It has been a while
since your first album. What have you been up to during
these four years?
Oh, you know, adjusting to life in the West
Country, building a resistance to acid scrumpy, building
a new studio, wondering why my wife keeps bringing more
animals home… We've also been finding our way
from one LP to another.
What is your respective musical background?
I bought a keyboard when I was still at school,
which had a simple FM synthesizer in it and started
writing my own tracks. At about the same time I taught
myself how to write machine code and programmed music
on my Commodore 64. After that, I picked up a guitar
at 17 and then started forming bands in Brum, just going
through the process of learning to be a musician and
band member. Possibly one of the most important memories
I have of learning about music as a teenager was me
and my mate sneaking into his big brother's bedroom
and putting on his records on his super quality hi-fi.
It felt dangerous and made the music seem even more
sacred.
How did you meet John, and what made you decide
to work together as Magnétophone?
We met at Art College in the Midlands. I remember much
more about the music that was always playing there than
any art; we just got into the same bands, and decided
to do something similar ourselves.
You’re first releases were on Static
Caravan. How did this happen?
Actually, our first release was on Earworm.
In fact, I think Ochre came even before Static. But
anyway, Static Caravan came soon after… We played
at a pub in Moseley in Brum and Geoff Static approached
us at the end and asked us if we'd like to do a single.
We said we would...
You were one of the first electronic acts
to be signed on 4AD with Gus Gus. How did you get to
work with the label?
4AD were buying our records and got in contact with
us to say they were enjoying them. They came to see
us a couple of times in Brum at our We Brought Our
Friends nights, and when we delivered the album
to Earworm, they asked for a copy too, and that was
that.
4AD are celebrating their 25th anniversary
this November. This is obviously a big event for many
music fans, but what does it mean for you?
Another bloody drive to the city of a million fixed
penalties. And of course we're super happy to be part
of the whole event... It's a great line-up... I wish
we could see all the acts.
The packaging of I Guess Sometimes…
had some metallic pieces in the cardboard cover, and
the new album has some cards inserted in the sleeve.
Did you get involved in the design of these or is this
entirely the work of Vaughan Oliver and v23?
We gave Chris Bigg and Vaughan a very basic idea of
where we were coming from, and they built from that.
We okayed and not-okayed the proofs and made suggestions,
but the ideas they had were so strong in the first place
we really didn't have to work too hard. The cards were
Chris Bigg's idea, and we supplied the phrases. John
designed the Magnétophone logo.
I Guess Sometimes…
felt very different from most records around. How did
you work on it? Did it take you long to get to what
you wanted it to sound like, and how do you feel about
it four years on?
We wrote the bulk of it live, taking a beat and some
basic keys on stage and just jamming it out. It's amazing
how quick a track writes itself when you are in front
of an audience and you're not quite sure what you're
going to play... It's a great way to focus. Some tracks
took longer than others to record, but most of it was
recorded as a live performance so it was either right
or not...we just kept on recording. I'm very proud of
our first LP… It doesn't sound like any other.
Your music is quite eclectic, ranging from beautiful
ambient moments to highly deconstructed beats. What
or who have inspired you to play music in the first
place, and how did you develop this particular approach?
The influences that are as important to us
now as they were in the beginning are Spacemen 3, Suicide,
Velvet Underground, Kraftwerk, Silver Apples, Steve
Reich, Pink Floyd... You know, this stuff filters through
everything we do, it's our subliminal musical toolbox
I guess... We get inspired by good new music, you just
wait for that special moment when a track really hits
you and it makes you want to write something not the
same, but something just as good, something with the
same inspirational essence. Those moments are the doggy
treats of being a musician.
The new album is released at the end of October.
How do you feel about this?
Relieved. It's been a long five years, but we had to
find a way of injecting our live performance ethics
into our increased use of samplers. Samplers are fantastic
instruments for capturing your own sounds and phrases,
but they can lack the expression that live keys gives
you. It took us a while to realise this, but thankfully
we eventually came to combining live instrumentation
with more flexible use of sampler performances and so
retained the dynamics that we had loved about I
Guess Sometimes... This stuff takes time to work
through though. Not every good apple is on the lowest
branch.
You’ve collaborated with a good few
people on The Man Who Ate The Man. Did you
always want to get other people involved in your work,
and did these collaborations happen?
We wanted to develop our sound and collaborations seemed
a good way to go for this LP. They came about through
friends really, someone would say they knew this person
or that person and they had heard our stuff and fancied
writing with us. It's been a new experience for us and
a very fruitful one.
You also have developed song structures a
lot more on the new album. How did that affect the way
you work in general?
Not a lot really... Every track we've ever
written, whether a 'song' or not has a strong structure
to it if you look for it, it's just some structures
are more subtle than others! John and I used to work
with singers before I Guess Sometimes... so
putting vox into a track wasn't anything new for us
really, just different to writing instrumental structures.
The new album seems less electronic than I
Guess Sometimes… as if iit more rock influenced.
Is it something you were aware of when recording?
Well I guess so... We have guitar band influences
too so it was inevitable that those would come through.
For a while, around I Guess Sometimes..., the
guitar stopped inspiring us and so we wrote electronic
music. This time round the guitar seemed fresh again
and we didn't feel like we couldn't use guitar because
the first LP was electronic. You have to remember that
John and I formed a more traditional vox/guitar band
before Magnétophone, and in fact our first single
was a guitar track, so none of the methods we used on
The Man Who Ate The Man seems out of the ordinary...
I guess it represents a merging of our pre-I Guess
Sometimes... instrumentation and the I Guess
Sometimes... instrumentation / ideas.
Some of your tracks have very long titles.
Is this a reaction against the use of short made-up
words in most electronic music?
Originally maybe. But we love words and phrases... I
write poetry so I am big on rich and evocative language;
I just think it's a shame not to enrich a piece of music
by giving it a great title. Also, single word titles
are often not unique, and I like inventing original
things. You can do that with more words. Made-up one-word
titles suit abstract music I suppose, and for those
artists it brings the benefit of de-humanising the track,
but that's not something we've ever wanted to do; I'm
all for retaining and amplifying the verve of the excited
kid who just created something.
You are playing live in London with Minotaur
Shock as part of the 4AD anniversary celebrations. What
can people expect?
Sonic Boom is joining us for a few tracks as
is King Creosote... Expect sine waves and melodicas!
We'll be playing out psyched-up tracks from the new
LP and other bits we've starting working on.
Are you planning any further live dates to
support the album?
Not at the moment.
Your recent EP … And May Your Last
Words Be A Chance To Make Things Better, was released
on 12inch and digital download only. What is your view
on the rise of legal digital download in the UK over
recent months
I think it's great but really, the compression
is far too great for anything even approaching decent
audio quality, which is at present obviously necessary
for quick download and cheap storage. When we can sensibly
download and store audio files at full spectrum quality,
then it will be perfect. The convenience of MP3 is just
too good to pass on. iTunes has totally changed the
way I listen to music, it's always on shuffle now, whole
albums by one artist hardly get a look in anymore. In
a perfect world, you'd buy the vinyl version of the
album for the sheer tactile, visual and sonic quality,
and get a free-download for convenience. That's the
future isn't it?
Do you have the time to listen to some music,
and if yes, what is the last thing that really grabbed
your attention?
As ever, Broadcast's latest, Tender Buttons.
It's a classic. Just a lovely cracked and wiry sound
to the whole thing. This is one LP I have been listening
to in its entirety...
Do you have connections with the electronic
scene in general, and how do you relate, if at all,
to it?
No not at all. Never really felt a part of
the electronic scene because even on I Guess Sometimes…,
we performed and recorded everything live and without
computers. Much of the electronic scene peddles a sound
that doesn't fit in with what we want to do, so we stay
away. Though to be honest, I not sure who the acts are
that define 'electronica' anymore... I think the scene
has fragmented. Perhaps because writing electronica
has become so commonplace, the people that were immersed
in it for its exclusivity and leftfield ethics have
moved away into other areas.
What is next in your diary?
The release of Sonic Boom's remix of our LP track Benny's
Insobriety. It's killer, and the artwork is just gorgeous.
Email interview October 2005
Thank you to Matt Saunders and Steve Colborne
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