Flatbush Zombies Producer, Erick the Architect Takes Us Through the Lower Manhattan SONOS Flagship Store and Listening Space
While speaking about his ideal places to listen, creation process, importance of candles and his DM’s.
Situated amongst the rustling streets of lower Manhattan is what SONOS has designed to be an ideal listening space — a peaceful break from its busy surroundings. The space, which is the brand’s flagship store, is still relatively new having only opened in July of this year. Since then, it has made an impression on its guests by showing them how to listen better by immersing them in refined aural experiences they can recreate wherever they’d like.
Exploring the possibilities within the space, Erick the Architect who is producer for the psychedelic hip-hop group Flatbush Zombies takes us on a 360 tour while detailing his life, the importance of vinyl, how he listens and how he gets in the zone to create. Check out the video above for a walk through of the store and our interview with him below where we talked about the importance of candles, his DM’s and movie soundtracks. For optimal viewing, we recommend watching in Chrome.
What’s your most ideal listening situation?
Although I love making music in a comfortable setting and enjoying my own space (like my house) I still enjoy walking around listening to music on my headphones more than anything else. Sometimes I’ll find any reason to go outside and take the train to play a new album or something I just mixed.
You mentioned enjoying listening on the train, but tell us about your home listening setup — do you sometimes need to escape the madness of the city?
My home listening setup is “set up” (see what I did there?) to be able to listen to mixes through my studio monitors with a sub, and I can switch to my Sonos speakers for playback at any moment. All of the speakers are chained together in different locations in my apartment so I get a quick feel of what I’m making would sound like in an open space. Ironically enough though, when you have headphones on you can tune out a lot of the things going on around you. There’s plenty of parks and open areas to sit and chill in NYC, but if I want to get away from the city I will. Having some form of solace is always nice but I’m used to the city. I just make sure I close my windows when I’m recording — haha!
Why did you tweet a while back that you needed a candle sponsorship?
I love candles, I burn about 3 different fragrances for when I’m reading, designing or making music, I also burn 3 in my bathroom for when shit gets real. My favorite fragrance is anything that smells like firewood.
Dead or alive, who are some of your dream collaborators?
Damon Albarn, Nas, Amy Winehouse, Issac Hayes, Michael Jackson, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Little Dragon, Tame Impala.
What was your favorite show FBZ performed?
The first time we performed in Paris is still such a memorable moment; people were following us in the street even before we performed and the crowds energy was like no other I’ve seen before. I learned some French while I was out there.
You guys have a lot of die-hard fans, lots who get tattoos and customize their own FBZ clothes/shoes etc. What’s the coolest or weirdest thing a fan posted online about you guys?
Some of the craziest things are the tattoos inside the lip— I don’t have any. For someone to tattoo our band in their mouth is basically saying I love you for life. BFF.
What are your Insta DM’s like?
It goes down in the DM.
What do you do when you’re feeling stuck creatively? Is silence or a certain genre of music better in these cases?
Silence is golden. I think once I realize I’m stuck I try to remove myself from the environment I’m in for a bit and then come back after while to give it another shot.
What do you do when you need a break from what you’re working on?
Draw.
You said a song’s never really finished, but when is it finished enough to share?
I know it’s finished enough when I get upset that no one has heard a song I think is really dope.
When was the first time you guys thought 3001 A Laced Odyssey was ready to share with the public? How long was that before it actually debuted?
We finished the album very close to the deadline so we had no real time to sit with the album the way we wanted to. We worked up until the last day we could to make our release date.
Your production seems very inspired by films. Aside from Stanley Kubrick and Quentin Tarantino which you’ve mentioned before, who else are some of your favorites?
Paul Thomas Anderson, Alejandro Inarritu, George Lucas.
Would you guys ever soundtrack a film, short film, anime or wrestling match?
Why haven’t we already?
You can also listen to Erick’s “Sounds of NYC” Spotify playlist here.
SONOS
101 Greene Street
New York, NY 10012
