‘People are capable of some really interesting things under extreme circumstances’

Live shows are more or less obsolete for the time being, with artists moving to live streaming shows and focusing their energy into new and old projects alike. While there’s no gigs to write about, we’re interviewing some Bristol musicians, and our first guest can usually be spotted tearing up Mr. Wolf’s with Fruit Machine, the Hip-hop Jam/Radio Station/Label/ Collective. Lawottim Anywar has been in the music industry for most of his adult life, I chatted to the trailblazing multi-instrumentalist about his current routine, upcoming projects and some undiscovered gems of Bristol.

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Give us a quick rundown of what an average 24 hours now looks for you.

At the moment, I’ll get up and work from home from 9-5. From 5pm I’ll go for a walk or get some kind of exercise at home, then I’ll practice some kind of instrument or mess around on logic for an hour or the whole evening depending on what comes out; or maybe I’ll watch a film and/or play a game. I love to cook so there’s probably something being cooked in amongst all that. I don’t have a set routine at the moment really.

Has this affected your schedule at all?

Honestly, not a crazy amount, besides no group projects or DJ residencies; though I do now feel more compelled than previous to make the most of a day in whatever form that may be.

How have you been keeping busy during these turbulent times? Puzzle books? Knitting?

At the moment, my main focus is making a little ambient album and just trying to expand on my songwriting vocabulary, but when thats not happening, I’m deep in a podcast hole. I sometimes get fatigued playing/listening to music all the time so sometimes it’s a really peaceful feeling to listen to people talking, or even just sitting in silence, odd as that might sound.

Since everything and everyone is online so much now (ESPECIALLY now), it’s become really important to me to take extra care to find the quiet moments away from it all, not that mass connectivity isn’t a brilliant thing in such an odd time…he says as he participates in the online interview. I’m also on a really big film hype at the moment. Been watching all kinds of different bits. Uncut Gems has been massively inspirational recently. More often than not I’ll go into autopilot and practice for a time, or write something, that is, when I don’t want to get sucked into something else. I’m big on escapism so yeah, default setting after practice is a film or video game.

Do you think we’ll see a particularly significant amount of stuff being released once we’ve come out of the other side?

I hope so! People are capable of some really interesting things under extreme circumstances. Yeah, we probably will see a lot of stuff. But it could also go the other way, people may want to take this time to look inward or work on some previously neglected connections or whatever, and I’m sure a lot of people have to tie up loose ends with their work and what not. The cool thing with this situation and the arts is that a lot of musicians/artists are currently creating predominantly for the moment as opposed to creating a body of work, like with live streamed gigs and placing work on bandcamp when it may have been inaccessible before; so in that respect my hope is moreso that we will come out of this with a renewed sense of why the arts are important and necessary, and I hope thats a view shared by ourselves as creatives, the public and especially the government.

Fruit Machine, the weekly jam hosted at Mr. Wolf’s is one of your many projects. Tell us a bit more about what you’ve got planned for Fruit Machine Stage II.

Fruit Machine was always intended to be a label and community based music production platform, with the weekly meet being a way to bring a lot of the people we felt were underrepresented in Bristol’s music scene to a place of mutual trust, togetherness and communication. Stage II refers to the first releases and the beginning of the online, “content led” portion; we have some music by a few of our friends from within the group, a podcast series, and some video content that we’ll be putting out as regularly as possible.

Another project of yours is Konketsu, the R&B outfit which made our list as one of the top gigs of 2019. Do you have any big Konketsu plans for the future?

We have no big plans at the moment, actually. We have a couple of bits that we’re going to release soon, but as for live shows, things are a little quiet on that front. Individual focuses have shifted within the band and we’re all concentrating on different things at the moment, but we’ll see!

What band/artist is the biggest undiscovered gem in your eyes?

Too many to name. But I’ve not stopped bumping Run Logan Run’s second album, Koan, for a fair while now.

Main photo by Olumide Osinoiki

Read more: ‘In difficult times, the arts can both inspire and strengthen our community’