Our first collaborative playlist – ellectric x Ted Jasper

If you’ve followed ellectric’s journey for a while, you’ll know that music is a big part of our relationship to mobility. It influences how we move, and the experience we have as we’re on the road, no matter where we are. This is why we bring you our very first collaborative playlist with a young artist whose music we love: Ted Jasper. Based in London but originally from the outskirts of Cornwall, the artist got his start in music through an obsession with reworking, remixing and producing electronic music. He is now a fully-fledged recording artist, and has been featured on 6Music, 1Xtra, Boiler Room, Radio 1, and more. 

Along with the playlist, we also interviewed Ted about his latest single, ‘Alone’, why he chose indietronica as a genre – and of course mobility-related questions.

Tell us about the creative process behind your latest single ‘Alone' – what does it represent for you?

Alone was written wandering around this beautiful coastal town ‘Lyme Regis’, headphones blaring, scribbling in my journal and grabbing coffees from little cafés. Most of my songs are inspired by books/films but this song is from a chapter in my life. The love of my life went away to Ghana for three months for her PhD so I wrote ‘Alone’ in anticipation of us being apart. It was cathartic to get the fear of separation into a song. 

After J left for Ghana, I stewed in the flat for a day or two, then I was hit with the need to pick up an acoustic guitar. I picked up this beaten up beauty on Gumtree and some new chords came to me for the song, after I recorded the chords I knew I had to put the song out whilst we were still apart.

‘Alone’ was released whilst J was in Ghana and I was in the UK and lovesick, a song that lives in a place and time, it’s a song to listen to when you’re missing someone.

Why did you choose Indietronica as a genre for your playlist with ellectric? What does this genre of music bring to you?

Genres are tricky, but ‘Indietronica’ is a nice bracket for a lot of the music I write and what I listen to, it combines electronic production and sampling (the elements that got me into making music in the first place) with the Indie/Alt songwriting styles that I listened to growing up. Bands like ‘The Durruti Column’ ’The xx’  ‘Jai Paul’ embody the genre to me. 

I feel like the best songs in this genre could stand on their own if completely stripped back to their essence, say in a live band recording like a traditional ‘Indie’ song. 

When done right, adding layers of intricate electronic production can elevate the emotion and creativity in a song, you can hear that in tracks like ‘Otis’ or ‘Islands’ where so many textures are weaved together to make a transportive sound that would be hard to achieve in a fully ‘live’ setting.

Now let’s talk about mobility – tell us a bit about where you live and your favourite mode of transportation? 

I live in Cambridge, UK and like a lot of people here, I cycle everywhere. In this part of the country it’s so flat you can get from one end of Cambridge to the other in around 15 minutes. There’s really no need for a car, I ditched mine when I moved here. I love cycling, you get to take in the world around you, it’s cheap and you get to go places cars can’t go (parks, rivers, narrow alleyways to get to your favourite deli), nothing beats it in a city. 

Lastly, we at ellectric believe there is an important intersection between music and mobility. What role do you think music plays within transportation? Are there specific kinds of music you listen to when on certain types of transport? 

Combining the right song with a journey is an art form, unless I’m reading, I’ll always be listening to music on my travels. I’ll choose music to match my mood, if it’s pouring with rain and nothing’s going right I might put on ‘The Cure - Lullaby'. If I’m on my way to see my lady and it’s a gorgeous carefree spring morning maybe I’ll put on ‘JW Francis New York’.

Train journeys are another favourite. I don’t often have the opportunity to listen to new music (my ears are usually full of my own songs) so being stuck on a train can give me the chance to catch up with all the great work my favourite artists are putting out. On long train rides I’ll usually go for something ethereal and transportive like Jadu Heart - I’m a Kid’.

Check out our collaborative playlist with Ted Jasper here or on Spotify.
Listen to Ted Jasper’s latest single ‘Alone’ here.

A big thank you to Ted for speaking with us, and stay tuned for our next musical collaborations. In the meantime, there’s always our weekly volumes.

Pictures: Lily Boyle