Name: James Burns aka Robinson’s Village
Nationality: British
Occupation: Producer, sound artist
Recent release: Robinson’s Village's new single “Washington” is out now.
Recommendation for London, Britain: If you’re in London (particularly east), and looking to record, go to Fuzzbrain Studios in Walthamstow. It’s not just a recording space, it’s more of a community. Ben (founder of Fuzzbrain) is doing something super special in that spot. Countless great records have come out of Fuzzbrain, plus they host a great festival called Hoodstock that showcases a massive range of artists. So glad Dylan dragged me to that place when I first moved to London, as it felt like I just plugged straight into the sickest scene.
 
If you enjoyed this Robinson’s Village interview and would like to stay up to date with his music, visit his official homepage. He is also on Instagram, bandcamp, and tiktok. 



Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

50% of the time, that feeling of needing to create, whether it’s a track, some artwork, visuals, or a short clip for social media, is always there. It doesn’t leave for me. I can be a bit hyper-fixated on music, not on an individual track, more so on the whole idea of music/making something, and that’s where that impulse comes from.

The other 50% of the time is slightly less healthy where it’s a bit of a guilt that urges me to write. My brain will be like ‘'You’ve got free time? Write?’ Or ‘you’re neglecting this bit of equipment? Use it now.’

Which can be quite of an odd feeling, but there’s been some good from that before, that’s sort of the circumstance that led to me my EP, foam being made.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

I rarely work with a pre-conceived idea in a musical sense. On the other hand, I’ll often be like ‘hm, I wonder what would happen if I plugged this synth, into this bit of equipment, and then through this pedal, and then onto tape but then I run the tape at a super slow speed’, and that will be the extent of my pre-planned idea.

I have to pre-plan if I’m working on a composition or a game soundtrack. I’ve just finished the score for this film which hasn’t been announced yet, and I found myself a bit daunted when staring at a blank Ableton session. So I re-visited the ‘planning’ thing, by linking a certain synth to a feeling, or writing down the idea of what I imagine the next scene will need.

Whilst I rarely stick to these planned ideas, they were great for kickstarting a project.

Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research' or create 'early versions'?

Often the preparation phase for my process will begin with creating a 30 second clip for social media, as a sort of scrapbook concept.

I’ll discover a sound I really like when combining two instruments, and then create a clip for Instagram or TikTok and then I’ll realise I’ve landed on a short composition that I really like and then I’ll actually flesh the track out and expand on it. That’s sort of how my preparation and flow tends to go.

For example, my track “Birds Birds Birds” began its life as a short idea for TikTok.



I lived with it for a few months in that way, then I tried (miserably, however this version was later released on the birds birds birds EP) to recreate the track (as I accidentally deleted the original ableton project), before originally finding the original .wav and fleshing it out with strings, and more synths.

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

Kind of!

I ideally like to create between 9am - 4pm ideally, the closer to 9 the better. I just find I tend to lose it a bit during the evening, I prefer to instead dedicate the evenings to making the shorter clips. I work another job most days of the week which usually takes up the day time so I’ve had to adapt to working in evenings, but I definitely work better in the morning.

Not so much a ritual, but I kind of have to be super quick with my work. I like to write and get the majority of a track fleshed out in an hour but I put this down to my ADHD.

A recent discovery I’ve found has been working on the floor, I’m not sure why just yet, but as soon as I move a Juno or OP1 and some pedals to the floor, the ideas tend to flow! Maybe this is because sitting at my desk is too associated with work now? I’m not too sure but if it works then I’m not complaining.

[Read our feature on the Juno 106]

For “Washington,, what did you start with? If there were conceptual considerations, what were they?

“Washington,” took form when I was back home in Nottingham over the Christmas period. Christmas is a bit of a weird one for me and I always feel a little bit on edge and not quite settled.

I deliberately took home only a Tascam 4 track and the OP1 with the intention of filling up a cassette with a bunch of ideas. “Washington” was the first of those tracks, and it came really easily. I think it was because I knew I wanted to write but I didn’t have any pressure on myself to write anything ‘good’.

So I guess I started with a tape machine, a synth and a feeling of ‘ok let me just get a track down and see what happens.’

Tell me a bit about the way the new material developed and gradually took its final form, please.

The main body of Washington took form in my usual way, in about 30 mins. Limited to just 4 tracks, I had to be sparing and think about what I was using, sonically, on each track.

I started with the main chords, nothing too fancy as I it would take me a good few minutes to show you where an F is on a keyboard (I’m a guitar player, and synth-tinkerer). I then pitched them down to the slowest speed on the Portastudio, to give them a nice low warble. I added the bass to fill up the low end, and then added to soft leads on the left and right channels, and that was that!

A few weeks later, I was back in London, going back through the tape and I came across this track. I recorded the track out via the Microcosm pedal to add some shimmer on top, and then added a few extra layers here and there in Ableton over the following few weeks until it felt about right.
 
Many writers have claimed that as soon as they enter into the process, certain aspects of the narrative are out of their hands. Do you like to keep strict control or is there a sense of following things where they lead you?

I think I’m big on just following a feeling and seeing what happens when writing music.

I think when working with cassette tape, you have to be a bit trusting in the process and being a bit hands off on the overall process as it’s a pain to undo a mistake or it can be tricky to get it super sharp / perfect with timing. This leads to a bunch of happy accidents in my music.

Like in my track ‘Plastic Farming’, I accidentally knocked the pitch when recording  when bouncing the track off the tape machine, but I loved the weird, slightly detuned feel and slower pace, so I stuck with it.

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practise?

It really depends on the piece.

“By Burning This” was ready and submitted to go to streaming the day after I wrote it. Whereas other pieces like the remix for “Birds Birds Birds” was living on my laptop for about 3 years before it eventually came to light.

Normally when something is written like this, I won’t be tweaking the piece in the 3 year wait. I’ll just ignore it for ages and then do some final mixing/tidying up before I send it off into the world.

Then there’s the occasional song, like a song I’m working on at the moment for my next EP, that just doesn’t quite feel right but I can’t figure out why. So I end up spending months just trying different things, almost making mini-remixes of the pieces until it makes sense to me.

How do you think the meaning, or effect of an individual piece is enhanced, clarified or possibly contrasted by the EPs, or albums it is part of? Does each piece, for example, need to be consistent with the larger whole?

I like my pieces to be cohesive with the EP/album they’re on. I still steer a bit clear of playlists and tend to digest other music in album form, so this is something that I like to bring in to my work.

I think the flow of an EP is super important. On foam, I knew I wanted “Pelican” to be the closer as it felt like a conclusion to that EP.



And the big chords in “Gold Idling” as the opener felt like an introduction to an album.



I think a strong opener and closer for a release are the main important parts, like The Hotelier’s Home, Like NoPlace is There is my idea of a perfect opener and closer.



You want something memorable that draws the listener in straight away, and something that will hit them at the end and will make them want to go straight back to the start of the EP again.

I think they nail it perfectly on that record.

What's your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? In terms of what they contribute to a song, what is the balance between the composition and the arrangement (performance)?

I think with ambient music it’s a tricky one.

I remember getting some music mixed when I was much younger by other people and just not being happy with it, not because of their skills, but just because I had something else in my head that I felt worked better. I mix my own music because I like to imagine it’s the final squeeze of my own creativity into the song. I think with my music a lot of the character comes out in the mixing stage and it’s interlinked a lot with the writing exploration.

For example, a fair amount of my songs have a certain reverb-y Ableton stock plugin put on the master bus and then they’re pitched down a semi-tone just as I love how it makes all the frequencies sort of mush together in a vaporwave-y sort of way.

Some of my songs sound super different without this effect and I think it’s like a huge important part of the track and making something in ‘my way’.

Music and the accompanying artwork are often closely related. Can you talk about this a little bit for your current project and the relationship that images and sounds have for you in general?

The “Washington” artwork existed before “Washington” actually! I took and edited this photo around November last year and was instantly drawn to it, there’s something a bit eerie about it, the harsh branches almost look a bit like a black metal band’s logo or something, but also as well everything is super clear and crisp- it’s not some foggy mysterious forest.

I think it matches “Washington”’s vibe in a sense, it’s a slightly eerie track, but still has a positive and maybe melancholic undertone. The lead synths that come in halfway through are like the trees, sitting harshly and clearly on top of this backdrop of chords, but you still can’t quite figure out what they are.

It happens quite often where I make the artwork for a release just before I start making the music, I’m not sure why!

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

I think I feel it a bit immediately after it releases, alongside the usual thoughts  of ‘do people like this?’ Or ‘do I like this?’ But I think that’s just a bit of the mood after putting some work out into the world.

I think I’m a bit too quick to move on to the next thing, so I don’t quite get hit with the empty feeling after a release. Often by the time a track is scheduled for release, I’m already working on my next release or another project as I like to stay quite busy.

I think by constantly moving forward I manage to stay afloat, I tend to only get hit by the empty feeling after releasing when I burn out a bit and stop for a moment which can take a month or two, but I usually eventually find my feet.

I would love to know a little about the feedback you've received from listeners or critics about what they thought some of your songs are about or the impact it had on them – have there been “misunderstandings” or did you perhaps even gain new “insights?”

I remember after putting out “Birds Birds Birds,” and that doing it’s thing and being known as making miserable music, I put out “Trophy Cabinet.”

And I was being like ‘yeah here’s another miserable song’ and someone told me that they didn’t think it was miserable sounding at all, maybe even the opposite, and that sort of had me relook at my music for another lens for a second, and I had it again with Washington where people said it was quite a pretty track, or a cozy track.

Now I’m just generally a bit confused about the moods my tracks evoke but I sort of love that.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?  

I think for me, making music creatively makes me feel something that nothing else does. It’s satisfying but also feels like I’m letting something out.

Some people out there might get that from making a coffee or painting or something, which is cool! But I’ve not quite found anything else that scratches that itch for me, and that’s why I don’t see myself stopping with it for a long time.

Performing live feels the same as writing music for me, as I get that same release, but I can’t quite figure out what that release is.

I’ll let you know if I do.