What is your musical
background? How did you come to music?
My parents encouraged me to learn instruments
at school, firstly the drums then later the guitar.
The first musical movements I got into were 2 tone and
ska at school, and then later indie stuff like Pixies,
Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine and the Smiths. Then
when I left school, I started going to clubs and fell
in love with Detroit techno and Chicago/New York house.
Films like 2001, THX1138, The shining, Forbidden Planet
and various other sixties and seventies sci-fi films
also played a big part in my early discovery of music.
How did you come to work with Tom Middleton
on Global Communication and Jedi Knights?
I met Tom whilst I was deejaying in a club
in Taunton, in Somerset. I'd already recorded the first
Reload EP and was toying with the idea of setting up
a label. Tom and I got chatting and found we had a pretty
similar vibe on music. He played me some music he had
been working on (including some Aphex Twin material)
which blew me away, so we decided to try working together
on music and then the Evolution label was born.
76:14 was voted by
the Guardian as the best ambient album of the nineties,
and it has clearly influence a lot of musicians since
its release. Did you have an incline to how defining
this album was going to be? Do you think that artists
can feel when they are working on something special?
It's impossible to tell how important an album
will be while you are working on it. Sometimes you get
a feeling about a track as it evolves - that it is a
strong track, but as for a whole album... it is difficult
to tell. While the process is happening you're often
too close to it to judge.
Although Tom was involved on Reload, it was
said to be more your project. How did you split the
work between the two of you?
Global Communication and Jedi Knights was always
a 50/50 creative process. Reload was a project that
I had already begun before meeting Tom but as it evolved
he ended up collaborating on some tracks.
I read that there were rumours of a new Reload
album a couple of years ago. Was there any truth in
this, and if yes, what happened? Will you ever release
anything as Reload again?
A new Reload album is currently underway and
will be coming out later this year through Warp. I've
already recorded a track featuring Beans, which is a
spoken word piece with electronics, but don’t
worry, it’s not going to be a hip-hop album!!!
What happened to the Evolution and Universal
Language labels? Will you ever be bringing them back?
Some of the catalogue will be available again
at some point through Bleep.com but there aren't any
new releases planned. At some point I’d like to
do a few more Evolution 12", maybe bring back some
of the old names but we wont be setting up a label to
release other peoples music again.
You have recorded under an impressive range
of aliases over the years. Is it a way for you to keep
different influences or inspirations apart?
Recording things under different aliases gave
me the freedom to put out different styles of music
without one release being judged by another. This was
quite important back in the early nineties as people
tended to stick to one style - being purist in their
music buying often shunning other styles.
You recently released an album as Troubleman
on Far Out Recordings, which was mixing dance floor
moments with Latin influences. What influenced you for
this particular record? Was it a record that you had
in mind for some time?
The original inspiration for the Troubleman
sound was mid-tempo club tracks with a hip-hop flavour.
I was trying to get away from boring 4/4 club music
and wanted to try out some different drum patterns at
a faster tempo but avoiding breaks type sound. Kenny
Dope was a big influence as I used to really enjoy the
odd Bside and Masters At Work tracks where he'd use
a break. When it came to doing an album I decided that
I didn't want to do a whole album of club tracks as
generally that can be a bit boring, so I decided to
try some bossa and some vocal tracks to vary the album
up.
How different was it for you to work with vocalists?
Did you have to adapt your style to accommodate lyrics?
I was really lucky with the vocalists I worked
with. The track featuring Spacek was just jammed in
the studio, he wrote the lyrics while I was writing
the beat. The track featuring Eska was written five
or six years before as a remix that didn't get used,
so I resurrected the beat and Eska wrote to it. The
two tracks that Nina Miranda vocaled were written with
vocals in mind. I didn't really have to adapt my style.
I just had to be conscious about leaving space for the
vocal.
How did you and Dave Brinkworth meet and how
did the idea of Harmonic 33 start?
I met Dave when I was living in Cornwall, around 1997/98.
He was running a studio and he lived just up the road
from me and a friend of mine whose studio I had used
introduced me to him. We later worked on Kirsty Hawkshaw’s
album together and when we had spare time, we would
start making beats together. The first music we made
together was drum‘n’bass under the name
Use Of Weapons for Droppin’ Science. I had been
focusing on making hip-hop after Tom and I stopped working
together and had already done some tracks (the Underwater
Lady track from the first Harmonic 33 EP appeared
on a Kirsty Hawkshaw promo a few years before). So we
did some tracks and played them to Danny Breaks, and
he decided that, as he was keen to release his hip-hop
stuff also, he would set up Alphabet Zoo Records, for
which we recorded two EPs and a 12" featuring Grand
Agent.
On your first album, the sound was very much
rooted in hip-hop…
Yes, but we didn't want to have to come up
with another name and as the music is related, we thought
we would have an offshoot project for Harmonic 33. We
have got loads more Harmonic 33 hip-hop instrumentals
planned for this year also.
The new album shows an interesting focus on
library music. Is that something that you've been interested
in in the past?
I’ve been collecting library music and
soundtrack music for years, and it played a huge part
in shaping the sound for the first Harmonic EPs. Luckily,
the library boom has died off, so prices have become
a bit more reasonable. The musicians involved in making
library music were usually top musicians of their time,
so when given various themes, they came up with some
incredible music. I think the fact the pieces were not
for commercial release gave the musicians total freedom
to experiment and make some out-there stuff, as a lot
of the time the quirky stuff got the synchs. Obviously
not all of it is great but a lot of it is worth checking,
especially from the sixties to the eighties. After that
it went downhill sharpish.
None of the sounds on the album were sampled.
Instead, you and Dave choose to recreate everything.
How difficult was it to recreate what you had in mind,
and did you get to where you wanted to?
It was a big challenge to get the tracks to
sound how we wanted. The main battle is with computers
and modern equipment; they have much larger frequency
ranges than older equipment so stuff tends to sound
too bright. We tried to play everything live, and any
sound that was programmed we would send back into the
live room through a miked-up speaker to give impression
that it was played live by someone in the room. Hope
that makes sense?? It was all a learning process for
us but that's what makes it interesting. I'm pretty
happy with the results. There are some old mics and
mic preamps that I’d like to get my hands on that
would help us achieve the sound we want, but unfortunately
they're not cheap and are pretty rare.
The album is called Music For Film, Television
and Radio Volume 1. Does it mean that there’s
more to come?
We are planning on doing at least one a year.
Considering the evocative aspect of some of
your work, would you ever be tempted to work on a soundtrack?
I'd love to do a film soundtrack, if the film
was good!! I've had a few pieces used I have never been
commissioned to do a entire film. Fingers still crossed
on that score.
You have also remixed a considerable amount
of tracks over the years from the likes of Aphex Twin,
The Beloved The Orb, Nightmares On Wax or Slowdive to
name but a few. Is your approach of a remix very different
from working on one of your track?
It is not really that different. the main problem
I find with doing remixes is that sometimes people will
ask you to do a remix and then tell you they would like
it to be on the lines of a certain track or mix you've
done before. This can be a problem as I like to let
tracks evolve naturally and not have any boundaries
set. Other than that I try and find something that I
like in the original and build around that.
How do you choose to remix a particular artist
or track?
I usually just get a call or email offering a remix,
then I ask to hear the track and take it from there.
The only time I’ve actively pursued a track was
when we did the remix for Jazz Carnival by
Azimuth for Farout Recordings.
You’ve also had your work remixed quite
a lot. Is there a remix that you particularly liked,
and if yes, why?
I liked the remix that Ed and Andy (Plaid)
did for Le Soleil Et La Mer (Reload), because
it was a good mix and it was nice to get a version of
that track by my favourite electronic artist.
Do you always get to choose who remixes your
work? Is there anyone in particular you would like to
see working on one of your tracks?
Yes we always have full control. I’ve
always wanted to get a remix by Anthony Shakir from
Detroit, other than that Jaydee, Dabrye, Pete Rock,
Primo, Carl Craig, Underground Resistance to name a
few.
You haven’t worked with Tom for quite
some time now, and you have both seemed to go in different
directions musically. Would you ever consider working
on a project together again?
We may try and write some new Global tracks
for the re-issue project that should be happening this
year. (Re-issuing 76:14, the Chapterhouse remixes
and Remotion with some exclusives and unreleased
stuff).
Do you get the chance to listen to new musicians,
and if yes, what do you think of the artists that have
been emerging in the last couple of years?
I really liked the Savath & Savalas album
that Scott Heron co-wrote. I think he showed that he's
definitely someone to check in the future as he seems
to be trying out different styles. I really like the
Detroit hip-hop scene, i.e. Dabrye, Jaydee, Lacks and
Waajeed etc. Jaydee’s drum programming is coming
from another dimension. I like bits and pieces of the
broken beat stuff - Seiji, Nepa Allstars, Bugs and Dego.
I really love Madlib's different projects. Although
you could say I am biased, I think Danny Breaks has
dropped some heavy tracks (Jellyfish, Windscreen
Wiper). On a 4/4 tip, I really love Theo Parrish
and Moodymans records. I’m always on the look
out for new stuff, but most of my record buying is more
on a digging tip.
Once the new Harmonic 33 album is out, what
are your next projects?
There's a compilation of early Troubleman remixes
and singles with some exclusive tracks coming out on
Farout Recordings at the end of March. As I said before,
I'm currently working on a new Reload album for Warp,
which should be out this year. There will be some more
Harmonic 33 instrumental EPs, and we will probably start
another Music For Television, Film & Radio
album later in the year.
Email Interview January 2005
Thank you to Mark and Marcus
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