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Your first EP, released on Repeat Music, was
called Sound System Bangers Volume 1, which
sounds rather surprising considering that your music
is rather gentle…
Hehe – I hold no responsibility for the titling
of that EP. The guys at Repeat suggested it, as they
initially planned a set of EPs from different artists
to introduce the label. I was volume 1, with a further
couple of volumes due to follow from other artists,
but sadly nothing else materialised. The title redeemed
itself once I’d seen the artwork though, and I’m
sure everything would’ve fallen into place and
made more sense as other volumes appeared.
Some of the reviews for the EP were comparing
your work with Boards Of Canada, Gimmik and Autechre.
How did you react to being associated with these people?
I understand critics’ need to draw comparisons
to other artists, as that’s often the only way
you can convey the sound of an artist. Also, I’m
aware that my music is hardly revolutionary –
it quite clearly fits into a distinct musical category,
so I don’t mind at all if I’m described
as a combination of the artists you mention. I’ll
happily admit that Autechre, Boards Of Canada, and the
whole Warp-sound in general has influenced me. Just
for the record though I’ll let it be known that
I hadn’t even heard of BoC when I wrote the EP,
but while at college when I was playing one of my tracks
(Low Grav Freefall) to a mate, he suggested
I check out Boards Of Canada, as he thought it sounded
stylistically similar.
So I don’t mind the associations at all at the
moment. Admittedly, it might get a little old if I see
the same names use to describe me in a couple of years
time, but right now I can hardly complain being in such
good company.
The album is released on Toytronic, a label
that seems to be going from strength to strength at
the moment. How did you get to work with them, and are
you signed to them permanently now?
I can’t remember how I first heard of Toytronic,
but I bought a copy of Neurokinetic and loved
it. Being in a similar style, I thought my music might
go down fairly well with them, so I later sent them
a demo. I heard from Chris (Cunningham, Toytronic’s
boss) a few weeks later, who seemed interested but still
rather cautious, so I sent him another CD a couple of
months on, once I’d written some new material.
This time he seemed more keen on putting something out,
and initially suggested an EP. I was hoping for an album
myself, after the EP on Repeat, and promptly set about
writing the remaining few tracks to complete a LP. Thankfully
Chris later decided on an album after hearing more material.
As for permanence, I can’t speak for Toytronic,
but I see no reason why we can’t work together
in the future.
There seem to be loads of labels popping up
from everywhere at the moment, some traditional, like
Rednetic, Toytronic, or net labels such as Boltfish
or Audiobulb. Do you think this is a very encouraging
sign as more people get exposure or isn’t there
a risk of flooding the market with substandard releases
in the long run?
I think it’s a very encouraging sign, in the sense
that it’s always great to see new labels started
up by impassioned musicians and music lovers. From what
I’ve seen it’s certainly a lot of hard work
maintaining a label on such a financial knife-edge,
but with the kind of determination evident behind the
labels you mention, they deserve to succeed. For the
amount of blood and sweat that goes into producing a
plastic disc, you’d have to either be impassioned
or certifiable.
With regard to increased exposure, it seems that although
net labels and related MP3 communities lack the real-world
clout of distributor-connected labels, there’s
still a large enough audience for artists to consider
the net label route. The line between net label and
label proper is becoming increasingly blurred though
– Audiobulb started initially as a net label,
but have also released compilation CDs through traditional
record distribution. Boltfish put their music out on
limited, professionally packaged CD-runs, followed up
with freely downloadable MP3s of the same release. Labels
are beginning to experiment more with their release
formatting since the release and apparent success of
iTunes, Bleep etc... Another example is n5MD, who have
just started releasing music exclusively for download
at a flat rate of $2 a release. It’s great to
see all this, but we’ll have to wait a while to
see how paying for downloads settles, as like you say
there’s no shortage of net labels out there vying
for our attention with free downloads. I don’t
think we should consider net labels any differently
to traditional labels, as although there isn’t
quite the same financial burden involved in releasing
a zip file on to the net as with releasing CDs/LPs,
there’s still a quality control process.
One of your first live performances was at
Wheels Instead Of Hooves. Do you think electronic music
transcribes well to the live environment, and how did
you get on with that particular show?
Haha – the perennial question facing laptop musicians.
To me it seems some audience members just want to enjoy
themselves as they might at a club, the same way they
would dancing to DJ-spun records, while others expect
a full-on show, like you might get watching a rock band
or other instrumentalists. The problem with electronic
musicians, and laptop performers particularly, is that
by and large, it’s no great spectacle –
usually no more or less so than watching a DJ. But audiences
need to be realistic with their expectations of a one-man
show – I mean, It’s no surprise I won’t
be able to do scissor kicks or moonwalk across the stage
while trying to adjust the bass. Unfortunately the audience
usually can’t tell what you’re doing unless
they know what your records sound like, as there’s
no causal movement that creates a sound, no physical
drum stick hit, no guitar strum. So no matter how much
or how little you might be doing behind the laptop screen,
the audience doesn’t know (unless you project
a thirty-foot wide feed of your laptop display), and
will probably assume you’re doing as little as
possible. If they’ve never heard you before they’ll
probably even think you’re a DJ. That’s
something I feel has dogged laptop musicians –
the superstar DJ has become ubiquitous to the point
that audience members new to your music may assume you’re
a DJ rather than a producer.
Newer control surfaces that are coming out seem to
help with gigs – at least the audience can see
you do something, but I think at the moment it’s
difficult to perform live with computer music and have
it seen as a performance. I must say though, I’m
reluctant to spend money on something I’ll probably
only use in a live context, and after shelling out a
small fortune for a laptop already, I’ll be damned
if I’m going to spend more money just to prove
to the audience I’m not just pressing play in
Winamp. If only I could somehow amass a live band and
still remain faithful to the record sound…
At the Wheels gig I was pretty nervous to be honest,
as it was the first gig I’d done as part of a
proper electronic billing with fairly big names. Since
I do all my work on computer I had no way at the time
to translate this into a live set – there was
no way I was going to shift a desktop PC down to London
for the night. I couldn’t afford a laptop, so
I just prepared a basic set beforehand, and went down
with a CD and a Kaoss Pad effects unit. I basically
played the set and ran sections through various effects.
I had made an effort to create a live sounding set using
remixed songs and special edits, so as not to appear
a complete sham to anyone who may have heard any of
my tunes before. It generally went down well –
unsurprising as there wasn’t much to go wrong.
Now I have the ubiquitous ‘laptop guy performance
kit’: a laptop and Ableton Live. I personally
think its claims of being an instrument is stretching
it a bit (no pun intended), but there’s no denying
it’s made computer performers’ lives easier
and more flexible, if not more fun to watch. I’m
much keener now to perform live, and the few gigs I’ve
done with the laptop have been pretty good fun.
Now that the album is released, can people
expect to see you performing live, and, if yes, what
can they expect?
I’ll play live wherever anyone will have me. As
for what to expect, I can’t yet promise a visually
engaging stage show, but I’ll try to make up for
that with new material and live-oriented deconstructions.
It’d be nice to be able to collaborate with a
visual artist on a long-term basis for live shows –
to have a visual side tied-in with the music.
What projects are you currently working on?
At the moment I’m trying to write the follow up
to A Midsummer Nice Dream, but I’m not
yet sure whether it’ll be an EP or LP in shape.
More music, basically, with the odd live date here and
there.
If you had to go on a long journey, what records
would you take with you and why?
Unable to decide on any, I’d go without.
What is next in your diary?
I always forget to write in my diary. I need a diary
sub-diary.
Email interview November 2004
Thank you to Chris |
