the beats for this album?
“Witness” was made right on the spot with [Lil B], and Keyboard Kid co-produced it in the studio. Me and B were in L.A. working for, like, three days in the studio, just writing, and then Keyboard Kid, who also produced a ton of stuff for Lil B for years, was doing a show out there. He was out in L.A. for, like, one night, so it all kind of lined up by accident. That came about real spontaneous, on the spot. The beat was done, we were just doing it right there. As far as the other things, a lot of the stuff was made already, and I would just sent it out to anybody. Sometimes B would send me samples though, and he’ll say, “Hey, can you make something out of this?”
What was it like working with Lil B in person, after previously having only collaborated online?
That was the first time that I ever properly met him. We had done a few shows together, see each other in the hallway, shake hands real fast, say what’s up, but that was it. Not a real meeting. So this time, about July, I think it was last year, he came down to L.A., we locked in the studio for about three days writing. And that first time we sat down was just like, sat down in the same room, like, wow, this is a really weird feeling, because we had worked for, what, since 2008. So it’s a long time.
Somebody asked me, “How was it working with Lil B in person for the first time?” And I said, the way I described it was “supernatural.” And I meant “natural,” like very natural, like super natural. But I was like, wait, it was also supernatural. It was both of those. It was completely natural, we just picked up and started writing, we wrote about four songs in three days. But it was super natural and supernatural.
Do you consider yourself a hip-hop artist or an electronic artist?
I think I don’t really fit in any of those as much as I do a little bit of all of it. I don’t really fit in right in the hip-hop world, I don’t fit in in the electronic world. I don’t know, I just feel like the more I go further and the more music I keep making, I just go further and further down my own lane. It’s hard to really say. I started off thinking of myself as a hip-hop producer. Now I have an opportunity to do work with more songwriting-based music and more pop or R&B type stuff. I have fun experimenting, so I don’t really know what to call it
There is definitely a “Clams Casino” sound that has emerged. What do you think of people trying to emulate you?
I think it’s cool. I appreciate it, especially young kids starting up. Maybe that’s because it hasn’t been done successfully, in my eyes. If it was done, it may frustrate me if it was. But at this point, I don’t think anyone's been able to.
I listen to some of my old things starting off as real fake Kanye beats or Just Blaze beats. Exact copies, you know? That’s part of figuring out your own thing. Maybe some people don’t figure it out and they just copy people the whole time and hopefully they find their own way. I think that’s natural creative process. Just learning about what you want to do and who you look up to and how you're going to do your own thing. I think it’s completely normal for especially young people starting out. But if you’re doing that for a long time, then, you know.
Were you listening to any other music while making 32 Levels?
Honestly, not too much listening to music. I was trying to shut that out because I didn’t want that to affect my decision-making. I didn’t want to listen to a lot of people’s albums or things. Honestly, I was inspired a lot by video game music. I played a lot of video games. A lot of the sounds were inspired by “Zelda” games, “Ocarina of Time,” “Mortal Kombat Mythologies.”
Were there co-producers on the album?
“Witness” is co-produced by Keyboard Kid. “Into the Fire” is co-produced by Mikky Ekko. He did a lot of production on that. His band guys down in Nashville, they did some live instrumentation on it. “A Breath Away” has some additional production from MP Williams, who also worked on “Ghost in a Kiss.” He’s also produced for Rocky and Ferg. He’s a young dude that is inspired by me and who also inspires me in return.
Illangelo did a lot of vocal mixing because I don’t really record people too much. I usually work alone and send beats out. If I record people, there’s usually an engineer there. So when it came to finalizing songs with vocal mixing, I wanted to reach out to somebody to do that. So Illangelo did a lot of that before final mixes.
What are the themes or messages of the album? The title is intriguing in how specific it is, but it’s also not clear what it means.
That’s funny you explain it like that because it is definitely open-ended, but it also comes from a very specific place. The title is from Lil B’s song that I did, “I’m God.” It’s pulled from a lyric, when he says, “The mind is so complex when you’re based/Welcome to my world/32 levels.” So it’s very specific in that it’s taken from that song, which was a big turning point for me, deciding and figuring out where I belong in music. That specifically comes from there.
That's the beginning of it, but I also think of it as, there’s so many layers to the music. On the basic level, half the album is the same thing as the vocal version but just taken off. Then you listen to that and it’s a whole new thing. So that’s a whole ’nother level. It definitely comes from a very specific place, but to a listener, it’s also open-ended and open to interpretation.