.
.
NEOTROPIC
As a child I was always walking around daydreaming, devising scenes in my head and playing them out. This is how I work as an artist; almost all of it has some filmic reference, even if they have never been viewed by anyone other than me. Music has and always will evoke a moment, a word, a place, a face, a friend, sadness, happiness, being in a moment. I tend to listen to most of my tracks in as many different environments as possible; they become the soundtracks to my daily life. Every day is a new scene in this film and I can create it’s soundtrack, one that reflects my journey, tracks just take on a new life depending on where you are at the given moment or simply just down to how you feel.
My process is and always has been a very natural evolution. It can come from anything. A conversation, some thing I have observed, an experience, a piece a paper found on the floor with a scribbled note. This can fuel all or at least part of my process. But more often than not it is just an extension of myself, channeling my thoughts and feelings.
Creating starts with sketches maybe just the music, a smattering of words jotted down in a notebook. I have never considered myself a literary person and writing words is not something that comes naturally to me. But I am always scribbling random words or sentences down and return to them at a later date to feed the creativity.
I do this also with photographs. I am constantly taking them and one track which was born out of a photograph is The Horse Trainer. I had taken a picture of a caravan park while re-visiting one my childhood haunts and was inspired by my holidays to North Wales as a child. It wasn’t exactly the kind of place you would normally go on holiday, industrial pebble beaches looking out onto the grey Irish Sea. Re-visiting my childhood holiday resort with its bleak landscape just remained with me and each time I got the photograph out I wanted to create something to represent what that felt like for me.
The Horse Trainer became my soundtrack to that time. It evokes all those emotions once again. It’s slow build up ebbing closer to crescendo, like the waves lapping at my feet as I looked out on that always dark grey horizon staring at those eerie motionless wind turbines, like great white robots waiting for their mother ship to reclaim them.
.
.
TILL VON SEIN
Lied 9 refers to D'Angelo 's first album - Brown Sugar - it was the dopest track for me on that LP and it was called Lady, listed as song 9. When I met my first girlfriend it was around that time...She told me that she also loved the album and I told her: Ok, check out song 9 (Lied 9 means song 9) and you know what you are to me. The next day she called me and said she loved me too...:)
10 yrs later I was flying to a holiday combined with a gig in Beirut, a place I totally fell in love with over the last 3 years since I first went there in 2006. On the plane I got pretty sentimental and thought of the old days and especially of her...
So I started the song Lied 9. I always make music while traveling. It's the best time for me...I plug in my headphones and begin. I don't have a studio and to be honest, besides my MacBook Pro, I don't have anything...not even a keyboard or a mouse at home so I'm used to doing it all in the box, just with headphones.
Tigerskin showed me an old synth called JP4 by Roland when I went by his studio the other day (he always does the mixdowns for my trax)...I totally fell in love with the sounds from this synth. I wanted to do something with these sounds so I found some in my library and started to use them...The harmony I played is just 3 notes but I could listen to them for hours and hours.
I sat on the plane and this was the start: just a simple kick and these chords. All the other pads and synths just came directly in to my mind while listening to the chords and dreaming of my past during my stay in Beirut: the sun, the sea, good food and a perfect atmosphere in the city. When I landed, the track was already finished. Normally when I work on things, I listen to it on my iPod over and over again to search for stuff i should change, etc. This time I rather enjoyed the stay in Beirut and listened to D'Angelo...:)
.
.
ED DAVENPORT
In the beginning of October 2009 I began working on a remix of Koljah & Oliver Deutschmann's track 'Eaten Back To Life', for their recently released 'Slowly We Rot EP' on the Konsequenz label, from Berlin. Fitting it in around Dj work and other production sessions, a month or two of experimentation with basic loops and test sequences followed. Im typically a slow worker, but eventually two final versions were handed in; my main 'Shutterdrop Remix', which in my eyes was bigger, more dramatic and more 'club friendly', and then the dubbier, darker 'Stripped Remix'.
The stripped version wasn't intended to be the main mix, rather a simple mixing tool that focused on some of the hooks, bass and percussive elements from the full remix - to be released as a digital bonus. Yet after completing this tool version in a single one day session, it was chosen for the vinyl release in favour of the fuller remix I'd done, and represented my most restrained dancefloor-orientated remix to date.
It seems that this mix was ultimately much better received than the other mix I did that came first. Perhaps that's because I simply had the time and patience to keep pressing an idea - indeed; a sound idea - until I felt happy with the results, but perhaps its also because the first version I had turned in was still unresolved in some ways, and needed a bit of reduction and refinement before it could really groove. Space is always something I admire in a lot of our contemporaries' productions, but often struggle to achieve in my own work.
The dark, paranoid and strongly Techno vibe of the 'Stripped Mix' is something that I've often been excited by in other tracks, perhaps during their beginning or ending sequences, but found they still rely on building up heavier layers during the main body of the track. The idea was therefore to try and keep my remix as dubbed or 'slow-grooving' as possible, yet still making it appealing for Djs as a exciting tool by the inclusion of some big dramatic moments.
Saved on my hard drive now are 6 alternate versions of this remix project, and they all served a purpose in its eventual completion. I really believe that this is the only way for me to work at the moment in order to get the best results. I remember being the same back in my college art days, with one of my most inspiring tutors once commenting that I'd always get something right on the second attempt. That really stuck with me, and throughout my time spent studying art and design, I was never disheartened by something not quite coming off on the first try.
Early jams, multiple trial versions and constant re-hashing and re-arranging is essential to the creation process in digital music production. Just like the sketches, rough drawings and preparatory ground work accumulated in a lengthy visual art project, the bare bones and test-arrangements of tracks are especially fun to look back upon and re-discover passed up ideas. Indeed, I've often called upon such loops or unfinished tracks when preparing a live set, where the goal is usually to keep things interesting, the pace being faster and transitions or more unexpected often quicker than a Dj set.
I'd be interested to hear what other producers think about all this, particularly with regard to remixing. Am I simply stating the obvious here; over-playing a rather common characteristic of modern music production, or do other producers behave differently? I still think the way we create a finished piece of house or techno music nowadays is a wonderful reflection of the times, with un-restrained and endless degrees of editing available, where the only true restraints seem to be time and patience.
.
.
COSMIC COWBOYS
Venice, 7pm
Just got back after a walk under a gray Venetian sky...Can't explain what this city means for us...Its narrow streets and squares, the colours of the carnival, landscapes and voices, noises, the lagoon as background, a thousand people joined together in a unique soul, a unique thought...This is the process for us....How emotions become something concrete...notes, percussions, sounds mixed together to express a message, a moment, an idea...
Looking for that particular thing that brings the emotions that become a message and how this message becomes music...we're are processing the images of the day to express a thought and a mood in the best way we have to express this to people: the music....millions of moments create a unique sequence of our lives that become notes...
What makes the difference is the way we do our process...It's never casual but always linked to a moment that is possible to find in time and space but especially in our souls...For us, a process must leave a sign, a memory. It should go deep into the soul of whom is listening to our music....something indelible...
Sometimes we don't think about every movement or thought because it modifies the moment we're living in...The process is something abstract but at the same time is something very concrete...being human means being processed from what is around us and to process everything we come in to contact with everyday in life...
Here in our studio, we're listening to the tracks that impressed us for their message...A way to let people understand where our message comes from and what's in our souls after this afternoon walking through our city...The session we mixed is the soundtrack of our daily process, today 24 February 2009...
01. Anthony and the Johnsons - Hope There's Someone
02. Groove Armada - Paris
03. Mikael Delta - Happiness
04. Tricky - Hell Is Around the Corner
05. Mikael Delta - Barko
06. Ben Watt - We Are Silver
07. Matthew Herbert - Unknown
08. Dennis Bovell - Rowing
09. Joris Voorn - Another Place
10. Syreeta - To Know You Is to Love You
11. Smoma - Georgy Porgy
12. Cosmic Cowboys - All the Words I Never Told You (Marc Poppcke Remix)
MNML SSGS: MANIFESTO
to bring cohesion to the three-pronged approach for process parts 127.1, 127.2 & 127.3 from the mnml ssgs crew...
It all started with a series of emails. Pete, Chris, and myself had met each other in the nightclubs of Tokyo, bonding over similar tastes in techno. We went to plenty of events (which we jokingly called "geeky minimal sausage parties", referencing the title of a track from a Twerk album), and had many long conversations about the music we loved. In time Chris and Pete left Tokyo, but the conversations and debates continued via a series of regular (often daily) emails. We enthused, debated and criticized. We ranted and we raved.
Sometimes we'd mail each other saying, "This album is amazing – why is nobody saying anything about it?" Sometimes we'd say, "Why is nobody criticizing this when it's so obviously crap?" After a while Chris said, "Well, why don't *we* say it? Why don't we stop complaining and try to do something pro-active instead? Why don't we take the kinds of things we say in these emails and make them public? It might do some good."
And with that mnml ssgs was born. A place where we enthuse, debate, rant and rave. A place where we share our honest thoughts and feelings about this music we love so much. In other words, it's a geeky minimal sausage party – and everyone's invited.
.
.
MNML SSGS: CAM
With the magic of Traktor I've linked together 13 tracks to create a brief overview of some of the different artists/sounds/styles/labels in the "ambient" scene that have made a deep and lasting impression on me over the years. This Mortal Coil hints at the ethereal/gothic sounds I was interested in at the end of high-school and the start of university. Windy & Carl and Labradford represent the drone sounds I was listening to at the end of university and my first couple of years in Japan, courtesy of the Kranky label. Markus Guentner, GAS, and Donnacha Costello all point to when I first discovered techno in Tokyo, and then discovered that there was an ambient scene connected to techno. Shuttle 358, Fennesz, and Oren Ambarchi speak for my love of the experimental side of electronic music and labels such as Mille Plateaux, 12K, and Touch. Machinefabriek, Helios, and Max Richter represent more recent discoveries for me, such as the neo-classical scene and labels such as Type. Finally, Brian Eno & Harold Budd link to no particular time or place for me - instead they are a constant cornerstone that I continually return to during my explorations of the ambient scene.
I would humbly ask listeners to focus on the tracks themselves, rather than the transitions between them - I'm not a DJ, and this is actually the first time I've ever tried making a mix. I hope you enjoy this very personal selection of ambient sounds, textures and atmospheres.
01. Shuttle 358 - Finch
02. Donnacha Costello - In Spite Of Everything
03. Markus Guentner - In Moll 4
04. Brian Eno & Harold Budd - Against The Sky
05. Fennesz - City Of Light
06. Oren Ambarchi - Suspension
07. Machinefabriek - Zucht 2
08. Helios - Vargtimme
09. GAS - Zauberberg 7
10. Windy & Carl - Set Adrift
11. This Mortal Coil - A Heart of Glass
12. Max Richter - Harmonium
13. Labradford - Leta O'Steen. Design Assistance By John Piper.
.
.
MNML SSGS: CHRIS
The mix was recorded on the last day of January, 2009. This was the first day I had not worked in over a month. It was also one day after I had my first panic attack, and was struck with the realisation that I was dangerously close to complete mental and physical collapse. It has been a very difficult month, defined by extreme amounts of work, lack of sleep and isolation. Hardly the way life should be lived. This provides the context within which this mix was conceptualised and made. I am not much of a DJ, nor do I pretend to be. As such, it is more of a traditional mix tape than anything, which places even more emphasis on the track selection. The first draft for the mix came together quickly. I knew roughly what I wanted it to sound like – mostly old records from the mid ‘90s which were both timeless and deeply emotive. I didn’t want it being too up-tempo, but I did want a soft kind of kick to it in parts. I also wanted to structure the mix in a certain way – rather than the standard build, peak, come down format – I wanted it to have a more dynamic and unsettled feel, going back and forwards between more dynamic records and more ambient ones. Despite the final tracklisting differing somewhat from the original selection, I have tried to keep this structure and feel.
My first attempt at making the mix took place in my office at about 1am one night. It was a disaster. I was in completely the wrong headspace and nothing felt right. The mix was abandoned about 20 minutes in. I tried a second time about a week or so later, after reaching an important milestone with my work. I thought I’d now be better placed to put it all together. I did the mix after what was one of the worst days I’ve experienced in living memory, when I felt completely isolated, alone and detached from those close to me. It is hard to describe the extent of my unhappiness on this day. Doing the mix managed to make me feel a bit better, a strong reminder of how important music is for the soul. Unfortunately, though, the mix itself didn’t quite work. A few of the tracks didn’t fit and a couple of transitions were overly rough. After having a listen to it, I decided to rethink the records I had selected, which led to a new, and longer, tracklisting. The big difference is that there were now quite a few newer records, but I felt these all possessed similar qualities to the older ones. I spent some time reordering and changing the tracks until I got something I was happy with. I wasn’t sure when I was going to record it, but after some friends persuaded me to take a day off, I knew doing this mix would be good therapy and a way of unwinding slightly. Putting it together had a similar effect to the previous time, calming me and making me feel a bit more at peace.
The mix was done at home on my laptop using Ableton without any cueing, a program I don’t have much affinity with, but was forced to use due to lack of alternatives at the moment. It was recorded in realtime using Audacity, which I also used to clean the mix up slightly, though unfortunately I couldn’t get rid of a few clicks and skips which managed to sneak in somehow, sorry about this. As I said, I am not much of a DJ, so this is not too much more than glorified crossfading, I make no claims otherwise. Regardless, the transitions are good enough I think, and the emphasis is squarely on the tracks themselves. I’ve played out most of the records and there were only a few I adjusted the pitch on, just to make sure the BPMs didn’t get too high (‘Acid Eiffel’ may be a bit too slow, but I’ll let you decide). Many of the records are particularly close to my heart and ones I keep coming back to. While there is a reasonable amount of variation in the tracks themselves, I feel something which unites them – and the mix as a whole – is their deeply emotive nature. In different ways, each record is able to convey real feeling and depth. Perhaps on some level that explains why I chose them: at a time when I have felt so isolated and my life has felt so bare, music like this has been one of the few sources of warmth, comfort and solace. The picture accompanying the mix is meant to reflect these feelings. I took it from the balcony at my work, from where I like to watch the beautiful sunsets; they often tend to produce a transient moment of calm and peace within me.
Thanks to: Rayna for kindly inviting us to take part in this excellent series; the people that made the wonderful records included on the mix; to my fellow ssgs Cam, Dave and Pete for their unwavering friendship; and to everyone that has read, supported and contributed to mnml ssgs. The mix is entitled, ‘Time is Luck’.
01. Ø - Muistetun Palaava Taajuus
02. Aphex Twin – Parallel Stripes
03. Plastikman – Konception
04. Shed – Waved Mind
05. Speedy J – Pannik
06. Rod Modell – Morning Again
07. Pan Sonic – Arktinen
08. Mathew Jonson – Symphony for the Apocalypse
09. Donnacha Costello – Cocoa B
10. Choice – Acid Eiffel
11. Speedy J – Pepper
12. Global Communication – 8.07
13. Plastikman – Lasttrak
14. Aphex Twin – Blue Calx
15. Autechre – Nil
16. Biosphere – Chukhung
17. Terre Thaemlitz – Terre’s Neu Wuss Fusion (2007 Archive of Silence Mix)
18. Vladislav Delay – Anima Version
19. Vladislav Delay – Anima
.
.
MNML SSGS: PETE
On Tuesday December 16, 2008, between 18:30 and 21:30, my friend Leah's shop hosted some collections, a whole bunch of people drinking free booze, and a...live show.
Here's the mix I made for the event.
The 'live show' in question involved a model. In order to model various different outfits, the girl was undressed in the shop, which was very strange, surrounded by people drinking champagne, watching dispassionately/quizzically/curiously, and listening to Cameo, which was what was playing while it happened.
As for the mix: the track selection reflected the ebb and flow of people arriving and the vibe around. Nothing is beatmatched, all tracks play through to the end pitch perfect (with one exception where I made a mistake, as you'll hear).
This is something I've more or less decided to do with pop music. Not just because I'm not Optimo: it's simply that, where songs are concerned, I want to represent them in their integrity.
It's also that mixing is over-rated; track selection is not.
Working without beatmatching, while still trying to tell a story, presents a completely different challenge and a different pleasure.
Listening to the result, I can't help wondering if aggressively interventionist mixing was came about because of cut hungry ears, or groove-bored DJs.
01. David Sylvain - Brilliant Trees
02. The Art of Noise – Camilla, The old Story
03. Bill Nelson – Suvasini/Contemplation
04. The Passions – I’m in Love with a German Film Star
05. The Cure – A Forest
06. Grace Jones – Private Life
07. The Slits – Instant Hit
08. Tom Tom Club – Wordy Rappinghood
09. INXS – I Send a Message
10. The Passions – Skin Deep
11. Talking Heads – Warning Sign
12. Kid Creole and the Coconuts – I’m a Wonderful Thing, Baby
13. Cameo – She’s Strange
14. David Joseph – You Can’t Hide (your love from me)
15. Loose Joints – Tell You (today)
16. David Byrne – Big Business
17. B-52s –Loveland
18. Dalek-I – You Really Got Me
19. YMO – Day Tripper
20. Devo – We’re Through Being Cool
21. Thomas Dolby – Commercial Breakup
22. Talking Heads – Found a Job
23. Icehouse – Dance On
24. David Sylvian – Pulling Punches
25. Thomas Dolby – Dissidents
26. Madonna – Express Yourself (stop-and-go dub)
27. Yello – Habanera
28. Badou – Zena (dub mix)
29. A Certain Ratio – Kether Hot Knives
30. Robert Fripp – The Zero of the Signified
31. Eno – Taking Tiger Mountain
.
