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Interview
in the ‘Bahir Haifa’. [weekend suppliment of Israel’s
main news paper]
1.
Since you've had the chance of being in so many musical situations,
and unlike most of the younger generation – you had the ability
of being a part of the music movement in the 80’ – how do
you squeeze the history of modern electronica {if you can} thru the
development of the past 20’ years?
My own perspective of things is with the more
‘left field’ and experimental fringes of music and culture.
In that respect, the last 10 years in this industry for me has been
characterized by periods of incredible optimism with exciting and groundbreaking
developments and equally frustrating episodes of total mediocrity and
directionless music. Just when it seems that a new and radical form
of music is entering the consciousness of our time, it’s quickly
hijacked and watered down for popular consumption. I don’t have
the slightest problem with music being accessible and popular but I
don’t think the intent behind it should be compromised in the process.
2. What in your opinion was the major contribution of “rising high
records” to the development of electronic music?
I became involved with Rising High quite early
on when it was a small operation; just at the point it was going into
deeper, more experimental post-club music. I was talking to a number
of labels at the time but what interested me about Rising High was that
it had a much broader outlook on the techno scene. They were able to
put out trance records followed by jungle and hardcore and then minimalist
soundscape stuff without having to constantly justify themselves. They
embraced a wide range of styles and attitudes, and while it wasn’t
all a success, it at least nurtured an atmosphere were artists like
me felt we weren’t limited in any way. We were one of the first
labels to introduce ambient and experimental sounds to clubbers and
DJs and this was breaking new ground at that time with me, [mixmaster]
morris and then luke [vibert]. It’s commonplace to find these elements
creeping into all kinds of music now by default, from breakbeat and
commercial trance to chart music, and it just goes to show how much
has changed since those early days.
3. During your career you have recorded tons of stuff and it seems
that in general most of the electronic artists are more productive than
the – let’s say, rock’n’roll artists – do you
think it has more to do than with just technical reasons, like the fact
that you can produce music in your bedroom, or do you see other more
“hidden” reasons why electronic artists tend to produce more
material??
I wouldn’t say this music is particularly
easy to produce. I know for a fact that some artists spend one or two
months programming just a drum breakdown for example. For me I’d
say there is a sense of being involved in a process that is never ending
with electronic music. Often as I produce a track, it doesn’t necessarily
go in the direction I intended, but does something different or more
interesting instead – afterwards I’ll probably move right
on to the next thing, without pausing, in an attempt to clarify something
I was only able to just touch upon. Because of the increasing complexity
and sophistication of music technology the only way we can really approach
it is by this kind of non-deterministic trial and error. With this ‘experimental’
process lots of new ideas are being thrown up spontaneously in the normal
course of working (or more accurately, playing) and these contribute
to a pool of ideas you’d probably want to explore further as soon
as you finish the current project. It’s a relentless stream of
activity and it’s an impressive feat if even a fraction of it can
be successfully bought to fruition. Personally I don’t limit myself
to music but find that the same software skills and compositional approach
can be explored through design, film, programming and writing as well.
So I guess the discipline is in knowing where to draw the lines and
distinguish between the good and the bad.
4. You write soundtracks to movies like “Tatawo” and Wayne
Wong film – I wanna know how do you approach this musical situation-
it seems like it’s the total opposite of what you approach “DysFunkt!onal_Beats”
, anyway… how do you do it ?
In the case of both these films they chose music
of mine that they’d already heard so I wasn’t being asked
to write anything new specifically for the picture. Nevertheless I wouldn’t
see soundtracks as being any different from any of the other stuff I
do. Film is a great medium for music because, in this context, the music
doesn’t have to carry the full weight of the narrative on it’s
own. There’s more space to be able suggest the peripheral thoughts
and feelings that may not be so explanatory alone. I tend to work this
way anyway in the studio. I like themes that are presented in a more
lateral or elusive way than stated head on. It gives more scope to the
imagination and that is always more powerful than some emphatic statement
of mood or atmosphere. My project “DysFunkt!onal_Beats” is
really exploring similar territory but this time it’s primarily
concerned with the non-linear aspects of rhythm and how they can be
made to carry more abstract forms and narrative.
5. I am wondering how you approach remixes – it seems like most
of the experimental artists I have talked to wanted to get away from
the original version and make their total new interpretation of it-
some of them even make it their own new track- what is your opinion
and “system of working” in remix situations?
This kind of approach to remixes is pretty pointless
as far as I’m concerned because it doesn’t prove anything
musically – it’s just a marketing ploy to have a remixer’s
name associated with a new track. It takes no effort on the part of
the remixer to just hack in to the source elements and write a new track
of their own – they would be doing that anyway and the source material
doesn’t contribute anything meaningful to the process or inspire
a new approach. I think it’s just lazy and demonstrates that a
remixer hasn’t given any thought to what the original composer
was trying to achieve. For me, I try to use the remix as a point of
departure from my usual methodology. There’s no point in me doing
it if it doesn’t present me with a whole new set of challenges
and possibilities than those I’d ordinarily encounter. I see it
more as a collaborative opportunity then a chance for me to just deliver
one of my own tracks for the sake of it. The tracks I remix tend to
be very different to my usual tracks and so I get to assimilate other
styles and learn a lot about how someone else worked with their palette
of sounds – then I get to totally deconstruct it all and build
it back up in the way that works for me. I’m conscious about leaving
in as much as possible of the original idea so that it’s still
a development of it – but this time hopefully with a much more
radical and experimental slant.
6. you helped set up law & auder and now
you have your new label “no immortal records” which is gonna
be the place for “forward thinking and radical artists….”-
please tell some more about what would be the “new thing”
or “the new approach”this label would bring ?
I've always been very active about networking with other artists and
I’ve always had my eyes and ears wide open when it came to unique
and creative individuals. Even from way back in the eighties it struck
me that the most exciting phenomena were being passed by and the most
mediocre and nauseating were being celebrated! So, for a long time I’ve
had a vague agenda to reverse that situation if possible. Whatever scene
I’ve found myself in, I’ve built up a great circle of activity
with others and it was obvious that at some point I would have to put
my money where my heart was and open things up to a larger audience.
DysFunkt!onal.Live.arts is just such a collaborative platform and it
also serves to devalue our fixation with existing recorded and archived
music. It’s live music and if you’re not physically there
you’re not part of it and you’re literally missing out. The
label will just elaborate on this and build a catalogue for people to
refer to.
7. I wanna know some more about “DysFunkt!onal_Beats” –
do you record the stuff in this live situation ?
At it simplest level DysFunkt!onal_Beats is about bringing
some of the experimental approaches of music like jazz and Indian classical
music and funk, etc, into the computer music and breakbeat realm. It
seems that, with the popularity of commercial dance and house music,
all those sensibilities, and that ‘rush’ of streaming, fluid
rhythm, died out. I’m very much into ‘groove’ music but
I think that grooves can sound, and feel, more exciting when they are
stretched and broken up and you can explore the gaps and spaces between
beats. Regular patterns of grids and symmetrical lines don’t say
enough.
8. It’s a real brilliant idea to treat electronic music like
total improvised “jazz” music and with the “robotic”
and non organic nature of machines – how much of the music that
you create on live “DysFunkt!onal” events do you ‘like’,
or should I say – you see as a ground breaking results ?
I never really know what the result of
a live ‘jam’ will be, but at the same time I’m not improvising
from scratch in the same way that a jazz instrumentalist would be. The
way I work is that I have my Powerbook and drum machines and stuff on
stage and I have lot of options, sounds and grooves which I prepare
in advance which can interact together and be brought into the mix.
Not all the elements work together just as they are. I’m faced
with prospect of making choices and setting certain things off each
other to see what develops. Sometimes things really surprise me and
I let them run and then build things up in a way I never anticipated.
Sometimes things don’t work and I have to change direction and
try something I wouldn’t ordinarily do. It’s the mistakes
that I like because they can send you down the most rewarding paths.
After all, it was all the mistakes in our genetics that drove human
evolution to where it is now.
9. as the internet become more and more important in our life and the
fact that it became the big pipe of information – from your left-field
perspective, how do you see the music industry and your music in the
net space?
The Internet will definitely be a significant medium for independent
musicians and labels. Not so much for sales or distribution yet but
just as vehicle for collaboration, networking and information. The sales
thing has developed much more slowly but that will change soon. Certainly
for me I’ve been able to make connections with people, plug into
a community of artists and achieve things that wouldn’t have been
possible ten years ago.
10.
what contemporary electronic artists do you like?
I don’t really follow things closely. I don’t
have the chance to buy new records because I’m in the studio so
much making my own tunes. DJ and musician friends often play me their
new stuff and other things they like so I get to hear other music regularly.
I like different elements of lots of tracks but rarely like all of it.
I like the direction certain things are going, like the Detroit/London
broken beat stuff and hip-hop ideas, etc. I like the ideas but the productions
sometimes annoy me or bore with their over-proficient and smooth sounds.
I like the new Icarus stuff at the moment and that new Timbaland/Missy
Elliot track is pretty wild for a chart track.
11. you are broadcasting on a “pirate radio on the net”
what music do you play there ?
They can be good fun sometimes. I’ll often go down
with a mix of minidisks, CDRs, Vinyl, cassettes and my powerbook. I
do mad mixes using all these sources running together with new unfinished
tracks I’ve been working on. This is the only way I can DJ because
I’m not a traditional DJ playing beat-matched techno. Some of these
sessions have been really wild and they give me loads of ideas to try
when I get back in the studio.
12. you always look for new ways of creating music and sounds; 'DysFunkt!onal'
seems like the “’hot new thing”. Do you have plans for
the next wave?
DysFunktional_beats is just a name for
something I’ve been doing for almost 15 years now. I don’t
really concern myself with the future or being the first with a new
style. I don’t want to enter into what is a pretty unforgiving
and futile race! The point is to be immersed in the present as much
as possible. If we could deal with what we’ve got now we wouldn’t
be so preoccupied with the past or future in the first place. My approach
is to try and see through to the structures behind things and then separate
the things that work from those that don’t. All you really need
is an open mind. At the moment all the styles are being mixed up in
ways that were not done before. I think people are beginning to see
that the divisions between different eras, styles, forms, etc are pretty
irrelevant. I like it when this happens in a really un-self conscious
way. These structural collisions between east and west and north and
south are almost like geological plates colliding and throwing up mountain
ranges. They in turn get weathered down and re-worked back into the
mix.
13.
it seems like it’s a great time for experimental electronic music
with many new artist’s that try to discover new grounds - like
this is the right time for this music- like what it was for jazz in
the 60’ – what do you think about it?
Yeah, every now and then everyone seems to tap into a
collective will to break the boundaries of their respective fields.
I really think there is scope for incredible change and progress when
people of different backgrounds come together and start seeing similarities
in each other’s work. The 1920s and 30s were like that with a lot
of modernist ideas spreading through the fringes of science, art, music,
architecture and philosophy, etc. Writers, musicians, artists, scientists
would hang out together and they were all plugged into the same set
of ideas and finding a lot of lateral associations and solutions to
common problems. I’d like to nurture a similar scene now and I’d
really hoped that the early 90’s were going to go that way. There
was certainly a lot of incredible music that suddenly appeared and seemed
to have arrived from nowhere; Post-Detroit techno and funk that was
progressive and minimal but unlike anything before it. The scene has
now matured for 10 years and exploded into a new phenomenon fueled by
the Internet and other technology. The other artforms have developed
too and there will be a lot more crossovers between computer arts, music,
film, web art, etc. It’s still early days but I’d like to
stay at the front pushing things further and drawing them together.
14. the show you gonna present here is gonna be totally improvised
of course and I guess you yerself don’t really know what is gonna
happen- but can you give us some taste of the things to come?
Noize, bass, breakbeats and….maybe
some malfunction.
o.k.- that’s it – thanx for your time and we are all waiting
to see you here!
cheers!
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