Steve Roach

Interview by Phil Derby

 

This year I had the great pleasure of interviewing Klaus Schulze, arguably the father of the Berlin school electronic music sound. On the other side of the coin, not to mention the other side of the pond is the American movement of new age and space music that took hold in the 1980s and continues to this day. I can think of no one who embodies the spirit of that music more than Steve Roach. It gives me great pleasure to present this month’s interview with him.

 

It’s sort of a given that every musician goes through a certain life cycle. There’s the raw early work, less polished but often the most appreciated artistically by critics. Then there’s the sophomore releases, starting to develop a style and a following. Then there’s the creative and popular peak, where the music is flowing and the fans are buying. Then, for most artists, there comes a time where they are still producing music, but it doesn’t seem at quite the level it once was, or the fans lose interest and go on to the next thing, or perhaps a bit of both.

 

SR: That is a valid way of looking at one of the many ways an artist can unfold, implode or just fade away through the course of a life. I have always taken the most inspiration from artists whose work grows more rich and soulful, full of life and tempered by the wisdom of living an authentic life. While it’s a short list for me, Max Ernst is visual artist I could point to who lived this example. I suggest finding the DVD that is out there; Netflix has it, simply called Max Ernst.

 

How is that now, over 20 years on, though people will always look at seminal works such as Dreamtime Return with fondness, we can get equally excited about your brand new releases, which seem to be just as fresh and inventive as anything you’ve done to date. I can think of no parallel to this in popular music, in any genre. How can you account for your seemingly unending wealth of musical ideas, and that the fans have followed you through all the twists and turns of your career as you’ve explored every nook and cranny of electronic, ambient and new age music?

 

SR: I can only say over these years now, is that the feeling I hold, to live in these sounds and to carve and create deep is in my cells, the awareness of this is no different from 27 years ago. Now the momentum has continued to build so along with the natural process of gaining knowledge from living life the fire just keeps burning with more heat. Also since early on I was always drawn to the extremes of expressing the range of contrasts that working with synths first offered and inspired. I feel my body of work at this point reflects this, along with the constant theme to see what's over the next ridge so to speak. Add this to the constant innovations and refinements in the tools of the trade and it just makes me want to live and create forever. 

 

Take us through the process of remastering Dreamtime Return, and how it resulted in two new seemingly diametrically opposed albums, New Life Dreaming and Possible Planet.

 

SR: The rights reverted back to me over a year ago. At that time I talked with Sam Rosenthal at Projekt who has been nothing but supportive, we made a plan to let the previous version dry up a bit before we put out the new one. I started the remastering process in December 2004 and continued to fine-tune the master up through June of this year. While the original sounded good, I felt I could create a new and improved master with all that I have learned since Dreamtime's first release. It was among the early days of CD mastering, especially for this form of music. The main change I felt it needed was to have the levels of the pieces more consistent. I also took my time with subtle EQ on the pieces, this along with the 24-bit base where all this processing would occur in the mastering stage. This all added up to the sum total which is something like looking through a window that now more clear after a cleaning you weren't even aware it needed. As far the music goes, the original mixes had to be honored. I had no desire to add bonus pieces, remix anything or change the shape of the original DTR. From that point I felt it was vital to honor the original as a statement in time, or in dreamtime...

 

During this time, the feeling to create some pieces that were from now with a connection to core of Dreamtime space just arose naturally, To start this I gathered my instruments and patches I still had from that time and set these up in a small studio called the Raven's Nest. All the other options were removed and the focus was directly on this feeling and the sensations of these sounds that linked me to 18 years ago while in the present moment. “Perfect Dream” is this the first piece that captures this best.

 

From that point the pieces and zones just flowed out. Somewhere in the process of this my ears were really growing to love the pure analog sound in a new re-found way. The hands on, knob twisting direct connection to the sound was speaking to me in a large way as well, It not like I had left the analog way of creating but the desire to leave the virtual analog, soft synth thing became clear. This is when I started building a pretty large analog modular system. This is a case where I was hearing sounds in my mind and had to build the system to realize them. This is how Possible Planet came to be, building the system as I was building the music.

 

Also removing the familiar crutch of using a keyboard or midi became central to what I was tapping into, which was much like how electronic music of the 60s and 70s was created and I like that idea of removing the familiar. I felt including Possible Planet in the box gave a nice perspective between dreamtime and now. I feel it also has a relationship to “Looking for Safety” on Dreamtime.

 

What is it like now, being at the point where you can release most of the music yourself through Timeroom Editions, retaining complete creative control over the music, the artwork, the distribution, everything?

 

SR: It’s a full circle, really. The early releases, Now and Structures were released completely under my control and totally reliant on me to get them out into the world – imagine that in 1982, pre-internet! My focus and attention to all the details never let up with the record companies, most importantly the music was always on my terms, they respected this along with my sense of artwork for the covers which is often tied into the music. I can honestly say I never relinquished any creative control during that time with any of those releases and I made a point where the companies never heard the music till the master was sent in.

 

The biggest constant conflict came with my need to create in a steady stream and release it in a timely way. They wanted a release every 14 months, modeling after the typical record companies of the day. This is where it started to be clear I was not fitting into this world and that my sense was more aligned with the workflow of visual artist. Now its really a perfect world in the way the circle of creating a piece like Possible Planet can happen in a constant flow, be complete and then in your hands soon after. The day to day nuts and bolts of getting it out there, running my Timeroom Editions and the web site mail order certainly takes energy and time but I get a lot back with the direct contact and feeds the music and is rewarding in many ways. 

 

The beautiful artwork and photography in your albums seems to mirror them so well. How carefully do you plan the look of a disc’s packaging, and how do you come by the many different resources? For example, Possible Planet’s artwork came from a book by photographer Michele Wortman. How did that come about?

 

SR: I love the process of creating the full story with an essential cover. Coming from the LP generation, covers were always a big part of how I felt about music, The covers of Yes were just as amazing as the music, and by the way I met Roger Dean this year, the artist who did the Yes covers I just mentioned and that was a high point indeed. I gave him my Day Out of Time CD because the cover of that one was specifically a photo of natural site which always connected me to his quality of art. He was quite excited to see that cover for its content along with my story. With all the covers on Timeroom, for example, I create a layout map with very specific ideas for the design and what goes where. I give this to Sam at Projekt who puts it all together and naturally adds his artistic eye and design skill. It’s a perfect combo.

 

With Michele, we first met up a few years ago when she and her husband Guy Atchison invited me to play at an opening of their art show with them in Santa Monica. She (along with Guy on some) went on to do Vine, Bark and Spore, Pure Flow, Serpents Lair, and Mystic Chords. When Possible Planet was complete I knew she had to have something based on knowing her work. I selected the images and created the layout concept along with merged with photos of the analog wall.

 

The most unique packaging you ever did would have to be the original slate edition of Early Man. Talk about how that idea evolved, and any difficulties you encountered either in the manufacturing or the distributing of the end product.

 

SR: Vince Harrigan owner of Manifold records and innovator of many special packages came to me with the idea of a slate cover and said I knock your self out, which he did when the orders started rolling in. I loved that presentation as I have always collected rocks, minerals and gems. Thematically the music was already in progress. With that said, It was a real behind-the-scenes nightmare in terms how many orders came in, and that it was one guy making them in his garage in Tennessee, and mailing 25 at time. Quite often out of every box several slates would be broken and the CD's ruined. The process of mixing and matching the slate parts would be part of the deal on my end. After that wound down the idea of the creating a rediscovered version of disk one became compelling to me. I have always loved archeology and wanted to treat the music like something that was dug up after thousands of years, all deconstructed by the time and elements. This became the Projekt version.

 

You have a very devoted following. Fans and critics alike are continually praising your work. Yet you are well known for being a genuine, caring person who takes the time to talk to fans, who hangs out after shows and talks to people. Surely you are very confident in your musical abilities, and yet somehow you remain very connected in a very real way to your fans, and you come across almost in a humble way. How do you stay so grounded?

 

SR: I can start with the grounded part. The first thought that comes to mind is I came from a hard working set of middle class parents who instilled a strong work ethic and sense of respect to others and to the self that is still the basis of how I start each day.

 

Describe how your spiritual beliefs have evolved along with your music.

 

SR: Humm. I think if you sit down and listen to all of my recorded work in sequence, this would provide the answer better than my words, I can say I really don't have "beliefs" spiritual or otherwise...  

 

We discussed not long ago that you are approaching a birthday milestone. How do you feel about that?

 

SR: Well I am still blown away by the "birthday card" Cliff, my web master surprised me with. After that I could get back to feeling ageless and continue into the dedication to just merging into the music more as time does its thing.

 

Musicians often get asked what their personal favorite album is. What is your least favorite Steve Roach album – maybe one that just didn’t quite come out the way you wanted it, or you liked it then but can’t listen to it now? Anything fall in to that category?

 

SR: With all my recorded work I feel it’s an authentic expression of my progression as an artist and person. By the time I release it, in the true sense then it becomes part of a whole which I don't look back on it with a critical ear. Sure, I can hear things in the older work I would approach different now but more often than not I will hear ideas from older pieces that I have moved away from and it gives me back ideas and new perspectives.

 

Many fans know that you are married to Linda Kohanov, a published music reviewer and writer. If you’ve told the story before I missed it – how exactly did you meet? Was it love at first sight?

 

SR: The very long story short is I was flying around the U.S. promoting Dreamtime Return right when it came out. I was in NYC for week then Philly with the next stop in Pensacola, Florida. Linda was music director for a well-known public radio station there and was writing for CD Review and other national music magazines at the time. I would say it was recognition at first meeting for sure. We were both married to other people at the time, so over the course of a few years it was pretty a dramatic time; nature took its course with our help. We have been married 15 years now and it just keeps getting better.

 

What do you want your legacy to be? How do you want to be remembered?  

            

SR: Once again I have to point back to the music, just start the play button on Now and let it play up through whatever one I fade out on...that will be my story. ♫

 

For an audio version of a different interview with Steve, by Spotted Peccary artist Jon Jenkins, click here. And thank you Steve, for your interview with EAS!

 

Interview by Phil Derby

 

If you’ve heard of Tom Heasley, you probably know him as “that ambient tuba guy.” And yes, it’s true, Tom has made a name for himself by playing very good ambient music on an instrument rarely if ever associated with that genre before he came along. What you may not know is that this American musician is also an accomplished didgeridoo player, works with various sounds and samplers, and even dabbles in overtone singing, using his voice as another instrument in the ambient textures and atmospheres that he specializes in. Let’s take a closer look…

 

I'm sure you get asked this all the time, but I'm going to start with it anyway. Why ambient tuba? 

 

Why not? Why jazz tuba, rock tuba, 'Deep Listening' or experimental tuba, or anything else that I've done? From the moment that I began my career as a tubist over thirty years ago, a driving force has been to see the tuba accepted in any context in which it is musically appropriate – which can be just about anything. I didn't set out to make "an ambient album." While recording Where the Earth Meets the Sky in 2001, I turned one day to Robert Rich as we listened back to something I had just recorded and said, "What IS this?” To which he replied, "Ambient." My musical evolution simply had brought me to a place where what I was doing began being called ambient – by other people. This has probably benefited me to some degree. I have always been drawn to things slow and beautiful – perhaps contemplative, whether it was a Miles Davis ballad, a Leonard Cohen song, a spacey section of a piece by Yes, such as “Awaken,” (ed. note – my favorite Yes song!) the symphonies of Ralph Vaughan-Williams or Anton Bruckner, Brian Eno, J.S. Bach, or for that matter the serenity or repose instilled by a great architectural space, such as the organic masterpieces of Frank Lloyd Wright, or a walk in the park.

 

Can you share trade secrets of how you coax the sounds out of the tuba that you do? And what's the most unusual method you've used to fold, spindle or mutilate its typical sound?

 

Well, without getting overly technical, I use a lot of what they call 'extended techniques' in academic circles. There is a technique used by wind instrument players in general called multiphonics, which is singing while you are playing, producing chords and entirely new sounds and timbres. “Monterey Bay” is a prime example of that technique. There is a whole universe to explore in the realm of 'half-valve playing', which is just what it says, pressing valves down every way except 'all the way down' to produce a conventional "correct” sound. Those full-bodied notes of course, are beautiful as well. One of the beauties of such playing is that it allows you to explore the space between the notes, pitch-wise. There's a lot of sonic territory and music to be found in between two notes on the piano, for instance. If I played piano, I'd probably have my hands inside a lot, bending strings and so forth. I think coax is a good word for the way Jeff Beck bends guitar sounds and pitches, for instance. Tuba players aren't supposed to do that, unless it's written in the part of some spiffy little recital piece for a momentary effect. So, I'm just open to a lot of things that maybe a more conventional-minded tubist would frown upon. It's not the kind of playing that is going to win an orchestra job, which is the main goal of many tubists. They have been so consumed with playing correctly and getting the few jobs that are out there, that they have traditionally sort of cut themselves off from the more creative side of things. You hear a boring tuba recital and I think the tendency is to blame the instrument and the music, rather than properly laying blame at the feet of a boring musician who happens to play the tuba. It's a vicious circle.

 

I have no idea what might be thought to be the most unusual method I've used. It would probably be some momentary passing combination of all of the above and beyond in the heat of some improvisation.  

 

In your latest album, Desert Triptych, there is no tuba at all. Why the change? And is this just temporary, or have you left the tuba behind?

 

I have been using the didgeridoo in my live shows since before the release of Where the Earth Meets the Sky. I have been asked many times for a recording of the music I make with that instrument. I hadn't been satisfied with previous attempts at recording the didgeridoo until these performances that took place two years ago in New York while on tour. I was in the process of putting together the release when Farfield Records in England heard me play didgeridoo on the BBC session I did in London last year. So, I gave Desert Triptych to him instead of releasing it myself. I hope to record a great deal more tuba music, tons and tons of it! The music comes first, but the tuba is what I can best express it with. I just premiered a new piece here in Los Angeles last week called Dream of Zatoichi that I am very anxious to get a good recording of. I probably will be doing more pieces with other instruments as well - as you hear on the recording, I'm doing more and more singing all the time. I studied piano in high school and college, so I suspect that it will enter back into things at some point – same with the bass trombone, which I worked with professionally a little bit in LA in the 80s, during my previous life as a freelance musician. Everybody that I called for tuba work said, "What else do you play?"

 

You mentioned most tuba players want to be in a symphony. Were you classically trained?

 

Yes, I studied both piano and theory in high school in preparation for music studies at the local university in Youngstown, Ohio, called the Dana School of Music. I was given a full scholarship. More recently, I did some playing with Oakland Ballet, Berkeley Symphony and a number of other orchestras up in the bay area prior to coming down to LA. I also have led brass quintets over the years, most recently Tuolumne Brass, also in the bay area.

 

How do you compose now, whether it be tuba or vocals or didgeridoo - do you use your formal musical training, or do you improvise, or a combination of both?

 

Well, some of both, and all of the above, and then some. I find it interesting to see the different approaches people take to bringing together seemingly disparate musical elements, such as "conducted improvisations" and the like. It always reflects the particular person's background, talent, experience and aspirations. In my case, I made it a point to explore the musical map and to immerse myself in many styles of music making. My work has been characterized I think by a unique synthesis of composing and improvising that doesn't know itself where one begins and the other ends. They are inextricably linked in ways that I don't believe I have the words to describe. And there is constant evolution, sometimes moving faster than others. The performance is really the thing. I have come to view the act of performance as a ritualistic channeling, or even shamanism. Someone recently asked if I had ever thought of being studied by brainwave researchers because of the effect my music, especially in performance, had on them. I'm getting that kind of reaction pretty consistently now. I'm getting a stronger and stronger sense all the time of what it is that I'm here to do. I've been receiving reports of listeners being "transported" for sometime now.

 

Where do you get your inspiration for individual songs? Do they start with a feeling, a sound, a picture, or something else? Can you give some examples?

 

The tuba piece I mentioned earlier, Dream of Zatoichi, was inspired by the character portrayed by Japanese actor Shintaro Katsu in the Blind Swordsman films from the 1960s. I couldn't have planned this, but while playing the 37-minute piece I was seeing images long forgotten from dreams I had as a child. I was also thinking about the blind masseur, and what his dreams might be like. It was an interesting experience, and probably the best I have ever played. This was a rare instance of my naming something before playing or composing it, and this time it worked. “Thonis” from On the Sensations of Tone, was inspired by an article I saw a few years ago, and was chosen as the title to an improvisation previously recorded live at Star's End radio in Philadelphia. A beautiful picture on the front page of the L.A. Times caught my eye. Through beautiful blue water, artifacts were visible from a lost city. The headline read, “Swallowed by the Sea, Ancient City Reveals Its Secrets,” by Thomas H. Maugh II, Times Staff Writer. The article began, "A ghost city untouched for 2,000 years has been discovered 30 feet under the waters of the Mediterranean, about 3.5 miles off the coast near Alexandria, Egypt, French archeologists said Saturday. Referred to in ancient texts as either Herakleion or Thonis, the city was a major port at one of the mouths of the Nile until it mysteriously disappeared…” Mostly I play something and then, if I like it – especially enough to release it – then I start to think of an appropriate name. Dream of Zatoichi I think perhaps has ushered in a new phase of specificity and a new level of intent in my composing. Previously, my modus operandi had been “simply” to start from ground zero with each piece and see where it leads.

 

You mentioned playing in orchestras and ballet. Listening to your more adventurous tuba playing, that is hard to picture. Do you enjoy playing in a more structured environment like that?

 

It depends. It's interesting to me that it is hard to picture me in such settings. I have to remind myself sometimes that not everyone thinks like I do. To me, it isn't so much about structure or the lack thereof, as it is about the quality of the experience. Is it a good orchestra, or conductor? If the conductor is good enough, it really doesn't matter to me how good the orchestra is. If the conductor sucks, then the best orchestra in the world can be stifling as a straightjacket. I've played with some truly great musicians over the years, but as great as some of the musical experiences were, most of them were not people that I developed lasting friendships with.

 

I remember a favorite anecdote that I must have heard twenty years ago, about Sigmund Freud coming to the United States for a visit. He was asked what people he would like to meet and at the top of his list was the conductor Leopold Stokowski. Someone said to Freud, "He is like two completely different people", to which Freud replied, "Only two? Ah, what a lucky man.” I've always related to that comment, and only more so with age. It was about twenty years ago that I first saw what is still a favorite painting of mine. It is Jacques Villon's “Portrait of the Artist,” a cubist self-portrait. He was Marcel Duchamp's brother, and I prefer his work to his more famous brother. The painting resides at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, PA. I've carried around a photograph of it since the first time I saw it. It is a curious amalgam or synthesis of realistic portraiture and cubism. The artist/subject, Villon, is wearing a coat and hat that consist of multi-colored cubes, that always resonated for me in a way that suggested the many facets of my personality, psyche and the totality of my being. And it's beautiful.

 

I guess too, that my music has evolved to a point and in such a way, that for me to be involved in a situation where someone else is pulling the strings and making musical decisions that I'm not behind 100%, just makes less and less sense.

 

I've noticed that, as far as your CD releases are concerned, you work alone. Is that your preference?

 

Notwithstanding my previous answer, I would love to work more with others. It's hard to say who with, or what kind of music. It doesn't really matter to me - it could be jazz, it could be experimental, it could be rock, it could be anything good. I'm currently involved in a new opera written by Anne LeBaron (www.wetopera.org). I only expected to play the tuba in this, but during rehearsals for a workshop/fundraising performance recently, my role expanded and I found myself switching from acoustic tuba to processed didgeridoo, to throat singing and creating loops in real-time, which I would inject into things from time to time. I'd love to be involved in some really great pop and rock stuff. I'm still waiting for that call from Brian Eno...or Peter Gabriel, or...

 

I've been in contact with David Toop about being involved in one of his upcoming projects, as a result of my BBC Session last year. Hopefully, that will happen too.  

 

If you were to collaborate with someone, what sort of musician would you seek out? Would you want someone who experiments with orchestral instruments, someone who is good with synthesizers and samplers, or does it matter?

 

It absolutely doesn't matter what they do – only how they do it. At the risk of sounding pompous, I would want a person who is comfortable in his or her own musical (and non-musical, for that matter) skin, someone who isn't intimidated by the force of either my ego or my musical personality. I’d want someone who had a vision of what I could bring to his or her music – if we're talking about playing someone else's music – or the collective sound, in the case of a true collaboration. I have been surprised in the past, when working with famous musicians, at how, while they may hire the best people available, for the most part they don't necessarily want a guy on a tuba that people are going to perhaps talk about "too much," if you know what I mean. There are some good reasons why some people become solo artists. Of course, I could hire musicians as hired hands to do my bidding. But I can't afford that, so I go my own way and do my own thing for the most part. 

 

One type of collaboration that I anticipate being involved with very soon is film soundtrack work, especially now that I live in Los Angeles. A film director heard me on KPFK here not long ago and went to my website and bought all of my CDs. His name didn't ring a bell immediately, but I know some of his work and he just happens to have done 8 or 9 films with one of my favorite film composers. So it makes great sense that he would respond to my music the way he has. That is the kind of connection that I hope to make many more of, and soon – those that are more specific, or organic. Before going out of town on a long shoot, he asked if I'd be willing to be involved in a soundtrack. I'm ready! A documentary currently in production for BBC Television has recently licensed two tracks from Where the Earth Meets the Sky for use in their production. That should be an autumn release. 

 

Is music your full-time occupation, or do you have a day job? If you move more into soundtrack work, which it sounds like you might, is this more a financial decision, or because artistically you think it's a good fit, or a little of both?

 

Music is my full-time occupation. If it were not, I might have medical benefits, maybe I'd own a house or have a nice vehicle for touring – but who wants that kind of stuff? Seriously, it is a shame that gifted artists are not remunerated to the degree that people in other professions and businesses are. I think that I contribute - or could contribute - at least as much to society as any brain surgeon, real estate developer, actor or basketball player. They drive fancy cars while I hope that mine will keep running until I can replace it. The best artists are rarely appreciated or recognized during their lifetimes, much less able to make a decent living performing what should be their societal function. On the other hand, maybe I should have just been a painter – recent M.F.A. graduates here in L.A. get scouted these days by New York galleries, their work is collected, that is bought, and then exhibited. Many of these highly developed artists have careers right out of the gate. How nice for them.

 

I think that artistic values and financial decisions are two of the factors that enter into pretty much everything in life – what I eat for lunch on any given day, for instance. I've always loved movies, and certain soundtracks are among my favorite music – Trouble in Mind (Isham), Paris, Texas (Cooder), Chinatown (Goldsmith), Blade Runner (Vangelis), Our Town (Copland) and Shane (Victor Young), just to name a few. I would love for my music to be part of such an experience for others. Soundtrack work would bring my music to many people that would otherwise be unaware of it, which is a primary goal. And if they bought a CD or two – from www.tomheasley.com of course – my sensibilities would not be offended.  

 

What is the best thing about making music?

 

At this point, and it changes with time and experience, I would have to say the connection with listeners is certainly right up there. Appreciation from respected colleagues would represent an important subset of that group, but I'm just as interested in reaching a doorman at a hotel in Des Moines or a gas station attendant out in the middle of nowhere – just two examples of people to whom I've given CDs in my travels. I have a personal experience with the work, and ultimately, I have to please myself to be truly satisfied with what I do, regardless of how much someone else might like it. I suppose the feeling that I get from a particularly good performance or recording is foremost, and the sense that things are continuing to evolve and improve. When I've achieved personal satisfaction, I've generally found that people respond...deeply. The emails I receive from people who have only experienced the recordings are very gratifying to me. And the connection with the audience at a live concert is something that is very special – grown men have told me they were moved to tears. I consider my solo concerts to be collaborative events with the audience. This can't be reproduced in any studio. I've experienced it in degrees from the very beginning, even as a very young trumpet player, but to receive the recognition and adulation from listeners that I do now, for my own music, is one of the best reasons for making music that I know. ♫

 

 

In the late 80s and through the 90s there were two solo synthesizer artists doing solid electronic music. Both hailing from the UK, Andy Pickford and Paul Nagle were content to do their own thing. For Andy, that meant sweeping epic sci-fi sagas set to music, including occasional (gasp!) singing. Maelstrom is considered by many to be a synth music masterpiece, certainly one of his finest moments as a solo artist.

 

For Paul, his own thing meant a variety of things. He sometimes blended his synths with acoustic instruments such as violin, using a variety of guest musicians on his albums, most notably the creative Lore.

 

Andy and Paul had connected off and on for years, but nothing really gelled until a couple of years ago. At that time, Spank The Dark Monkey, or STDM, was born. Although the albums were well received, the band name was not, and so they have continued under the Binar moniker. Whatever name they use, the end result musically has always been worthwhile, and they have quickly become popular in EM circles – well, as popular as one can get in this genre.

 Thanks Andy and Paul for taking the time to chat via email over the past few weeks. And just to give it the proper UK flavour, I’ve left all their British funny spelling bits in. Enjoy.

 

If I recall correctly, you guys had discussed playing together for a number of years, but it took forever for the first collaboration to come out.  What took so long?

Andy: A quaint old English phrase comes to mind "we couldn't be arsed". There's quite a distance to travel between Paul's place and mine, and though laying down all the archive stuff was always possible, until the advent of broadband internet a few years ago, doing any of the subsequent bouncing of files for checking, adding to, sampling etc, was a lot less practical.

Paul: I have to admit I can't actually remember how we got started, where we met up or what made us get it together. All I know is it was a bloody good idea and as soon as we started we realised it would work.

The music seems to really be flowing now, with 1-2 new albums a year.  What happened to dramatically step up the productivity?

Andy: Improvising is easy for us. We've both been musicians since early childhood, both been familiar with the realm of improvised music since then too. It's not something we've always been keen on mind you, but when we consider just how much 'vocabulary' we have between us in musical terms, our output in terms of potential, is a goldmine. We burn mostly to tiny limited runs of CDs which we know will sell out, so in theory there's no limit to the number of such limited album runs we can produce, as long as we keep getting together and coming up with interesting material.

Paul: Getting together is the catalyst; it helps to resolve or explore ideas we may have been thinking about individually. Doing some kind of live performance is always the perfect excuse to chill for a few days, play each other a few new sounds, try out some cool tricks on the P3 sequencer, some nice drum loops or whatever. Put us in the right atmosphere and we just start to play: it's simple yet incredibly powerful magic and I'm loath to try and analyse it too much. I have personally become tired of working to a planned structure, arranging on a computer screen, hammering and smoothing a piece of music (wringing all the life out of it sometimes) then mixing it over weeks or months. Now -the Moment- is where my heart is at and the more we focus on working this way, the better we get at it. Get us together and provide a suitably chilled atmosphere and we will deliver the goods every time - usually in one take! This makes us very, very happy.

Let's talk about the new album coming out any day now.  Paul, you seem to not be shy at all in singing its praises - I believe you said it lays waste to TD's Encore or some such heretical thing.  What is it that really makes this album for you?

Andy: I'll let Paul answer in main then. Myself though, I'm not into the 'King's New Clothes' syndrome surrounding acts like TD. If what they do is butt naked rubbish then it's butt naked rubbish. If it's great it's great. Simple as that. But there's a need for objectivity in this field, because with an instrument as versatile and evolutionary as a synthesiser, you simply cannot plant flag in the dirt to say 'thou shalt not surpass' this or that. Truth is there are far better instruments and far better composers around now. They don't get recognised because the (dwindling) establishment is still very much blinkered toward the ancient past. I say we should respect that past certainly, but not revere it to the extent some do. The new Binar album is great, certainly. A critical change in the right direction for us, having something about it far deeper, more structural, and classy in overall character, than it's predecessors. It's not for me to judge who it's better than really, but I know it's drawn praise from people we'd normally consider way out of this area of interest. I guess it's just a lot more accessible. I'd be quite happy playing it alongside something like Encore, to someone who never heard this kind of stuff before, and having confidence they'd choose our album over that one or another of the same ilk. A lot of that is due to the fact that it's getting harder to find anyone who'd prefer that ancient stuff anyway. They're either dead of old age, dying, or growing senile. We're just not pitching our sound at that age group anyway. It's a lot more contemporary.

Paul: I wanted to make a provocative statement because I want people to sit up and take notice. I am perfectly happy for this CD to be lined up alongside the sacred cows of the past (or present) and compared on any level. This is all the best stuff taken from our last gig and trimmed down to a little over 79 minutes - so no complaints on length there! But it's the quality that sends shivers down my spine because somehow we really managed to generate on stage what we always knew we could: instant composition to a scarily high standard (IMHO). If people listen to this one and don't get it, then Binar are not for them, simple as that. I'm not dissing anyone's heroes of old. TD had a great creative period and produced some groundbreaking stuff. But that was then. People who love the past can join historical societies, dress up like cavaliers or roundheads and have fun mock battles together on a Sunday afternoon. That's fine and I hope they have a good time. But in art as in life, everything must change. For me, music is too important to be left in a vacuum or a glass case.

 

You mentioned that improvisation is key to what you do.  Are there particular parts that each of you specializes in?  For example, does one person do sequencing and another person plays the lead melody, or are there certain synths that you each specialize in, or what?

 

Paul: Musically we have grown very accustomed to playing together. This is something that comes over time generally but even in the early days there was an understanding that gave us a real buzz. As for "certain synths", I suppose I have been through more of them than most, but now I am finding my requirements are very, very specific and focused 100% on live work. Sure, without the awesome P3 sequencer and Korg ESX-1 electribe, I simply couldn't envisage doing my part in our performances. But you don't really want to ask about gear do you?  

 

Andy: I tend to do what my gear allows me to - which, in the main part is to play melody and pads. Having said that, I'm adding more arpeggiated stuff lately, as well as sound effects, especially sampled vocal effects which I'm told I'm very good at. With the addition of Phil Smillie on guitar now, we're fast becoming a much more beat-driven thing. This is a great move because, if nothing else we love to jig around to what we're playing and hope that some of our audience does too.

 

Do you go into the studio without any preconceived ideas, flip the switch and just see what happens?  Or does one or the other of you have an idea to start with that you build from?

 

Paul: I tried flipping the switch. I even recorded the sound it made. But in the end, the inspiration had to come from elsewhere. As to the bigger question of "where ideas come from," we can go there if you like but I won't be brief... 

 

Andy: Nothing is preconceived, and if it is, it sure doesn't last long! Effectively the only thing that tends to be preconceived in any of our sessions is green and doesn't come in a bottle. Whoops... I really shouldn't have said that should I? I suppose what I'm trying to say is that we decided to challenge convention on synth music i.e. that dudes in the mid 70's donned their furrowed artistic brows, sat there with stony faces pumping out music with a deep, meaningful philosophy behind it. Well that's how history seems to have made it. In reality it wasn't and isn't like that. Dudes got 'in the zone', decided to get onto their synths and enjoy playing amazing sounds together. I'd be highly surprised if there was ever any deeper meaning to it than that. We sure don't want one in our music.  

 

Live improvisation can always be risky.  Any good horror stories to tell?

 

Paul: Not really – although I once had this very unusual experience with vampires whilst on magic mushrooms.

 

On the general topic of improvisation, I sometimes hear comparisons with, say, classical musicians who practise a specific piece for ages and then turn in a note perfect performance. Apparently this leads some to the conclusion that it should be possible to play improvised music without a single mistake, ever, or you're just not trying. I also hear jazz musicians (particularly) turning in wild virtuoso performances at light speed - you couldn't spot a wrong note even if they made one (or spot a well-practised twiddle from a totally new one). Again, this can lead to a supposition that our deliberately less showy creations should be flawless. They are pretty good I think but we try things out and dare to do so publicly. I guess if our performances were based on specific compositions or if they consisted of licks honed into automatic performance then perhaps I'd agree we should never make a single blooper. However, what we do is "instant composition". I don't claim we do it as well as J.S. Bach or Beethoven - but listen to what we do collectively, consider how we do it and how free we are to pick our direction at any time and respond to any changes the other makes. Then make up your own mind whether that kind of flying without a safety net can ever be totally safe. And would you want it to be?

Andy: Every session is a horror story being narrowly averted by clever, last minute goal keeping I'm sure! There’s the usual feedback, resonant whistle and overly loud patch problems. But we play on the edge, and if anything we aim to get even closer to it. The gig we just did was very snappy with its changes - real rapid-fire stuff. Always risky, but we're good at what we do now, so the chances of something going horribly wrong are more dependent on the electricity supply remaining constant than anything else.

 

Paul, you said your answer to "where ideas come from" wouldn't be brief.  Go ahead, tell me.  

 

Paul: What Dreams May Come

Stage 1 "Phaedra"

 

At the start, everything is new and wonderful and exciting. You have the gear but you don't entirely know what it can do. You think you have something to say; you've heard others speak and are pretty sure you can join the conversation. You may have some musical training, you may not - and I'll avoid the whole issue of where this can lead. The important thing is you can make sounds and record them. Isn't it great? You fiddle around and maybe share your experimental creativity with a world largely ignorant of what stage you have reached. NB with today's technology you have way more options for tweaking and perfecting than we ever had back in the 70s. The basics you start with now can be overwhelming; I don't think this is necessarily the best start, but again this is a topic for another day. The point is that in the beginning, many ideas come from the discovery process, the freshness and the delight as you stumble across tricks and techniques that may be unique; or you may have heard them before and been inspired by them. You don't analyse too much. You might start writing concept albums if you feel you have some lofty ideas to put across. You might get into dance music if you enjoy moving your ass. Who can say what direction will appeal? Your music is new, alive and as runny as wet paint.

Stage 2 "Stratosfear"

You start to find your own identity and to bend the gear to your will. At this stage, I humbly suggest working with other musicians is the best way to hothouse your skills and make you realise the most important lesson in music: communication. Here you have learned enough so that you can express ideas from outside the narrow confines of what you thought the gear could do. And where do these ideas come from? This is, of course, the question you asked and I'm sorry to be so long-winded in answering.

Well, for a start we can keep using the crutch of concept albums – I did this myself for a long time. It's got a lot going for it because it's suitably restrictive and restrictions are important because only when working against them do your efforts become more individual and therefore more interesting. But at some point you realise that your ideas are actually a manifestation of your personality and your experiences. In order to have something to say, you need to do things, think things and - yes - have enough of an ego to believe others will want to hear your expression of this stuff.

Experience counts for so much. And not just musical experience: all experience in life gives you a broader base to work from. Again, another whole essay topic - I'm a real windbag aren't I? Add your blossoming vocabulary of musical techniques and equipment mastery to having something worthwhile to say and you're starting to become "an artist". Buy a hat or a poncho and go live in a cave for a while.

You don't get something worthwhile to say by sitting your whole life with your arms folded and thinking thoughts about cheese. Ideas come from trying difficult things; from going to strange places; from thinking different thoughts and from constantly refining and pushing; working against deadlines or against bizarre circumstances. Ideas come from dynamics and from grief. Ideas come from sweat and hard work and from peace and shared secrets and from mystery elements. And if this all sounds a little like the po-faced twaddle currently infesting the Binar website, I blame the strange shortbread that seems to be hanging around in my system from last night. At this stage your brain and your ego team up and take you prisoner.

In memory of a once fluid man crammed and distorted by classical mess. (Ed. note: I'd swear this is an intentional non sequitur by Paul just to see if I was paying attention whilst editing this interview - Paul?)

Stage 3 "Tales Of the Inexpressible"

Sorry, I couldn't think of a TD album to represent Stage 3 - because I don't believe they ever got there. At this stage you simultaneously throw away all your art and stand naked, scratching idly. You realise YOU are the growing art form. To put it as Bruce Lee once did: don't think, feel.

 

OK, before I start paraphrasing my novel, I'll try to sum up:

At the start, a note was just a note, a sound was just a sound. Whoopee. In stage 2, a note now represented arcane concepts devised by your own cunning and training; a sound became an embodiment of something spiritual or mystical; your brow was furrowed and your concentration intense. In stage 3 a note is again just a note; a sound just a sound. You are free to throw it all away or to use any of it - and you do so automatically. It's only music, after all.

Some of the most interesting artists never go beyond stage 1. Very few reach stage 3; most are meandering somewhere in stage 2.

 

Now on with the rest…

 

So now that you are in this groove together, what's the next step?  Just keep doing what you're doing and having fun, or do you have any loftier goals for Binar?

 

Paul: My personal goal has always been the music. I struggle to think much beyond that. I have lots of projects on the boil and each has its own flavour and natural resonance; for Binar, we are currently into this very chilled yet melodic groove. This phase is certainly a little more dance-oriented than before - but that doesn't mean we won't indulge in a spot of African percussion, classical strings or atonal jazz-funk opera should the mood take us.

 

I feel our natural progression could be to gradually slip away from the "EM" scene we've inhabited for so long. I hope many who have got to know us stay for the ride - out of curiosity and trust that we'll keep doing good stuff.

 

Let's face facts: we've never been invited to play at any of the large festivals and I do accept we're not particularly safe custodians of 'the formula'; Binar incorporate too many elements to be mistaken for any period of TD for very long; this can be a problem for some of the more conservative punters and organisers. And there's no doubt we are becoming more thumpy too: at our last gig (in Leeds) there were people dancing. Can you imagine that? It brought a tear of joy to this old man's eyes. And made me realise there was something else we could have been doing for some years now.

 

Andy: I can't add much to this. I do know that we couldn't sound more unlike TD if you paid us to! So why this name keeps being dropped in association with us because we play synths, I don't know. I suppose at its roots, our sound is derived from the electronic music we grew up with. The future for our sound is fairly indeterminate I think, as each time we get together, something's changed from the last time. Certainly we aim to work on a more dance-oriented concept, quite probably because we enjoyed the sight of people actually dancing to us last time we played live.

 

What do you want to be doing 10 or even 20 years from now?

 

Paul: Living and breathing in good health alongside friends and family in the same condition.

 

Andy: Truly, I have no idea whatsoever! C'est la vie!

 

You've mentioned a lot about the natural ability you two seem to have to play together. Who is Phil Smillie, this guitarist you brought up before. Did you actively seek him out to add another dimension to your music, or how did it happen?

Paul: He's my mate and a "Joint Intelligence Committee" member along with Andy Mason (DJ/drummer). Andy met him at the NSC and suggested he come along to the practice sessions for our Leeds gig.

 

Andy: Yeah he's some dude...

What does Smillie's guitar playing add to Binar?

 

Paul: Guitar mainly (grins) – although his guitar does have a MIDI output.

 

Andy: With some application on the part of all of us, I think Phil could make a massive contribution. He's a textural player and a great atmospherics technician. He's a sound dude all round. We're looking to court with many dangers in being experimental about how far we can stretch electronic music. Phil plays with a lot of sound-altering gear, and takes a mind-altering attitude to making it sound good. We think that's something worth integrating.

Will you be adding more musicians into the Binar fold, or is this it?

 

Paul: I can't say we plan to, but you never know what will happen. As long as we two are here as the core, there's nothing to rule out occasionally adding nose flute players, percussionists, go-go dancers, mime artists, pet goats, cheerleaders...

 

Andy: Did he just say "blessed are the cheese makers?!" Really, the Binar philosophy is very simple... You've only got one life, so f*ck it! We kind of broke free of the mould at the point we realised how much we loved synthesisers. It became a case of 'if you love your synth, set her free', rather than keep the process following the hallowed path of 'the synth-righteous'. Thus the bonds of slavery were cast off, and we decided whatever goes goes, as long as we can sit there, grin like fools, and know we just did something actually, genuinely new.

 

You said earlier that this isn't anything too deep, you just love the music and hope the fans do too.  So what's next?  How long will Binar continue, and what can we expect to hear?
 

Andy: Spindragons is an immense leap forward, and contains sections which frighten even me in terms of just what it is possible to achieve in a completely improvised environment. Paul's reactions were needle sharp and extremely empathic. I was sizzling with some kind of angst. Not quite sure what to do with, but something was bugging me then. The atmosphere in the music is amazing. Here's the bad bit though - we have had to cut stuff out for content, play around a bit more (told you, we ain't slaves to the rules no more!), then mix it in a way so that it sounds really great on pro-logic surround (an actual 5.1 mix may be possible too), and portable stereo alike. The album's just too good to pee into the wind. So it'll stay under wraps until we've got more interest.    

 

Paul: I'd love to get Spindragons out as first priority because if we can't charm people with this one, we are probably in the wrong market altogether. I am personally a bit skint right now due to various international trips that are planned but yet to finance so we need some kind of sign of demand before risking the cash. And to be frank it's such good stuff it deserves a wider audience than I think we will get at present. Neither of us is especially good at the promotion side of things, perhaps because the music is sort of all consuming. I guess this is my feeble way of saying that we have lots of plans but they mostly involve making great music. The rest of them are a little vague at present; my crystal ball looks hazy and full of smoke...  ♫

 

 

Steve Dinsdale interview

June 11, 2005

By Phil Derby

 

A few issues back on the Electroambient Space site, I ran an interview of Steve Dinsdale from Radio Massacre International, conducted by electronic musician Rudy Adrian from New Zealand. But admittedly, that interview was somewhat dated by the time it ran. Both Steve and RMI’s new label Cuneiform were interested in something more current, and I certainly jumped at the chance to interview someone from my favorite EM band. After a few technical difficulties and several dropped phone calls to the UK one Saturday morning last month (late morning for me, early evening for Steve), we finally got together to chat for about 30 or 40 minutes, and talk about what makes RMI tick, and where they go from here.

 

PD: Radio Massacre International has released over 20 albums since Frozen North in 1995. How would you describe the Radio Massacre sound – what defines you as a band?

 

SD: I think the overriding factor which seems to pervade most of our recordings is – if I had to sum it up in one word it would be “exploratory” I suppose, in the way that most of the work that we do is generated via complete improvisation. It relies strongly on the circumstances technically on the day, whether it be a studio recording or a live recording. What we try to do is shift the goalposts continuously for ourselves in order that we don’t get bored. So I guess from a technical point of view, it’s exploratory, improvisation-based. I mean, we have written pieces but generally speaking we like to just see what happens on the day, really. That’s the most exciting part of it for us, because myself personally – I listen to a lot of so-called modern jazz, most of which was generated in the 50s and 60s – I think as a whole we’re quite fascinated by something that happens upon a certain day that can never be repeated. So yeah, looking at the whole, the 24 albums that we’ve done, it’s hard to generalize, but I’d like to sort of think that they are – to us they’re all very different from each other, they all have their own personalities – it’s a bit like having 24 kids really, but a little less hassle than that (laughs).

 

PD: You mentioned always moving the goal posts. How do you guys keep it fresh after this much time, with so many albums with the same three guys?

 

SD: I think it would have to be said that the three of us are very close knit as people, because we’ve known each other since we were – well, I’ve known Duncan (Goddard) since we were both 11, which is frightening, really – and the two of us have known Gary (Houghton) since he was 16, so in a way the band is built around this social network that we have. The music is a byproduct of it. We would quite often get together and not make music – we’re friends.

 

Our roles in the band are quite clearly defined as well, which is something that has evolved quite nicely. We try to involve as few outside people as we possibly can. Gary looks over the business end of it, I do most of the PR aspect and communications, and Duncan deals with the technical side of it. That formula works incredibly well. In a way we’ve sort of evolved into, as Robert Fripp would say, a small mobile intelligent unit. Musically speaking, the way Duncan tends to approach things technically is that he’s an avid buyer of whatever gear is out there, he’ll be across it. He’ll say, is this suitable for us or is it not? Every time we get together there’s always something different in the set up for us to come to grips with. So we’re not just assuming the same roles – he’ll make some new samples, or he’ll have linked 3 different devices together so that it does something they’re not supposed to do – that’s what Duncan is very good at. I asked him if he had any kind of looping devices so I could actually record live percussion and build up layers and loops and things like that, and that’s the latest development for me. We went on stage last night and I was mainly sitting on the floor playing percussion. So, it keeps it fresh.

 

PD: You’re leading into my next question, about playing the drums. More recently, you’ve explored space rock, adding drums and maybe more structured guitars and things like that. What sparked your interest in that, and how does that fuel the creative fire for the band or for you personally?

 

SD: It’s funny, you can reduce the three of us to a bunch of Hawkwind fans. That particular band, Gary is the keenest on keeping up with Hawkwind’s career. Personally speaking, “The Silver Machine” changed my life. I’m just barely old enough to remember it being on the charts – it was actually a top five single in England, believe it or not – I was nine when it came out, and that’s the record that made me want to play the drums. I remember getting a set of biscuit tins and hitting them. It’s 30 years on, the seed is sown. Although we can function perfectly well, as 24 albums will testify, as a two keyboards and one guitar set up, we’re also able to function as a guitar, bass and drums set up. So I think it’s unique, a rare thing among electronic musicians, that we could actually do a passable version of “Purple Haze” if we had to.

 

PD: You’ve mentioned trying to break out of the Berlin school definition. Is it true that comparisons to Tangerine Dream or other bands bother you?

 

SD: It bothers us in a way, because what those comparisons suggest is that we don’t have a musical personality of our own, and we are very much of the view that we definitely do. We’ve sort of skirted around the issue over the years, but for us it’s always just been a vocabulary. It’s a way of making music which is as valid as any other sort of established form. What we can’t do is go back in history and invent it ourselves. But what we feel like we can do is impose a strong musical personality on it, which I do think we do, without being too immodest.

 

PD: Do you listen to your own music after you’ve made it, or do you always move on to the next thing?

 

SD: I think the time when we move on is usually when whatever project we’re dealing with is actually complete. So we listen to it, and we analyze it to the n^th degree, because there’s a lot of digital editing involved, which I tend to be the person in the band that does that. So we’ll listen to it very very intensively at the time the album is in production, and then once it’s done and we have the finished product in our hands, yeah we do tend to move on. Which isn’t to say that we don’t listen to the back catalog, but –

 

PD: But you know it, it’s in your head.

 

SD: Yeah, you kind of know it pretty much backwards by the time it comes out. By the time the public hears it, we’re already working on the next project, because we do tend to have a lot of projects on the boil all the time.

 

PD: That was something else I wanted to ask you about. A lot of your “new” releases are actually older recordings, like Startide was released in 2001 but it was one of your earliest recordings, in 1993. How much material is in your vaults, and what percentage of it do you think may see its way onto future albums?

 

SD: What happened in the very early days of the current incarnation of Radio Massacre International, which started around ’93, was that myself and Duncan lived about 4 miles away from each other in London. So it was very easy for myself and Duncan to get together on an evening and just record, which we used to do quite frequently, maybe once a week at least. So we built up a large library. I can remember when Frozen North came out, we already had 40 pieces in the archive that we’d recorded over the previous two years. And we’re talking quite lengthy pieces. Because I’ve always been into the editing process – what we do is, whatever we record that we think is good enough, we edit it up, make it ship-shape, so that it is releasable at any point. It’s kind of finished, almost like an album that doesn’t exist already. So we’ve got this big cache of material.

 

What we originally did was to start putting out the CDRs; that was the main motivation behind putting the CDR series out, to create some alternative releases. So we’re attempting to put a full stop on that now, by releasing a 6-CD box.

 

PD: How is that coming along?

 

SD: It’s becoming a bit of a bone of contention. The hardest thing about the whole thing is getting a box to put the bloody thing in. It is so ridiculous. But we’ve got all the tracks sorted out, edited, mastered, the whole business, but basically, we’re just working on packaging – trying to make it reasonably decent. But it’s impossible because, you know as well as I do, the economics of this kind of music, people say yeah, if you’re going to make 5000 copies we can do it, but 500, forget it. What we thought would be fun to do is an RMI retrospective, a 6-CD boxed set, but there isn’t a single track on it that’s ever been released before. So it’s a good enough incentive for the people that do follow our music to really get to grips, to follow some sort of evolution in a way. Unfortunately, what we did was make it plain on the website that that’s what we were going to do, and so we get a lot of email, a lot of questions about when it’s going to come out. We didn’t anticipate that production would take that long, but it has. So it will see the light of day eventually. It won’t be spectacularly packaged, but it will be a very good value musically.

 

PD: So before the end of the year, or…?

 

SD: I think before the end of the year, definitely yeah. In a way, that puts the full stop on the past, because I think the last piece on it is from about 2003. So it will demonstrate the evolution of the band, and then it’s just a matter of moving forward from there, really.

 

PD: Speaking of moving forward, you signed with Cuneiform. What was behind that, where do you hope that’s leading, and what do they bring to the table?

 

SD: What they bring to the table is that they are a fantastic record label. I was actually a big fan of their label before. We never even entertained the thought that we may one day make a CD for them. The reason why it happened is because Steve – Steve Feigenbaum, who is the label boss, he’s had the label for about 20 years – I was actually helping him out in another role. I’m sort of a tape archivist in some respects. I worked in the BBC sound archives for several years. I helped him out on some Robert Wyatt sessions he was after. I came over to Philadelphia last year, and Steve said he’d try to get down to the gig. And I just thought well, obviously, it’s just a social visit to sort of meet us and, you know, and say thanks for the help and it would be a cool band to check out. Before I knew it, a week later when we got back to England there was an email from him saying well, okay, the big question is, do you want to make an album for Cuneiform? And it was like “yep.” (laughs) We didn’t have to think too hard about it, really, because the breadth of music that that label puts out is brilliant. They have a reputation for being largely progressive, but from my perspective, what attracts me to progressive music, is that there are so many different facets to it. By placing ourselves amongst the likes of John Surman and people like that – it’s an honor, really – rather than being on a label that is very narrowly branded as electronic music. It was just a great opportunity. So what they bring to the table is the possibility of being heard by a wider audience, people that don’t know us, haven’t heard of us, because they’ve not chanced upon it. Obviously the other big possibility for us that it hopefully opens up is that we may get some more live work in America, which we love doing so much.

 

PD: I would love to see you guys come here more.

 

SD: That’s really what we’re aiming for. Because when you put a band like ours in amongst a bunch of bands that are very different from us, it works a lot better than having an electronic festival where you’ve got 4 or 5 acts blasting the whole day, all playing music which occupies similar territory. I think quite often it’s not that enjoyable.

 

PD: Well, I guess it is for people like me (laughs).

 

SD: Yeah, maybe, maybe (laughs). I just know when we did this particular one on the west coast, ProgWest, we – I hesitate to say that we headlined it, but we followed Daemonia, (Goblin’s keyboard player) with an Italian band of classically trained musicians in leather trousers, playing extremely bombastic, technically accomplished music. We stood at the back of the auditorium, thinking, “My God, how are we going to follow this?” But I think it was the fact that we were in complete contrast to them that we were able to follow them so successfully.

 

PD: Was the audience reaction when to came to America very positive, then?

 

SD: To be quite honest, I think the audience reaction in America is the best reaction that we ever get.

 

PD: Really?

 

SD: Yep, absolutely, I would say that unequivocally.

 

PD: Not like that one show – I forget which album it was – where you talked about how abrasive the audience was and that came through the piece?

 

SD: Yeah, I think know the piece you are thinking about. I don’t know what it is. I hesitate to generalize, but I think the thing that was lovely about American audiences that we have played to is that everybody is just so appreciative, that we’ve made the effort to go over to the States and do it for them. Given that we have a bit of a history and a career behind it. It’s similar to what we do in the studio, but there’s people there, and there’s a possibility that something great will happen. Certainly both of The Gatherings concerts that we’ve done in Philadelphia have borne that out, we’ve had some really good nights there.

 

PD: You mentioned family commitments (ed. note: this brief side discussion apparently got cut from the recorded final interview). Are you guys all married and kids and the whole thing?

 

SD: Yeah, we’re pretty much all along the same – I’ve got a young daughter who’s 5, Gary has 4 boys, ranging from nearly 2 to 15, so you can imagine his hands are pretty full.

 

PD: So do they like all the buttons and knobs on the gear?

 

SD: No, its like any generational thing, they want to do their own thing. They’ve got their MP3 players and – Gary was kind of reared on heavy metal, and they like Iron Maiden and stuff like that – they aren’t quite ready for us yet. Actually his eldest boy Joe, who’s 15, came to our last gig that we did in Leicester, and he had a good time. I think it was nice glimpse into what it is that we do.

 

The other factor in the band (besides family) is that geographically we live in three different places these days. So we really have to make a conscious effort to make time for the band, even though we’re all working on aspects of the band in our own home – myself on the editing, Duncan getting artwork together, and Gary doing the accounts and seeing if we’ve made any money yet.

 

PD: Do you guys all three do this full time now, or do you have other jobs?

 

SD: No, that’s the thing, we’ve all got full time jobs. We’re fairly down one sort of career path or another. It becomes a matter of, rather than going to see football games or going out clubbing or whatever, we make time to do something that’s really important to us. Duncan refers to it as a second occupation, which I suppose it is, but there’s definitely not enough money in it to live on.

 

PD: Do you think a band in this area of music, whether you want to call it electronic or progressive, is due for another breakthrough like a Tangerine Dream or a Jean-Michel Jarre?

 

SD: No, we don’t harbor any hopes at all. The upside of not expecting any big commercial breakthrough is that you gain complete control over what you do. In a way, that’s more important to us. I’ve had fleeting experience in the music business, in my younger years when I was a drummer. You find that once a record label has you in their clutches financially, you’re doomed really – doomed to do what they want. It’s dreadful. Basically, it give us the opposite end, total artistic control, and that’s what we want. Because I’ve heard some people say, you know, you could sort of stick something in here, and make this a hit in the dance halls and all this, and it’s like, no. We’d like to put something out that’s 100% what we want people to hear.

 

PD: Yeah, if you guys do a dance techno remix, I think I’m outa here.

SD: Yeah, I don’t think that’s likely to happen (laughs).

 

PD: So what would be your ultimate goal to achieve as Radio Massacre International?

 

SD: To still be doing it in 10 years, I suppose. We do value very highly the fact that we can travel halfway across the globe, and the fact that I get emails from so many countries. I was saying to the guys last night, there may have been a small number of people at this concert we played, but our audience is scattered around the four corners of the globe. It blows my mind when I get an email from Argentina or something like that, it’s fantastic. What we’d like to do is just be invited to play in front of people.

 

PD: So when will you guys get big heads and record all your solo albums?

 

SD: (Laughs) Well, this new looping device that Duncan gave me, I can loop percussion and things like that, yeah I could make a solo album. Gary’s after making a solo album this summer, he’s going to be the first out of the traps. He wants to make a space rock album, but with songs, loosely starting at Ashra and working up what he wants to do, songs he’s got lyrics for and the whole lot. He wants us to play on it, but it won’t be a Radio Massacre International, it’ll be a Gary album. Before it gelled as Radio Massacre International, Duncan amassed a great amount of solo pieces. I’ve not really done a lot solo; my activity outside of the band has been drumming for other people.

 

PD: I’ve got to ask this one question, I want to ask you about the song titles. They seem to be getting longer, and maybe a little bit sillier (Steve laughs). I take it naming instrumental pieces, you just kind of pull something out of a hat, that a lot of these you don’t ascribe a particular meaning to, or is there a story behind each one?

 

SD: Usually there isn’t. Usually it will be as simple as it will just arise from a conversation which may have been had at the time. For example, we played yesterday evening in Leeds in a club called The Brudenell Social Club. But because of the circumstances of that particular gig and the way it worked out, we were quite abrasive onstage. We actually tried to improvise for like 100 minutes without stopping. And back at the hotel when we cracked the beers open, Duncan said, “That was quite antisocial.” We thought, yeah, there’s the title for that one – because it’s a social club, and the set was antisocial.

 

On the Cuneiform disc (Emissaries), to be fair, all of the titles on this album were actually titled by the guy that did the cartoons, Matt Howarth. We just said to him, look it’s your concept, it’s your cartoon strip, you do the titles. Yeah, they’re very long, and in a way they’re over the top, but in a way it’s nice to be over the top. With the English guys there’s always an element of humor in there somewhere as well.

 

PD: I have noticed that, writing my reviews and trying to keep them to a certain word count.

 

SD: Yeah, half of them are taken up with the track titles. The E-Live album that we did a couple of years back has got some really ridiculous titles, but that’s just because we got into talking about what the difference between the Dutch people and English people are. Without getting controversial, we identified certain differences, and we wondered if there was any genetic reason for this. And I just hit upon a genetics website that had all these ludicrous terms like “nucleotide diversities” and things like that. And we just thought wouldn’t that be keen, because either that or you just call it “E-Live Part One,” “Part Two,” “Part Three,” “Part Four,” etcetera. Plus we thought  it would just be really funny if anybody played it on the radio, having to get their tongue around some of those titles.

 

Quite often, something like Frozen North, Zabriskie Point, Gulf, actually describe particular places that the music reminded us of. But yeah, other times anything goes really.

 

PD: Yeah, I mean I like “Nucleotide Diversities,” but “ Neurological proteins aren't enriched for repetitive sequences, no” is perhaps a bit more on the silly side.

 

SD: (Laughs) Well, the repetitive sequences though, that was actually a genetic term, that was what we thought was funny. It was lifted lock, stock and barrel, just Duncan put the “no” on the end. But the rest of it was actually just lifted completely from this massively academic paper that somebody had written on the internet. But yeah, it’s crazy. I mean, if you’re like me, I tend to buy an album, put the thing on, and read the sleeve maybe once and then just put the sleeve aside and listen to the music.

PD: That’s true. Even though I love your guys’ music and I listen to it, if I were to put something on randomly and someone asked me to name the tracks – Organ Harvest, being more structured, maybe I could do, but the others I’d be like, “uh….”

 

SD: That’s right. I think when a band has made as many albums as we have, generally we see them as postcards if you like. It’s for people that are interested in the band. We put ourselves in a position, if we were a fan of this band, how would we feel about it? Really, it’s just putting a lot of albums out – we put way too many albums out probably, but there are people that do want to hear them, so we just put them out for people that want to hear them, and those that don’t want to don’t have to buy them. It’s nice to record the band’s – I wouldn’t even say evolution, necessarily, but the band’s history. It’s just nice to put things out without spending two-and-a-half years on a grand concept album.

 

Having said that, we made special effort with the Cuneiform album, the Emissaries album, to tie it a bit together and make it a conceptual album, just to see if we could do it.

PD: I think the new album’s fantastic. I mean, I’m biased, I like all your stuff, but I think it came out fantastic.

 

SD: Yeah, we were pleased with it. We wanted to justify ourselves, ‘cause it’s such an important release for us, looking at it with the Cuneiform label, and it was great. It’s a nice thing for us to do, because we definitely were going down the road of being completely and utterly self-supporting. And then the Cuneiform thing came along, and it was like, yeah, let’s try and take it to another level. So you can actually order on Amazon and stuff like that, which is great – I think we should have that level by now, we’ve certainly done our apprenticeship. We both went into it with a great deal of good will on both sides, and Steve said he’ll do the best he can for us. Hopefully if there is a market out there that’s above and beyond what we’ve reached so far, then he’ll try and find it, and there’s no better man to do it.

 

We’re not laden with expectations that it’s going to be the big time, but it would just be really nice if – all we want to do is drag a few more people in, because we know there’s people out there who would enjoy it. There isn’t a single radio station in the country that we live in that would even think about playing this music. So we’re up against it. Obviously, the contrast between the smaller artists and the bigger artists gets bigger and bigger every year. We just like to maximize the audience in the way that we can, knowing that there’s a limit on it. ♫

 

 

 

 

 

27 May 2005

By Phil Derby

 

I have loved synthesizer music since I was a 15 year old in March 1979. My first exposure to it was Jean-Michel Jarre’s Equinoxe. A year or so later, I discovered Body Love by Klaus Schulze. These albums began my love affair with this music that continues to this day as a 42 year old in 2005.

 

SPV records, who is releasing much of Klaus Schulze’s back catalog, asked me last month if I would like to interview him. I had to think about two seconds before saying yes. The next week, Klaus called me from his home in Germany. In our half hour chat, we talked about music of course. But we also talked about the weather, including how much he likes rain, and we laughed, and we had a good time just talking. I was not expecting the youthful exuberance and the easygoing nature of this man who is approaching 60 and is still making great music. I am very excited and pleased to bring Electroambient Space readers this interview with Klaus Schulze.

 

For you, what is the unique appeal of synthesizers over other instruments in making music?

 

Oh, it was always like this from the very beginning. It gives you a kind of musical freedom, because you can do everything with it. That means you can play lead voices or you can copy other instruments, which I don’t like to. And also you can do abstract sounding, so whatever you need in your composition you can make with synthesizers. With an organ, you can change them a bit, but they always will sound like an organ, or like a guitar, or a piano and things like that. But a synthesizer is up to your own sound aesthetic.

 

How have advancements in synthesizer technology changed the way you make your music?

 

Quite a lot, because when we started in the very early days, we just had to use it like every instrument – you had to play it, and record it on tape, and then look whether you made a mistake or you had to play it again, or you can edit it maybe. But then the development came, which makes the whole thing much easier, because you can suddenly play from one master keyboard a lot of different synthesizers at the same time if you want. And also you have the notes on the screen, on the desktop, and you can edit it easily afterwards, you can exchange the sounds – but only if they were played in the right way of course. And finally, there comes the hard disc recording where you can loop things and do a lot of things that make life much easier. I think today, going back to the early days to play a synthesizer on a 24-track or something like that, we would all suffer for that.

 

Do you still exclusively use synthesizers, or do you use soft synths now?

 

At the moment, two things – in the studio, I use about 60% virtual synths and 40% hardware synthesizers, like my Moogs, and the Virus, and the Andromeda Alesis, and all these things that are like analog stuff, except the Moog which is absolutely analog. Live, I only use hardware synthesizers, because on stage it is still too difficult to use soft synths because, you know, you are playing and performing, and suddenly to switch your hand on the mouse to edit it or to open another track or something like that, it’s not so perfect yet that you can use virtual synths on stage – for me at least, because I’m alone on stage and so I don’t have the time to change the sounds and to edit something while nothing is happening onstage.

 

Which do you enjoy more, or maybe just compare the two, creating music in the studio or performing it live?

 

Both are very exciting, but it’s a different story. In the studio it’s nice because you have the peace and the silence to concentrate on details, and also you can try a couple of tracks a couple of times. And you can really play when you want, if it’s three at night nobody cares. So you really have time to develop your piece. Playing live, the excitement comes from the adrenaline, because it’s very exciting, and you feel it when you come onstage – the people are expecting something, and you are expecting something. And it is also very exciting because you have to play, and you cannot just say “stop,” and start from the middle again and try it, so you have to find a way out of what you played, even if you don’t know what you will play next, you have to find a way because there is no time for starting again, the people want to go on with the performance. And so this is also very exciting, because then you have to be very aware that there’s no net under you, you know, you’re just playing, and you have to play. You have no security at all, because once you’ve started a piece you have to finish it. You cannot just say after 10 minutes, oh I’ve tried this solo, I’ll try better with another instrument or something like that. It’s also very interesting because through that, sometimes, special solos come out which would never happen in the studio – and vice versa, on stage there’s never the peace that you can really play very relaxed – not me, maybe some people who are so hardened that they can play the same piece. It’s often through that that when I prepare, when I’m doing a new album, and I use some basic tracks for the live concert, then in the concert I play my solos on top of it, like on Are You Sequenced? and a couple of others. I will then chose the live version for the record rather than the studio version, because it’s much more emotional the live version, even if there’s sometimes a little mistake in it, but I think it’s just human, but the impact of the emotion is much bigger live because that’s what happened to Are You Sequenced? The record was finished, and was already in the pressing plant, and when I came back from a concert in Derby, England – it’s written like your name (laughs) – and so I came back and I showed the people from the record company the live version and said is it possible to stop the studio one and take this one? When they listened to it they said of course, no problem, we have to take the live version.

 

You mentioned the peace of being able to be alone in the studio. Of course, you’ve done a number of collaborations over the years. I wanted to ask you specifically about the Dark Side of the Moog series you did with Pete Namlook. How did the two of you meet?

 

It was just by accident. I had an interview here, and a journalist from Frankfurt came here to interview me, and he brought Pete with him and said, “oh he’s a good friend of mine, he’s also doing music, and he’d like to get to know you,” and I said hi, how are you doing, and we were talking and we had a lot of common ideas with music. So we said simply, let’s meet next week or sometime and try to do something, to jam a bit together. It was the same with Bill Laswell when he joined on the two or three albums he played. It was just something to try, but it came out that it worked very nice, so we made a series. I think now we are on to number ten, but it’s the last one, we’ve finished the project now.

 

Yes, I’d heard that. Are you going to do other projects with Pete, or have you both decided to move on?

 

No, we’ll probably do other projects, but we have no concrete ideas. But we thought it’s enough for Dark Side of the Moog now at ten, it’s become a bit of a routine. We prefer to say let’s stop it in the moment, it’s still nice and enjoyable, but we stopped it. Maybe we’ll make a project with a third person, but we have no idea at the moment. We just stopped Dark Side of the Moog, and now we are just thinking about what else we can do in the future, but there’s no concrete plans.

 

What can you tell me about your forthcoming CD Moonlake?

 

It’s a mixture between live and studio. The first half hour is done in the studio with a violin player. The second half is part of a concert from Poland which I gave in November 2003. I mixed it into one record so it’s both live and studio.

 

And that’s coming out in August?

 

Yes, August or September, the schedule is not really 100%. The company said they want to release it sometime in September, together with the re-releases.

 

I wanted to ask you about that. Why the interest now in reissuing many of your previous albums?

 

The first thing is, most of them were only released in Germany. The second thing is, when they made the CDs, I think they did a very poor job. They just put a leaflet on the front and the back and that was it, without love or anything. The company here in Germany can guarantee a worldwide release, and we’re very keen to do that. I said okay, let’s try it if it’s helpful. I have been very positively surprised, because they do it with such an – we say heart blood – really with love with the details, it looks great. We choose a couple of bonus tracks to make it a really new thing. I think a lot of people don’t even know that Picture Music and things like that were released more than 30 years ago. Also, the other thing is it’s the first time it’s available worldwide at a decent price. They did some imports but they were quite expensive –

 

Yes, they were.

 

I believe that, yes. Because it’s released in every country it shouldn’t be that expensive. And also you’ve got new pictures, new stories, and also sometimes 50 minutes of bonus material.

 

Which is great. You are releasing bonus material now, and you released sets in the past like The Historic Edition. Do you envision releasing any more box sets in the future, either archival material or new music like Contemporary Works?

 

I think at the moment, there’s enough records out. I don’t want to spoil the market and kill the people’s pocketbooks. I think it won’t be in the near future, maybe in 10 years. Right now it’s just the re-releases, and then one new record per year or something like that.

 

People often label your music as “space music.” Do you have an interest in astronomy or science fiction? If so, how does that play a part in the sort of music you create? Or if that’s not it, then what is the inspiration for your music?

 

The inspiration is a very difficult question, I don’t know where it comes from, just ideas. Of course I’m an addict of science fiction, my favorite series is Babylon 5, you know that? It’s an American science fiction series.

 

Yes, with Chris Franke doing the music.

 

Exactly, exactly. I liked it, but it’s already finished, it’s a pity, it was one of the best things. I am very into science fiction, like you can see on certain records like Frank Herbert’s Dune or things like that. Sometimes it is an inspiration, but sometimes it could be a movie or something from daily life. I don’t know exactly where the inspiration comes from. You sit down at the desk, you play some keyboards, and then suddenly it happens, and then it goes, one track comes to the other track, once it is finished then I say okay, now let’s try to mix it down. Then during the mix down you feel whether something is missing or you should add something – maybe you should have a cello player on top because one part is a bit boring so there should be another instrument – things like that. And so it develops by itself more or less. I can’t really describe it, where the ideas or where the inspiration comes from.

 

So a lot of it is just going into the studio and just maybe with a basic idea and sort of improvising?

 

Exactly, yes. Sometimes I start just with some chords and doing long pads at the beginning and then put on something else on top of it. Or the other thing, I have a very nice drum loop and I start with it, or I have a nice sequence, and then from this I build up the whole piece. It’s always a bit different. It depends also on the mood I’m in.

 

When you turned 50 you released The Jubilee Edition. You are approaching 60 now. You mentioned doing another box set maybe in 10 years. How much longer do you think you will continue to make music and to tour?

 

I don’t know, I think until the point I get tired of it. But in the moment, I still enjoy it, to do music. But you never know, maybe in three years I’ll say okay, you’ve done enough. I think the first time when I have to urge myself to do music, then I will stop. If it’s not a pleasure, you know, to do music, then I think it’s useless to do music, because the people will hear it if you just do a record just for the money or something like that. I think the main thing is that I must enjoy making music, and as long as this is happening I will do music and concerts. But when it comes to a point that I say “oh, to do another record, oh no, not really,” then hopefully I will have sense enough to stop immediately.

 

There was kind of a scare from fans a month or so ago when your concert was canceled and it was mentioned that due to your health you couldn’t continue, and the word got out that you weren’t going to do any more tours. I take it that that was premature or got miscommunicated?

 

No, it was a very heavy sickness, it was true. And I won’t do tours anymore, that’s true. But I will do like I’ve done in recent years, some single concerts. But at the moment when it happened, it looked very very bad. But I recovered quite well – I’m not 100% recovered, it will take another two months. But so far I’m okay that I can sit in the studio, and can give interviews, but at the moment I could not even go on stage, because I have to recover more. Right now I can’t really walk because I was in the hospital so long, but in one or two months everything will be okay.

 

I certainly wish you a full recovery and I know all your other fans do as well.

 

Yes, I liked and appreciated very much the people that sent me emails and letters, 50 or 100 people. It was very nice to feel that the people are with me and that they wish me the best.

 

Do you make music everyday?

 

No not really. If I’m really in a fascinating production, then it could be possible that I’m making music everyday all day. But then there’s also days where you sit down and you play and play and you think, oh that doesn’t sound nice. Then I stop immediately and I do something else because I don’t want to push to do something. I’ll take one or two days off, then I go on with the production. It’s not an everyday thing. 

 

How is it you want to be remembered? What do you want your legacy to be?

 

To be a credited musician and a nice guy. ♫

 

 

 

DAC Crowell does mellow, thinking man’s music along the lines of Brian Eno, Harold Budd, and others. He records for Magnatune records, an independent label which has been featured in USA Today, as well as a small Scottish label called Suilven Recordings. Let’s find out more about this name who may be unfamiliar to most Electroambient Space readers.

 

It seems like you've been around for quite a while, but your music is just now getting released, some of it over 20 years old. Why is that?

I'm sure there are several reasons, but the one that comes immediately to mind is a lack of desire to compromise on this certain artistic vision I've had for years and years now. For example, back in the late 80s, my ambient ensemble LVXUS actually got some label interest. So my creative partner Jim Irwin and I felt matters out...and sure enough, they were offering money and all of that neat stuff. But then we started poking further, and it started to come out that they wanted us as a cash-in move to have a New Age act in the stable; they were going to market us with a lot of rhetoric that didn't fit with what we were doing musically, they wanted to cultivate this psuedomystical “crystal-hugger” type image, and so on. This really DIDN'T represent what we were doing, and if the whole New Age thing turned out to be a marketing bubble, it could take down our careers before we would get a chance to make more or better musical statements. Sure enough, within a couple of years that same label was moving on to the next marketable thing, and had we bit on that hook, right now it's likely we wouldn't even be having this interview.

People, especially in the West, and most especially in America, have this idea that if your career isn't on fire and what-not, you're not a success. And I really think that this isn't an accurate way of viewing success. It would be nice to be a big success and enjoy some money and comfort in my life. But ultimately, as long as what I do touches SOMEbody, SOMEtime, SOMEwhere, I'm not so concerned about when. For now, I'm comfortable working with Daniel at Suilven and John at Magnatune, who both have a real sense of adventure and no fear of trying to push an envelope or experimenting with something new or different. That's always something I respect. I'd always rather work with people who can lead instead of follow.

You've mentioned on your website and in other interviews that you found studying music in the university setting to be, shall we say, a bit off putting, particularly in terms of the intellectual elitism against names like Brian Eno and Klaus Schulze. Just how bad and how pervasive was this? Was it just professors, or other students too?

Academia is poorly equipped to deal with new directions, in the end. It's an inflexible environment for composers these days, which is sad. It's not like things were always the way they are now; they were just allowed to get this way over the past 35-40 years, and it's a big damn shame when you think for a bit about where music COULD be.

Many academic people have this idea that good composition is a matter of technique. Of putting in the right amount of this or that, that there must be a certain tension or the like. That just isn’t the case.

You don't run into this academic brickwall with composers who don’t fear new directions. Hell, one time I recall talking with Stockhausen's technical assistant about one musical act we both enjoy, and one that sure as hell would be verboten by the rules of much of present-day academia: Hawkwind. Now, if university music profs can't handle Harold Budd or Phill Niblock, how badly do you suppose they would deal with the space metal of "Hall of the Mountain Grill", hmm?

Why is your first name always all in caps, as in DAC? Does it stand for something?

It's actually a contraction of my first three initials. I've used that for some time now, since back in the mid-80s. None of those names are all that memorable, really, but DAC does tend to stick in peoples' minds better, and it also affords me a bit more privacy.

You mentioned to me that you are very excited about your upcoming LVXUS release. What can you tell me about that?

Long story. Back in the early 1980s, Jim Irwin and I met when he and I were both attending Middle Tennessee State. At the time, I was tinkering with very early ambient ideas, and Jim had actually done a few things involving “guerilla art” sound installations on the MTSU campus. We began doing some in-studio collaborations there as well, but it wasn't until 1986 after we'd both been working at this hideous music distribution house job that we came up with the idea of LVXUS.

Originally, we had five people involved in this, and did all of what we did live, coming up with the music more or less collaboratively. But the five-piece LVXUS lineup didn’t last very long. Still, I wanted to continue with the ideas we'd come up with, so I began tinkering with doing multilayered tape structures that I could perform over solo. This wasn't quite right, so one day Jim was in the studio when I was working with these, and started tinkering with the sound. In the summer of 1987 we set up a couple of gigs ourselves, and these really worked out well. The next summer we did a series of what we referred to as installation performances in a downtown Nashville boutique mall. It was from that summer of 1988 that the cuts on the upcoming release Cloudland were recorded, although only "Cloudland" itself dated from 1988. "Watercourse", the other track on there, was actually composed for the first duo sets in 1987.

After that summer, I went off to do graduate work at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and Jim stayed back in Nashville. Shortly after I moved, though, I found out that Jim had contracted HIV, and at the time a diagnosis of that was still pretty much a death sentence. What was also upsetting was that the disease was slowly dragging Jim into poverty, and we'd both refused to enter into a development deal with a label the year before. I was feeling very guilty about how this was contributing to Jim's life downturn. When Jim was dying in late 1993, he told me to keep up with what I was doing, and try to get what properly recorded stuff we had released.

After Jim died, I sort of freaked out. I didn't know how I could continue, or with what, or for what, or so on. I fled to the home of friends down in Oklahoma to try and put some distance from me and what was going on, so I could just think – which I did, for a couple of weeks. Then I returned home to the beginnings of my current-day studio and piled into what I'm doing now without turning back.

The LVXUS tracks, however, sat on the shelf. I shopped it to a few people, but largely there wasn't any interest. They just didn't fit any accepted idea of what ambient music should be during the 1990s. But when I finally connected with Daniel at Suilven, I had an instinctive feeling that perhaps THIS label was the right place for the material. We put "Ahnomia" on the 04-83 retrospective, and people really liked it...so we've now put the other two studio tracks on the upcoming Cloudland album, and the works are now seeing the light of day for the first time since they were last both performed in 1988.

There is more LVXUS stuff...but it's from live performances, and the tapes aren't perhaps quite as clean as these studio tracks are. There might be enough to put out at some point, though; I'd have to go back and give these some very critical listening to see if I've got enough for a second disc, should Daniel do well with this one and want a second.

Do you use your formal musical training when creating it, or is it largely a "compose by feel" sort of thing?

Both. In the sort of musical situations I seem to wind up in, while there's a certain reliance on theory and technique, it never seems to fail that something that requires an intuitive leap creeps into the process. And if you're listening for that “leap moment,” ready to go, I think it makes you a more agile musician and/or composer. I always try to make sure that situations of that sort can appear; I like having a certain degree of exploration or, in a sense, outright accident which can enter into the compositional process.

In some cases the composition can come from a total chance encounter – certain juxtapositions of sounds, random encounters that stick in the mind, a turn of a verbal phrase or a certain visual image. Keeping the creative mind open and agile is the key to being able to seize these instants and evolve them out in the musical realm.

How do you approach it differently when composing solo versus a collaborative effort?

Partly the same, actually – although instead of interacting with the equipment and the situation in and of itself, you inject into this some other players. Hopefully they're of the right caliber to work this way, as well. Certainly, there are aspects of this to jazz or rock, but where I like to draw my cues from here is Stockhausen's ensemble, which he performed many of his works with from the mid-1960s up into the 1970s. In that case, there's no specific musical expectations afoot save for where the piece “points,” and how the interactions of the musicians work together to arrive at that point. It does mean, though, that you've got to make some careful choices about which musicians you're going to work with...it takes a certain sort of musical mind to work in such an open-ended way, even if you're trying to restrict the end-result somewhat more than Karlheinz might.

How is it that you work with people in places so far from you? You being in Illinois, Kurt Doles in Eugene Oregon (only a couple hours away from me), and Daniel Patrick Quinn in Scotland. What's up with that?

Kurt's originally from Illinois. We met while he was at the University of Illinois, when he was doing his undergrad, and being told he didn't have what it takes to be a composer. I had just bailed on my doctoral work, partly for having the wrong influences for a “proper” composer. So in a certain sense we were sort of in the same boat. Anyway, those people were wrong...and for the most part, they're not at that university anymore and we're still composing, so.... NYAAAAHHH!!!

Seriously, though...it was while Kurt was still here that we cut "Rain Temple Garden." Then later, he went and did his masters – yes, in composition – not too far away at Bowling Green State over in northwest Ohio, so it was that period where we cut some more stuff that wound up on the first album and also "St. James Gate" on Mercury. But the rest of that last album, yep, we cut that here. Plus I went out to Oregon and then down to LA with Kurt in 2003 to assist with his as-yet-unreleased Cold Blue album, so this collaborative arrangement actually has worked both ways.

As for Daniel, he wound up finding me, actually. He liked some of the reviews I'd done on Amazon, and we were corresponding, talking about our musical ideas, likes, dislikes, frustrations, and so on. Daniel was just starting up Suilven, so he asked me to send some stuff over...and hey, presto, he liked what he heard and took a chance on it. And we're still running with this thing...not at all like that employer/employee model you'd see with a major music firm, but more in a sense of collaboration toward making Suilven work as well as any musical composition might...in a sense, there's a very real similarity.

I should note that I don't always work with people who're hundreds or thousands of miles away, though. I've done a couple of things relatively locally, one which comes to mind being a collective improviser's summit organized by the percussionist Jason Finkelman. When the right things come along, I don't have an issues about jumping on them that have to do with distance, just with whether they're going to click musically.

Anyway, the thing that makes the distant collaborations work is this Internet thingy. In Buddhist teachings, there's much made of the concept of the “boundless world,” of a world in which the interconnections between all lives and all things are clear and apparent, where the separations between them are finally shown as illusory. And while I don't think the Internet actually manages to pull that off, it certainly gets us a little bit closer to it. If it weren't for this communications medium's ability to cut through the physical and interpersonal boundaries that are a part of everyday life, what we're doing right now might not be doable at all. And then if what we do manages to shed a little more light on this for others, that's even better, I should think.

 

So if you could pick only one Eno and one Schulze album as your favorites, or biggest influences, what would they be and why?

Klaus Schulze...hands down, I'd have to say it would be Cyborg. While I know it's not one of his or kdm's (Ed. note: “kdm” is Klaus D. Mueller, Schulze’s manager) big picks, I think there's a lot going on in there that merits more attention than the album's gotten in the past. It reminds me less of anything Berlin school and more like actual musical exploration, something along a LaMonte Young sort of line. This and also Irrlicht have a lot to them that people to this day can enjoy. They're powerful work.

With Brian Eno, however, there's not so much any one album that I could single out as being significant. Instead, what's more of an influence to me in his work has been his sense of experimentation with the modern recording studio as an adjunct instrument. There are places where he's VERY dead-on, and on the same album where things might not quite gel. But he's got enough of a sense of exploration, as a rule, to let some of both out the door. In the end, Eno's influences...if you want to call them that...on my own work is more of a pervasive thing, along the same line as anyone else who's gotten into the cracks in that way, such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Coltrane, and others.

I should note, also, that these are just a few names of influences. If I were to get into a full accounting of artistic influences on my work, though, we'd likely go on for several pages. Most anything I hear has some sort of influence on me and my work, even if it might be momentary and very fragmentary. That's just the nature of being a composer out in the world these days. One's next influence might come along at any time, and could be almost anything. Ultimately, your best influences, if you're a composer or musician, are a good set of ears, an open mind, and a sense of adventure. ♫

 

 

 

By Phil Derby

 

Let's just jump right in feet first: Why a solo piano album?  And why now, at this stage in your career?

RR: I've been playing piano for a long time, and I often open my concerts with piano improvisations; but back when I was getting started, I didn't want to be known primarily as a pianist. I felt that listeners had become somewhat saturated with solo piano albums, so I wanted to wait until I felt that I could bring something fresh to the vocabulary.

You mentioned that for Open Window you recorded for days on end, and released the parts that flowed the easiest.  Is this different than your usual method of composing?

RR: It's different in several ways. Usually I work over each element in my mind before recording the sound, and I'll complete only those parts that work together in a conceptual whole, building up the layers slowly like a sculpture. There isn't much waste in that process, because many ideas get thrown away before they progress very far. I wanted the piano album to be different, more spontaneous, and with no overdubs and minimal editing. So, the method fit the improvisational nature of the music. I found that I could relax more and get the music into a unique place simply by pushing "Record" every time I sat down at the piano. I erased the tape on days I didn't like my playing, and I kept anything I thought might potentially survive later evaluation. Finally I selected an album's worth of material from about 8 hours of "good-enough" moments.

You've gone so many different directions with your music.  Are you working on your next project yet, and can you tell us what form that will take?

RR: I'm working on two new albums right now. The first is quiet environmental music, in collaboration with a photographer named David Agasi. We plan to put together a limited box called "Echo of Small Things," with perhaps eight of his hand made black and white prints along with a CD. The mood is very intimate, calm and slightly detached. The other project will be called "Electric Ladder," and I'm taking this in a more melodic cyclic electronic direction, with a lot of microtonal work included. My work on that album started mostly with tool-learning and sound development, testing some new prototypes that should help me with the tunings, basic background work. I'm about half done with each album. Next spring, Ian Boddy and I hope to start working on a new collaboration. So, it's a busy year at home, trying to take advantage of a year without touring.

So did you make a deliberate decision to not tour this year, or did it just happen to work out that way?  Did you enjoy the break, or do you miss being out on the road?

RR: A very deliberate decision. For the last three years, I have toured several months a year, and I felt that I was drying up a bit. I needed time to learn new technologies, new software, update my computers, and work through some new musical approaches. I wanted to focus on the studio, on new composition, and on new ways to perform. Also, I just wanted to spend more time at home, enjoy the California summertime, grow vegetables, make wine, go hiking. I haven't set myself a tight agenda to release new albums. They'll come out when they're ready.

One thing I've often wondered about artists in this genre who go on tour - how do you afford it? Obviously, electronic music doesn't draw in the crowds, and it's commonplace for musicians to go abroad, such as Radio Massacre International coming here to the U.S, and you going to Europe.  Do you save the money and pay out of your own pocket?  Do you find people in cities to stay with rather than pay for hotels and that sort of thing?  And what about the expense of hauling all that gear around?

RR: I make money when I tour, because I pare down my luxuries to the absolute minimum. I carry my own gear. I drive myself. If I can't stay at friends' houses I stay at Motel 6. Usually a few of the gigs are larger and pay well, often with funding of some sort, so the other gigs fill in the gaps as I drive across the country. It works surprisingly well, although it gets quite exhausting.

What was the best experience you ever had during a concert?  How about the worst?

I think some of my best concert experiences have been in Philadelphia, where a very strong audience has sustained itself around several good radio shows, in particular  Star's End on WXPN with a DJ named Chuck Van Xyl, and Echoes with John Diliberto and Jeff Towne. For years now, Jeff and Chuck have organized a concert series called The Gatherings that continues to bring some of the best crowds that I have ever played for.

Sometimes the best concert moments occur off stage, spending time with the people who organize the show, or old friends that I see only when I tour. For example, when Steve Roach and I played in San Sebastian Spain in 1992, the organizers treated us to some wonderful Basque experiences, including an invitation to their eating club, a hike in the mountains, and an evening in a local cider house that reminded me of a scene out of a Bruegel painting.

The worst experiences? I've had a few frustrating gigs, but I try to put those behind me. If I didn't have a selective memory, I probably would have quit touring long ago!

 

Speaking of concerts a long time ago, I know you've been asked about this a lot, but take us back to your sleep concert era.  How did you come up with the idea?  Do you remember the first time you did it, and how you felt about it?

RR:  The idea came from a synthesis of many influences. As I learned about Indonesian music in my teens, I discovered that the Wayang puppet plays lasted all night long in Javanese villages. I pondered what state of mind the listeners would be in after hours of this music. Later - around 1981, on the radio, I heard an all-night performance by John Cage and Marianne Amacher called Empty Words. They took long breaks every two hours or so, and the audience was awake, but the same ideas re-occurred to me about long durations and trance. Likewise, I read about the long concerts by Terry Riley in the Sixties, and I read about some Fluxus performances (by Richard Hayman I think) where the composer fell asleep with oscillators hooked up to his brain waves. It struck me that it would make more sense for the audience to sleep, with music that suited the particularly nonlinear ways of thinking that occur during sleep.

My very first sleep concert took place in my freshman dorm at Stanford, in February 1982. I advertised with flyers around campus, and on a few local college radio stations. Admission was free. About 25 people showed up, maybe 6 of them from the dorm. The others were mostly strangers - a pleasant surprise. I began the concert around 11:00 p.m. with a 30-minute piano improvisation, and dipped down until only some very quite sounds filled the room. I tried to create a different mood every 90 minutes or so, to correlate with the REM cycle.

How I felt about it? Tired! It's a bit hard for me to know how other people felt. It was new, strange, hard to describe. As time went on, and I performed more of these, I came to realize that I was playing more to hypnogic states (when people are slipping in and out of sleep) rather than to REM sleep and dreaming. However, I did hear some amazing reports of intense and beautiful dreams, which the music seemed to have inspired.

What is the most unusual sound you've ever coaxed out of an instrument, either accidentally or on purpose?  How did it happen, and what did you do with the result?

RR: Well, I must say that Bestiary was an attempt to make musical structure out of some of the most unusual sounds I've ever managed to make. That would include the "talking chaos" patch that I discovered on the MOTM modular, with two oscillators FM-modulating each other with feedback in soft sync mode, through a formant filter. It sounded like a babbling idiot yelling from a third floor New York apartment. Perhaps the sickest sound I ever created used the bad electrical ground on my first modular synth, when I discovered I could put a patch cord into my mouth connected to the voltage control input of an oscillator. It made the oscillator squeal like a pig. It felt like a victory over electronics. I'm lucky I wasn't electrocuted!

Do you still keep in touch with Steve Roach?  Any chance of coming back together again for a reunion of sorts, musically speaking?

RR: Steve and I talk frequently, and we remain good friends and very respectful of each other's work. I'm sure if we feel that we have some new territory to explore together, we will happily go there. In the meantime, we appreciate the new ground each other uncovers. Our lives seem parallel but different, with distinct goals and mutual admiration. Steve has such a focused and self-sufficient creative engine, I'm not sure what I could bring to his sound world right now other than friendship and encouragement.

You mentioned a new collaboration with Ian Boddy.  On the face of it, one might think Ian's very synthesized approach and your very organic approach might not mix, although the excellent results of Outpost speak otherwise.  How did you two come together?  Do you and Ian compose together in person, or do you collaborate long distance using the wonders of modern technology?

RR: Ian and I enjoy working together in person, in part because we really like each other's company, in part because we appreciate each other's different approaches and prefer to bounce ideas around in real time. If we had the same skills, why bother collaborating? To work on Outpost, Ian came out to California for a week, then I went over to northern England for about 10 days to finish up with him, a few months later. I mixed the finished work back here, since we started here and I knew the sound. We plan to work in a similar way next time. We're starting to collect ideas to show each other.  Hopefully Ian can visit in springtime for a brainstorming and tracking session, and then we can finish up later for an autumn release if all goes smoothly. Nothing beats spending real time with real people -- much better than isolated islands connected by the abstracted thread of technology.

 

What is your favorite electronic instrument, what is your favorite acoustic instrument, and why?

RR: That's easy. The MOTM modular synth is definitely my favorite electronic instrument. It pushes me into new territory. It makes me hit the "record" button. It can sound deep, crisp, tight, warm, clean, dirty, or as nasty as I want to push it. My favorite acoustic instrument would have to be the piano, because it's the one instrument that I relax into, which allows me to improvise all my thoughts as they happen. The piano becomes my own voice for me, like returning home after a long day's travel.

What is more important to you in the composition process - the sounds or the mood?

RR: The sounds and the notes are completely subservient to the mood, the energy. For me, the mood gives birth to the music, and I know I'm finished when I hear the flow of energy that I felt in the beginning. It's all about communication. Every aspect of the structure of the music serves the purpose, it serves the desired effect.

Is there a track or an album that stands out to you as your favorite, one that really accomplished exactly what you set out to do?

RR: If I were to name a single track off the top of my head, it might be "Night Sky Replies" from A Troubled Resting Place (it also came out in Italy as a 3" CD on Amplexus.) I created that piece rather quickly. It flowed easily and virtually wrote itself. Somehow it became transparent. I wasn't thinking. I wasn't striving to make a statement or create a breakthrough. Yet, when I finished the piece, it captured the essence of most of the things I have been trying to communicate in my life's work. Somehow, it carried the core of my voice. Other pieces occasionally feel that way for me, but “Night Sky Replies” might still have the most juice.

Do you go back to your own music, just for listening enjoyment, after you've created it?

RR: Complex answer: Occasionally I do hanker to listen back to an older release, but mostly out of curiosity, just to remind myself, or to learn if it holds up over time. The problem is that I hear my own work constantly when I am working, and by the time I finish an album, I have listened to it hundreds of times, far more even than I would listen to my favorite albums by other artists. This level of effort tends to "use up" the music. I have extracted as much out of it as possible. I have also invested everything I have into each piece, and I remain critical of all of it. I don't think it's healthy to keep returning back to old work. Anyway, I doubt that I can hear it like anyone else. I still hear the process, not the result. Having said that, I don't release anything that I wouldn't enjoy listening to personally, so when I do hear my old music I often feel somewhat gratified that I don't hate it. Usually, I feel it holds up quite well.

What sort of music do you think you'll be making 10 years from now?

RR: I have no idea. Each album represents a new effort to push my personal envelope, to find new vocabularies. Yet, I know that my past work somehow fits together with a single voice, regardless of how diverse it felt at the time. If I'm still making music, I can only hope it still feels vibrant. ♫

© 2004 Phil Derby / Electroambient Space. Any reprint of this interview in whole or in part must be credited as such. Thank you..

 

For a change of pace this month, rather than a musician I decided to interview one of the key guys behind the scenes in electronic music, the esteemed Mr. David Law.  David founded EM retailer Synth Music Direct, and their music label Neu Harmony. He also has coordinated a successful series of concerts the past few years. I’ve written reviews for David for years, but have never really gotten to know him all that well. Considering him something of a man of mystery, this interview was a bit self serving – I simply wanted to know more about him myself, and thought I’d share that information with EAS readers. That said, on with the interview.

 

Usually it seems that the guys that start EM labels do it because they want to market their own music. How did you get started in this business?

 

When I first started Neu Harmony in 1991 it was as a mail order retailer, there were no plans to start a label. I don't even know if I would have started one if it wasn't for a guy called Jim Kirkwood and an appallingly attended Electronic Music festival in Liverpool called something like Synthstasia. I think the audience amounted to about 35 people, less than the total of the stallholders and organizers!

 

I therefore had plenty of time to talk to the guy on the stall next to me, who turned out to be Jim. He was selling some cassettes of his music which I listened to when I got home. I loved the music so much that I rang him to ask if I could release it and thus the Neu Harmony label was born. Now I look back on it there are many things I would have done differently with that release, one of the main being that I should have used Jim's own artwork (he is a very talented artist in his own right as well as musician) but we live and learn.

 

So was it just you at the start?  When did Graham and others get involved?

 

To start off with Neu Harmony was just me working on it after work but after a couple of years it was obvious I needed extra help but couldn't think of who to ask. The problem was solved one lunchtime when I was purchasing some Electronic Music CDs from a backstreet record store. This guy came up to me to talk as he was also into Electronic Music and it wasn't everyday he met someone else with similar tastes. I asked him his name and he replied 'Tim Derbyshire'- one of my customers! It turned out that we both worked in Leeds town centre and he was more than willing to help out. He ended up doing the mailing of the CDs and I did everything else. Logistically it was an ideal situation as I could meet him any lunchtime to give him new stock.

 

When the retail side of things changed to Synth Music Direct I added a monthly magazine and catalogue to what we already did. The problem was that I wasn't exactly a genius at desktop publishing and was also rather inexperienced in writing reviews so again I needed help. Graham Getty had experience in running a rather glossy Electronic Music magazine called 'Zenith' and I was delighted when he agreed to be editor of my new publication. Indeed he wrote virtually 100% of it at the beginning.

 

Soon after we launched Synth Music Direct we completely revamped the web page. The “look” of it was also handled by Graham who became the web master. I also wanted the online shop of the web page to reflect the 'prime directive' of Synth Music Direct that we never list something for sale we haven't got but also wanted it to be completely automatic in handling the ordering process. We therefore had to design a way where the web page would automatically keep track of our stock levels and as soon as we had sold the last copy remove it from sale, without any involvement from me. This required custom-built software to be written, which was provided by the multi-talented Pete Ruczynski of Neu Harmony label band AirSculpture.

 

With the launch of the new web page and magazine the number of orders we were handling virtually doubled overnight. It was no longer possible for Tim to handle this amount of business part time so Dave Barker who recorded for our label under the name Asana stepped in to handle things on a half and half basis with his musical activities.

 

We continued to get busier and the web page was involving increasing amounts of Graham's time so to take some of the work off him I started to write more of the reviews and two other reviewers came in to help, namely Steve Roberts who also used to work on the Zenith magazine and mainly for the US releases, one rather special Phil Derby!

 

Even with all this help however things reached breaking point at the end of summer 1998. It was simply impossible for me to be able to run Neu Harmony and Synth Music Direct part-time anymore. It was a big risk to go full time as I was in something of a comfort zone with my day job and the income from SMD (which until this point had always been ploughed back into the business) was only about 50% of what I really needed to meet current commitments. On top of that my wife had just had our first child but I decided to go for it anyway. The one big regret was having to take over Dave Barker's part of the job to reduce outgoings.

 

Since then things have continued to grow. Even working full time with the amazing support of Graham and the other reviewers, time is again critical. I have taken on three new reviewers: Dave Cable (who is also resurrecting the AD music fan magazine), Warren Punshon and the mysterious Blue22.

 

Next month we should be publishing the 100th issue of the SMD magazine. If we ever reach 200 I suspect that there will be many more people involved in SMD than there are today!

 

It seems like most serious EM fans have at least some musical aspirations. For example, I have a Roland XP-10 that gathers dust in my closet after having tinkered unsuccessfully with it for a couple of years a while back.  How about you? Do you play any musical instruments? And if so, have you ever toyed with releasing any material?

 

I did once own a Korg O1Wfd and that was enough to make me realize that I had not one ounce of musical talent. My wife sat at it and quickly knocked up a superb symphonic piece (she is a classically trained musician) but even after months of experimenting everything I had done sounded like shite. I don't tend to give up easily but I will stick to the talents I have been given. I get loads of demos through the post, some great, some awful – but nothing even getting as close to my appalling efforts!

 

How did your role grow from that of retailer and reviewer to concert promoter and organizer?

 

What a good question. It is so long ago that I can't remember exactly but having explored the very distant recesses of my brain (quite a scary experience I can assure you!) I think it happened a little like this.

 

I used to be part of a committee that organized the EMMA concerts in the UK. It was a fairly horrible experience, people falling out, everyone wanting their own way, I am sure including me. After the first two there were very few people who could stomach any more. From what I can remember, the majority of those left later either became helpers in SMD, or helped Mick Garlick with his Sequences magazine.

 

Anyway, for the third EMMA concert I took it up to Sheffield, a city which had hosted some of the earlier UK Electronicas and just happened to be my home town. It was financially very successful but I was sick of having to run things as a committee so left the organization afterwards and was relieved that Mick would take over running EMMA for the fourth and last festival.

 

I still wanted to put on live events however, and Graham Getty found a superb location at Jodrell Bank, the home of what was once one of the most important radio telescope sites on the planet. It was amazing, you could see the telescope from miles away so approaching it was a pretty awe-inspiring experience even before the concert began. We held the concerts in a planetarium they had within the complex. The atmosphere was fantastic. It was run by well spaced out scientists who hadn't the slightest idea of what our music was all about and they were all far too egghead for the majority of us mere mortals to understand but somehow we all got on great in our mutual misunderstanding of each other!

 

One of my most memorable experiences of Jodrell was when Ian Boddy was playing. In a concert a few months before we had lost all power to the planetarium and found out that it could be a bit flakey as the place was getting rather old. We therefore got a very long extension cable and piped our power in from outside the immediate planetarium. The problem was that one of the staff, not knowing we had done this, unplugged our power supply to make himself a cup of tea! As Ian was using analogue kit we had to have an interval so that he could reprogram all his gear again! He was such a professional though that it did not faze him one bit.

 

Unfortunately Jodrell Bank knocked down their planetarium a couple of years ago so we had to look for a new home which ended up being a state-of-the-art facility in Leicester UK, known as our National Space Centre.

 

So you’ve been in the EM business for quite some time now. Describe the typical EM fan. Are we all 40-something geeks who like sci-fi, or is there more of a range than that?

 

Well, I wouldn't like to call EM fans geeks but it must be said that most are, at best, in their forties. Probably just as many are in their fifties. It is also true that a hell of a lot of them are into sci-fi and/or astronomy. Most I come into contact with are male, must be around 98%. It all depends how strictly you define EM though, because as you move to the more new age side of things more females tend to become interested.

 

Unfortunately it is also true that far too many EM fans, in my opinion, are just into that style of music and are quite proud of the fact that they don't listen to anything else. Personally I think this is a real shame. To like other music as well is not being disloyal in any way to the scene, indeed I find it helps with my appreciation of electronic music and almost acts like an ear syringe so that when I go back to listening to it, it all sounds fresh and exciting again.

 

I am also into rock, being a huge fan of Jethro Tull and Barclay James Harvest as well as the EM/ rock crossover of Eloy. I also listen to quite a bit of ancient sacred music and chants. Some EM artists, such as Constance Demby try to recreate this sort of sound but in my opinion the original vocal/acoustic versions work much better. People that know me through SMD are now probably quite gob smacked about these wider tastes but there you are, my secret is out!

 

I think it can be a dangerous thing for an obsession such as EM to be followed to the exclusion of everything else, and that is coming from someone who ditched their job to make a living as well as a hobby from it.

 

What’s the oddest thing you’ve seen at an EM concert, either from the performer or the audience?

 

I don't know about oddest but there are a couple that stick out in my memory. One I was told about because I was not there but it must have been rather funny for some of the audience. Andy Bloyce is the guitarist (and keyboard player) for Kubusschnitt. What he likes to do is walk around an audience or through the isles as he is playing. One night he was in a club that was pitch black whilst playing his blissed out space guitar. He got to the back of the hall and was making his way towards the side isle when he fell over two people who were sprawled on the floor. It turned out that they were in the middle of some rather intense love making (in time to the sequence apparently) and didn't see him coming or should that be- er, no, I won't go there!

 

One of the most memorable things I actually did witness though was at a festival where Jonn Serrie was playing. It was part of his promotion for the Midsummer Century album. Anyone that knows it will realize that it was just about at the height of his most flowery and romantic period. In other words not really my sort of thing at all but he had kindly offered to sign copies of his CDs on my stall after his performance.

 

It was an experience that taught me a lot. For a start I have never sold CDs so quickly. I sold over 200 of his CDs in about fifteen minutes, every CD by him we had. I was unsealing the CDs so fast so that he could sign the booklets that my fingers bled. Indeed, they were very painful for a fortnight afterwards, and I have had a hatred of sealed CDs ever since. The point was though, and this links in with the previous question, that they were not the sort of people around my stand I was used to seeing. About 75% of them were females. One of them even got him to sign her T-Shirt across her breasts!

 

Jonn told me afterwards that from a commercial point of view many EM musicians ignore half their potential audience. He certainly had a point.

 

Not to put you on the spot, but do you have a #1 favorite EM artist? If I had to guess, I’d say Jim Kirkwood.

 

I know this sounds like sitting on the fence but no I don't. There are many that I like and I would really not be able to separate them. Of what I think of as the first wave of Electronic Musicians I would have to admire Klaus Schulze. That is not to say I like everything that he releases but he still seems to be trying after all these years and not just resting on past glories. I mean, just a few years back he released a ten CD set of all new material (Contemporary Works Vol 1) of which I thought most of it was wonderful. Quite an incredible achievement I thought.

 

I love the music of Redshift because it has such raw power and attitude, as well as taking me back to the style of music that got me in to all this sort of stuff in the first place. Then there is Ian Boddy who is a true professional and always seems to be reinventing himself. And Paul Lawler, who must be the most “musically” gifted electronic musician I have ever met. He used to play for a “proper” orchestra and can turn his hand to almost any style of music. Then there is Robert Rich, Andy Pickford, Spyra, as you mentioned Jim Kirkwood, but really the list could go on and on and on.

 

So how would you rate the current state of electronic music? Is it healthy?

 

Short question, but huge in scope.

 

I don't know if you get a comedy called Black Adder over in the States but there was a line in one episode which said “there are two schools of thought on the matter, everyone else thinks one thing but I think the other.” What I mean by this is that everyone I speak to on this topic thinks it is doom and gloom. They say CD sales are going down and the music isn't as good as it used to be. This is not my opinion at all. I see CD sales increasing all the time. It is true however that sales of individual titles tend to be decreasing and this is a problem for the artists but that just reflects the fact that there are thousands of electronic music artists producing music these days compared to just a handful in the 70s so the competition is so much greater. The total number of sales however I see increasing, not decreasing at all.

 

As for the quality issue, I think there is more good stuff being released than ever before but the trouble is there is even more material that, in my opinion, is just not up to general release. The problem for a customer is trying to work out where to spend their hard earned cash so that they end up with on of the gems and not a sub standard release. This is where the likes of your magazine come in.

 

I suppose my attitude with SMD could be thought of as controversial in that I try to act as a filter and only list in our catalog what I personally think has some merit. I get sent about 1000 CDs a year for possible sale through SMD and we don't take on the vast majority of them, probably only about 200. Other dealers will list the majority of what they are sent and then get it in stock if someone orders it.

 

I can see the downside to the way I do things in that inevitably my tastes come into it, which could very well be different from those of other people but it seems to work well for us. People come to SMD because they like what we do, those that have very different tastes will go elsewhere but I hope that even though they do they would respect us for not just trying to get a sale never mind what we really thought about the quality of what we were selling. Sorry if that sounds like a plug, I suppose it is, but I do think that in today's market where it is easier than ever before to produce and distribute electronic music it is important for those that are selling the music to have some quality control. Some customers are perfectly willing to go through hundreds of mp3 samples, effectively doing their own quality control, and wouldn't really need dealers like SMD at all – but others would rather have some guidance.

 

Are you looking forward to SMD issue number 200? What changes do you see in the industry and the music between now and then?

 

We are really talking about the next 8 to 10 years here and I am very bad at looking ahead. I suppose the obvious change would be in the market moving away from CDs to music download but I suspect that many of my customers will resist this. They like some tangible article, not just a file on a computer. Others will embrace the new technology however and it will be up to SMD to provide whatever delivery system our customers want.

 

David, thanks so much for doing this interview!