| Steve
and Toby, how did you meet and what decided you to play
music together?
Toby:
We met at my mother's house in Bristol, Steve was renting
the room below my room. We heard each others music coming
from respective rooms and we started to talk about music
a lot and what we like in music and took it from there
really.
What
kind of musical background do you have?
Toby: My mother played a lot of classical
music especially Bach when I was a child. I remember
being intrigued by the structures and patterns which
were always evolving not just in mathematical terms
but also in powerful emotional journeys. I’ve
always loved electric guitars and eventually got hold
of one when I was 12. I got into learning the piano
only after I watched a movie about Chopin. It wasn’t
a great film, but the music mesmerised me. Trying to
learn these pieces taught me a lot about shapes, structures
and poetry in music. All of this goes into musical background.
Steve: I have always played around
with sounds, tape loops, multi- tracking and synthesis.
Toby and I both developped our interests and built up
home studios.
Time Is Of The Essence
is your second album, how would you define it?
Toby: A strange journey through time,
past, present and beyond, hopefully!
Steve: It’s us baring our musical
souls, attempting to do something interesting and entertaining
with notes, chords and melodies, trying to push the
musical envelop and make cerebral music that we would
like to hear
How do you think your music has evolved since
1001 Revolutions?
Steve: I think 1001 just evolved
from the ether whereas Time is a much more
cohesive unit, we made the album we wanted to make.
Toby: Technology wise, we have more
access to hard-disk recorders (CubaseVST), which has
enabled us to blend more live instruments. In musical
terms, we wanted Time Is Of The Essence to
be more expansive but more complex, slowly unravelling
mysteries and musical conundrums only after several
listens.
What are your influences, and how do you incorporate
them into your own compositions?
Steve: We are influence by all music, there are interesting
elements in all genres. We are also interested in literature,
films or just atmosphere inspiring us to tell a musical
story.
Toby: A lot of influence comes from
visual rather than audio source. Like Miami Girls
for instance, on composing this, I pictured a beautiful
woman roller blading at the beginning of the piece and
as it progresses, the camera pans away from her onto
a beach scene. People walking their dogs, muscle builders
working out, other people skateboarding, doing whatever
people do on the beach, all moving in a kind of mechanical
harmony.
Your music has a touch of romantic desuetude.
Is it deliberate?
Steve: Yes. We feel that’s an
area often overlooked in contemporary music, especially
of an electronic nature. We try to make something sensuous,
even sexy.
Toby: When composing music, you are
constantly searching and playing out emotions, which
quite often are neither happy nor sad, but just as complex.
Sometimes you search for something you can’t quite
grasp. The music then becomes the depiction of your
search, which can be a worthwhile musical narrative
in itself. This is a reason why romantic desuetude may
exist in some of our music.
You mix electronic instruments with live ones,
and you also play a lot on blending genres together.
You borrow from jazz, classical, rock, lounge…
What is your approach to music?
Toby: Our approach to music in regards
to mixing genres is that we’ve tried to create
a musical environment of our own where we can put anything
we want into it. In a sense a musical dream world where
things that are not usually associated with each other
are allowed to freely coheres, as in dream logic. As
long as at the end result works musically.
Steve: We love the sound of electric
mixing with organic, when you hear someone pull it off,
it can be truly beautiful. As to mixing genres as mentioned
previously there is good in all music and we are influenced
by all music.
Your music is also very evocative. Would you
consider working on soundtracks? For what kind of film?
For which director?
Steve: We would love to work on a soundtrack.
Out of preference would probably be a horror movie or
a porno. Director would be Nicolcas Roeg.
Did you actually work with a real orchestra
on Time Is Of The Essence?
Steve: We didn’t, on 1001
we really wanted to but didn’t have resources,
on Time we, embraced our instruments and studio
and came up with a style where we didn’t need
one. On our next album we are going to.
Toby: We played the arrangements in
as if an orchestra was playing. Cellos, violins, piano
parts etc, but the sounds were carefully chosen for
their realistic quality.
Do you spend a lot of time in the studio composing
and programming?
Steve: We go through periods of total
immersion.
Toby: Music is a big adventure for
me and the computer has opened up this world. I like
adventure so I spend a lot of time in the studio trying
out ideas.
Working as a duo, do you often have to compromise
with each other?
Steve: Not too much, we communicate
enough to realise that its not always beneficial for
both of us to contribute to a piece of music if it doesn’t
improve it. We also have our solo projects. Toby: The
Squire of Somerton, and I : The Black Neon.
Toby: We never seem to tread on each
other’s toes while composing. If we have an idea
we want to complete on our own, that’s fine. We
also bring projects to each other which we know will
benefit from our cross fertilisation of ideas. These
tracks we happily work on, and they usually unfold with
a natural progression we both agree on.
You get your name from a 1960’s book,
telling of life as a teenager in the Florida city. How
does it relate to your music, if at all?
Toby: Steve had the book and it was
pretty wacky and we both liked the name Fort Lauderdale
for a band, which sounded both sinister and sunny at
the same time.
Steve: It was just a book we were reading
at the time. A Tale of Debauchery & Drugs in
Fort Lauderdale. We like the juxtaposition of Fort
Lauderdale. then and Fort Lauderdale now, as it has
become a kind of huge retirement home.
What do you listen to at the moment?
Steve: By the turntables at the moment
there is Roxy Music, Chopin, Spacemen 3, Satie, Daft
Punk’s Discovery, Velvet Underground,
Walter Carlos, Gainsbourg’s Cabbage Head
album.
Toby: I’ve been listening to
a French radio station, which we seem to able to get
here in Brighton, called FIP (I think). I can't speak
French, so don’t know what the speaker is saying
in between the tracks but she’s got a damn sexy
voice and the music is always good or interesting. One
track could be an old jazz record with some beatnik
talking poetry over the top and they could play a fantastic
Arabic pop songs. In fact they play all sorts of crazy
combinations. I’m listening to it right now as
I'm writing, and some Mozart's just come on. I end up
listening to it for a long time as I like the surprise
of not knowing what is going to be next
You released your first album on Worm Interface,
and the second on Memphis Industries. Do you think your
music fits in better within the sound of your new label
or is it something that is not really relevant?
Steve: Not too relevant, I thought
it was interesting and funny to be on a really out there
electronica label, and memphis is a really cool high
quality label.
Is there anyone you would like to collaborate
with, either as Fort Lauderdale, or on your own?
Steve: Only some friends, and we are
going to work with some of them.
Toby: It would be good to find someone
with a voice like Elvis. And of course, there's working
with a real orchestra.
What do you think of the electronic scene at
the moment?
Steve: I’m a bit out of touch
with it.
Toby: I don’t really know much
about the electronics scene at the moment.
You’re going to a desert island for six
month, and you can only take five records each. What
are they?
Steve: The Beatles: Abbey Road.
Erik Satie: Gymnopodies. Skip Spence: Oar.
The Beach Boys: Smile. King Crimson: In
The Court Of The Crimson King.
Toby: The last 4 Richard Strauss songs
for voice and orchestra, an Elvis Presley record, 13th
floor Elevators' album Bull Of The Wood, Beethoven's
last piano sonatas and Laylo Schifrin circa Mission
Impossible to Magnum Force period.
How do you see your music evolve in the near
future?
Steve: Our next album is going to be
an album of songs, where we combine and distil our avante
garde/ psychedelic elements into something resembling
song structures.
Thank
you to Steve and Toby, Lauren, Tony. |
