In the wake of destruction caused by Midnight Snacks Vol. 2, one carnivore stands alone. With dust continuing to settle around these bone-rattling beats, we are only now beginning to fully grasp the magnitude of mayhem spawned by this 29-track juggernaut. Bass music is rarely released in a mixtape format, but Midnight Tyrannosaurus has developed a reputation for trampling to the beat of a different tune.
As for the album itself, it opens with a deadly Oolacile collaboration. Don’t know who Oolacile is yet? Well, you’ll know soon enough. Trust us. From there, The Crow and The Moonlit Beast help generate some absurdly heavy vibes nice and early, while the back-to-back combo of Djura’s Lament and Lifeform follow up with a significantly more eerie feel. Maneuvering into the meat of the mixtape, crunchy bits like The Amazing Nero, A Madman’s Guide To The Wasteland, and Lazer Raptors continue to carry out the aural onslaught. Before The Void can even seal the deal, Goatfuckers Anonymous goes all types of bonkers all over your eardrums. Don’t say that we didn’t warn you.
Considering that most Midnight Tyrannosaurus supporters have had the opportunity to digest a fair portion of Midnight Snacks Vol. 2 by now, it only felt right to reach out to the man behind the dinosaur. Typically, we do our best to refrain from using distinctions like ‘mainstream’ or ‘underground,’ but when it comes to Jason Figlioli, he has without doubt morphed into something of an underground dubstep folk hero. After scraping out all the bones and body parts lodged between his blood-stained teeth, this producer happily dropped all the knowledge about his latest release. Take a gander inside one of dubstep’s most twisted minds.
Midnight Snacks Vol. 2 has been doing the rounds, tell us about the general response thus far.
It’s been absolutely beautiful man. I’m too happy for words honestly. The album eclipsed 5,000 downloads in three days, with an additional 400 donations! The level of fan support is unreal. People have been leaving a lot of positive and constructive feedback, and I couldn’t be more grateful for it! That level of love is the whole reason why I put it out for free, without them I’d be nowhere. The least I could do is toss em a big ol’ pack of music.
What makes Vol. 2 different than Vol. 1?
Well, for better or worse, I tried to make Vol. 2 as much of a ‘sequel’ as I could. The recurring theme of Vol. 1 was the stoner taking bong rips, jamming Playstation, and munching on whatever the listener can picture themselves munching on in that particular scenario; that would eventually progress to the inevitable – passing out. The first portion of the album featured my favorite game series of all time, Dark Souls by FromSoftware, so for this edition I wanted to keep the same general idea but switch the game to their newest work of art Bloodborne, which I almost enjoyed more honestly.
Since the theme of Bloodborne was significantly darker and more “brutal” – for lack of a better term – I wanted to make the tracks to match that level of brutality. So that was the first idea I had for Vol. 2, and I found myself really enjoying the darker theme of the whole thing. So instead of doing what I did in Vol. 1 where I would switch from Dark Souls to the lighter hearted games like Gex, and then eventually Freakazoid and The Brak Show, I decided to stay in the darkness and make a Call of Duty: Zombies section because I figured: A.) It’s something people can easily identify with. B.) Zombies by definition really are terrifying, so I figured it would match up well with the creepy undead beastly vibe that the Bloodborne section leaves with the listener. C.) Jeff. Fuckin. Goldblum.
Did you run into any complications during the creation of the mixtape?
Too many! For the first 8-9 months everything was super smooth. The tunes were flowing and the inspiration was practically coming out of the walls. Then the inevitable happened, my computer started giving me some problems. So I got a hold of a new computer this past October and had backed up everything to an external hard drive, and transferred it over.
After that point everything was great, until I decided to upgrade to FL 12 in January. Having no idea it was going to wipe all of my previous data I installed it without hesitation. All of my previous projects were completely wiped from my computer, so at this point I literally lost everything.
Luckily I remembered the backup I had created back in October so I loaded that up, and got everything restored to that point. Basically, a lot of little pieces of projects were affected, and I had to completely remake about four or five tunes over from the ground up. It was a major setback. I got a decent bit done over time, but this February was an extremely productive month. I managed to get about 18 tracks finished just in time for the release. So it was a bit of a headache – and I unfortunately had to rush a few of the tunes – but I’m definitely happy with how it came out though nonetheless.
Let’s talk collaborations.
Usually the guys I collaborate on the release with are either good friends, or dope up-and-comers that I personally think show a huge amount of potential. Last year I had a surplus of originals, so I didn’t have much space on the album for collaborations, but this year I decided to get more involved with the homies.
Early on in 2015 I got wind of the goliath that people have come to know as MurDa. I hit him up for a collab as soon as I heard some of the monstrous production he was – and still is – putting together. Shortly thereafter we became pretty good pals! Definitely be on the lookout for plenty more MurDasaurus this year. Oolacile was another one that really blew my mind this year. I’ve known about him for a little under two years because his name really stuck out to me since it’s the name of a place in Dark Souls. Once I saw his name pop up in my feed a bunch more, I did a little digging and found some insane stuff. Working with him has been a blast, he’s insanely intelligent and pays attention to the finest of details. Be on the lookout for him this year too, he’s going to do some huge things!
But other than that I literally just poke through my friends list and see what homies wanna work on a tune together! Coffi is an old old homie that I’ve been a huge fan of for a long time, the man is a flow genius. EH!DE is another dude I’ve known for a while that has been making some seriously huge stuff; I was honestly surprised at how down he was to collab, we really worked well together! VOKT is another homie that needs a lot more exposure, coming out of Toulouse, France with some of the craziest robotic sounds I’ve heard since the old school D-Jahsta days. Definitely one to watch this year for sure.
Last but certainly not least is my good buddy Wikidill that’s coming up in the game right now. He’s been producing for a little over 10 years, but is just now beginning to crack into the realm of dubstep. I took him under my wing a couple years ago and showed him the basics, and he’s really evolved into a sick producer since then. I was really happy with our track “Lifeform,” the whole Prometheus vibe stays constant throughout. It’s definitely a weird one, but our sounds blend together really well, at least I like to think so.
What’s your personal favorite? And more importantly, why?
I would have to say at the end of the day my favorite has got to be Alfred’s Search For Cainhurst Castle into Martyrdom with the legends Samplifire and Code: Pandorum. The main reason why is because during the album making process, I had a lot of really particular things I wanted to do, and unfortunately with the amount of time I ended up spending traveling and fixing old screwed projects, I didn’t get to come through with a lot of them. But I did actually get to do exactly what I wanted to do with Alfred’s portion of the album.
Alfred is a really interesting character in Bloodborne, and I wanted to express his story through music to the best of my ability. From the start he’s a relaxed character, with much to offer in terms of lore, but he eventually tells the story of Cainhurst Castle and his desire to exterminate the Vilebloods. So I wanted to make a tune that gave you that deep vibey feel, but also maintain a certain level of craziness to keep the audience on their toes until the eventual transition into Martyrdom, when he eliminates the Vileblood Queen and turns on the listener. It really doesn’t sound like anything else on the album.
Final thoughts?
Just want to say thank you so much for having me. And even though it’s only been out a short amount of time, expect some news related to Volume 2 of The Sweet Tooth Remixes. Stay tuned for more releases very soon, it’s going to be an exciting year!
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