Minnesota-based Dubstep Producer – Kapsyz Delivers His Finale For 2022 Via His Debut Album Titled ‘Shattered Crystals’ – We Provide Coverage & Interview Questions Regarding The 8-Track Body of Work
Storm Coverage By: Brandon Rafferty
Kapsyz is no stranger to those of you who are regular readers of the Monsoon Season articles, and this time around, it is no different. There is a reason I personally choose to constantly cover what this man is up to,and after this interview, I’m hoping you all agree and go give him the love and support for his brand!
Presenting his new full-length album, “Shattered Crystals”, Kapsyz puts on full display how far he has come as a producer. This quality is a step up, and the variety of genres and styles he brings to the table. From melodic bangers to straight dubstep bangers, Kapsyz doesn’t hold back as he fully displays the powerhouse he is becoming in the underground dubstep scene.
So, being a massive fan, it only seemed right to sit down with him again and dig deeper into the storyline and inspiration that helped create “Shattered Crystals”
“Last time we interviewed, we started off by talking about your name, Kapsyz. Now that some time has passed, can you give an update on anything with the brand? New directions, ideas, goals, etc.”
I am always trying to push forward, and make everything about the next release better than the last. From the music itself to the album art, and my logo. I learn from every release and try to push myself even further going into the next one.
I have a few ideas planned for 2023 already, one of the big ones is I plan to do a full on pop house EP, in the style of my song Absolute Crush. I have been getting into house more and more recently, and I think that will be a super fun project.
I also want to get back into DJing more again. I recently got in touch with someone local who runs the art center in my town, so I’m hoping that can lead into playing shows. Beyond that I want to start doing more DJ live streams on twitch again.
The Windowless Building is a great intro track to the album, I’m curious what the inspiration is with it? What does the name represent?
The Windowless Building is a song about being trapped. Both the feeling of being trapped, but also physically being trapped.
I have been hospitalized a few times throughout my life in a mental hospital. The kind you can’t leave. You are trapped there until the doctor says you can leave. The Windowless Building is all of the emotions of those experiences put into song.
There are a few sounds in this song I wanted to point out, and give more detail about.
The ticking clock: The clock ticks by as I lay in a dark room isolated from the world. Time seems to move so slowly.
The rain and thunder: In the never ending silence one sound breaks though. I yearn to break free and feel rain drops pierce my skin.
The voice: An unreachable voice in the distance hinting at an escape. The voice itself is actually from a Japanese train announcement. A voice that signifies movement, but I can’t move.
Finally though as this song reaches its end The Windowless Building is shattered and I break free.
Music Box is an absolute banger of a first real track, and I’m curious how this track came to be ? The sound design alongside that verse seriously creates a great amount of hype and I feel this would also make a great show opening track. Give us the details.
Music Box starts off with an incredible amount of energy. I might even use the word hyper to describe it.
I think the vocals before the rap verse do a pretty good job at explaining the feeling of this track: “Now don’t you see, that I’m doing so much better now I’ve found myself. They say I look happy, I think I’m doing so much better I don’t need your help. Cause I’m better off.”
A big focus of the album that I’ll get into even more later is my bipolar. The music can very quickly shift between being very energetic, happy, and upbeat, to being more melancholic, and sad.
The energy from the beginning of Music Box starts to fade away as the song goes on, with it ending in a more melancholic mood. Signifying a pretty drastic mood swing. These mood swings can come from anywhere at basically any time for me.
To keep this one short and sweet, What’s the story behind Depression? It feels as if this song captures a lot more “emotion” as opposed to the rest of the album, yet it never has a dull or slow moment.
Keeping with the melancholic mood introduced at the end of Music Box, I think the title of this track says everything I need to say about the emotion of this track.
The idea behind this track was just me trying to put the feeling of depression into song.
The vocals in this track are kind of half serious, half joke. They are very similar to the types of thoughts that go through my head while I’m depressed, just exaggerated a bit and too focused on v-tubers. They definitely fit the feeling though, the feeling of wanting to give up on everything in the world, but still having something that brings at least a little bit of joy.
Absolute Crush definitely gives me hints of a Virtual Riot inspiration, can you confirm or deny? This one is a great breath of fresh air for dance music so I’d love to hear more about it .
This one definitely wasn’t inspired by Virtual Riot, that’s a good guess though. Honestly there really wasn’t a song or artist this was inspired by at all. The track is just my attempt at making the sort of house track you would hear at a club. I like to call it classic house. The chord progression in the chorus was based off a super common chord progression I tend to hear all the time in house music.
Anyway, Absolute Crush transitions the album into what I call the “happiness section”. Absolute Crush is the point between total depression and total happiness. It’s super upbeat and just makes you want to dance, but still keeps a small hint of the melancholy the album introduced earlier on.
The repeating lyrics of “I’ll be okay” are probably the most meaningful lyrics in this song. No matter how bad things get, I know that I will always be okay, and I have people that care about me.
Wave Break seriously has A high end pop mix and master to it, its super crisp and clean, and the vocals stand out. Was this song approached different in terms of mixing and mastering? To me it sounds slightly “different” than the rest of the album and I must find out why.
I really don’t think I did much different than usual master wise on this track. I do usually do a unique master on every track I make though. I use Ozone 8 for mastering and just start every song with everything in Ozone completely blank and build a unique master for each song.
One thing that is a bit unique about this song though is the lack of sub bass outside of the drops. The majority of the track only has a single pretty minimal high pitched synth, vocals, and drums. With really the only bass coming from the kick drum, so the kick hits really hard. I really wanted the focus of the track to be on the vocals, and I felt the vocals fit really well with just a super minimal synth, I did kinda go crazy with drums though. So my guess is the difference you’re hearing is the lack of sub bass.
Story-wise this track is supposed to convey just pure unfiltered happiness. While I was working on it I actually had an alternate title for this track which was: Happiness Jam. This is the one track in the whole album where I focused in on the singular emotion of happiness and nothing else start to finish.
To be blunt, Endless Cycles is fucking nuts, I’m all for it. My question is, what role does this track play in terms of the album / story? It appears at this point the album is taking a more “intense” turn heading into the finale, and i’m just curious what the thought process was like while writing as you were developing this track specifically.
Endless Cycles signifies how my mental health issues never go away. The happiness from the last track has vanished as the cycle begins anew and I am dragged back down with all the negative thoughts again.
It brings back the three big elements from The Windowless Building: The ticking clock, The rain and thunder, and the unreachable voice off in the distance. But distorts them even further.
Eventually the negativity from the intro seems to clear up, only for the song to go into what feels like an endless loop, with each sound becoming more and more distorted the longer the cycle repeats.
This song is really the first big hint that the entire album is supposed to be an endless loop. The emotions and events (aka the songs) may happen in a different order each time. But I can never fully break free from the cycle. Even if “Everything Ends” eventually it will always return in one form or another.
Fall Apart has some crazy sound design going on with it, its super sick. My question regarding this track is, where did all of this anger come from. The intro is crafted so beautifully and out of the blue, it turns to pure aggression and i love it. This track deserves those festival plays heading into the new year. Also props to you for having some of the most unique Sustain Basses I’ve heard all year!
Honestly this might be the most personal track on the entire album.
The super simple explanation for fall apart is this: It’s me putting a panic attack/mental breakdown into song.
My panic attacks usually come out of nowhere. One minute I’m perfectly calm, the next I’m having a full on mental breakdown. Thoughts start racing through my head, my heart starts beating so fast, I can’t catch my breath. Everything falls apart in an instant.
It’s not necessarily anger or aggression. It’s every single negative emotion at full blast all spiraling out of control. Time feels like it’s moving both in slow motion, and at super speed all at the same time.
The intro is just vocals with a very minimal use of synths. For the most part it feels like a normal song, but the lack of anything more gives it a feeling that maybe something is slightly off. Leading into the buildup it still has that feeling of something being off slightly, until some ticking sounds that are completely off-beat slowly fade in, followed by an intense amount of bass once the drop hits.
The drop is a full on panic attack hitting. A lot of the stuff in the drop is not properly on beat and the drums no longer follow a proper 4/4 time signature. I did this to accentuate just the flood of emotions and loss of control a panic attack brings on.
The second drop is more of the same, but the added high pitch sustains both crank up the raw emotion, while at the same time introducing a bit more structure in comparison with the first drop.
With – Lofi Love, my question is, what was the choice to end the album with the more upbeat song? Is it to resemble hope going forward? Or am I digging too deep.
I’m not sure if hope is necessarily the feeling I was going for with this track, but I think that is definitely a feeling that would fit really well.
Personally I would say the feeling It’s supposed to signify is just calm. The calm after the storm. The worst of it is over, and I made it though. I’m okay. I will be okay. So yeah thinking about it, hope for the future actually fits in really well.
The song has a bit of a somber feel to it, but it’s still pretty upbeat. It’s honestly the type of song I listen to when I do calming meditation. Something to focus on while I take deep breaths and feel the calmness wash over me.
A perfect place to end after going through just so many emotions.
Like I talked about before though, the album is sort of an endless loop. The cycle always repeats. The calmness of Lofi Love won’t last, eventually other emotions take over be it the happiness of Wave Break, the melancholy of Depression, or the trapped feeling of The Windowless Building.
Overall, I’d love to hear a summary of the story this album tells and how it directly relates to the “Kapsyz” brand going forward. Give us all the exclusive details here!
This album was a bit of an experiment for me. Every song ended up being pretty personal and I explored a lot of new styles and genres for the first time. I actually ended up cutting quite a few songs I had originally planned to have in this album just because they didn’t fit the theme and story the rest of the tracks told.
Surprisingly I was actually in a pretty good place mentally while writing this album. I based a lot on past experiences. Like the last time I was hospitalized was 2014, so nearly a decade ago. Mental health is still a continuous struggle for me though, and even when I am doing really good that can basically collapse at any time, which is a big theme I focus on throughout the album.
Honestly I’m not sure if I’ll do something like this again in the future. I definitely want to continue telling stories with my music, but I don’t know if I would ever do something this personal again. But, who knows maybe I’ll write a breakup song next time I get broken up with. (lol)
Needless to say, Kapsyz‘s new album is a deep dive into his mind, and I applaud him for bringing such personal struggles to light through his music. This is needed more than ever right now in my honest opinion, and I personally thank him for bringing this story to us.
Follow and support the man at the links below ! This will not be the last you hear from him, that much i can promise you all!
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