Shrunken Heads in Hackney with Ryan Hemsworth

Toronto based producer & DJ Ryan Hemsworth crossed the pond last week to play in East London's XOYO as part of his Sucker For Punishment tour so we decided to spend the afternoon showing the kawaii-pikachu-loving Canadian a weirder side of London. Shrunken heads from the South American rainforest, two headed goat taxidermy, sex manuals for Irish farmers!? Welcome to Hackney's Last Tuesday Society Ryan... How would you describe the music you make? I'd describe it as... I've said 'happy-sad' before. I think about emotions and dictating moods for music rather than specific genres. I think that makes it easier for me to jump around, I can make a rap song, R'n'B track or something influenced by rock or whatever. It stems from growing up on the internet and digesting all types of music, all of the time. Where do you draw inspirations from, both inside and outside of music? I found how much I travel and everything, that really effects the way I approach music from both the artists that I meet; the openers playing shows and also the way traveling effects you- missing people, it's an exhausting process. I think because I work on the road it has an effect on the way I do things. In terms of artists, a lot of the times it's the newer ones who influence me the most. When I find kids like Lontalius or Alex G who feature on my album, it's always refreshing. I get kind of a one track mind sometimes when it comes to music. If I'm really listening to rap for while and then I find someone who's doing super sad rock, just singing with a guitar or something I'm like “oh yeah people are still making this music and it's great”. Its good to always refresh yourself. As a producer, do you have any artists you would love to see vocal one of your tracks? Someone like Ben Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie) or I always keep saying the singer from Jimmy Eat World (Jim Adkins) hoping someone will hear who knows him, haha. I'm a lot more interested with working with those types of singers now, it's just that little more unexpected to have those features instead of a typical rapper, like I said before it's important to keep it fresh. What has been a project you have worked on which you are particularly proud of? I've been really happy working with the singer Tinashe, we have another new song on her next mixtape as well, I feel like for some reason our sounds just mix together really well, again it's kind of unexpected, I first started working with her when I remixed one of her songs and then she actually reached out to say that they liked the track and we made a new one from there. That's been a thing for me, I've remixed people and they like the track and want to do new stuff so it acts as a nice new way to open up those doors. Today we were visiting The Last Tuesday Society which is full of some pretty weird things, what's the weirdest thing you've experienced? I think the way I make everything like an open line with fans or whoever's interested, people know a lot about me in that way so a lot of times people will turn up at a show and give me a goody bag of Pikachu plush toys or a cookie which I specifically tweeted about a year ago. All these things that are exactly what I like – it's cool! It's a weird feeling but no way negatively. I probably would have done the same 10 years ago to my favourite artists too. You're based In Toronto but travel internationally for shows, which has been one of your favourite cities to visit? I'd have to say definitely Tokyo is way up there. I've also really enjoyed Dublin and Edinburgh, it feels a little like home to me in Nova Scotia but also it's got the balance of homeliness and foreignness so everything is still fresh and different but I'm sure if I was from those cities I would be as bored of it as I am of my own hometown. What about cities you'd love to see? I'm starting to really get into producers based in South Africa, I think it would be pretty crazy to see Cape Town, it's one of those places I don't know too much about it but I know people from there and the music coming out of there at the moment is really different and refreshing. Like us you've got a strong affection towards Japan, does this carry over to any Japanese based musicians? Absolutely, one of my favourite labels Maltine Records is someone I sort of modeled my own label off of, just the way it's almost a community or a family – everything they release is a free release and it's all digital, very right now, no vinyl just getting something out as quick as they can directly to people and keeping that momentum going. Have you heard of BABYMETAL? [Laughs]...Yeah! I think they're amazing. It makes me so happy that that's where we are in music history now, three adorable Japanese girls singing on top of the most intense heavy metal music yet it somehow works, it's great. Outside of music do you have any other favourite Japanese exports? Ramen. Ramen and a lot of the horror movies they bring out but Ramen is definitely number one. Heading back to the west are there any other budding producers you're looking forward to seeing more of this year? One that is actually on the show tonight Sega Bodega I'm releasing his EP next on my label. There's also this one guy who normally produces under the name Snorlax but he's now started this  garage rock band between him and this Korean girl, she records all the vocals over Skype and he basically mixes it all down to sound like 70's rock music. They're called Happy DogHouse and all their lyrics are are from the perspective of a dog, there's one called Under The Stars and it's all about a dog living on the moon by himself and being sad that there's no one to play with...so that's my favourite thing right now for sure. A line of advice to leave with our readers? Don't be a dickhead.... ------------- Get to know Ryan more by following him on Twitter and Instagram and check out his latest sounds on Soundcloud.