For those who may
not have seen you perform live, what is your set-up/the
premise of your performance?
The premise is to make things as hard and as
complicated for myself as I possibly can. I intend to
fall over any number of instruments on stage, lose my
notes and have a confused look on my face for most of
the show as I look for the xylophone beater...
Your live show is quite unique in the way that
it privileges and fetishises the actual process of creating
the sounds that form the tracks. Is this a reaction
to staid, unengaging 'live' electronic performance?
Each to his/her own with regards to how they decide
to perform music, but I think that people not only pay
to hear the music but also want to see a performance.
Personally, it would make things infinitely simpler
to waltz on stage with a laptop but I would be too ashamed
to even look at the crowd. I inevitably make mistakes
with the live set-up, but at least the audience can
see and hopefully appreciate what I’m trying to
do...
From your experiences thus far, what do you
feel is the most amount of instruments you can physically
incorporate into your live set-up?
To be honest, I work to the constraint that
I only have an 8 channel mixing desk at present, which
is used to channel all the instruments into the looping
pedal. As much as I would love to incorporate more instruments
into the set having this ‘limit’ gives me
a boundary to work to. The live set up includes drums/cello/Spanish
guitar/recorder/xylophone and kantele (traditional Finnish
harp) but I also use a sampler to play the piano and
philacorda parts as it’s totally impractical to
cart ‘real’ instruments around to each show.
The album has been out for a while now on Moteer
– what are your thoughts on it now that it’s
firmly in the public domain, and are their any imminent
plans for further releases?
I’m proud of the album as it’s
my first purely solo release but I can’t listen
to it anymore. It’s really heart warming when
people say they like it and reviewers have been particularly
kind. It’s just a strange thought that those tracks
ever came out... they were ‘binned’ for
a while before Matt Elliott persuaded me to get them
finished. Without his enthusiasm or support as well
as Andrew and Craig from Remote Viewer, the album would
never have been done. As for new material, I’m
actually going to a studio in November to get the bulk
of the next album recorded. It’s going to be slightly
more percussive than the first album but equally as
sombre… The majority of the live set on Sept 10th
(at The Cube, Bristol) is going to be new songs.
You’ve spoken elsewhere about the first
record being a document of your experiments with the
limited equipment at your disposal. Have you expanded
you repertoire, and if so will your explorative work
with your new kit inform your next material?
Since recording and arranging the first record
with a sampler and an old Atari I picked up a Mac for
cheap with a copy of Logic on it – no manual though
– it’s been a technological jump which has
taken some time to get used to. But my extremely ignorant
approach of only bothering to learn the bare minimum
to record what I want means that, apart from having
more sampling/recording time, the new songs will have
similar characteristics as the approach to the last!
You've played in a number of influential Bristol
bands over the years. How much has this work with these
other musicians informed your solo material, or is your
approach to Manyfingers entirely distinct and particularly
personal?
Being a huge fan of the Planet Records scene
in Bristol it was a real privilege to become involved
with Movietone about 5 years ago. Since then I have
also stood in on drums for Crescent and most recently
have been recording and touring with Matt Elliott. Each
of these bands does have a distinct sound and have had
a profound effect on me but my solo recordings are my
own and deeply personal and for that reason I think
there is no comparison or influence.
Finally, a quick word about your collaboration
with Monkey Moo, the Aspects beatboxer. What form has
this taken thus far? Does it bear greater hallmarks
of hip-hop, or your own music and approach, or has it
proven to be something entirely different? Will it manifest
itself in any recorded form, do you think?
The Monkeyfingers project! It’s a shame
we’re not able to do this at the Bristol show,
but Aspects are playing with Arrested Development that
night. We’ve been practicing a lot recently and
admittedly there were initial concerns that the ideas
we were coming up with were either sounding like Monkey
Moo featuring Manyfingers or vice versa. We really wanted
this to be an amalgamation of influences. Since then
we’ve come up with a few ideas and a direction
we’re both happier with and hope to record as
soon as possible. It was originally intended to be a
“live” project so there will hopefully be
some shows to follow.
John Stevens
Manyfingers plays The Cube in Bristol on September
10th 2004, with support from Bury & Disinter (one
half of Wauvenfold) and a DJ set from Gravenhurst (Warp).
Check Controlled
Conditions for more information.
Manyfingers is out now on Moteer
Interview August 2004
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