Part 2

What was your first studio like? How and for what reasons has your set-up evolved over the years and what are currently some of the most important pieces of gear for you?

It was in my bedroom for years, on borrowed equipment and hand-me-downs. But I invested when I started to DJ more, and had a couple of nice setups when I lived in Bristol.

Now, due to noise, I am on professional studio monitor headphones at home, which I know really well now, and then working in two other studios with friends, that have great sounding, well-treated rooms and some really interesting equipment: Drum machines, modular gear, pedals, classic stuff like SH-101, MS20, the 909 remake, as well. So I have access to these different working spaces.

[Read our feature on the Roland TR-909]

I left a lot of gear in the UK, and I have always been more of an ‘in the box’ person as that is how I first learned to produce. It took me years to get rid of my fear of hardware, I could always play it, tweak it,  perform it, but I didn't know how it worked or how to make it talk to other bits of gear. Now I have more understanding, but I need to keep some naivety too, as otherwise I feel tied down by theory and history. I remember Kode 9 saying he always wanted work in the studio to be like grasping about in the dark … stumbling on things you wouldn’t normally.

I am a strong believer that it doesn’t matter what kind of gear / studio / setup you have. For me it’s more the emotion / energy / vibe you’re communicating that matters, and that can be done by simply banging a piece of wood and using your voice and the most rudimentary recording equipment, for example. It will still have a powerful vibe if you’re living it, putting yourself into it.

How do you make use of technology? In terms of the feedback mechanism between technology and creativity, what do humans excel at, what do machines excel at?

I look at my laptop as a machine. And I am so used to it, you get very used to how that interface feels … it’s the same with programs you use. I see code and programming as the same as machines, and the way the DAWs behave will shape what you can attempt, and what you become comfortable with and what you incorporate into your workflow. I think humans can interrupt some of the precise nature that DAWs sometimes have, you can build randomness and chance and expression into any electronic instrument or software environment - but it does have to be built in often. As these things are made to open up with a precise and satisfying and easy synchronisation, or pleasing sound, and that is fine. But you can move away from that.

The timing imperfections of a human - of course machines can get close, but I like the idea of both always trying to do what the other can’t: Machines trying to sound human and humans trying to sound like machines. Kraftwerk are the ultimate in this case, stiff but still utterly funky, with this cold machine-like aesthetic, but which still has warmth and beauty, and humanity.

Production tools, from instruments to complex software environments, contribute to the compositional process. How does this manifest itself in your work? Can you describe the co-authorship between yourself and your tools?

As above, every composition you make on a DAW is collaboration between you and the people that wrote it in a way, in the same way that jamming on certain drums, guitars, amps etc has all the manufacturers' of those pieces of kits knowledge and spirit in it, too. It will be very interesting as algorithms get better and better at writing music. We have allowed these things to help us make music for so long, a drum is technology, the skin vibrates and helps you make a sound you couldn't with your own body and voice … We’ve been using code to help us make chords, scales, expression subtleties like velocity or timing fluctuations … this idea that all this somehow stops at programs & algorithms composing stuff is contradictory really. The machines and the technology have always helped us. They are us … a product of us, and then they shape us …

It's like the premise that should music be ‘hard’ to write or art ‘hard’ to make. We’d like to think that we must suffer for it, but honestly, I think someone with very little so-called ‘musical skill’ and little effort beyond passion and a willingness to try can interact with instruments and software and create a powerful vibe. That's the point, then you can finesse it as much as you want. The devil is in the details but sometimes the details can distract us from the overarching emotion behind something. It's a tricky balancing act..

Collaborations can take on many forms. What role do they play in your approach and what are your preferred ways of engaging with other creatives through, for example, file sharing, jamming or just talking about ideas?

Collaboration is essential to my musical life. I feel barren without it. It affects my mental health. If I can’t do my weekly sessions in the various studios I get depressed, they are really a therapy session as much as a musical session. I don't play bass in a group anymore but I still approach music making in that way, getting together, talking, eating together, playing each other new tunes, ranting about life.

Art doesn’t really separate from life. I’m sure that's the case whether you are a cook, a footballer, an architect or any creative profession/activity.

Could you take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work? Do you have a fixed schedule? How do music and other aspects of your life feed back into each other - do you separate them or instead try to make them blend seamlessly?

I do yoga and meditation every morning, and most evenings, and swim a lot which keeps my mind clear. If I stop I go mad basically. When I am teaching under normal circumstances I ride to the Funkhaus in East Berlin where I work, which is lovely …

I like spending time on my own, I am naturally a hermit, though I am trying to get better at getting myself out and contributing to relationships more, though this is difficult for me, being a natural introvert and depressive. Luckily I have understanding friends who will hassle me a bit to keep me involved.

Music is a daily thing, of course we are always listening to it, and I try to tinker as much as I can on something, even if I have no energy for ‘serious’ projects, just splurging and throwing stuff at the wall as it were. This can be more therapeutic than careful, organised work. And sometimes music just won't come so I don’t force it. I try to keep up with whats going on in other genres from mine, NTS radio is a constant source of inspiration, Adam Oko, Sanpo Disco, Charlie Bones’ Do You Breakfast Show and Launettes Radio Hour all provide much need inspiration. I dig for records whenever I can physically, and also spend a rather ridiculous amount of time on Discogs and Bandcamp … always on the search …

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece or album that's particularly dear to you, please? Where did the ideas come from, how were they transformed in your mind, what did you start with and how do you refine these beginnings into the finished work of art?

One of the tracks I feel that worked on my album was "Chrome Mist", which started as an exploration of FM synthesis and the Mono Sequencer in Max for Live, though I didn’t know it would be at the time! It was really just turning these things on and seeing what happened.

I like the Mono Seq because it generates riffs I would never program if I had been clicking things into a grid, or indeed playing them on a keyboard. I think this is the appeal of machines, whether hardware or software: They allow creative expression that would not have come naturally out of a musician’s’ fingers or breath.

I think that is why the early electro, techno and house stuff has such an appeal and why its principles are still used to this day. If you listen to Farley, Guy Called Gerald, Man Parrish, Mantronix, or the early Italo stuff, Klein & MBO, whatever, from that mid 80s period, it has that hybrid feel, human and machine. You listen to Farley’s ’Funkin With The Drums Again’ and it is so simple, it is so alien sounding but it is so damn funky. Even if there is kinda zero human groove. Stating the obvious really, but good to reflect on.

So it was feeding these randomised note inputs into the Operator synth, and then using randomised LFOs on things like decay time of the oscillators, and seeing what happened. Going through my projects form start to finish (I save many increments over the months or years I work on stuff) to show students is interesting, the track could have got taken in so many different ways at different kinds of forks in the road.

In fact it started slow, then that first riff got resampled a bunch of times, and pitched around, and things were built around it. I was listening to a lot of Terry Riley at the time too, Shri Camel, and stuff like that, which is meditative music. You can see his performances where he is deeply in trance and interacting with his synths and tape delays in the moment. I had done some kind of eyes closed blissful jamming in (vainly!) a similar style, detuned, simple tones, but played back through many delays and repeats, so you get this kind of enmeshing intercrossing web of notes. You can live inside moments like that for some time, time stands still and you are simply channelling or in flow state or whatever.

Those jams then fit over this other riff really well. I then wanted quite a stiff machine drum beat, which came from a drum machine called Drumspillage which has this very synthesised, fat sound. Then there were some happy accidents, really parts that enmesh and fit together and create more than the sum of their parts … that create these little moments that are quite surprising. How it turned out was a surprise to me, but then it usually is. I love not following the process until afterwards, I like firing things up the next day and not knowing how it sounded or how I did it in a way …