When the phrase music festival comes to mind, I bet you think of the heavy hitters such as Coachella or Bonaroo where over priced beer is flowing freely and the attendees, well let’s just say they aren’t there for the music itself.
Maybe it’s time to abandon the traditional notion of what a music festival is and isn’t. Maybe it’s time to explore the outer edges of what the music circuit has to offer. Rather just consume a copious amount of mind altering psychedelics, what if there was a festival that encouraged development,discussion and the ideas of where music is headed.
Since 2003 Decibel Festival has been on the forefront of blending music, technology and multimedia art to create an environment that isn’t often found in today’s music landscape. Partnering with innovative bands and brands, the five day long festival features free workshops during the day that encourage users and listeners alike to explore different forms of equipment and software. At night, the festival goers can enjoy a variety of electronic acts performing at various venues in the downtown Seattle area.
The 2015 lineup is yet another stacked roster for Decibel Festival and features artists such as Photay, Bonobo, Nicolas Jaar, Tim Hecker, Thievery Corporation, Clark, Lusine and much more.
In one sense, it’s a bit surprising more individuals aren’t flocking to Seattle at the end of summer to bask in all that Decibel has to offer. At the same time, perhaps it’s best for only the dedicated and open minded music fan to attend such an intimate and diverse festival.
Learn more about the festival and purchase tickets here.
In 2012, Ry X (The Acid) and Frank Weidemann (Ame) teamed up to record and release “Howling”. The song was a runaway success after being played by Dixon (Innervisions) during a Boiler Room set bringing unexpected attention on the duo. Ry and Frank took a step back from Howling, not wanting to rush a follow up. Ry had success with the song Berlin and Frank returned to Ame. Now, in 2015, Ry and Frank have collected their thoughts and regrouped as Howling release “Sacred Ground”, a beautiful, hypnotic album that reaches beyond the indie and dance worlds that the duo originate from. We caught up with Howling before their performance at the Oval Space in London to find out how the album was created and how they bring it to life on the stage.
*Ry had noticed my tattoo just before I hit the record button on the dictaphone and was asking about it*
Yeah, there’s this indie band called Los Campesinos! who are pretty much my favourite band, they have this song called A Heat Rash In The Shape of the Show-Me State. There’s a line in the song where the guy is talking about this girl who has a…
Ry: a heat rash…
Yeah, a heat rash. And it made me think about those insignificant things that are actually really significant.
Ry: Yeah, they change your life. Like one lyric that you’ve listened to in a song 4,000 times when you were depressed and a teenager.
Yeah...
Ry: Yeah, I know all about it. So you don’t actually have any connection to Missouri?
No, I’ve never been.
Ry: That’s epic!
I showed it to my American friend the other day and she was like “Are you going?” and I’m just, “Nope, no plans to go, never gonna go”.
Ry: That’s awesome. Well because Missouri is not the place you really wanna go to. That’s why I appreciate it because everyone is like “I’m from Texas or California” and you’re like “Well, that’s obvious”. An Englishman with a tattoo of Missouri who is never gonna go there is a little bit more avant-garde.
Right, let’s talk about you guys. And not my daft tattoo.
Ry: We can’t wait. We love talking about ourselves.
I bet you’ve not got sick of this today yet have you?
Ry: No, no, not yet.
It’s all good. I wanna start at the very beginning, Howling that came out in 2012. How did that collaboration come about? Did I read that you were introduced by a friend?
Ry: Yeah, we didn’t meet musically. Usually collaborations meet musically like “Ah man, you’re the guy from Ame. You did this.”. I didn’t know anything about Frank’s music or Innervisions or anything about it really.
Frank: Neither do I.
Ry: Yeah, the boss of Innervisions that’s not really there!
Frank: About music, shut up!
Ry: You know, it was cool that way. What was really rad actually was that we got invited, suddenly we had a number one and it was the first thing we put out and it had been in the deep house charts. And we thought “We should probably play a show, right?” And we were like “How the fuck do we play a show?? How do we play this intimate thing with some boom boom? How do we do that?”
Frank: Because the first thing we played was Space, Ibiza. That was the first show we played.
Ry: Ah yeah, right! Because we were supposed to play in Amsterdam at the thing, that’s what paid for the ticket. So the first show we played was in Space…
Frank: This thing is, I played there and I said “If you’re in Europe, and you want to know about the deep house scene, you should come to Ibiza”.
Ry: It wasn’t our official show, we played in Berlin and a few things, and we came down and I was in this club. I had fallen in love with this girl across the room, like “Wow” and looked back half an hour later and she was in a K-Hole and I was just like “Wait, what? Where am I? Like what’s happening?”. I was doing yoga every day and not drinking.
Frank: I have to say, I have never seen space that intimate for at least these two songs. Everybody was literally saying “What’s that? What’s that thing that guy has round his neck?”
Ry: It is a bit redundant the story of how we met or whatever but you have to think of it… I didn’t know anything about these things, I came in very brash. In the opposite way of ego, but like I had just done yoga for two years and meditated and surfed. And I had given up on the industry, I was like “Fuck that, I’m just gonna make music” and then suddenly Frank and I had this thing and I’m out in Berlin and I’m loving the energy of Berlin four years ago, five years ago, whatever. And then, going down to Space going “This is not my vibe. This is not my thing”. Then the coolest thing about that was when I, know how to play an intimate space, and Frank knows how to make a room like that connect and we’re there, I’m just standing there with a guitar. They’ve never had a guitar in Space before. They’ve never had a microphone in Space before. And that was it. That was the kind of thing. They were the moments that helped us to know each other and define us. Yeah, it’s really beautiful to think about that time because it was challenging a lot of norms.
Taking in your different backgrounds, what challenges did this create for you? But, also, what opportunities did it create for you?
Frank: I have to drive the tour bus.
Ry: No. I think it’s created a lot more influence than both of us like to acknowledge. I’ve said that little story before but I remember Dixon coming up to me in Panorama Bar and telling me “Hey Ry, I think actually we’ve all changed house music a little bit”. Howling was playing and we were watching Panorama Bar, Dixon was playing Howling and we’re all standing back and going “Shit, we’ve brought intimacy and heart into this context”. Not saying that we’re responsible for something, but we’ve played our part. Then after that you suddenly heard a lot of intimate or emotional vocals on a lot of house stuff. Suddenly I’m making more electronic music and Frank’s making more avant-garde stuff as a focus. I think it’s influenced us a lot more than we might think of initially.
Frank: That’s true.
Ry: We ended up making a record that doesn’t belong in the house scene. It doesn’t belong in the indie scene. We’re really trying to walk a different path. We’re trying to be honest without having to adhere. I think that both gives us the strength to do it internally as well.
Frank: I think the success of Howling gave us strength and it also was kind of…can you say that Damocles Sword?
Ry: Yeah, that’s very poetic.
Frank: Err…because it’s like…
Ry: Double edged sword, for sure.
Frank: It’s that thing where you come up with a big tune at the very beginning everybody expects you to follow it up.
There’s a lot of pressure that gets created.
Frank: And we just didn’t want to.
Ry: Yeah, it’s not in our interest to. I’m not gonna name names, obviously, but it’s not in our interest to follow that suit of the crossover deep house mentality at the moment. Cool, we can go and make these same tracks with a baseline and a soaring vocal and the kick, you know. We’re just making music.
Frank: That happened for both of us before in our lives. You know, when I made Rej with Kristian with Ame it was like, I remember clearly I played in Italy after the release and everybody expected me to play minimal.
Ry: Frank’s not that great at minimal actually.
Frank: It’s just not us. But the sound had minimal sound aesthetics in a way. Everybody expected us to play that and follow up Rej and I think the idea, business wise, was a dumb idea but on a personal level, it was the best thing we could have done. And I think it is the same for us.
Ry: We deal with it constantly. With Howling, we did the antithesis. We were supposed to put out the next track and we were like “Settle down everybody”. We put out something weird and it gives us some time. With Ry-X it’s the same thing. I had Berlin and then everybody was expecting me to be Sam Smith and I was like “Hey, er, that’s great, I’ll take the money but I’m not gonna be Sam Smith”. I put something out on my own label with no PR instead.
Frank: Who is Sam Smith?
Ry: *laughs*
Frank: I really don’t know who he is!
He’s a big pop singer. He recently got nearly sued by Tom Petty because his song follows the same chorus line.
Ry: Oh, I mean, every song follows the same chord progression.
Frank: It’s funny, sometimes I hear names from Ry and recently I heard the name, what was it? The British guy with the red hair?
Oh, Ed Sheeran.
Frank: Ed Sheeran. I heard that name for the first time like a couple of months ago.
Ry: Frank and I don’t really exist anywhere in that pop realm. I don’t actually know what’s going on most of the time. So I think it’s a bit funny that there’s expectations that’s gonna go anywhere near that. Accidents happen. We fucked up by having a hit. But it’s great, it allows us to be here and play the music we love.
It’s good though, the way you talk about it. You’ve really taken the time from Howling in 2012 to the album coming out in 2015. I think that’s a good approach.
Ry: Yeah, letting all the hype go away, and we did our solo stuff and as soon as there’s hype we try to dispel it. Get it quiet again so there’s freedom just to make music. You know the thing is, you look at this interesting world where people are listening to house music now on a common level where it was such a niche idea, and you see these guys like Jeff Mill...
Frank: Jeff Mills is techno, not house.
Ry: I’m using the general terms, Frank!
Frank: You still put me in the EDM category!
Ry: No way! The point is, you have this genre grow and suddenly all the guys who have been doing it for 30 years are fucking good at it get re-claimed for their ability and what they have done, the shaping of that scene. That’s pretty cool. I think if you’re just making your own music you’re doing it well for a long enough period of time people will...
Frank: Acknowledge it.
Ry: Yeah, turn around and look back and go “Wow! Frank has done a lot for techno and house” and I think that’s worth a lot more than flash in the pan success and then you buy a house on the coast somewhere and you try to back it up with hits for the rest of your life. That doesn’t really concern us.
Frank: Also I personally…
Ry: That’s a long answer! We’re emotional at this point.
Frank: I would be bored of that, I would just be doing one kind of music my whole life.
Ry: Yeah. Boundaries are the worst thing. When you are a singer songwriter, or you’re a house guy. "Why can’t I play with an orchestra? Am I not supposed to do that?”
Frank: And it’s actually nice that there is a world like these collaborations happening now, the last couple of years.
Ry: Then it becomes a thing and it’s hip. And then everybody who’s a DJ is trying to have a live act.
Frank: Are we still on the same answer?
Ry: Yeah, but it’s relevant, you know? I don’t like it when clubs start going, or venues or promoters, “I think we should get Tiesto to do a live thing cause all the cool dudes are doing a live thing. We should get David Guetta with an orchestra” and then we’re like “Ah, fuck”. It’s unfortunate, but that’s what happens. The core community creates something, builds on it, and it becomes a thing.
Frank: It doesn’t matter, we’ve got to move on.
Ry: Yeah, constant evolution.
You mention boundaries, but I was wondering, you talked about stepping outside of comfort zones to create something new. I’m really interested in boundaries and restrictions in a creative sense. I find a restriction can be quite freeing.
Ry: Totally.
So I was wondering did you place any restrictions on yourself? Like “We can only use 8 tracks on a mixing desk” or “We can only use this drum machine”
Frank: Almost every chorus to every song was created in a limited space.
Ry: Not even in a studio though.
Frank: Except for Science. That was quite unlimited! That was unreal unlimited. That was one of the biggest studios I have ever been in. But yeah, everything else was just the instruments and microphones that we had with us. And that, obviously, is always heaven in a way because, at the moment, I am struggling because I have too many synths in the studio I use.
Ry: You should give them all to me! I tell you what, you let me borrow…
Frank: No, I don’t want you to be unlimited!
Ry: No, you’ve gotta let me borrow six or eight and then we’ll switch! No, we actually talked about that for the next creation together, we talked about taking six or eight things out of Frank’s studio and going somewhere outside of Berlin, outside of our known worlds and create like that. Because that is how we create really well, with focus. Frank is amazing at having a synth and turning that into percussion noise on a record. Jens who plays with us is a jazz trained Berkeley guy but we’re the guys who are all one synth on one note trying dial in the single sound we love because that’s how we hear it. Totally, limitation creates freedom.
Frank: Look at how amazing this little pocket piano is.
The Critter and Guitari Pocket Piano?
Frank: Yeah, it’s just six sounds and one octave but you can do so many things with it just because it is that limited.
Ry: Yeah, I totally agree. And actually we both kind of purists in a way. Whether you’re looking at trying to find samples or whatever, I don’t wanna play something with a thousand things and you just do that. Not get too crazy. But give yourself that limitation. And then you put it in Ableton…
Frank: So the result is pushing boundaries, but with limitations!
Ry: Pushing boundaries in the industry and in genre but musically.
Loads of limitations.
Ry: Limit yourself!
The other thing I quite like doing when listening to records is I always try to imagine where I should be to hear it. Where should I see you guys live? There was two ideas I had…
Ry: Tell us.
Well, one was on a roof top, somewhere like where we are now…
Ry: Yes that would be good.
Frank: We did that already.
Well this is the thing, because the next idea I had was a darkened room with candles and dim lights and then I looked online and find these two live videos where you had already done that!
Ry: Well, maybe you should think better!
I need some more original ideas.
Ry: You should think in the future man!
I was wondering with the creation of the album, did you have any thoughts like that? “Where would I like to be when I play this?” or if not a final idea, did the rooms you were recording in inform the making of the record at all?
Ry: Yeah, of course. I mean, Zurich was recorded in Zukunft, is that the name of it?
Frank: Yeah.
Ry: Like a club in Zurich with very low ceilings. It’s like 40 degrees and we’re trying to do soundcheck. During the middle of that limited time I’m making a loop on a guitar and I’m like “Frank! Can you get my vocal mic and throw it on the amp?” and everyone, the bar staff are trying to get ready for the night, and I’m just like “Everyone! Shut up for a second!” And we record it and run it through a tape machine and that’s Zurich. So, you know, the whole record is informed by everything we’re doing. And that’s the same when you listen to it. You can take splices of it and listen to it in different contexts and it make sense. I mean, when you were saying that I just had a really cool idea. Those black rooms, have you ever heard of these? Very high content salt baths and you lie in a chamber…water that is so full of salt that you float
So like an isolation chamber?
Ry: Yeah, and it’s dark so what happens is crazy. This Japanese artist who was living in Topanga told me about this, she’s this amazing body worker and she was doing massage on me and she was like “You really need to come with me to this thing one day” and she said that you go to sleep in the thing. I was like “You sleep in water?” and she was like “Yeah, you can’t roll over and you’ll be like ‘How long was I out? Like an hour or two?’ and I’ll be like ’13 hours’”. Like, you know, let’s put the record on in an environment like that. That would be fucking cool! Let’s get everyone in there tonight into isolation chambers! We’re gonna fill up Oval Space with high salt content water…
Frank: We need…two thousand of them?
Ry: Yeah... I think it’s quite beautiful when you’re in a context when you can’t do anything else, you know? When we were on a train and we all listened to Lullaby when we first recorded that and it was really special. We all fell asleep to it which is why we call it Lullaby. And you know, when you’re isolated and be present with the music, that’s the artist’s dream, right?
I’m just a bit conscious of how much time we have left…
Ry: Sorry, these answers have been a bit long…
No, they’re all really good!
Ry: Quick questions, yes or no answers, let’s go! Yes!
Frank: No.
Well, this one could be another long one. I read an interview with Jon Hopkins a while ago…
Ry: Good place to start.
He talked about his music, he’s into the songs changing very slowly, gradually, like a subliminal thing. By the end of the song you don’t realize how much it has changed from the start.
Ry: Steve Reich. He’s the master.
I was wondering, I noticed in Litmus, there’s the sounds from the Pocket Piano that slowly comes in and by the end it’s almost the main sound that’s going on. I was wondering if that kind of thinking, is that a direct thing?
Frank: That happens when you play together, you know? When you just jam, and that’s how lots of the songs came together. Us playing together for a couple of minutes and recording it then these changes happen naturally.
Ry: I think the difference in those things are you put it in a box where you get a sample and you just leave it, like, cool that Pocket Piano is in there, now I’ll build some other stuff. And when you’re playing live, you’re turning up yourself, you know, when you’re using analogue gear you’re like intuitively like we play here tonight, you don’t just leave your volumes. You know when you need to come out and just sit behind. You’re not automating it in a computer. It’s a little bit easier to have the growth. It is a conscious thing but I think it comes from natural instinct and hopefully good instinct as opposed to too much of an intellectual concept. I mean, Jon Hopkins is probably saying it in Steve Reich way that you’re aware that something needs to change, but you don’t wanna lose the tension. So you’re playing so much with the elements that you already leave in there. Because the novice way to do it is to add something else every time you want something else. And I think the more subtle way is the…retains a lot more tension.
So how are you approaching the live shows? Are you leaving room for improvisation?
Ry: We improvise a ton! It’s never the same! Last night we played in Dublin and, like, we did this freeform thing at the end of one of the songs, we got pretty weird. Lots of arpeggios and pretty drivey. And I was looking, we’re all looking at each other. Jens is playing the drums and the keys live, and Frank’s on like the computer and all his analogue gear and got these drones going. And I look over at Frank and I see him looking at me and I’m like “Oh, awesome, it’s been crazy and it’s just coming to this point. Everything is gonna drop out except for Jens who is gonna be playing the piano and Frank is gonna be having some really nice rhythmic section”. That’s my head, right? And Frank’s head is “Ry’s gonna keep going with the arpeggio and that’s great, and then Jens is gonna come in with the piano”. And Jens is like “these guys are probably gonna keep it together for a while and then they’re gonna turn around and break it down and then I’m gonna start with the piano”. And all of a sudden it’s just….silence! And everyone is clapping and going crazy and we’re like “Thank you! Good night!”. And we walk off. So there’s lots of freedom and we have Children of the Light who do the visuals for us, the light installations, they designed the Darkside, Nicolas Jaar visuals and they’ve been fans and friends of ours for quite a bit so they jumped on and designed the show for us visually with our input and feedback. So it’s a really living organism. It’s not too static.
Frank: Even with a computer.
Ry: And we play it live. The computer’s not actually on there at all for half of it.
Frank: The computer delivers sounds, yes, but it’s not with sequencers.
Ry: Yeah, we don’t play to a click for a lot of the set. It’s hard. You gotta practice. Which we don’t do. Our practices are at rehearsals. We don’t do rehearsals, we just do production sound rehearsals and we’re just like “Well, we’ll figure it out on tour, it’s gonna be great!” But we’re there, it’s cool, it’s exciting.
Well, I’m looking forward to seeing the show tonight. Thanks guys!
Merging warm vocal melodies and 1980s inspired synth wave, Jennie Abrahamson presents a unique blend of intimate yet equally striking moments from her latest album, Gemini Gemini. The Stockholm based artist paired up with longterm friend and colleague Johannes Berglund and created a ten track album determined to bring out the feels in any and everyone who gives the record a listen. Evoking emotions with tracks such as 'Snowstorm' and 'Dance With Me', it becomes clear that Abrahamson has found the right amount of nostalgia, passion and intimacy.
What led to you creating music? How do you think your approach to writing has evolved over the years?
I grew up in a musical family, so music was with me from early years. I tried out my own songs from early on, sat by the piano and dreamt away, but it wasn’t until I was in my teens - when I started playing in bands - that I really started writing "proper" tunes.
I think my view of what it is to write songs has changed somewhat over the years, and my ability to create that creative space under more “adult” circumstances has definitely increased. I remember back when I started, you kind of needed it to be in the middle of the night or in the midst of a personal drama to get work done. Nowadays of course those kind of things can set me off or inspire me, but in writing periods I try to go to the studio between 9-5. Daytime that is.
Do you have a track off the album that you would consider a personal favorite? If so, what makes it special to you?
Well, they’re all special in their different ways, but "Snowstorm" is a favorite because it wrote itself in less than half an hour after waking up from quite a dreadful nightmare. I like the feeling of experiencing that kind of flow. "Wolf" and "Entity" are other favorites. "Wolf" because we had so much fun producing it and I like how it turned out, and "Entity" because it pretty much sums up the entire album.
Were there any particular influences behind the album?
Psychology was a great influence on the album. Just before sitting down to write it, I had taken a little break from music and studied psychology for a while. I’ve always been interested in matters of understanding the human mind, and though I learned a lot, it also raised even more questions. The general lyrical theme of the albums has to do with the duality of man, our “inner twin”, our ability to be so many things on such a large scale - like we all have the ability to do very good or very evil things, and the fact that you can never really know another person.
What was the writing process like for Gemini Gemini?
As I stated above, quite adult (laughs). I decided to make a new album, hired a work place with windows, as my studio is below ground and I need daylight for writing periods, went through two years of saved voice memos and notebooks, and then I got to it.
My method is that I choose one idea to go with everyday, and try to finish something around that idea. It’s important that I try not to stop myself in the process, that I don’t constantly in every second ask myself what the hell I’m doing or judge the work before hand, but just try to continue and get it done.
Then, when it’s done, I can choose if I like it or not. But work flow needs to be trained, every time, and if you stop questioning yourself while writing your poor mind will never allow itself to flow. So, there has to be some bad ideas to get some of the good ideas. Then, after quite a while of writing on my own, I showed my songs to my co-producer Johannes Berglund and drummer Mikael Häggström, and we recorded them in our studio. Basically, most of the arrangements were done, and we just recorded better and better sounding versions of my demos.
How do you approach your live show? Do you do anything different to bring your music to life onstage?
We’ve tried different things and different setups over the years, but this past year we’ve kind of landed in a quartet setting that feels right. We’ve gotten rid of all tracks and pre-recorded stuff and do it all live, and it felt like the whole live set got more powerful.
It’s still just an ordinary pop band setup, and it’s not like we’ve had the budget to do very crazy things on stage or bring lots of props. What we have done though is to build some instruments that you won’t see anyone else using. I, for instance, play a sort of midi-marimba built out of plexi glass, and it’s shining in icy mint green. All homemade, pretty spectacular.
What are you hoping listeners take away from Gemini Gemini?
The general thing, always, is that I want people to feel. They don’t necessarily need to understand exactly what I was thinking when writing the songs, but that there’s some sort of emotional communication that sets their minds adrift and let them create their own images around a song. To have people emotionally uplifted and touched in one way or the other, to have people recognize their own feelings or stories in my songs, that’s my mission.
If Jennie Abrahamson had a spirit animal what would it be and why?
Ah, good question! I’ve never tried to find my spirit or totem animal, but for my friends, I go under different cat names. These past few years it’s been Panther, before that it was Lioness. I don’t know if I consider myself to be very cat-like, but I guess there’s something to it. One fun thing was when one of Sweden’s most famous artists, whom I don’t know at all on a personal level, called a musician who happened to sit in my car. When he said he was with me, she’d responded, "Oh, the cat of the cats". How on earth this has spread beyond my inner circles, I don’t know.
Despite growing up in the same village and ignoring each other at school, it wasn’t until university that Chris Davids and Liam Ivory, aka Maribou State, realized they shared a passion for music. Since 2012, the duo have released a succession of well received EPs and built an international reputation through remixes for Kelis and Lana Del Ray among others. Annie Mac, Zane Lowe, and Huw Stephens have also thrown their support behind Maribou State with regular plays on BBC Radio. Over the past 18 months, the boys have toured the world whilst honing their craft in their studio. May 2015 sees Maribou State ready to release their debut full length, Portraits. Having developed their live show to include a live band, the album sees the duo trying new ideas and sounds and move away from traditional club-based dance music to great success. We caught up with Maribou State to find out how they did it.
How did Maribou State come into existence?
We both lived together in Leeds when we were at university up there, about 5 years back. We shared a pretty similar taste in music and both wanted to start making something that reflected that.
You’ve released a steady stream of EPs over the last couple of years, with your sound progressing each time. Portraits feels like a departure from the sound you were developing on these EPs. What brought about this change?
It's odd that it comes across that way, as Portraits really felt like it was the natural progression from our last EP Truths. It’s definitely a long way from some of our first EP’s though but I guess that just because our musical tastes have changed. The way we write music has changed, in terms of the instruments we use, and buying new equipment. Also, working with new people on the album would have definitely helped our sound to evolve.
How did you approach the writing process of Portraits?
It varied throughout. Most ideas were started individually, and then we would bring them into the studio and decide whether or not they fitted in with the rest of the tracks that were being developed. For some of the tracks we had a clear idea of exactly how we wanted them to turn out but the majority of the time they went in a completely different direction. A lot of music was recycled during the writing process, using bits from other unfinished tracks and sampling them into new ideas.
The album feels and sounds like a live band is playing rather than just the two of you with guests. How did you approach tracking the record? For example, programming versus playing live.
We would always try and record each instrument in one take, so it kept that live feel. We’ve spent a lot of time in the past programming drums and tweaking timings of recordings, so we wanted to move away from this for the album. For instance the final track on the LP, ‘Varkala’, was just a live recording of one of us on guitar and the other on piano. We kept the very first recording of it, and dotted a few samples around it here and there. I think it retains a lot more charm when something hasn’t been tampered with too much.
How did you choose which guests to bring in on the album?
We’ve always worked really well with Jack (Pedestrian), and we had a couple of different ideas for what we wanted to work on together for the album. It definitely wouldn’t have felt right not to get Jack involved as we’ve worked closely together for a number of years now. Again, the same went for Holly. We love working with her, she’s so talented and always ready to push boundaries when it comes to new ideas. We’ve become good friends since working together so it’s also just fun to spend time together. We have a good laugh most of the time.
Do you have any go to pieces of music equipment?
We bought a Prophet 08 just before starting the album, so I’d say that was the main go-to instrument throughout. We’re also big into collecting boutique and independent made guitar FX pedals. We run a lot of stuff through our pedal boards once it’s been tracked.
You’ve recently started playing live as a band, how do you approach performing live now as opposed to the tours you have done previously?
It’s a completely different process. Touring as DJs required us to sit around for days on end trailing through the Internet and through other peoples DJ mixes, looking for new music to play. We also used to make a lot of edits of tracks to play out in our sets. The approach to DJing was to keep the party moving whilst showcasing our musical influences and new music we had made. Now as a live band, we spend most of the time preparing in a rehearsal room with the other band members. It’s all original music we play now, old and new, which requires a lot of rehearsal time to become fluent at playing our instruments and remembering our parts. We’ve kept the live band completely live, with no major parts running on a backing track, so there is a lot to think about on stage, as we’re each doing a number of things at once. This of course has resulted in much less alcohol being consumed before we take the stage.
What are you hoping the crowd takes away from your live show?
I think it’s no secret that our music isn’t completely suited to the clubbing world. So I guess we both feel that playing our music live, with a full band, is really how it’s intended to be listened too, second to actually listening to the record. We hope that the live show will give the music another dimension, that people won’t be able to experience from listening at home.
Do you have a track from Portraits that you would consider a personal favorite?
It’s really hard to say. There are definite favorites that we both have but they change quite often, especially since we’ve started to play them live. You start to hear the music in a very different way when you’ve broken it down and rebuilt it with a live band. Also the reactions of people hearing it live, in a DJ set or online also give us different feelings towards the music from the LP. Some tracks were also a lot more difficult to create than others, meaning a lot of time was spent listening and reworking the same parts, so they obviously become a little tedious more quickly than others.
What has the rest of the year for in store for Maribou State? Are we going to be seeing you at any festivals?
Most definitely! Festivals are where we feel our music is most suited and we are also both huge fans of the summer festivals, so it’s an important part of the year for us. We have no idea what to expect from it all this year, now we’ve introduced the live act but we’re excited to see what comes of it all and will still be DJing here and there along the way.
If Maribou State had a spirit animal, what would it be and why?
The Marabou Stork. In a round about way the animal is responsible for the name, so credit where credits due and all that.
Drawing influences from jazz, electronica, hip hop, and r&b, Taylor McFerrin'sEarly Riser LP sits comfortably in Brainfeeder's stable alongside luminaries such as Flying Lotus and Lapalux. Featuring guest appearances from Thundercat, Nai Palm, Marcus Gilmore, Robert Glasper, Cesar Camargo Mariano, RYAT, and McFerrin's father, Bobby McFerrin, Early Riser is an album that pulls you into McFerrin's world, surrounding you with lush synths and jazz-inspired beats.
We caught up with Taylor before his show at Birthdays in Dalston, London to find out how he created the album and how he brings it to life onstage.
I’d like to begin after the EP Broken Vibes came out, at the end of that cycle. How did you begin getting an album together?
I didn’t start the record until 2010. I had three other bands at the time. I had one band called Rahj where I was a drummer, the singer is called Rahj, and then a guitar and keyboard player. Another band was called The Cell Theory and we put out an album called Memory is Energy which was after Broken Vibes, which was me; I was the keyboards/synth guy, bass player Jason Fraticelli who also plays bass on my record a bit, and Nigel Sifantus on drums. And then I was producing a female MC called TK Wonder. I got way into those projects for the next few years. My concept was that I wanted all of that stuff and my solo stuff to kind of all join forces and be part of something bigger and then that just didn’t kind of happen, you know. Guys had kids, kind of had a falling out with TK Wonder, the keyboard player in Rahj got hired by Lady Gaga, which was crazy because he was in Paris last night with her so he came and sat on with me. So I kind of spread my attention in a bunch of different directions and it took me about three years to get back into just solo work. The Place In My Heart EP was my first kind of time poking my head back out after Broken Vibesand that was really when I started.
When you did Place in My Heart did you have, not necessarily a concept, but any idea that an album would come together?
I was in full album mode, but I had been touring a lot as a solo artist and a lot of my shows improvised beat making with loops and stuff so I got really good at just like freestyling with dope ideas. It had been a while since I focused in studio mode finishing ideas. So I just started to amass a bunch of tracks, and I kept moving onto the next thing before I would finish anything.
I often find finishing a song is the hardest thing for me.
Yeah, it was super hard. Some people are great at it and some people are horrible at it. I was always pretty horrible. But it’s weird, it takes me a lot to lock in because I’m a pretty spaced out dude. Sometimes I get ultra-focused where I can’t stop doing stuff and it was hard for me to get to that place for some reason. But, you know, I was making music all the time and I just built up a huge catalogue of sort of half-finished beats.
With that in mind, to be able to finish songs and to get the album together, did you impose any limitations on yourself?
No, that was probably why I was taking so long, I never really got a system together that worked. One thing that messed me up was that I moved in with my girlfriend and her apartment was the worst environment to make music of anywhere I’ve ever lived, but we ended up moving back to the old building I used to live in. That helped. I wasn’t good at putting limitations on myself but, you know, I have certain built-in limitations. I stopped collecting new equipment, I decided to stick with what I had and get better at using that. I didn’t upgrade any of my software and, you know, there was a duelling thing happened: Brainfeeder were like, “we want you to do whatever you like, there are no limitations, there’s no time limit. There is no style we want you to go for. Just do your thing” which, for someone like me who kind of struggles with deadlines, was almost a bad thing.
Do you struggle without deadlines?
Yeah, I struggle. Then things started happening that made me feel so shitty that I was able to motivate and put deadlines on myself that mattered. They kept going to do these big Brainfeeder shows in Japan and tours and I wasn’t invited because I wasn’t able to promote anything for the label on those tours so the whole thing was like, “when you finish the record you’ll be able to play the shows”. So then I think the deadline that really made me finish the record was when they said, “yo, we wanna bring you out to the big Brainfeeder show in Japan this year, but we kind of need the record to be out which means you have to hand it in by March” and I had missed that same opportunity the year before and I was not fucking missing that shit this year! I had already made some big strides. I was already up to 85% done but, you know, I could have been trapped in that world forever. I think that was the final, real deadline that helped me.
Did you self-produce the album?
Yeah, I recorded everything at my home studio.
How did you process the quality control of the album? Did you find self-editing a challenge? Were you comfortable not bouncing ideas off anyone?
No, I hardly ever play music to anybody until it is done. Every once in a while I will play some stuff to my brother because we live in the same building. I have one really good friend who used to be a roommate, he’s a producer actually. He’s put out some dope stuff and he's based in LA now. Dego, from multiple UK releases like 4hero, he’s someone who I’ll sometimes play stuff to, but honestly, I got really dark about not finishing the record that I was just like “I don’t wanna play shit to anybody until this shit is totally done” and it kind of became a bad cycle for me. But, I don’t know, maybe it’s good? Sometimes I don’t really want people’s advice because I don’t want to start changing what was going on in my head and, it gets to a weird point with the music where you can’t imagine what it sounds like to an outside perspective. When I finally turned the record in, I was like “hope people like it”. At the end of the day, one of the biggest things I have gained from finally putting the record out was that I trust my intuition now on a level that I haven’t ever before which, I think. is the biggest mental step I could ever want to make from just putting it out.
Now the album is done, you’ve handed it in. How do you recreate the songs live? You’ve talked about how you used to improvise a lot. I’m assuming you still do that now?
Yeah, it depends. I mean, I can improvise a lot, or the way I’m trying to make it interesting and not just pressing play is I went back and separated all the parts from all the songs so I can play the song in its entirety or I can take a bunch of elements out and add different shit. I can also take all the elements out except for, say, the drums and build an entirely new instrumental around just those drums. Then parts of the show I’ll do some vocals or beatbox or build a beat totally from scratch. I think doing a solo show completely on your own, you’ve got to have a slightly different approach from song to song just so people can feel like they’re following you somewhere and not just get bored because “I can listen to this on the album, he’s been doing the same shit the whole time”.
So what gear are you using onstage at the moment? What’s your setup?
Fender Rhodes. I don’t bring that with me, that’s always on my rider. I have a Dave Smith Mopho X4 synth with the Tetra attachment.
You have those polychained together?
Yeah, oh ok, you know what I’m talking about! Then the APC40 triggering Ableton. I then have one pedal. I really wanna bring more pedals, but it just gets too heavy. I have an Electro Harmonix Cathedral pedal because that has a really dope infinity delay and you can do really ethereal things with it.
The gear you are using live, is there anything that is crucial to what you use in the studio?
I don’t bring anything, I have to keep it separate because if I lost something on the road… I have two synths: the Jupiter 6 and the Moog Voyager. The Jupiter 6 is massive and the Moog Voyager is kind of like a Maserati or something and I don’t wanna risk messing with something like that on the road. Although, the Voyager I might be able to get. A lot of cities would be able to rent that out, but I’ve always had a different set up live. This is the first time I’ve bought an analogue synth on the road. It’s just small enough and light enough that I can bring it and it’s not too massive. It has enough keys so I can do my thing with it. I was bringing a Novation Ultranova because it’s really light and it has a built in audio interface. I do have a lot of elements that are in Ableton. I have sample banks and drum kits and, you know, other elements of the tracks, but it’s nice to have the warmth of an analogue synth live now. I’m still learning it though. I got it basically for this tour. I designed 30 sounds in it but I’m leaning on about 3. I haven’t fully mastered, like, “alright, I definitely know how to play all these sounds properly”. Starting in January I’m going to start touring with Marcus Gilmore who’s the drummer on the record so the show is gonna jump up another level then as well.
On Brainfeeder's label, all of their stuff is available on vinyl. Was that important to you? Did you have to ask for that?
I didn’t have to ask for it because they always do vinyl. The Broken Vibes EP came out on vinyl as well so I kind of realized how amazing it is to be able to hold vinyl. I actually went to the vinyl shop where they pressed it and saw them doing it and saw the whole mastering to vinyl process.
Did you get to walk away with your test pressing on the same day?
Yeah! It’s cool as well because the jazzier songs on the record just have that extra amount of vibe to them on the vinyl where I’m like "Oh shit! That sounds way cooler on vinyl!" I think vinyl is kind of winning the long race at this point.
Yeah it’s coming back in a big way.
I’ve been selling merch and no one really wants the CDs. Everyone wants vinyl because it comes with the digital download which makes it both a collectible item and you can still put that shit on your phone.
That’s really handy nowadays because if you want an album you can get it straight away on your phone and you’re good to go, but there is still that joy of a Sunday afternoon and flipping the record over.
Yeah, and for me the whole album experience was the number one most important thing for me when putting all of the songs together; Trying to get the flow right where you would wanna listen to it the whole way through. Vinyl actually promotes playing the whole album because you’re not skipping tracks. So yeah, it was big. ∆
First appearing on the scene in 2012, Odesza returned this summer with their sophomore LP, In Return. This album sees the duo finding and exploring new techniques and, for the first time, working alongside vocalists to bring a new direction to their sound.
After a string of sold out shows across America, ODESZA headed over to the UK and Europe to perform alongside Slow Magic on the Set It Off Tour, which comes to end later this month.
Click here for a chance to win tickets to the Electric Ballroom show in Camden on November 16th.
How did ODESZA form?
The project started our senior year in college. We were the only people that we knew making and listening to eclectic electronic music at the time. At first we just started sharing music back and forth and after some time decided to try and write some tracks together. We spent that summer working and writing tracks in my basement studio and eventually had enough material for a full length which we then released for free online.
What were your earlier connections to music?
Clayton grew up studying classical piano and played in a couple of bands in high school. Harrison was a really into hip hop at an early age and starting messing around with an MPC when he was young. We both have been into music most of lives and have always had a passion for a wide variety of different genres and styles.
Do you have a favorite record store? If so, what do you love about it?
We wouldn’t say we have a favorite record store in particular but there are some really good spots in Seattle and the Ballard area.
How did you approach the writing process for In Return?
For this album we really tried to go back and listen to the music that got us really excited about producing when we first started. We are both big fans of ambient and cinematic music as well as more organic sounding electronic music. We spent awhile just listening to the stuff we fell in love with at an early age and then when we were ready went about writing. We tried to keep the tracks we were working very simple and clean and not over produce the sound.
Did you have any thoughts or fears regarding progressing from Summer’s Gone during the making of In Return?
Every artist worries how people are going to react to new material, especially if you experimenting with a new sound. In Return was the first time we had really worked with vocalists and other artists which was a big change for us. The new album also has a more pop feel to it, which we weren’t sure how people would respond to. We tried to really experiment with different production techniques and writing styles for this album, which can be hard for fans who really enjoy your older material to understand.
Listening through In Return, there is a lot of space in between the layers of instruments in the songs. It feels like this space was left consciously so the sound surrounds the listener. Is this the case? Are there any other artistic decisions you feel are important in creating your sound?
Space was a very important part in the writing process for In Return. We really wanted to give everything a lot of room and keep things simple. Some of our favorite music is very simplistic but really good at keeping your attention and evoking emotion. Music is really all about the space in between, which we really tried to focus on for this project.
Were there any particular influences behind the album?
We really tried to go back and listen to the stuff we fell in love with at a younger age. We are big fans of Four Tet, M83, Boards of Canada, Stars of The Lid, as well as a lot of newer music coming out of Australia.
What are you hoping listeners take away from the album?
We really wanted to show people that we love and can produce a wide variety different music. We also wanted to show people that we are more than just beat makers and really enjoy writing full tracks.
Current jams?
We are really into the new Caribou album and have also been kind of on an old school hip-hop binge as well. ∆
Slow Magic released his second album, How To Run Away, this summer and last night he brought his energetic show to the Electric Ballroom in Camden. Alongside ODESZA as part of the Set It Off Tour, Slow Magic brought the summer party vibes to an otherwise cold and damp November London night.
Combining a laptop and a controller or two with live drumming, Slow Magic took the crowd with him on a journey through his two albums into the night. Without saying a word the whole set, he had the crowd jumping, cheering the intro of each song, and desperate to get near him when he came into the crowd with his drums to play a song or two.
We caught up with Slow Magic before the show to find out a little more about what makes our imaginary friend so special.
How did Slow Magic come into creation?
Slow Magic is an imaginary friend that we all share. He has been around for a very long time, but people first started hearing the music in 2012.
What were your earlier connections to music?
I started teaching myself music at a young age, I grew up surrounded by instruments in my house. I started with the drums and also some Casio keyboards. I used to record myself and make fake radio shows on an old cassette recorder.
What is the first memory that comes to mind when you think of vinyl records?
I think I first listened to the Beach Boys or Simon & Garfunkle on my parent’s old record player. When I got older, I bought old record players and vinyls from thrift stores and discovered some very weird music.
Do you have a favorite record store? If so, what do you love about it?
I love so many record stores! But recently I played at Music Millennium in Portland. It was a big, wonderful record store with so many things to get lost searching for. I also loved playing in the aisle while people were just trying to shop.
How did you approach the writing process for How to Run Away?
I wanted to make an album that embodied the emotion and feeling of running away in a positive way. Like getting away from everything just to chase a crazy dream or go somewhere new and exciting. I remembered being younger and staying out all night during summer with friends and the feeling that it would never end.
Did you have any thoughts or fears regarding progressing from Δ during the making of How to Run Away?
For the new album, I wanted to make a sound that was definitely the same but a lot different than the first record. If you think of Δ as a summer day, then How To Run Away could be a summer night.
When I listen to your music, I feel like I should be up late at night at a festival, or outside somewhere in the summer. The artwork for both albums, for me, kind of reinforces this. I was wondering if the influences behind your songs were strictly music based or if you find yourself trying to visualize an influence and channel that into the music?
You understand! I think the visual side of music can be just as important as the music itself. I always try to focus on both as one, and sometimes spend as much time on the two.
Do you have any go-to pieces of music equipment right now? Either studio or live based?
I have loved my Rhodes piano, Moog rogue, and my danelectro guitar. There are a lot of really nice Midi controllers being made very quickly. I love the QueNexus by Keith McMillen and the new Arturia Beatstep. I also have a good friend, Otem Rellik, who built me a knob controller box built into a cassette tape case.
What are you hoping listeners take away from the album?
I hope the album can inspire people to dream and to chase their dreams. I also love to hear when someone has been inspired by my music and then they go make something beautiful. For me, that is the best thing to hear from someone. ∆
Life can be funny. You can be happily getting along, moving through your career, when events outside of your control force you to take stock of the situation. You have options, a few different paths to choose from. A scientist in a documentary about dinosaurs once said “life finds a way” which, in this scenario, means stopping, wiping the slate clean, and starting again.
Portico started life back in 2007 as Portico Quartet, a jazz influenced band, releasing the Mercury Prize nominated album “Knee Deep In The North Sea”. Two more albums, “Isla” in 2009, and “Portico Quartet” in 2012, saw the band steadily progress and evolve from jazz adding elements of electronica to their sound.
After a few line up changes along the way, Portico dropped the Quartet from their name and began life again as a new band, with a new focus, and a new sound. Collaborating with Joe Newman (Alt J), Jamie Woon, and Jono McCleery on their new album, Living Fields, Portico are here and ready to start.
We caught up with Portico at Ninja Tune HQ to find out how you start again.
As Portico Quartet, your first two albums are jazz albums and the third album introduces electronic elements to your sound. Listening to this album, I don’t want to compare it too much to what you guys did before but it’s not like this is a new chapter in your discography, it’s a whole new book. I’m wondering, how did you arrive at this sound compared to what you were in the previous band?
Duncan: I think, a bit like we wrote in the press release although it probably skimmed it a bit, but I think it’s kind of fair to say we did have to go through a bit of a process of, like, ending and restarting. When we got to writing this album, we had a few personnel changes and we spent about a year just trying to start writing music again together, and by November of that year we were both unsatisfied with what we were making and not sure if we really wanted to carry on making it anymore. At which point we just needed a bit of honesty between us all and we decided that if we’re gonna go for it, let’s be brave and do something totally different and not really worry too much about the past and our previous work.
You say not to worry about the past, but how easy or difficult was it to leave the past behind?
Duncan: I think that’s one thing, but there is something that is a bit overlooked in all of this is, we had to learn a lot of technical aspects of it as well. That was quite a big thing because this is the first the three of us have fully produced and mixed and, you know, we’ve seen it through from the very beginning to the very end on our own without any help. Although we’ve all done a bit of production work, we haven’t done anything on this scale before so I think that counts for a bit of it. Also getting it to sound how we wanted it to takes a bit of time, as does just the process of learning.
So around that time then, what were your influences and what were you listening to? You said you had to learn how production works. Did you have any producer influences at all?
Jack: Yeah, at the time I was listening to, well I guess generally, I felt the jazz world that we were in was a little bit, well I was getting a bit bored of it and my interests changed. I sort of moved away from saxophone and more to electronic stuff. I actually just did a “ten most influential albums”, one of them that I put down was that album RIP by Actress in a production context, and I think that was reasonably influential. Not that our album sounds like that, but that was a producer that I really enjoyed. Also people like ONEOHTRIX Point Never, I really enjoyed all of his albums. Tim Hecker as well. Yeah, it’s funny, our music doesn’t actually sound like those people. But that was just some of the electronic music I was listening to at the time. It’s hard to pin down a particular producer.
Duncan: I stopped listening to music around that time so it is only recently that I have been listening to music and putting on again.
Jack: It’s probably quite useful actually as it means you don’t sound like…
Duncan: I mean, I was listening to music and there probably were stuff I was quite into.
Milo: There was some James Blake stuff.
Duncan: But I try not to listen to things too overtly.
I’ve heard that quite a lot from different musicians and producers. As an example, I was reading an interview with Drake’s producer the other day and he mentions that when he’s writing, he has to stop listening to records as he sometimes finds himself writing the last thing he’s heard. Do you find that, not that you’d plagiarize the last record outright, but do you try to stop outside influence?
Duncan: I think it’s useful. I think a lot of people can benefit from that. It depends what you want to make, but I think it’s kind of interesting to not have it in your life too much because I do find it seeps in a bit. That can be useful if that’s what you want, but I think it’s nice to almost cleanse yourself a bit so that when you come to do it you’re a bit less “I want it like that”, and you’re a bit more individual perhaps.
Jack: I think when you’re making music and you're spending a bit of time at the studio listening to stuff quite critically, you don’t want to come home and crack an album on, you just want a bit of peace and quiet or something quite different.
Duncan: It’s hard because if you're at a computer and you’re just caning loops all day and your ears are shot, you just want a bit of bloody peace.
Milo: I was in a Thai takeaway the other day just after we had been rehearsing on Friday and I was waiting for my takeaway food. They were playing just, like, old Motown classics, but on this Chinese Zither. “Heard It Through The Grapevine” and songs like that. I was just fucking enjoying it. I was zoning out and the food arrived and I was just having a beer. I said to the lady, “can I just stay here a little while because I’m quite enjoying the music” and these two girls who were sitting near me just sniggered at me. But for me, it was like going from a hot bath into a cold bath and I was really zoning out and just enjoying this super cheesy awful music. It was so great!
You need to be careful though going down that way because you’ll find yourself buying panpipe cover of 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' or something.
Milo: There’s something in there though that works and I can’t deny it like, you know, it just makes me wonder how much of what you like is skewed by your environment. It’s like a nature versus nurture thing. How much of the stuff you like is because of what your friends like? Or what naturally chimes with you? I’m not saying I’m really into this kind of music, it just provoked a thought and I thought, “this is working with me right now”.
Duncan: It’s probably just completely the opposite.
Milo: But this is it, it kind of pushed my mind and it pushed my sensitivity in such a place that I became quite open to it.
Duncan: I know how to woo you now. When I want to get a good answer out of you, just slip on a bit of Chinese music!
I wanted to ask about how you wrote the album. I can imagine as Portico Quartet you would have been in a rehearsal room, jamming it out, working it out and then adding the finishing touches in the studio. How did that change this time? You mentioned about being in the studio just going through loops; did you try and write the songs in a rehearsal room before? Or did you just go straight into a studio with a bunch of MPCs?
Jack: For a lot of it, someone would have an initial idea, an embryo of something, a guitar line or a synth line, and we’d bring it in and build stuff around it. Duncan would put some drums down on it and we’d do some synths. And, yeah, we’d develop a lot of little ideas like that really. That was our process: a bit of jamming just to get initial ideas.
Duncan: We had quite a bit of that left over didn’t we? That first year we didn’t do a lot we were happy with. We did a lot of recording and jamming but it was all into the computer.
Jack: Yeah, we had bits like that. That’s how we got the little things to have a nice vibe to them, sounding quite cool. Then we’d send them off to singers and they would send something back and sometimes we’d alter it a bit and send it back, get some lyrics for it, and put it together like that really. And then the final, you know, few weeks actually properly mixing it.
So how long did the whole process take?
Duncan: Probably about 2 years, but really the first year is a bit of a write off for a lot of reasons. I always think these things are kind of like the integral part of the process to get to the good place. There’s no skirting around it. So even though not much came of it, there’s not much evidence of good work. To get to the good work, we had to go through that. I think the actual writing was like 7 months or 8 months.
I was doing some very loose research on Wikipedia last night and the date range for Kier Vine says it leaves on August 1st, and September 30th you’ve announced signing to Ninja Tune and there’s an album coming. I was like, “did they really start August 2nd and hand it in September 29th?”
Duncan: Yeah, we did!
With the process of writing, did you guys do anything to remove yourself from your comfort zone to be able to write, or as a reaction to how you did things in the past? Did you find yourself having to try anything deliberately?
Jack: One thing we did do, it wasn’t deliberate but it really affected the album, we got booked to do a response to a room at the Royal Academy of Art. There were five architects and this company called Grafton Architects. It was in this room and we wrote a piece of music. It was like an hour long quiet, ambient piece of music responding to the architecture in the room. We did it quite quickly, quite improvised. The sounds we used on that were way more ambient [than on the album] but a lot of the sounds, and the tones in general, moved into the album. That was right out of our usual way of working. It was really nice to have a brief and something you work toward. You’re less trying to decide on what the album has to say. That was really useful, I think, in getting to the sound we were happy with.
Duncan: The immediacy of that was quite good because we pretty much did that in a day. We had a rehearsal and then we did it. I think sometimes that’s good because when you’ve, like, been working for a year and you’re trying to figure out how to get to the bottom of it all, sometimes you just need a brief and to not think about it and just do it.
The way you guys have used reverbs and stuff, there’s a couple of songs where the drums are dry and straight down the middle and then there’s this huge reverb sound that comes in around you. It's really clear when you’ve got your headphones on. I really love stuff like that, and listening to it I was thinking, “If I was stood in the middle by the sound desk at a festival and that is going on, that would sound really cool.”
Milo: We wanted to make this record a real sonic experience, and I know every band says that cliché, but we...
Duncan: We really meant it.
Milo: In terms of listening in the stereo field, really using the ideas of space around your head, listen to music in a 3D way, we really thought about that a lot, and thought about where things were coming from and how they move around. Like, it wasn’t just instruments down the middle, guitar on the left, keys on the right, vocals down the middle; We wanted every single track to feel like the landscape has shifted. That was always a learning curve and shifting things and moving things, experimenting. It was fun. We got to do that from the outset, rather than the other times when you get a recording engineer who records your sound, and then you get a mix engineer who mixes your sound, you get these really disparate people who aren’t really connected and don’t get to see the whole thing as one continuous artist creation. That was nice doing it from the start, getting the flavor, knowing that was pretty much how it was gonna sound at the start, and knowing what the end product was gonna be. That was a really important thing because that was what was gonna be heard and we had to make decisions from the start. You can always change them, but that was different from the other records. You said that it sounded really grand – A lot of the time we wanted the album to sound really big and spacious because we’re dealing with big concepts. It couldn’t be a guy with a banjo in a quiet, dry room. We wanted it to be otherworldly.
Duncan: I think you’re right. It’s something I’d forgotten, but it was something about doing it this way that we never really had that opportunity before. It actually was kind of novel and exciting to put something down, that could be it finished, and you could move quite quickly. We didn’t actually move that quickly, but in the beginning it started out that way.
There’s a lot of different emotions going on. The record sounds pretty dark at times, but it is cathartic and I can hear a lot of hope and melancholy. Is this record you guys fully working through what has happened over the last year or two.
Milo: I think there’s a bit of a parallel. There is how the band was going and then we wanted to work on some of the ideas of what we wanted the record to be about. They kind of came into a parallel. We made a deal out of that in the press release to tie everything together, but there was a loose parallel to it because we felt like we were starting again, something had died and something had been reborn, and things in our personal lives were also happening that way. It just so happened that some of the ideas we were thinking about of writing a piece of art about, you know, kind of just having a reaction to those kind of ideas. There were quite a few coincidental parallels that seemed to make sense that gave it a lot of strength as well. This probably has the strongest intent compared to the other records.
Barring one track, there are vocals on every song. At what point did you decide these songs needed a singer on them?
Jack: We wrote all the songs for singers. There was never like “oh this one could do with a singer”. The process between us and the vocalist was close. With Jono, who we wrote the most with, there were a few back and forths, changing of lines to get it to fit in with the music, to get it to gel.
When you say there were a few back and forths to get it to work with the music, do you mean the lyrical content or just melodies?
Jack: Well both really. There’s a film we referenced a lot called Nostalgia for the Light that we sent out to all the singers we were working with, among other things like some photos from the film, and we used that as a little package to inspire. We could base the lyrics around that so there was some conceptual thread and not just some disparate songs. That was how we developed the themes and the lyrical content. In terms of the music and the lyrics and how they came together, it wasn’t just “this needs a vocal”; we would send the music to them and they would send it back and we would get a few changes going until it sounded good. Sometimes we didn’t need to do that much.
Was there much collaboration with you and the singers? Obviously you had the package and the ideas for what you wanted, but did any of the singers turn around and say “this verse isn’t working for me”? Was there much back and forth regarding how the song should work?
Jack: Yeah, there was.
Milo: Yeah, sometimes it was just a case of “can you put more down?” That track, Atacama, we just got delivered a verse and we were like “can we have some more? Can you, like, finish?” So we recycled some of the lines and strung it out. But you can sum up that track in five or six lines. It’s beautiful in a way because it’s simple around this changing landscape of sound and it worked out alright. Other times, Jono would send us something and we would be like “nah, nah, nah, oh, this bit. That backing part, write to that melody there”. Sometimes you have to sift through and pick out what is working and get them to concentrate more on that. Other times they would deliver something complete and whole and you would be like, “yes, that’s it”.
So how did you decide on the singers you used? Did you know these guys before or did you have a wish list?
Duncan: Well, Kanye wasn’t available...
He’s in London at the moment so you should get in touch.
Duncan: We knew we wanted to do some stuff with some more singers, but this was really before we established much about the album. We did various things with singers, just little experiments really to just try things out. A lot of it worked and a lot of it didn’t, and then, I think, very naturally, we just ended up, we didn't realize this, but we just ended up with these three kinds of honing-in and it made a lot of sense when we got to that place. Especially as it’s a personal album and it made a lot of sense to look to people who we could trust and had a connection with and could share it with and would understand. So it made sense that we knew Jack had known Joe for a long time, and we all live with Jamie Woon, we’re good friends with him. Jono we knew from way back, there was a connection there. It was important we were making an album and not just a bunch of songs. There’s not much power in that. It’s about conveying this. You often end up searching far and wide thinking who’s cool, and these people are right here. There was quite a bit of fuss in the beginning feeling a bit lost, but it all kind of coalesces. It wasn’t too much of a struggle.
Between the three of Jono, Joe, and Jamie, they all have distinctive voices, but there is also an area where all three voices overlap. With the way the tracks are separated, it’s enough that each voice is slightly different to keep each track separate, but it doesn’t feel like an album with a new guest on each track bringing their own vibe.
Duncan: It’s funny because a few people have said that now. That’s something that we worried about, it being choppy and changey, but each vocalist offers something different in terms of their expression and tone. Like you said, I think there is a thread that runs through it somehow. I think it’s a nice counterpoint, you know, a lot of Joe’s stuff is wordy and rhythmic but a lot of Jono’s stuff is more soulful and spacey. Joe’s stuff is a lot more syllables.
Jack: He has quite a twang to his voice.
Duncan: Yeah, and that’s quite a nice counterpoint. They play off each other quite well. We didn’t exactly plan it that way, but sometimes these things just work out.
Yeah, well I think it’s something that has come together really well. The balance of the album is, well, balanced.
Duncan: Yeah, it’s something Jamie Woon pointed out actually after we did the vocals with him is that all the singers are male. I hadn’t really thought of that being a thing, but if there had been a female voice in there it could have disrupted the balance, which could have been a good thing. As it turned out, all of their names began with J and they all have similar voices.
Milo: We did try a female voice but it just… the timbre of it, the sound wasn’t really cutting through enough. I think maybe there were a lot of like electronic groups with female vocalists knocking around that didn’t really strike as being very original. I’m not generalizing with gender at all, but just for this particular arrangement of sounds we were sticking together, there wasn’t enough of an idiosyncratic sound coming from that part of the music. It just seemed to get lost a little bit. It was interesting because it kind of goes back to the previous band, Portico Quartet. A lot of the melody lines I used to write were for the soprano saxophone which is quite a high tonality, the range is quite high. We still naturally wrote making all the melodies being pushed quite high. Jono sings all his melodies higher than anything else he sings. Joe’s got a really big range on his voice – he’s got that kind of croaky tenor and he’s also got a higher alto thing going on. He had to use his higher register and a lot of the stuff. So it was almost like it sounded more striking pushing the male voice higher than just having a female voice sit quite comfortably. The tone of the voice just cracked out and sounded a little more interesting. There’s something in that where you say it just works or like, it’s all different but they all come together. I need to work out what it is, but it’s something along those lines. It’s a tonal thing, the male voice being higher. It just worked with what we were doing.
Final question: If Portico had a spirt animal, what would it be?
Duncan: Great white shark. That’s my spirit animal.
Milo: Isn’t that what you’re most scared of?
Duncan: Yeah, but it’s also the source of my strength. It might not be the band’s spirit animal actually.
Milo: An old great white shark. He’s not really that violent any more.
He has a couple of scars on his dorsal fin.
Milo: Yeah, he’s just kind of wise. No one is really that scared of him anymore.
Duncan: Blunted teeth.
Milo: Yeah, he’s lost all his teeth, so he’s just going through the ocean…
Duncan: A bit gummy...
Milo: And people are like “Oh my go- oh. It’s that one...”
Veteran music maker Paul White has released countless records, each with its own unique vibe. Combining sounds from world music, hip-hop, electronica and more, White taps into a style all his own. His most recent work, Shaker Notes has opened a new portal of sound for fans to explore.
Notable grooves are present on the record with tracks such as, 'Where You Gonna Go?' and 'Numbers of Change' but White also balances the record with spacious and relaxed songs like, 'Running On A Rainy Day.' After listening to White's latest work, it becomes clear as to why he has partnered with Belgium based label, R&S Records. The distinctive sound White churns out is a solid pair for a label known for its diverse history.
What were your earlier connections to music?
My dad tapping out rhythms in the house and on the car steering wheel, and him whistling and playing harmonica, and both my parents playing me a lot of jazz folk fusion blues classical and soul music as a child. Another big one was skating 'round the whole of south east London where I grew up listening to Michael Jackson on my walkman. I've always felt strong emotions through music. It's always enhanced my imagination and taken me places in my mind since being a kid, like a lot of people. I've just always loved the feeling music gives me, so when I was about seven I started music lessons and it went from there.
What is the first memory that comes to mind when you think of vinyl records?
The JJ Cale Okie album. The first image I can remember is that album cover! Then the Doctor Who soundtrack 7" and a special It's Paul's Birthday 7" record my godfather bought me when I was about six. Also around that time my dog chewed the corners of all my folks records that were next to his bed, they're all still marked, so it feels like he put his mark on them forever.
Do you have a favorite record store? If so, what do you love about it?
Not really. My favorite shops are ones around Europe that I find that I've never been to before. Those are my favorites because they're like new adventures. In London I see a lot of the same stuff too much now. There are still spots though!
How did you approach the writing process for Shaker Notes?
Very free and easy, like Crosby Stills and Nash say on 'Wooden Ships'. The way it's supposed to be! I wanted to do things I've never done before and do things that will make me learn a lot and grow, you know? It's all about continual growth and expansion, and this record reflects what I was going through in my life and musically. Sometimes a song started with drums, sometimes with voice, sometimes with bass, sometimes with keys, but always it starts with a feeling.
Were there any particular influences behind the album?
The big one was my girlfriend. Behind every track is a message to do with me and her and the journey of our relationship.
I heard you went to Africa recently. Do you think this trip helped shape the album in any way?
It helped shape me so therefore it shaped my album, too! Not just with the music I heard but with the life, souls, and spirits I saw and felt. It feels so warm there it's hard to describe – an amazing energy, a power. Plus my great-grandfather was from West Africa so it felt really special for me to be there. I plan to go back next year.
Do you have a track off the album that you would consider a personal favorite? If so, what makes it special to you?
I wanted this album to be one big journey. All of the tracks relate when played together, even if they're considered very different to each other. I wanted it to be one piece – life keeps changing so why shouldn't an album? If forced though, 'Where You Gonna Go' and 'Sitting In Circles' because of family members on there.
What are you hoping listeners take away from the album?
Feelings and inspiration!
If Paul White had a spirit animal, what would it be and why?
A dolphin, I reckon. I have always loved the ocean and felt very connected to it. I've surfed in Cornwall since I was seven every summer. Dolphins surf and play a lot and make sound, and that's what I like to do! ∆
Having fallen into beat making and digital production due to a cross country move, TAPES introduces his first full length album, Finding. Filled with lush beats and hypnotic textures, you would assume he has been creating electronic, glitch like tunes his entire life. TAPES, a Knoxville native who takes a mysterious and low-key route to sharing and promoting his music (we don't even know his actual name) talks with us about his musical background, along with the ideas that helped shape Finding.
How did TAPES come into creation?
In the summer of 2011 I moved to San Francisco for an internship and had to stop playing in a band, which was a big outlet for me at the time. I downloaded Ableton while in SF and just started playing around with it.
What were your earlier connections to producing?
That’s a funny question… In all honesty, none. Aside from writing music on guitar and playing piano as a child, I really had no production experience (aside from the occasional Garageband dabble session with the homies).
What is the first memory that comes to mind when you think of vinyl records?
Hah, my dad getting rid of all of them as a child. That was a pretty sad day.
Do you have a favorite record store?
This is embarrassing... I don’t own a record player, and the only vinyl I own is a record from the band I played in a few years back. That said I want to buy a record player and do some crate hunting/casual listening. That was always appealing to me but I haven’t had time for it lately. There’s this well known shop right up the street from me called Thunder Pussy and I look forward to checking it out ASAP. So to answer your question (laughs) I guess it’s the record store that I’ve yet to go to…Thunder Pussy.
The current singles you have available, 'Crowns', 'Waiting', and 'Caitlyn'have a very vibrant, unique feel to them. Were there any major influences behind this release?
I would say just listening to different types of music. This album took some time to write, so I had the chance to listen to a lot of different music, which definitely influenced most of the sounds that came through in the record. While writing the album I think I was listening to a lot of Soulection’s artists, some Bearcubs, MachineDrum, Starslinger, and just a wide variety of stuff.
Are you still based in SF or have you moved back to the east coast?
I worked in Mountain View for a bit at a startup that was working on technology that would optimize the speed and efficiency of network servers. Now I’m in the Midwest though, (I think that’s what they're calling it nowadays) in Columbus, OH.
How do you think each of these cities helped form your new album?
I think living in each of these cities helped a lot. Traveling in general is great for inspiration. I wrote a few of the songs from this album while visiting friends and family in different locations. That said, I’m excited to see how Columbus impacts “my sound”, if you will.
Was there a particular goal you wanted to achieve during the writing process of this album?
I think a lot of artists in general struggle with how they want to identify themselves, and this album kind of turned into being about that. I didn’t have a goal in mind at first. I just started making music that all sounded different, and that definitely made me skeptical of myself. During the writing of the album, I questioned myself and questioned whether people would like what I was doing, but I realized that I should embrace this uncertainty instead of questioning it. Once I was able to see that, the title, Finding, seemed like a proper fit. I think everyone, at some point in their lives, has searched for something, and it’s easy to get lost in that search instead of enjoying the search itself.
If TAPES had a spirit animal, what would it be and why?
A fat piece of shit cat named Dogmeh. It’s my mom’s cat. I want her to stop feeding it so much… I hope she sees this. ∆
Each Spring we descend upon Austin, Texas to stuff our faces with BBQ and free drinks. We also search for exceptionally talented, amazingly kind and creative artists. This year we had the pleasure of meeting Lexington, Kentucky based producer, Ellie Herring. Cultivating sounds from a variety of genres, Herring doesn’t pigeonhole herself to one style. As of late Herring has released several remixes including Normaling’s, ‘Low Drop’ (Feat. Rye Rye & TT The Artist) which she transformed into a trap anthem. However good her remixes are, we can’t forget her own self produced tracks such as ‘Dynasty’ from her 2014 EP, Chipped. The four track EP moved flawlessly from one song to the next and showcased the fine details Herring puts into her work. In the meantime while we anxiously wait for her next release, we spent some time discussing the possibility of working with vocalists, what it takes to get in the head space to produce and the memories associated with her inner spirit animal.
How did you originally get into producing music?
I got into it when I was about 20 years old. I’m a developer and programmer by day, so I was already getting into that side of things when a friend showed me a midi controller and I quickly discovered what that could mean for me. I could play any synth, percussion, sample anything and manipulate that sound, which I became obsessed with. Being able to tackle that in a computer medium that I was already used to and love, it really set it off.
I had no intention of putting together actual sounds; I just thought it was cool and could create different patches and synth sounds, which led me to composing and arranging those sounds.
Do you have any go to pieces of music equipment? Studio or live based?
I started with Propellerhead’s Reason, but I eventually got into Ableton as time went on. Now I’ve just been so stuck in Ableton, from writing to playing live sets. Sometimes I feel like I need to move to something more linear like Serato or Traktor for DJ sets, but it’s difficult when I’m in Ableton all the time.
As far as hardware goes, I don’t really have much analog equipment. I’m on the computer a lot, just straight up. I have a ton of midi controllers though like my APC 20, APC 40, and the Livid Ohm 64 with wood paneling, which I just bought. I’m still trying to adjust to it though cause I’m so use to my APCs. I still haven’t found the perfect controller just yet.
Occasionally I have to talk myself out of buying gear. It’s taken me years to not impulse buy music equipment. Sometimes the more choices I have, the worst off I am in regards to producing because I’ll sit and go through different synths for sounds and sit there for hours but have nothing done.
How do you approach the writing process?
Usually I’ll have some sort of percussion or beat in there and just build around it. It’s never anything I’ll keep but again it lets me build towards something, and then I can drop in samples I like and eventually remove that percussion part. Something I’ve been doing lately, especially now that I’m starting to work with vocalists, is I’ll take a vocal track and drop that in and build around it. It’s nice because it saves time and I don’t have to go through and pull certain parts out since I know where the vocals already sit.
Is it safe to assume we can expect a track or two with vocals on your next release?
I’ve personally battled that route quite a bit and I don’t see myself necessarily singing because I don’t really have any desire to do it. Sometimes I’ll sing to myself if I’m alone or in the studio, but translating it live is something I’m not comfortable with.
It's one reason why I’m working with different vocalists for the new record. It’s the first time I’ve taken this route and have been writing a track with a vocalist in mind. It’s really strange for me because I’m having to produce the tracks stripped down, and I’m discovering I’m going to have to get out of my head a little bit and produce normally, and then go back and slowly take certain things out.
Where do you see your sound going?
I hate talking about genres, but I don’t think I’m nailed down in one yet. I’m all over the place right now, I don’t know (laughs). From the Normaling remix to two more remixes I’ve just signed onto, I don’t have one sound. A lot of it is about our taste – mine and my manager Gregory – and what we want to release and where we want it to go.
It’s funny because I was telling Gregory how there’s no way to predict anything, and I could have talked to some last fall and SXSW would have been brought up, and at the time I would have had no clue that I would end up playing 6 shows here. Things change so rapidly that I feel like I cannot possibly predict what can happen. Just no way. Not possible.
What’s one important thing you have learned along the way in your music career?
If there is anything, it’s been my level of patience. I’m so impatient and now I’m at the point where I need to slow down and understand certain things take time. I get more impatient with myself and production more than anything. I had a week recently where I tried to work on a new track for six hours a day and I literally got nowhere. I didn’t even have a 16 bar loop of any sort. I wanted to shut down, I was upset, and when I showed it to some people, they thought it was great. It wasn’t impressive to me though, but they told me to stop deleting things and saving over it and to just rest and give it a break and come back.
If Ellie Herring had a spirit animal, what would it be and why?
The Honda CT70 motorbike. When I was in 7th grade, my parents gave in and bought me a motorcycle. I wrecked it several times and would try to jump it like a dirt bike, and by the time it was handed to my younger brother, it had no blinkers and the headlight was taped on.
I was always a big tomboy growing up, and one time I visited some cousins and had the motorbike with me. There was a baseball field near their house and as I was getting ready to go, the thought came into my head that I should be cool, and ride as fast as I could through the field and off the curb and onto the road. I start going and as soon as I get to the curb, I notice there’s a huge thing that’s dug out like a ditch. My tire hits the ditch, gets stuck and I flip over the bike and somehow go sliding backwards on my stomach. I was hurting so bad, inside my spirit was broken. I stood up and all the guys were in shock, and I yelled I was okay and somehow managed to ride my bike back home (laughs).
Very rarely is a band able to transform themselves from one sound to the next. Starting with roots in the post-rock community, Vessels has now evolved and can be heard floating through the electronica music scene. Dilate, the third full-length studio release from the band may capture previous listeners off guard, however the same energy is still persistent throughout their latest release. Opening the album is 'Vertical', a more down to earth and ambient tune that is quickly followed by the pulsating sounds of 'Elliptic' and 'Echo In'. Regardless of whether you’re a new or old fan, Dilate is the culmination of hypnotic guitars and crafty beats, all held together by gigantic yet clean bass lines. And finally, to add to the new sound of Vessels, Dilate features two tracks that include vocals from Snow Fox and Isolade.
How did the five of you originally meet and what led to the creation of Vessels?
Tom: Vessels is ten years old in 2015, but we were playing music together for a few years before that as well. I guess it just came out of the usual things – friendship, shared musical tastes, the aim of creating something worthwhile that we and hopefully other people might dig.
Lee: We also needed something to divert our attention away from our collective love of home made explosives testing in the park. The people in the allotments were starting to complain to the council.
Do you have a favorite record store?
Lee: Jumbo Records in Leeds. Great selection. Friendly staff. Independent store. Been running for years.
Martin: I've had various ones over the years. What usually makes them special is the people who run them. So it was Concepts in Durham when I was growing up, and then Crash and Jumbo in Leeds.
The best thing about them – especially when the Internet did not dominate our lives so much – is always that time when you get a tip about something new and exciting. I really like Monorail Music in Glasgow. Great vibe, great peeps. Would love to go to Amoeba music one day in the US. That looks pretty fantastic.
What is the first memory that comes to mind when you think of vinyl?
Tom: Probably the musty smell of my parent’s vinyl cabinet, and playing Paul Simon’s Graceland and The Beatles’ Rubber Sole on repeat.
Lee: Pink Floyd - Dark side of the Moon… standard.
How does it feel to have this release issued on vinyl?
Martin: Vinyl always has a nice feel and sound to it. It's substantial in a way that no other format is. I tend to buy the stuff that I know I will really treasure on vinyl, so I'm hoping other people will take this approach and buy our record.
Were there any particular influences behind the new album?
Lee: The biggest influence was freedom from guitars. They can be like a meal with a big piece of meat. The meat becomes the central point in which all other food stuff hang off. Removing the meat meant that new combinations could be explored without being tied to meat. Imagine being tied to meat…
Martin: So many actually. Our albums usually have quite a gestation period so while the music is being developed, life continues to happen around us and plenty of stuff has definitely happened to various different people in the band. Some things affect the music more than others but I do believe that the important things always have an impact.
What was the writing process like for Dilate?
Tom: It was different to the other records. The first was written almost entirely through jamming, and the second was a combination of that and demoing tunes as we were writing them. This record was written over three years, partly in studios, though mostly in Lee’s house as we were without a rehearsal space of our own for much of the process.
The first year’s worth of work didn’t make the album; ’Myopic Biopic' and 'Come Out Of The Sky And Fight This’ from Elliptic EP are examples of tunes from this time. It was only once we ditched the guitars and worked out how the new live set-up would work that we really freed ourselves to make the music we wanted to.
When it was nearly ready we got the vocal collaborators (Snow Fox and Isolde) involved and then took the stems to Richard Formby’s studio where we finished the arrangements and mixing.
Do you have a track off the album that you would consider a personal favorite? If so, what makes it special to you?
Pete: There’s a track at the end of the record called ‘Glass Lake’, and it has a fully lilting swing feel to it that really tickles my biscuits. Lee and Tom were ‘round at my house when Lee came up with the groove. I remember the moment he did it and this feeling I had that everything was changing.
Your sound has evolved over the years and in a very natural progression. Could you give us some insight into how you went from a post-rock vibe to a heavily electronic, atmospheric influenced sound? Was this intentional in any way?
Pete: I’d say it was fairly intentional, and also very incremental. Lee has always produced electronic music alongside his work with Vessels, and there has just been a very steady and organic coalescing of mindsets. I can’t remember a specific moment where we said ‘lets sound like this’, but I do have various fuzzy 3AM memories of being together with the band and other friends, in various glades or clubs, nebbing off to some rinsing techno, and incubating the collective, unspoken idea that we should probably head this way live – not so much that we should try and sound like this or that, but we felt that we should try and push our music in a direction that people would want to neb off to in a forest at 3AM…
Do you have any go to pieces of music equipment right now? Either studio or live based?
Pete: Honorable mention must go here to the Vessels hub, which is a bespoke rack cabinet on wheels that we had put together to allow us to play the new material live. It’s not much to look at, just a large box on wheels with various buttons and connectors on its faces, but our sound engineer Jon – who before he dies I’m sure will be a household name although I’m not sure for what – spent a lonesome week hunched over in a workshop soldering all the hundreds of connections together from scratch. It’s a work of art.
If Vessels had a spirit animal, what would it be and why?
Lee: A Dolphin. Playful yet swimmy.
Martin: Perhaps we are like the cat with her nine lives, with the ability and tenacity to bounce back from most challenges.
An album that explores the space and connection between people, music and energy is an album worthy of your listen. When Trinidad born physicist and saxophonist Dr. Stephon Alexander met the New York City based electronic producer, Erin Rioux, something special was created from the moment they met. Here Comes Now is a combination of cosmic grooves and spoken word, with moments of free form jazz and uplifting beats that carry the listener to another state of mind. Alexander and Rioux have combined elements of their respective worlds that hold an unexpected yet obvious bond.
How did you two meet and what were your initial thoughts of one another?
R: I met Stephon at a coffee shop in Brooklyn. He was sitting next to me and struck up a conversation when he noticed I was working on music on my laptop. While he was listening to it on my headphones, I noticed he was preparing a presentation on dark matter on his computer, so we had lots of questions to ask each other. That's what really drew us together; our mutual curiosity for other fields of thought and the desire to think across boundaries.
What were your earlier connections to music?
S: I studied classical piano at age 8 for five years. During my teen years, growing up in the Bronx in the 80's I caught the early hip-hop bug after listening to Doug E Fresh and Slick Rick in middle school. I moved over to the sax since then, discovered Coltrane and Ornette, and never looked back.
What is the first memory that comes to mind when you think of vinyl records?
R: Scratching a record for the first time when I was a kid.
Do you have a favorite record store?
S: It used to be Tower Records.
What was the process like behind the creation of the album?
R: The album was creating itself before we realized it. Stephon and I started playing music together the first day we met because we had such a positive encounter. I had a drum pad, bass guitar, and mic running into Ableton Live for Stephon and I to record off-the-cuff live improvisations. When I listened back to these stream of consciousness recordings after playing together a handful of times, I knew what I was hearing was worthy of being developed much further with the conceptual angle of exploring the cosmos through sonic analogies and spoken word.
What do you hope listeners can take away from this release?
R: I hope Here Comes Now is a mind-expanding listen for everyone ranging from babies to the elderly.
One of my favorite lyrics from the album is the line, 'I just want to be the person that I am in mind, but I can never be the person that I am in my mind.' Could you elaborate a bit more behind this idea and what it means to you?
R: Our egos are responsible for producing illusory ways of thinking, such as wanting to fit some kind of self-manufactured identity. This is of course not possible, and being able to identify what is real is a vital part of our time on this planet.
What are your thoughts on the connection between music, mathematics and physics?
S: Amazingly from 580 BC, music (Greek word: mousike) was part of philosophy and astronomy. Music was more of a vehicle for understanding the cosmic order. Thousands of years later, music bifurcated from astronomy. So I'm simply going back to the roots of music-a part of astronomy. Of course, music is a form of vibrational energy and is a physical phenomenon. But my upcoming book will go a lot deeper about the secret link between modern physics and music.
The album artwork is stunning. Who designed this lovely piece and how did you two decide this would be the artwork to represent the album?
S: A close friend, Art Curator and Critic, Diego Cortez curated the work of the great Phillip Taaffe's painting for the album cover. We are so darn lucky.
If Stephon Alexander and Rioux had a spirit animal, what would it be?
The fourth studio release from St. Petersburg based producer Nuage, presents a variety of sounds and vibes that are easy to become engulfed in. Ranging from minimal house to R&B inspired vocal melodies, Prints Of You showcases the new and stunning music being released out of Russia.
Each track offers a different soundscape for the listener to escape to, but the overall record maintains a cohesive and complete sound. From the opening track 'Colors', which features a low key guitar hook and pitched vocals, to the more upbeat and relaxed sound of 'Slow Moves', Prints Of You is a welcomed release into the minimal house scene.
What were your earlier connections to music?
Well, for the longest time, I was mainly listening to and writing drum & bass which is what got me into production in the first place. I continued doing so until 2013, when I released my first solo LP Music of Branches on Absys. For that, I started to write more 'in the moment’ than in a particular tempo or style – Nuage music.
What is the first memory that comes to mind when you think of vinyl?
A release on DSCI4 comes to mind, as drum & bass had a techno-influenced sound at the time. And the turntable I used to have at home was the same one my parents used in the 80's. When I listened to drum & bass on it for the first time, it sounded massive compared to the Soviet ‘Melodiya’ plates they used to play when I was a kid. Those records lacked bass, as it was really low-quality vinyl, and the whole time I thought it was my stereo system.
Do you have a favorite record store? If so, what do you like about it?
We had a really cool record store here in Saint Petersburg called Gramophone where you could buy rare records — the kind you would only see at Discogs. Unfortunately, it closed a long time ago. Right now, Baza is among the largest and oldest stores in the city. There are also a few spots like Play that have a special atmosphere where you can always find represses of familiar classics and new music like my new album Prints of You.
Were there any particular influences behind the album?
It was a difficult time for me, as I quit my day job to focus on writing music and I was going through a bad relationship. When it rains it pours *laughs*. But these things gave me a lot of emotions to work with now that I’m thinking back on it.
Working on music with Gerwin was also a lot of fun. We would sit for hours on AIM, sharing ideas, drinking, talking about music, society, going back and forth on Russian and French hip hop. It’s a new creature – the notion that you can connect with someone through music, write a track, but never really meet in person and yet still have plenty to talk about.
What was the writing process like for this LP?
The album wasn’t written as a single set of tracks. Instead, it covers around two years of work, exploring different moods and tempos, and I’m extremely pleased that everything turned out as it did. I worked closely with Translation in the process of writing it, creating the playlist, and designing the vinyl and CD. The relationship with the label is an important part of the album!
Do you have a track off the album that you would consider a personal favorite? If so, what makes it special to you?
‘Turn East.’ It reminds me of the wind. The feeling when you walk on a new and unknown road. It’s one of the most emotional tracks on the album and featured live cello by Veronique J from Montreal.
How does it feel to have this release issued on vinyl?
It’s a great feeling to be able to hold a physical product in your hands and I love how the artwork on the project came out in the end. It has held up to our expectations and turned out to be something of an art project, similar to a book or painting.
What are your thoughts on the St. Petersburg music scene? Is it a thriving scene for musicians?
Everyone around says that the listeners are lazy here and don’t want to go listen to residents, but it's like everywhere else. St. Petersburg has its own atmosphere and I think that writing music here is comfortable. We have a lot of musicians here. The promoters and organizers periodically do large events with locals. For example, we’ve got an atmospheric festival here called Abstrasension that is bringing together 20 musicians from different cities.
Do you have any go-to pieces of music equipment right now? Either studio or live based?
I do sketches at home or on the road, modify them, and then finish them off at the studio. I also recently got a microKORG that I use for synths and bass. Otherwise, I’m working with a lot of VSTs and samples cut up in Recycle.
If Nuage had a spirit animal, what would it be and why?
I couldn’t say an animal, but I associate a lot of the music with the sea or waves or water. The sea may be calm and kind at first sight, but in this quiet may be hiding something mysterious, dangerous, alluring in depth, so it fascinates. ∆
Between Waves is the debut LP from producer and musician Shortcircles. Released just last year, you can feel the influences of jazz and bits of R&B throughout the entirety of the album. Singles such as ‘No 1 but U’ easily flows from airy sounds into dense beat structures while the track ‘You Will Carry This With You Forever’ creates a light, ambient environment. On rare but welcomed occasions, vocals are introduced on tracks such as ‘Patience’ (feat. Lizzy Ellison) and ‘On My Mind’ (feat. Sarah K. Melfy); the latter having beenremixed by Los Angeles based producer Anenon.
Matt graciously took time out of a lovely Sunday afternoon to explore stacks of jazz and soul records at Groove Yard in Oakland, of which the owner knows him by name. We discussed his enviable 2,000+ vinyl collection as he described his vinyl selection process.
What were your earlier connections to music?
I was always fascinated with the process of capturing and playing back sound. As a kid I had one of the 'Talk Boys' as seen in the movie Home Alone 2 and I was obsessed with recording everything I could throughout the day and listening back to it when I was falling asleep that night. As I grew older, the interest of capturing sound was directed towards music. I started recording my middle-school raps through a computer mic into a video editing software – one track for the instrumental and one track for the vocals. As I got older, the gear, approach, and general taste in music became a little more sophisticated. I met musicians, formed bands, and spent a lot of time alone tinkering with gear (mpc, sp303) and listening to music. I started collecting records at 14 and haven't stopped since. What originally began as me just trying to be a DJ developed into me digging for samples and ultimately just expanding my intake of music to a lot of jazz, classical, psychedelic, and some pretty out-there stuff.
How did Shortcircles come to be?
Since high school I had been making music in my bedroom or garage. By 'making music' I mean really just making sketches or beats and experimenting with different genres of music with friends and whatnot. All of my tracks would end up attached to emails I would send to a few of my close music friends and that's about it. Glenn Jackson, a fellow high school music nerd, started a blog called Mapzzz and asked me to contribute an EP. I had 3 songs completed and no name. For whatever reason my 21 year old mind thought Shortcircles would be a dope name. The collection of songs had a dreamy and blissed-out continuity and that sorta became the sound I chased for the next few years. I was lucky enough to be picked up by Allen and Dru at Plug Research and they pretty much let me just take off creatively in any direction I wanted.
What is the first memory that comes to mind when you think of vinyl records?
Gary's Record Paradise in Escondido, CA. The first place I went to buy a record. I bought Frank Zappa Apostrophe as my dad suggested. That place was my first introduction to that dusty, stale cardboard smell accompanied by incense and some of the weirdest conversation I have ever had. I'd head to the record store after school and just hang out for a few hours.
Do you have a favorite record store and if so, why?
This always changes for me. Groove Yard in Oakland is incredible for Jazz and Soul. I find myself digging there about once every few weeks. Every now and then I come across my new record store mecca. There's a thrift store in San Diego that I found when visiting my family for a weekend. They had about 10,000 records on the sales floor and after enough appearances there one of the managers asked if I wanted to see the back room. It was like a smaller version of the record basement DJ Shadow is sitting in during his interview in the documentary Scratch. I was the only one back there and there were no prices on anything. He told me everything was 2 dollars. Last time I went it seemed like a lot of people had caught on and all of the good records were cleaned out. I'm still waiting to find my next record gold mind.
How did you approach the writing process for Between Waves?
I spent time collecting material from old recordings I had done as well recording new material. I found some old sessions of my friends and I jamming on marimba, piano, bells, and used that as a starting point for a few of the songs. I was lucky enough to have access to different spaces to experiment with different sounds and such. Some of the drums and saxophone are performed by musicians from around Oakland. I would just have jam on the tracks. I like keeping things a little improvised so I can treat their performance like a sample and rearrange it later. It also gets their own personal vibe in the song rather than me telling them to play it a certain way. I was lucky enough to be on a label like Plug where they let me put a 4 1/2 minute ambient jam to begin and end the album. They were super supportive throughout the entire process and helped me get what I need to complete the album.
Were there any particular influences behind the album?
When I made the album, I was living in West Oakland with two music buddies. When I listen back to the album now, I can definitely hear the West Oakland influence. I had been mugged 6 blocks away from where I lived and had a little bit of a helpless feeling in the day to day. The album was definitely my outlet for any kind of stress I was going through. I think it was my attempt to create the calmness I was looking for.
Do you have a particular track off the album that you would consider to be a personal favorite or you connect with very deeply?
'You Will Carry This With You Forever'. To me this song comes off as very blissful and beautiful, but I've heard from other people it is a bit haunting. The title came from a conversation I had with a friend who told me my tendency to prioritize music before everything including relationships and such was something I would carry with me forever. That sentence had a lot of weight and was initially kind of scary, but eventually turned into a beautiful concept so the differences of how people perceive this song makes total sense to me.
What do you hope listeners take away from your album?
I hope people who listen to the album just chill the fuck out. Even if my music is just background noise for someone, I hope it allows them to sit and contemplate. I think everyone could benefit from just sitting and thinking for 52 minutes.
If Shortcircles had a spirit animal, what would it be and why?
I honestly have no idea how to answer this *laughs*. A bear I guess? I'm down with the whole hibernation thing. ∆
Anna Müller and Paul Wallner took the title for ‘Best Performance’ at SXSW 2014. Or at least to us they did.
Hidden away off Rainey Street, the Austrian duo played an hour-long set that quickly hypnotized listeners and turned the surrounding area into a make shift dance floor. At first it was only Paul and their live drummer churning out beats, but moments later Anna came out and began to add delicate layers of sound all the meanwhile singing soft lines here and there.
How did you two meet?
A: We have been friends for several years and knew each other through the local music scene in Vienna.
P: It was thanks to some mutual friends that we decided we should begin writing music together, and that was two years ago. Previously, we wrote music on our own as independent composers/producers.
What is the first thought or memory that comes to mind when you think of vinyl records?
P: My first memory of vinyl is Michael Jackson’s, ‘Bad.’
How does it feel to release your music on vinyl?
A: It’s quite an amazing feeling; we were very excited to have had the opportunity to do so. I remember our label (Stil Vor Talent) were really happy with us because we had sold out of all the copies pretty quickly. We don’t know the final number sold, and we would prefer not to know because we were just happy with the overall experience.
P: Releasing our music on vinyl has been a great experience. It was really important for us to produce vinyl, because it is something you can touch, something tangible and more than just a digital file.
We loved your performance at SXSW, how do you think it went?
P: We weren’t too sure what to expect from the crowd but they seemed to enjoy themselves. It was great to see everyone dancing and taking in the show. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that there aren’t nearly as many electronic acts/djs in the states as there are elsewhere, so when people do have the chance to see live electronic music, they really embrace it.
A: (Laughs) That’s very sweet of you to say, we have had a great time in Austin and have enjoyed every minute of it, despite how short of a trip it is. It’s unfortunate that we cannot stay longer and catch other artists but this is a great festival and everyone here has been so friendly and outgoing.
There is a very cohesive element to your music and artwork, could you tell us more about this decision?
P: We only work with one agency, which is lichterloh.tv. They have designed everything for us from our album artwork to our music videos.
A: It’s important to us that our music and artwork reflect a similar aesthetic and share the same message. We want it to all fit together in a cohesive and seamless manner.
If HVOB had a spirit animal, what would it be?
A: It would be a dog. We have a connection with them. ∆
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