BABA STILTZ
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The idea of being adverse to genre is repeated to the point of cliché amongst "underground" artists. Everyone wants to be mysterious and no one wants to be boxed in. That said, few musicians have wandered as far as wide as Baba. Over the last decade, he's made American primitive guitar music, produced for Yung Lean, crafted leftfield house tracks that led to a jetsetting DJ life, won a prestigious Guldbagge Award for his scoring work and, as of late, worked on plaintive, stripped-down guitar songs. "I want to be scared, I don't want to know what I'm doing," Stiltz once said in an interview.
At this point in the story, you may view Baba as some nonchalant, sunglassed savant. A former model and Royal Swedish Opera House-trained ballet dancer who is plundering genres before getting distracted and moving onto something else. A dilettante. In fact, Baba's recent music, such as Paid Testimony (2023, Public Possession) and Blurb (his much-lauded collaboration with Okay Kaya from earlier this year), reveals an artist who is, as he recently said in The Guardian, in the midst of a battle with the ego. This music is an attempt to strip away all artifice—fuck the glitz and glamour—even if what remains is very fucking cool. "Young professionals carelessly living," he sings in a laconic, Lou Reed-esque baritone on the Paid Testimony track "Stockholm," before looking in the mirror. "I can't say that I'm not jealous, even though I live my life just like they do."
Baba's childhood set the stage for his peripatetic adult life, yanked back and forth between Vacaville, California and Stockholm, learning to write songs on guitar as a child and eventually coming up in the latter city's heady leftfield house scene and releasing on venerated imprints like Studio Barnhus and XL Recordings. As a busy DJ and producer he crisscrossed the world through a warren of green rooms, fancy hotels and airport lounges, having fun, then, perhaps inevitably, developing the gnawing feeling that he needed to return to the source. "As an artist, I want to interact with music in a pretty deep way," Baba said in an interview from 2023. "For a while, I felt like I was slipping away from that. I have a responsibility as someone who makes music to kind of be like, “Okay, well, fucking put your money where your mouth is and do something about it.”
The music he's made since, after a move to LA and a couple of private-press instrumental guitar mixtapes, feels incisive and character-driven, his most profound work to date. A notebook, a guitar, a four-track, a million miles in the rear view that are just starting to come into focus. Keep your eyes on the road.
Matt McDermott
Selected Discography:
The BBC - When the Beards met in Bethlehem - Flora Fauna - 2008
The BBC - I Hate my Village - Flora Fauna 2011
Baba Stiltz / Boss Kite – Sexy Daniel / The Manifesto - Flogsta Danshall 2011
Experience / Eating Out - Flogsta Danshall - 2012
The BBC - 2012 (Unreleased) - 2012
Dive EP - Under Bron Recordings - 2013
Our Girls - Studio Barnhus - 2013
Palats / Crypt - Studio Barnhus - 2014
Transit / Principles - Studio Barnhus - 2014
Total (Album Sampler) - Studio
Barnhus - 2014
Total - Studio Barnhus - 2014
Die Hard +2 - Studio Barnhus - 2015
Cherry - UTTU - 2015
Thailand (The Tourist in Me) - Studio Barnhus - 2015
Keep it Lit - TTT - 2016
Is Everything - Studio Barnhus - 2017
Can’t Help It - Studio Barnhus - 2017
Baba Stiltz & Samo DJ - Kling Party - Born Free - 2017
Showtime - XL Recordings - 2018
DJ Gaston & Baba Stiltz - Blast - 2018
Alex - Samba - TTT 2019
Running to Chad - Cycle - 2020
Rodeo - Cycle 2021
Journals - Cycle - 2021
In LA - Cycle - 2022
Paid Testimony - Public Possession - 2023
Paid Testimony (Atlantis Sessions) - Public Possession - 2023
In LA 2 - Cycle - 2023
Stockholm Remixes - Public Possession - 2024
Shame on Dry Land OST - Public Possession - 2024
Baba Stiltz & Okay Kaya - Blurb - Recorded Matters - 2025
Production:
Yung Lean - Die With Me - 2013
Yung Lean - Nekobasu - 2013
Yung Lean - King of Darkness - 2013
Yung Lean - Recharge - 2014
Metal Storm - New Era - 2015
Burna Boy - More Life - 2018 - w/ Pedrodollar
Sebastien Tellier - Birthday Boy - Record Makers - 2021
Alex Ho - Move Through It - Music from Memory - 2022
Cola Boyy - Top of the Class - Record Makers - 2025
Remixes
: Little Jinder - Won’t Look Back (Baba Stiltz remix)- Golden Best - 2014
Laguna Ladies - Egyptian Bag (Baba Stiltz Remix) - Junk yard Connections - 2015
Rama - Hidden (Baba Stiltz Remix) - Raam 002 - 2015
Various - Abba 002 (Baba Stiltz ABBA-Dubb) Studio Barnhus - 2015
Phran - Basical (Samo Dj & Baba Stiltz Remix) - Klasse Wrecks - 2015
Klaves - Say It (Baba Stiltz Remix) - Let’s Play House - 2016
Pet Shop Boys - Burn (Baba Stiltz remix) - 2017
Yaeji - New York 93 (Baba Stiltz Remix) - Godmode - 2017
Bell Towers - Ikea Hack (Baba Stiltz Remix) - 2018
Klara Lewis - Thankful (Baba Stiltz Remix) - Editions Mego - 2024
Vocals/Instrumentation:
Rigas - Bring the Dead - Flora Fauna - 2011
Yung Lean - Lemonade - Mishka - 2013
Stiletto Ana - I’m an Arpeggiatior - Höga Nord Rekords - 2021
Axel Boman - Hold On (Also songwriting and production) 2022
Bullion - World Train - Ghostly International - 2024
Projects w/ Others:
Whispers Beirut - The Champion - Studio Barnhus - 2018
Whispers Beirut - Soft Touch (For U mix) - Born Free - 2018
Coper - Stop - Public Possession - 2023
Coper - LTB - Public Possession - 2024
Fish - No Life - Cavempt - 2024