It might be tempting to peg Department’s Adam Kyriakou as the Australian Moby. And, really, if that was all his sample-based patchwork of ’60s production values, hip-hop sensibilities, layered electronica and R&B grooves amounted to, that would be just as well. But Kyriakou is also a curator of remarkable taste and sonic instinct, building 21st-century symphonies that are a well-choreographed parade of hidden gems and surprise guests who sound awfully familiar but are sometimes hard to place.
It remains to be seen if the self-released Audacity Files is a defining statement along the lines of Moby’s Play, but it sure presents like one. And it wouldn’t surprise us if the Melbourne-based producer headed in a totally different direction next time out. Meanwhile, we’re left to wonder just how Department manages to generate such emotional heft and sonic grandeur from a mainstream audio editing and recording app. In a way, it seems like sweet justice that such artful humanity is derived from streaming’s digital black hole.
Kyriakou is remarkably candid about how it’s done, and he spills his trade secrets (sort of) to MAGNET’s Hobart Rowland.
The way you assemble your tracks is so unique. Would you break it down for us?
The songs all start out on Audacity with a sample. I might loop that for minutes or hours, then just play random a-cappellas over the top in the background until something clicks. You know almost immediately when something is magical, even if it’s not in the right key just yet. Then it’s all about building the wall of sound and adding samples upon that. I’ll trial everything until it feels like there’s something resembling a song. But every single section of every song was made on different Audacity projects. So I might be juggling like 20, 30 or more different projects with all these different ideas that eventually become verses, choruses, bridges, breakdowns, etc. In the meantime, I’m constructing it all in my head and seeing what works and what doesn’t. With enough trial and error, the perfect—or imperfect—version of a song already exists if I work hard enough to find it.
I’m making all these songs on a 2012 MacBook running Audacity from 2016. The beautiful thing about Audacity is that once I edit or make a change to anything, I can never change it or go back once it’s saved. When you’re someone like me who loves to tinker, you need boundaries like that to not ruin a brilliant idea. Then I’ll bounce down the stems from every single project and take them into Ableton to get the structure right and add more things and mix it. For the pocket symphony and multipart-type songs, it’s a very grueling, intensive process. But with other songs, I’m just working with a handful of samples and flipping them.
At the end of the day, all that matters to me is that it sounds good. I’m not afraid to just let a sample play out for as long as it needs to. It’s never about me trying to flex my skills or show off—I’m just trying to get the ideas I have out of my head and into the computer. Music doesn’t have to be easy or hard to make for it to sound good—it just needs to be good. That’s all that matters.
How is your process different from conventional songwriting?
I wasn’t blessed with the talent of just sitting at a piano and writing a brilliant song in the traditional way. I was born with a different set of skills—and that’s fine, too. At its most grueling, it’s probably harder than sitting down and writing a song from scratch. That’s why there’s so few truly brilliant records that are made this way. It can be difficult to a point where you never want to make music again. But then some other stuff comes so easily that it just feels like luck to flip a sample that no one else got to yet. While the way I write songs may be nontraditional, I still think of songwriting in a very songwriter-esque way. I want to hear melody and build to a crescendo. It’s just the way I’m doing it and the tools I’m using that are different.
Tell us about the whirlwind of adversity surrounding the recording and release of Audacity Files.
It really felt like everything was falling apart. The music was hard enough to finish at times. Then I was going through a tough breakup and severe acid reflux so bad I lost about 16 kg (35 pounds). I couldn’t stomach anything—it was depressing. The only light at the end of tunnel were these songs. I can’t sing or play an instrument very well, so the only way I can get my emotions and feelings out are through other people’s words and sounds—manipulating them to speak through me, even if it’s a subconscious thing.
I finally finished this record, and I was in talks with a company for a distribution deal. They strung me along for seven months. Then, when my music had finally been transferred to their service, they went completely radio silent, ignoring every message and email I sent. It was infuriating. To further rub salt in the wound, they sent a copyright strike to one of my songs after I took all my music off their distribution service and uploaded it elsewhere. I was incensed. They didn’t own my music; it wasn’t even on their service anymore. That whole legal dispute was sorted two weeks before my album release. I had no idea if it was even coming out.
To go back a bit in the timeline, the turning point was getting away and going to Macedonia to visit my grandparents’ villages. It was like a complete reset for me. I’d never been to this place before, never met the people that lived there—but it felt like home. It was exactly where I needed to be at that point. I was finally put on the right medication—a smart doctor introduced me to something not typically used for reflux—so I could eat normally again. It’s like I could breathe for the first time in a long time. It gave me the resolve to finish the record. Everything felt worth it.
Life throws these obstacles at you. It’s not a “woe is me” thing—everyone has their struggles. But I’m proud of myself for capturing all of it—the beautifulness, the ugliness, the sadness, the pain—in my music. It’s very human music at the end of the day, no matter how it was created.
Take us back to 2023’s Dumb Angel EP and walk us through your initial inspiration.
My musical vision has always been strong and intense. It was just about finally executing it exactly as I’d envisioned it in my head. The EP was the first time it all came together for me. I always had this vision in my head. Audacity Files was me taking that vision even further with new songs, reworking and remixing material from Dumb Angel and finally completely fulfilling my vision as perfectly as I possibly could. I really feel like Audacity Files encapsulates everything I’d ever want from music. It might not be for everyone, but I’m just so ecstatic the ideas I’ve had my whole life finally coalesced into a record that I believe is very special. If it doesn’t find its audience right now, I know that one day it will.
It only takes one listen to Audacity Filesto see that your influences are all over the place. Which artists/producers are “desert island” touchstones for you and why?
I think my key influences are Phil Spector, Burial, the Beach Boys/Brian Wilson, Three 6 Mafia/DJ Paul & Juicy J, J Dilla and Mariah Carey. If you put all those artists into a blender, you get Department.
Spector is the greatest record producer ever. I love all his productions so much. His “wall of sound” taught me everything in terms of scope, how colossal records should sound and how you shouldn’t be able to hear every single thing in a mix. It’s all there in my music. Brian Wilson is the greatest musical mind to ever exist. The Smile Sessions might be the single most influential piece of music on my entire life. Three 6 Mafia is our generation’s Velvet Underground—20 to 30 years ahead of everyone. Almost every single rap producer around today owes something to what DJ Paul and Juicy J were doing in the early- to mid-’90s. I’m no exception. J Dilla taught me everything I know about sampling. He was just operating on another level. Mariah Carey has the voice of angel. All I’ve ever wanted is that magical voice floating inside the “wall of sound.” It’s just so perfect.
