Artist of the Week: Eric Copeland

Hometown: Brooklyn, New York
Fun Fact: In addition to his work in Black Dice, Eric Copeland has also recorded three albums as Terrestrial Tones with friend and former roommate Avey Tare from Animal Collective.
Why He’s Worth Watching: Having dabbled in discord for over a decade, Copeland reveals a previously untapped knack for melody on his solo debut.
For Fans Of: Animal Collective, Black Dice, Gang Gang Dance

It’s strangely fitting that after a decade-plus spent developing a cult following in the avant-electro scene with Black Dice, Eric Copeland would finally get around to releasing a solo record by accident. In his own words, Hermaphrodite's genesis was purely coincidental. "I didn’t really set out to make a record," Copeland says. "A lot of the stuff on the album was just leftovers from other projects. The past year and a half both Bjorn [Copeland] and Aaron [Warren] have been busy with stuff in their own lives.We played a few shows, but it was a pretty quiet year. Plus, I spend a good part of my time every day alone in our practice space anyway.”

Somewhere along the way, of course, Copeland realized that he was doing more than just passing idle time. From there, he had to address the question of how exactly he wanted to proceed with what would become Hermaphrodite. “It was hard to get my head around being fair to what I wanted to do. I didn’t want it to sound exactly like a Black Dice record, but at the same time, most of my tools are the same and I didn’t want for it not to sound like some kind of continuation of those ideas either. It was easy once I got down to it though, since it was really up to me to make all the decisions. Working with other people can sometimes be like managing a relationship. That’s kind of the one drawback of being in a group. Sometimes you have to deal with them as human beings, as opposed to just dealing with their ideas.”

By and large, Copeland succeeded in realizing his creative vision. Black Dice fans will feel a strange juxtaposition of familiarity and new ground throughout Hermaphrodite. Synths buzz, vocals are put through a wood chipper and a vaguely psychedelic aura pervades, but there’s an overarching cheerfulness and accessibility that’s absent in Black Dice’s oeuvre. If not for their lack of traditional structure, many of the tracks could be considered pop songs. It would be a shocking development, if Copeland hadn’t already acclimated his fan base to change.

Over the course of its career, Black Dice has proven unafraid of stylistic shifts that often leave people in the dust, scratching their heads. Copeland is unapologetic about failing to meet people’s expectations though, choosing to seek innovation over acceptance. “I kind of expect it now. I feel like every record, we weed out a bunch of people who wanted something different. I know that there are people that get stoked on all the records though. There is a lot of cohesion, in a non-surface way. If that’s appealing to a listener, then it’s cool to have a new installment each time.”

While perpetually alienating segments of your audience is hardly a sound business model, Copeland seems happy to keep a small but loyal core of fans that are excited to follow his musical progression. “I guess the opposite of that is being into the Klaxons or something. Like, you hear this rad song, but you don’t really give two shits about anything else on their record. That’s another representation of making music, but I don’t really want my ideas chewed up that fast.”