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SIMON SCOTT

Human nature is a curious and unpredictable mixed bag of emotional contradictions such as beauty and ugliness, serenity and furious anger, love and hate, ecstatic joy and severe sadness. These all filter into my music through finding the space and time to allow one to give up any resistance to each emotion and allow it to become the music. This begins with a realistic appraisal of whether I have the right mood in my head to approach a piece of work I am developing. If I am in the zone the music comes together almost as if it is an expulsion of all the memories and sound associations I have stored in my mind (consciously or unconsciously) but sometimes it feels forced and will not develop. Often suddenly all the ingredients come out and quickly get baked to perfection together or perhaps emerge almost complete with just a simple need of a sprinkle of sonic seasoning.

"Navigare" was recorded at home between July 2008 and March 2009 and it is an album that seems to have been waiting in the wings to come out of me. All of the experiences I have had in the past thirty years, good and bad, seemed to overwhelmingly pour out of me and find a new place to live on my hard drive. From the days of shredding my eardrums as a drummer in Slowdive, where as teenagers we cared only for the moment of each performance and turning up to eleven, right up to the fairly recent birth of my child are all in there. Some difficult issues were faced such as the death of my uncle who spent his years submerged under water in submarines or otherwise was submerged by the poisons of alcohol which took me back to being a child and seeing him at family parties getting legless. So in my music there are memories of happy times tinged with sadness and then sadness colored by the warmth of childhood associations. Cruelty appears often as I and many others close to me have been on the receiving end of unfair treatment, threats or just bad luck although joy and hope rub shoulders with this negativity and it all filters into each musical idea. Some sound associations drag up long forgotten conversations, people or places that may not be welcome and the themes take on a difficult direction that force you to follow such as "Repulse" on my album.

Many Ideas for my debut solo album grew from the juxtapositional complexities of the now verses the past. Again this goes back to the human condition and our contradicting emotions and the fact that many of us wear many masks in life which usually appear by instinct and happen despite us even being conscious of it. The sound of an acoustic in a nicely reverberated room faces a cold digital glitch that my hard drive spat out one morning seems to fit together. The juxtaposition of these sounds was kept in mind when adding to the two contrasting musical elements and for the rest of the songs. I used loops that were out of time but would eventually meet to create a conclusion of solidarity despite their different textured emotions. I would use reverb soaked vocals to float over a dry snare brush stroke or a voice fragment and burn it with an effect so it would burn and decay to the ear. Degrading the sounds or using dissolving sounds, including tape hiss from an old cassette I had kept from the 1970's and samples that were wrestled by my full hard drive which we almost vomited out of the speakers were techniques and textures that dominate this record.

"Introduction of Cambridge" is a musical reflection of the city where I was born and live today alongside the manicured university lawns and geographical fact that the remarkable academic institutions are based in the city centre that allow you to feel that past in the present along with bright hope for the future. This infuses into my music with the past, the present and the future colliding as they question what it is you are hearing as old tape recordings compliment the digital domain of my recording equipment. They are created in a split second of the present to become an instant thing of the past until it is released or discovered in the future.

The songs flow like water yet have a scorched sound that again creates another juxtaposition, this time of the elements, as both water and fire are sometimes calming yet also treacherously unpredictable with real danger and ferociousness. "Navigare" is full of snippets of digital software taken from my mac and dropped into the pc that I used to create the vast majority of the album on. It is safe to say that this is a guitar album despite flute, cello, sitar, piano and many other instruments featuring and if I admit inspiration to create a guitar album I just go back to the sheer power and sonic assault of "Overkill" by Motorhead, "Isn't Anything" by My Bloody Valentine and "Endless Summer" by Fennesz which changed my musical perspectives forever.

"Navigare" is out on Miasmah recordings in late summer 2009.

simon scott - process part 153 (under crumbling skies) by modyfier

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TELEPOPMUSIK

The making of a song is mostly mysterious. Ghost Girl, from our new ep (in stores July 12), was written in just four hours. At the time, I was living in New York in a very old building in Soho. Sometimes I would feel spirits around. My mini home studio was in the exact same place where, ten years before, a guy overdosed and died. One afternoon I was playing a guitar arpeggio and my friend, Duke, started to play some chords over it. Two hours later an instrumental demo was ready. We decided to call Kim and after briefing her about the ghost we felt around, she sang a story about a ghost girl. Two takes later, the vocal demo was ready and you can listen to it below.

telepopmusik - process part 152 (ghost girl (demo)) by modyfier

One year later, back in France, I finished the song production with 2 Square, making Ghost Girl a Telepopmusik song.

telepopmusik - process part 152 (ghost girl) by modyfier

We love to be remixed, so some were been done by Jesse Rose, Blatta & Inesha, and Tittsworth. Below, the Jesse Rose remix to download.

telepopmusik - process part 152 (ghost girl (jesse rose remix)) by modyfier

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JAHCOOZI

We made this song last August. We went to a very underpopulated part of what used to East Germany to make it... Prignitz. Highly exotic, right?!!

It actually felt like a forgotten part of the world. There was a post-communist greyness and austerity about it...maybe this atmosphere actually influenced the song!!

We had no internet connection and there was a long road (which reminded me of that Cormac McCarthy book) with no cars on it, we would actually lie in the road for at least and hour and nothing would come in either direction. Occasionally we'd come across a toothless farmer with a big smile and a German flag on his roof would come our way!!

The woman who we rented the little holiday house/converted barn from looked at us kinda funny when we arrived. We didn't tell her that we were gonna convert her kitchen into a studio, so I assume she assumed that we were there to film low budget pornos. We of course didnt.(!)...but u know...two white boys and a brown girl in that part of the world (and many other parts of the world for that matter!) can have a stigma attatched.

The Song

To me it sounds like wave-step or something...sort of like a mix between dub-step and dark-wave, with these epic, almost emo/gothic cellos going on. We recorded a friend (Sneaky, a Berlin based Ninja Tune artist) playing the cello and double bass. I guess we managed to create a pretty weird atmosphere on this tune! Maybe not what BLN fans were expecting from us, but I think it's great to surprise the listener. Maybe the weirdly dark atmosphere in Prignitz had an influence us!

Having said that, people who have a comprehensive knowledge of the music we've made over the years has seen that side of us with tracks like Fish or Ali Mc Bills on our first album. We've always been somewhat schizophrenic in terms of sound or atmosphere. Even a track like Chill Jill on our second album highlights this schizophrenia within one track.

In the song, I am playing the part of a paranoid and obsessive lover who longs to nurture her loved one until the point of suffocation. It is about the fine line between being the subject of unconditional love and being smothered till the point claustrophobia. Love/nuture/care/protection and how it can be used as a control mechanism or emotional blackmail.

Love can be as freeing as it can imprisoning when it turns into obsessive jealousy. It depends on the individuals involved but in the right combination it can end up like a sick psycho film from the 80s!! Like Fatal Attraction with Glen Close or Misery with Cathy Bates...great characters!!

So just watch out who you take home with you or let into your life!! That hot girl standing at the bar, in the baby-doll dress, just might be someone who would rather hack off your legs than have you ever run away and leave her...!!

I guess the whole concept of the song can also be de-personalized and can also be perceived as the way in which we are constantly under surveillance in modern urban societies (i.e. CCTV, surveillance, control, trust, fear, nanny-state, protection, security issues). Such themes can arise within relationships with a partner or a with the state or with your employer, etc.

jahcoozi - process part 151 (b1 watching you) by modyfier

The Remixes

The remixes of the track are from quite wide-ranging artists, not just from one specific genre. I guess a bit like Jahcoozi itself, as we tend to jump around stylistically.

Two fingers (Amon Tobin & Doubleclick) brought out an amazing album on Big Dada recently. You HAVE to listen to it. It's like post-grime RnB shit meets Blade Runner cyberpunk futurism or something. Robot and I are big fans of Amon Tobin's cinematic production, which is why we decided to ask them to remix our track.

jahcoozi - process part 151 (b2 watching you (two fingers remix)) by modyfier

Oliver $ had done some fat bass-heavy dance remixes of vocal tracks in the past (eg. for RQM on Shir Khan's label, Exploited) which is why we asked him to make a remix for us. Some dance producers shy away from vocals because they don't always like or know how to work with them. This isn't the case with Oliver $, who ended up having so much fun that he did two versions! I also think it's pretty cool to feature other Berlin-based artists, which was also a reason to ask him. I guess it is exactly what the Crookers and all their fans are listening to right now...in fact they've already put it on a load of their mixes, etc. Give the kids what they want!

jahcoozi - process part 151 (a1 watching you (oliver$ bassjunk remix)) by modyfier

jahcoozi - process part 151 (a2 watching you (oliver$ remix)) by modyfier

Plastic Little are a pretty fun neo-hip hop combo from Philadelphia who's last album featured Baltimore's finest Spankrock and Amanda Blank. They are good friends of the Philadelphia-based label Sugarcane Recordings, so it seemed cool to try and showcase some talent from over there, too. The nicest thing about the Plastic Little track is that it's just not what you'd expect from them or us on this EP I guess. It's really downbeat hippy shit, actually! So again, it's cool to surprise the listener...while giving them what they want...even though they don't know it!

jahcoozi - process part 151 (b3 watching you (plastic little remix)) by modyfier

Loose Cannons are also friends of Marcus at Sugarcane Recordings. They are from the UK and have remixed just about everything under the sun...even that pile of 80's vomit (a.k.a. Lady Gaga...ouch!!!) They have a weekly show on KISS FM where they play everything from tropical bass to zulu house.

jahcoozi - process part 151 (watching you (loose canons too early remix) by modyfier

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DJ FLACK

For my Modyfier track I decided to make an electronic music waltz. Although Waltzes are considered dance music in other genres, cultures and time periods, they are almost never heard on the big sound systems of modern dance clubs - my goal was to make one that could work in such a context. I also wanted the style to reflect the bass heavy music that I have obsessed with lately, especially Dubstep and its more upbeat predecessor 2-step/Garage.

I started out creating a 140bpm beat with the Redrum step-sequencer in Reason. I set it to 48 steps so it would be a longish loop but still dividable by 3 and set the time signature to 3/4. Next, I added some of my favorite drum sounds with lots of short hi-hats to give it that bouncy/skittery feel. Once that felt right it was time to add the bass.

The melody came to me right away but I wasn't sure where it came from. It was a little like the melody from the Police's "Message in a Bottle" which, ironically, is one of my least favorite of their songs (too much rock and not enough reggae) but it also reminded me of something else which I couldn't put my finger on. Eventually, I realized that it was from one of my first audio experiments back when I was using Sound Edit 16 to cut and paste audio waves in the early 90's. I found the cassette tape that had it (a compilation of odds and ends that I had called "Loop Stew") digitized the song and decided to add it to my new piece using Ableton Live. The original was indeed a waltz but having been made before I used any grid based program and full off improvised mouth sounds, its tempo and key were both pretty vague and I had to spend a lot of time futzing with it in Live to make it work with the bassline.

Once I had the basic vibe I created lots of different parts - switching up the basslines, adding fuzzed out synth melodies, adding and subtracting drum hits, changing delay settings etc. Even though each part is fairly distinct, they all relate back to that earlier song in some way - I uploaded the original so that you can compare them.

In hopes that someone would actually want to spin this track in a club, I decided to start off minimally so that a DJ could beat match it before the melodies became dissonant or the beat became too complex (and waltzy). I also wanted to add something that would be familiar to a dance track, so I decided to use some sort of hip-hop vocal sample. I went with a clip from the great song "Stay Tuned" by Gangstarr as a salute to one of the only true hip-hop waltzes that I know of. I mixed out most of the frequencies so you would just hear the words because, as a producer, I feel that its not cool to sample a sample - DJ Premier took time to hunt down, sequence and finesse his sounds and I feel its wrong to use them as if I had discovered them. The vocals, on the other hand, were made for that track alone so my use is only once removed which doesn't bother me as much - besides Guru's voice (aka Keith Elam from my hometown of Boston) sounds just too good to resist. In the sample he says "We come correctly every time" and that is something I at least aspire to do.

Whether a waltz like this would inspire or clear a dance floor is still up in the air but every once in awhile I give it a try (my last record "Strictly Scientifical" has two waltzes.) In the meantime, throw on some headphone and listen in the comfort of your own home or on your iPod commute. I know that Jay-Z has dropped a couple triplet-feeling killers and big props to Australia's Unkle Ho for bringing the true boom bap bap - but please email me (dj_flack - at- yahoo -dot- com) if you know of any other electronic/hip-hop waltzes that I could add to my skimpy waltz crate, as I would love to do a full-on waltz mix sometime in the future.

Waltz on!

dj flack process part 150 (waltzy) by modyfier (2009)

dj flack - process part 150 (loop stew waltz) by modyfier (1994)