Chris, how did
you come to music, and what made you decide to start
Ochre?
While I was at school I idly experimented with sequencing
on my PC, using some software I’d found on a magazine
cover disc, but I didn’t start thinking seriously
about writing music until shortly after Sixth Form College.
I was finding my studies really depressing, and to make
things worse I’d just enrolled on the Aeronautical
Systems Engineering course at Coventry Uni. I’d
had enough of that by the end of the first term, and
didn’t relish the thought of consigning the rest
of my working life to it. It sounds stupid, but it had
never occurred to me that I could study something I
enjoyed, such as music – I’d always steer
towards the ‘sensible’ academic choice.
I bit the bullet and asked to transfer from Coventry
to Newcastle College, to study music production, and
spent the rest of the year working odd jobs until the
new academic year started. From that point onwards I
immersed myself in music, and started writing more of
my own music alongside work for my studies.
The Ochre alias came about after quickly needing a
name under which to hand-in my college work. I’ve
always remembered the word ‘Oaker’, which
comes from a street in Manchester where I lived for
the first couple of years of my life. I decided to change
the spelling as I preferred the look of ‘Ochre’,
and without too much consideration, used that to submit
work. It’s since stuck, and in a way I’m
glad it has, as I haven’t needed to create an
alias specifically with electronic music in mind, which
hopefully means it won’t sound too contrived.
What did you grow up listening to? Has any
particular artist been really influential in your work?
Well, as a kid I was subjected to heavy doses of Jean-Michel
Jarre and Mike Oldfield, and I still remember the kind
of imagery I used to see whilst listening to it in the
car with my dad. I don’t think there’s been
too much in the way of lasting effects from that though.
The first CD I bought was Pop Will Eat Itself’s
Sixteen Different Flavours Of Hell, which I
admit I bought because I liked the cover art. I bought
most of the PWEI releases I could find, which included
remix CDs featuring remixes by guys like The Orb, which
introduced me to more electronic stuff. I then got into
stuff like the Prodigy after hearing a single on Radio
1, and started listening to a pirate radio station that
broadcast all sorts of rave tunes – mostly dodgy,
but with the occasionally inspired tune. Graham Crabb
from PWEI released an electronic CD called All Blue
Revue under the Golden Claw Musics alias that I
enjoyed too, which helped cement my growing enthusiasm
for electronic music. Another landmark musical moment
was when Princess Diana died – do you remember
the music Radio 1 played the day after? They just set
up a massive playlist of trippy ambient tunes featuring
the likes of Leftfield. As there was no DJ to tell me
who wrote these songs I didn’t have a clue who
any of them were, but I managed to tape the lot and
played it constantly. It wasn’t until a few years
later I found out Leftfield created my favourite tracks
on there.
So, knowing what kind of music appealed most to me,
I began getting CDs out from the local library while
doing my A-Levels, where I found The Orb’s Orbvs
Terrarvm and Aphex Twin’s I Care Because
You Do. To be honest, I thought a lot of the tracks
on ICBYD were terrible at the time, with the exception
of Alberto Balsam, which really struck a chord
with me. I also remember listening to The Orb on the
way home from sixth form college on the coach, and having
what I’d describe as a musical epiphany listening
to Montagne D'Or and Oxbow Lakes.
After hearing Little Fluffy Clouds on the radio
I decided to buy a few more Orb CDs, and not knowing
at the time how to find more electronic music, I naively
tried to select music that looked electronic from the
artwork, or if the artist name sounded electronic. This
is where alphabetic sorting helped me out in the music
shops, leading me from Orb to Orbital, and from Aphex
to Autechre!
So I suppose that’s the basis of my influences,
even if I can’t guarantee its chronological accuracy,
and I’m sure I’ll have left out vital artists
I’ll later kick myself for.
You have just finished your Masters degree in
music. Has it helped you in anyway working on this album?
More than anything else, I think studying music allowed
me the necessary time to work on the album, especially
throughout my final year when I managed to incorporate
A Midsummer Nice Dream as part of my studies.
Although not specific to the album, another bonus was
being able to use the university’s facilities
for certain tracks, which would have otherwise been
impractical or impossible to do. You’re always
surrounded by other musicians, and there’s usually
someone around willing to help out with performing or
recording. A case in point is when I tackled the second
Global Goon remix – I had this pretty laid-back
lounge backing written, and thought it’d be great
to get some saxophone on it, so I called upon Christian
Berg, a sax playing mate I was working with at the time,
to perform over the backing I’d written. I just
let him improvise for half a dozen takes or so and then
edited it down to the part I wanted in my own time at
home. Recording acoustic instruments is still the most
difficult part of home recording, where you really need
a properly treated environment, so being able to use
the uni studios for this was great.
Over the last year or so, you’ve had
quite a few tracks featured on a lot of compilations,
and now, Toytronic is releasing your debut album. How
long did it take you to get noticed, and what did you
have to do for people to listen to your music?
Hmm. Since it’s been a very gradual process, building
contacts with labels and securing release slots, it’s
difficult to put a finger on an exact moment when I
felt things were starting to fall into place. I’d
say I started writing music with a view to getting something
released in about 2001, where I had about an hour of
material I was relatively pleased with at the time.
My tactic then was too burn as many CDs as possible
and give them out to as many people as possible. I already
had some tunes up on mp3.com, and later ElectronicScene.com,
so I put up a little note asking folks to email me if
they wanted a free CD. I got quite a good response from
that, and soon ran out of CDs to burn, so I decided
to charge just enough to cover the postage and media
costs. Fed up with printing and folding perforated labels
for homemade CDs, I eventually dropped the idea of burning
my own CDs, and instead just stuck to uploading songs
to my websites as I wrote them. This led to the guys
from Repeat to hear some of my tunes and get in touch
with me.
The Global Goon remix competitions in 2002-3 were also
great exposure for me at the time, and I’m sure
they played a part in raising my profile a little too,
for which I’m very grateful.
You’re music has also been played on
Mary-Ann Hobb’s Breezeblock on Radio 1, and on
Xfm and Resonance. What was your reaction the first
time you heard your music on the radio?
I’ve never actually managed to catch the rare
moment of being on the radio yet, unfortunately! It’d
make my day though, listening to the radio and have
one of my tunes start.
If you had to give a tip to budding musicians
who dream to have their music released, what would you
say is the best way for them to get noticed?
Judging from past experience I’d say the best
way to get your music released is to start giving your
music away, trying to create the necessary awareness
of your music, which will then hopefully lead to future
release offers. We’re at the stage, thanks to
the Internet, where there’s an abundance of music
available out there for free, so how else can you compete
with that except to also give your music away. There
are many communities out there on the net willing to
provide feedback for you music if you participate, and
after a while you’ll be able to use this feedback
to start thinking about where to send demos.
It seems the amount of people who actively seek out
new music is a tiny minority, so you really do have
to make it as easy as possible for people to access
your music.
Do you have an established way of working when creating
a track, or is it a much more organic process?
Well, I do tend to have a set of tools and processes
I use and reuse, but I always try to keep developing
these so as not to stagnate. I think it’s important
to try and extend the boundaries of your practical knowledge
when writing, and the only way to achieve this is to
experiment. Working entirely in the computer domain,
you’re presented with an incredible amount of
options – whereas you might have two or three
hardware synths in the typical home studio, the only
limit in the software domain is your CPU. There’s
nothing to stop you using a dozen instances of the same
synth, routing them through different chains of effects.
A downside to this is the overwhelming array of options
can occasionally be more limiting than liberating, as
you aren’t forced to squeeze the most you can
out of a single synth or effect.
I’ll often start with a chord progression or
melody that’s popped into my head, and then build
on it with rhythms and supporting instruments. Often
I’ll work backwards, working away from the melody,
so that the end result is something that gradually works
towards the initial motif, or perhaps I’ll gradually
alter parts, dropping things in and out so that the
overall effect results in a track that sounds radically
different at its end to its start. I’ve realised
that it’s easy to slip into a conscious routine
when writing, because as I’m often working on
one track for a few weeks, it’s easy to become
so used to that track’s structure as to let it
become the blueprint for the next track. For the most
part writing music isn’t really a conscious affair,
and I feel this is the way it ought to be – you
shouldn’t feel laboured when writing.
For some tracks I’ll have a definite starting
point, and then just see where it leads me. Older tracks
like Mobile Foes, which is based on a popular
default phone ringtone, and Ourcade, a conscious
effort to sound like a retro gaming console, are based
on definite predefined ideas. I’ll just play around
that idea and see how far I can stretch it and still
remain related to it. But generally I just play around
with ideas until I have something I like, then work
with or against the idea for the remainder of the track.
You have also started remixing other people’s
work. How do you approach a remix compared to one of
your tracks?
I’m from the school of remixing that wants to
create a remix that resembles the original in some way,
rather than completely rewrite it into an unrecognisable
new track. If there’s a hook or a memorable chord
sequence, I’ll try and parody it in some way,
try to recreate it with my own slant on it. I’ll
take ideas present in the original track and extend
them as if it were my own track, so that there’s
still an identifiable origin to it, but that it’s
been expressed in my own language – if that makes
sense! I’ve often found that remixing tends to
flow more easily than writing original pieces from scratch,
as you already have a palette of sounds to work with,
and a guideline in the form of the original track. After
feeling the need to create new presets or samples for
more or less every new track I write, it’s refreshing
to be able to start with a pool of material already
there, and not have to worry about the daunting task
of creating something afresh.
You were evoking the Global Goon remix competition
earlier…
Yeah – that was great fun! Global Goon tends to
write pretty infectious hooks and generally exudes fun
anyway, so to be able to take those distinctive elements
and run with them was pretty much plain sailing for
me, for the first remix at least. I found the second
remix competition he held more demanding, as I didn’t
feel these basic elements were as well defined as in
the first, so I steered the track in a completely unlikely
direction. Whereas the first remix was just all-out
playful, the second was much more of a compositional
exercise for me, experimenting with incorporating saxophone
whilst trying not to sound like Kenny G Goes Electro.
I thought it was great for Global Goon to open up a
remix competition to the public, because it brought
together so many different musicians, from relatively
established artists to newcomers like me.
You seem to have worked pretty much on your
own up to now. Would you ever consider collaborating
with someone else? If yes, is there anyone in particular
you would like to work with, and why?
I find writing music incredibly personal and individual
– especially electronic music, so I’m happiest
left to write on my own. I wouldn’t want to have
to make compromises if a collaborator decided to do
something differently, and while I understand the advantages
of bringing different ideas to the table from different
people to create something new, I really enjoy being
able to write at my own pace, under my sole judgement.
For me writing music is escapism as well as creative
productivity, and while I won’t rule out possible
collaborative work in the future, I think the way I
seem to thrive on solitary production means it’ll
be just me for the time being. I wouldn’t mind
trying out a tag-team style of composition with another
artist, as this seems to be the accepted method of collaborating
on computer music, as it’s obviously going to
be a logistical nightmare with two people sitting round
a single PC. Plaid seem to work this way from what I’ve
heard, so it obviously works for them.
I’ve been thinking about the possibility of working
with vocals or other instrumentalists a little more,
but it really has been nothing more than idle thoughts
at the moment. I was happy with the way things turned
out with the second Global Goon remix, collaborating
with Christian on sax, because we stuck to our own strengths.
I guess I’m probably just fearful of having someone
step on my toes.
Some of the tracks on A Midsummer Nice
Dream were already featured on your first CD-Rom,
and the release of the album seems to have been delayed
a bit. Does it still reflect your work?
Mostly yes. Although one or two tracks are a few years
old, I still feel they hold their own against the newer
material. Plus I basically remixed everything for the
sake of consistent production values. So hopefully even
the older tracks will be viewed in a slightly different
light, with a fresh lick of paint.
But, as I’m now finding out, the time delays
inherent in fitting into distributor release schedules
as well as label release schedules means it’s
not uncommon for records to be much older than their
release dates suggest. I’ve been spoilt with the
immediacy of the Internet, used to being able to upload
a new song the moment it’s completed, and comforted
by the fact I can always touch things up and re-upload
as I see fit. When compiling the album, I occasionally
felt worried about the fact I was about to commit something
to CD that I would later be unable to change, but I
suppose it’s down to confidence levels, and I’m
sure that’ll improve with experience.
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