m/ issue 2 - shxmeful

an interview with justin

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what is this place?

Hailing from a small town in the west coast of Canada, SHXMEFUL distorts reality with layers of glitch-heavy, dark textures and raw introspection.

Pulling from KXLLSWXTCH style vocals, along with grunge, glitchcore, and horrorcore elements, his sound is a fractured mirror of his upbringing. It is reflective, chaotic, and emotionally charged. His vocals are mangled through experimental plugins, twisted into eerie echoing soundscapes and distorted frequencies that cut through heavy instrumentals.

As a self-taught creative, SHXMEFUL shares stories that are honest, jarring, and unpredictable. From bending pitch into unrecognizable forms to layering delay in unsettling ways, every track is a risk. Every project is a new world, each one showing more growth from the last.

Some of his inspirations include: Cxrpse, lAmJakeHill, lil Darkie, XZARKAN, Sixthells and many more talents.

Heavily influenced by his love for the underground, SHXMEFUL creates for those who need a true community to turn to when the world turns on them. His upcoming EP, What Is This Place, is a collaborative dive into identity, post-trauma, and growth. It is a surreal continuation of the universe he began building in his 2022 debut.

what kind of music do you make?

I always describe my music being very experimental from the outside in. It's usually consistent in being dark and grungy, with a mix of being glitchy and distorted. I try things normal people really wouldn't do with sound design and backing vocals, I also try to use instrumental plugins on my voice and vocals to give a weird and bizarre sound within the vocals.

what made you want to pursue music?

Honestly, I don't know what got me into music. I guess it kind of moved my soul and created confidence in my brain to be creative. I have always been a very creative individual from wanting to be an artist or graphic designer, so I'd have to say what made me start doing music was the creative element and aspect of the whole, as well as a place for me to express myself and not have to feel trapped in a box with nowhere to go.

are there some artists who have passed who you might have wanted to work with?

This is an interesting question to me because I don't really pay attention to this specific topic. I usually look at the influence of them, like Peep, when he died, it was a sad day for everyone in the music community, no matter who you are. He paved the way for a genre for others to express themselves, not to feel alone in this harsh earth sometimes. Just having someone you can relate to within the scene makes it all the better and you feel better about yourself as a person, so to answer the question, I'd have to say Peep and Juice are key artists who I’d talk to, even though they are not in the genre of music I create.

what do you love about the underground scene?

Honestly, the creativity and the interactions you will have. One day you'll be making something fun, then overnight it blows up a bit and your connections start to skyrocket within the scene you have.

Another one is you can literally be yourself without having to mask who you are, you have fun doing what you do, and others who really like your music will follow you from the beginning and acknowledge you as a person and not an internet celebrity who only cares for money and fame.

I used to do music for myself, but over time, I've started to do it for those in need and people who can relate to similar struggles I've been going through in my life.

are there some tools or plugins that you’ve been into lately?

There are so many tools and plugins out there. I'll start with 'Grossbeat'. It gives you the ability to make glitching sound effects with your vocals and beats. It jumbles the timing of your vocals or beat bass on a 1-bar length and can create many different sounds. If you put it on 1 vocal and not the other, it will jumble 1 vocal and not the other, which is very unique in my opinion.

'Manipulator' allows you to alter your voice using its built-in tools like pitching up and down your voice or even doing patterns from glitch to pitch, dragging out the vocal itself. The delay is a huge one for me since it allows me to create textures within vocals and empty space. I could go on for a while about plugins and sounds, but I feel that's a secret creative aspect for everyone.

what does making music give you personally?

Music personally gives me a creative outlet to express myself in areas I can't talk about with people, things get challenging within my head and soul, so having a place where I can get it out of my system and it sounds amazing, is always a win for me.

It also gives me goals to reach higher and higher every time to push myself for the best I can be, and I'm always 1 upping myself every song, and it's such an amazing feeling. Soon, I'll be happy with everything I do since not everything is polished as well as others, but being experimental is a blessing here since I can do whatever I want and not get myself stuck within a genre box.

what should we be looking out for?

I just finished a small EP I made with a few close friends on the songs. We all come together and we all have very different sounds from each other, but we come together within each other's genres. The project is called "What Is This Place," and it takes place after my first album in 2022, which wasn't the best, but it's still important to tell the story.

This project is directly after the album I created, and it continues the story, but not in a major way; it's like a little DLC of the album since I'm treating albums as big parts of the story and development even though this project is a huge development from the last one.

My artist and I always portray a story within the arts, even if it's for the singles. We always collaborate on art as I'm his main guy since I got him into school to do 3D art and modelling for video games. I'm so proud of him, and he feels the same way about me.

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