Abel Okugawa is a down-tempo electronic, dub-fusion recording artist specializing in enchanted soundscapes and inspired music. If you’re a smooth, technical, and precisely steezy climber who pays attention to the subtle details of your craft, than Abel Okugawa’s music is the soundtrack to your personal climbing movie. His tracks are deep and beautiful, filled with wonder and make you feel and flow with their vibe. Although electronic, it ain’t glowstick-waving club music—this music melts away distraction and is all about being present in the moment of existence. His latest release, Dance Like a Speaker, builds you up from the inside, with an enlightened result. Your emotions connect with each track on a different level in a way that’s conducive to aligning the planets for sending your project. “Storm Closing” heightens the senses, float through “Pearl,” and be moved by the ethereal drive of “Maxsequence.” His music has been in Big Up Production’s Dosage Volume III and King Lines.

UC: What is your recent album, Dance Like A Speaker? AO: Dance Like a Speaker is an album of 15 tracks, inspired by Jamaican dub music record-pressing in the early 1970’s, where vinyl records and dub plates were being made by hand in small batches. I feel like this is possible, these days, with CDs. For this album, there are 200 Limited Edition CD prints that have been made to purchase, and that includes a free download version with cover art for your iPod or iTunes. Each copy is numbered and signed, and you’re buying direct from the artist and creators. I want the entire package to inspire true expression. It is a project that I put together collaborating with friends and fellow artists, some that I have worked with on other projects and some that this is our first collaboration. By the time this prints, the album will be available for digital download in all the regular places, but the CD is limited. The album ranges from enchanting melodic beats to future hip-hop and includes the songs Mr. Moba and Brazil, which were featured in King Lines.

Where does your inspiration come from in a project like this? I have a passion for making recordings and listening to music. My friends inspire my music, as well as my love for nature and sound…creating music, wherever it comes from. I believe music is influential. I would like my music and all that I do to inspire true expression in others and inspire them to do what they most enjoy, what is most fulfilling in their lives.

An electronic recording artist in the hills of Virginia...how’d you end up there? The simple answer is family. I moved from Los Angeles to Charlottesville during high school. After school, I moved back to LA and then to New York City, where I worked building commercial recording studios in Times Square and making music when I wasn’t working. I decided to move back to Charlottesville to build Monkeyclaus Studio and make music full time. I am Chief Engineer and a founding partner of Monkeyclaus Studio and its Technology. AKA the “Super.”

Tell us about Monkeyclaus. Monkeyclaus is an ultra high fidelity recording studio, a digital download store, a musical recording family, and a magical boat ride for dreamers. It’s a labor of love, a unique music studio hand built by more than 100 volunteer musicians on a farm in spectacular Nelson County, Virginia. Monkeyclaus stands for global consciousness, human unity, imagination, and media distribution. Our studio is 33% post consumer recycled material, we want to simultaneously promote music and music culture and raise social awareness.

Your music has been used in climbing films. Not being a climber, what is the attraction of your music to climbing? I feel a similarity in the way a climber’s problem or sequence is mapped out; the clear direction and intention of the climb and how it feels when completed connects to the way I write my songs. My songs are adventures...I think of them as soundscapes, which take the listener on a journey. My music is naturally occurring, like the environment of climbing. I think most climbers climb because they love it and are in tune with their surroundings. And that is why I make music.

Are you working on any other climbing projects? Hopefully! My dream is to go to climbing areas with the climbers and write music as climbing is being filmed, and then put that music to score the film of that climb. I am inspired by nature and sounds becoming music, the music of life. I’m also working on some collaborative projects with GRANIT Life.

How would you actually go about writing music in the field without your recording studio? I would probably record with batteries and create a small set up to capture sounds to compose with. There are so many ways to travel and record on the go. Music technology is getting really fun. For the song “Maxsequence,” I used a Zoom H4 hand held 4-track to take to New York to record Loren Oppenheimer’s tabla, which ended up being the final recording for that song because it sounded so good. The only limitation to creating or doing anything is our minds. We need to trust that inspiration is worthy, and we need to have courage to pursue what we love and what inspires us. Music is inspiration to me. Creating something that could potentially inspire some one else to do what they love adds to that inspiration. I think inspiration is contagious and positive and only occurs when we do what we love. UC