Southern Vermont’s Zammuto is one of the newest groups with the illustrious Temporary Residence and is a band that has risen out of the ashes of the acclaimed two piece The Books. Headed by Nick Zammuto, this new band of Nick’s is more organic, more harmonically adventurous and down right more beautiful than his previous efforts. The group has expanded a great deal in the last year and because of this expansion, Zammuto will be headed out in June for live shows in the States with Explosions In The Sky. As their second tour with the group, Zammuto’s live sow reputation has grown considerably large, something we love to feel a buzz about in any band, especially after experiencing its power first hand. Zammuto are undoubtedly a live band not to be missed and their self titled debut full length is one of the best of the year.
I just made myself breakfast and plowed through my morning cigarette. I am sitting next to the telephone, waiting for it to become 10 am so I can call Nick. I think about what his voice will sound like… Will it sound like he sings? And if that’s the case, maybe he could sing instead of talk because my questions begin to seem stupid. But as the time continues to pass, as my contemplations sink into the backdrop of my mind, I find myself startlingly calm. Maybe it is Nick’s DIY home that’s far away from the city. Maybe it unconsciously brought me peace.
Xavier Vilaplana: I am very exited about your project, it’s totally something on its own.
Nick Zammuto: Thanks, yeah, it’s been a blast to kind of have a real band.
XV: How has it been to work with a four-piece band with heavy rhythmic percussion?
NZ: It’s taken me a while to figure out how it’s going to work out, well, I still don’t know how it works because it’s always changing, but the guys I am working with, like my brother Mikey, obviously I’ve known him my whole life, he’s a great bass player so he was a natural choice. He also toured with The Books, so I know he’s road worthy. Gene Back who also played keyboards and guitar for The Books was really into starting something new. His first instrument is the violin, but he plays keyboards and guitar for [Zammuto's] live section but whenever I need a string arrangement, I send the chord progression down to him and he flushes it out. He makes these beautiful clouds of string sounds just layered over each other and then sends it back to me. Gene actually introduced me to Sean Dixon (drummer). Sean has really opened my eyes to what drumming can be. I think it’s easy to get down on drumming because it’s so ubiquitous, because it’s usually just about keeping that heart beat most of the time, but Sean’s real passion is polyrhythmic playing, sort of African influence which is also my interest. What I like about rhythm is having two tempos going on at once, but not in a confusing way. In a way that makes sense with each other.
XV: The drumming definitely has an African feel; it has this kraut sort of bounce to it with a duality of timing. But it’s strange because it doesn’t seem to end.
NZ: Right exactly, for me it moves backwards and forwards at the same time. That is something I have been interested in for a long time.
XV: All of The Books records to me seem rhythmic. The guitar work with the samples create these sort of polyrhythmic drum patterns I feel are now being applied to an actual drum set with a different motivation.
NZ: Right. I got really lucky in finding Sean because he can take what I give him and he can really expand upon it. And live, he just blows it out of the water; he’s kind of the star of the show.
XV: Are the live shows faithful to the recordings or do you go out a little bit?
NZ: Structurally they are pretty faithful. But since it’s live it’s a lot louder and more visceral. We add a lot of energy to it. And there is a very visual component to what we do. I don’t know if you saw The Books play but the videos were like another member of the band. But with [Zammuto] it’s not to the same extent because we don’t want to wash over the performances. The videos come in hopefully just in the right moments to push the performance over the top.
XV: Do you do all of the videos?
NZ: Yeah, I learned it through the Books. It’s really just a natural extension to sampling, I did audio for a long time but, well man, there’s all these awesome videos to be sampled as well. Especially given that these VHS tapes are outdated and are being landfilled at such a rapid rate. So I started to make a collection of these samples. But I’ve been more interested right now in making my own videos so there is sort of a natural evolution going on there.
XV: When I hear Zammuto it feels like a breath of fresh air, something similar to when I heard The Books. How does that correlate with what you’re doing now. Not the composition or structure, but how one process leads to another.
NZ: It was a really natural progression. You know, the end of The Books was a really sad thing for me, it wasn’t supposed to end. For a while I thought I couldn’t start over at this point and make a livelihood. I’ve got three kids, you know, I can’t afford to follow this dream if it’s not going to produce a livelihood. But my wife kind of forced me- she said, you know you’re not going to be happy unless you make a record right away and get past this point. So I just re-mortgaged my house and went back into the studio and made the record. It’s going really well, I feel like the show we have right now is the centerpiece of the project in a way that it wasn’t for The Books. I always wanted to do that. I’m still trying to figure out how it’s going to work but it’s coming together nicely and feels like it’s going to be all right. But I guess a more spiritual answer to your question is- well, I wrote all of the material over the past ten years. So I went back to see what the inspiration was all of those years ago and it really is no different than the inspiration now. I am just trying to find those moments that really speak for themselves and frame them in a way that people can hear them the way I did.
XV: It seems like organic chemistry has stuck with your musical and thought process in a very interesting way. I feel like it stuck with you a lot more than other things because of the way you express yourself, just like the idea of LCD’s- a liquid with solid properties, so a contradiction in itself. I feel like it plays a large part in what you do, is this true?
NZ: Yeah, totally. I’ve always loved how science and chemistry was the one thing that allowed me to unify the intellectual world with the actual physical world. The science of it is so complicated and interesting. And the applications are so broad. All the lab work depends on the formulas that you know that work, but then again you are trying to always push the boundaries of what’s new and what’s going on. They are real molecules you know, not just dreams. It’s something that is grounded, something real and there is the sense of grittiness in real things. You can find that almost in any recordings, that moment where it just sounds real and genuine. But the only intention is of course to recognize those moments and try to name them.
XV: Exactly. I was talking with a friend the other day. I asked why she does music. She said she did it to give a moment and I tried to have her explain that to me. It had to be captured first before giving it.
NZ: Yeah, because I don’t think you can own them. They are so much bigger than us, it sounds cheesy, but that perfect sample, that perfect sound just explodes and happens on its own. You have to be able to step out of its way. I think I have to agree with you. You know, a lot of great artists just are trying to be genuine and honest, and the idea of giving comes from heart.
XV: The lyrics come off as playfully angry but always something unavoidable. Something that you just had to accept. There are a lot of vocal effects going on and I wonder if you were trying to capture the duality of human beings and the break up of The Books.
NZ: Oh, absolutely. I was and kind of still am in a pretty dark place because of what happened. The record isn’t pointed at anyone in particular but becoming an adult is an extremely frustrating process. And you’re right, it is a dualism, and a lot of timeless music takes advantage of it. If you frame a dark sentiment within a joyful sound it creates this beautiful tension. And acceptance is part of it. It was a great thing while it lasted but it’s not there anymore. But the joy comes in doing it. There is no purpose to it, no end to it. Dualism is a great word. It has become a great concept for me over the years and is something I will write about more when the time comes. But dualisms exist because they have to, but the real world, capital R Real, doesn’t have that. It’s totally outside of anything we can understand.
XV: Isn’t there a human necessity to understand?
NZ: I disagree with that. Some people choose to live in the middle of the island or some live on the shore, but I need that unknown place to create and have the freedom to do what I want to do.
XV: So you don’t search for it, you respect it?
NZ: Yeah, Well, it’s… it’s what gives me the greatest satisfaction, besides my family. I live up here in the mountains and it gets really dark up here. Sometimes you walk out and the sky is totally clear. And the Milky Way is right there and you feel like you are in it. I feel bad for people in the city who don’t have this experience. It’s an extreme thing to understand how vast it all is. Of course, there is an element of fear- oh my god, I’m going to die some day- but the fear really doesn’t compare to the richness of it all.
XV: I agree.
NZ: But I mean, who knows, if we could get outside of this moment we are stuck in, who knows.
XV: When you play music does it feel like you are outside of the moment, like when you say, “inside of the Milky Way”?
NZ: Yeah, yeah, in a sense it’s definitely a microcosm of that feeling, but- for the record I’m just a straight edge and so is my band. So we aren’t trying to escape at all. What interests us the most is the group of people who show up at our shows, they create the show, not us. So it’s really interesting to see that. Music has no purpose, it’s not food, it’s not water, but people don’t choose to live without it.
XV: For me it’s always about connections, not escaping, no matter how long the connection lasts.
NZ: Yeah. Sometimes the connections at shows last beyond the shows and sometimes it can start really interesting relationships.
XV: Does this seem to be happening with Zammuto more just because of its real live presence?
NZ: I hope so; I mean we’re in the early phases now. But I’ve felt much better on stage with this show than with The Books show primarily because we are all playing on time with each other dynamically and there isn’t electronic backtracking.
XV: What’s your relationship with technology and music?
NZ: That’s a good question. It’s absolutely essential. I couldn’t imagine myself just sitting down with an acoustic guitar only. I could make music but it wouldn’t be as interesting. The explosion of technology has produced a lot of new frontiers. For a person like me who wants to go in those new places, technology gives a lot of unexplored territory. Once you have the technology there is no going back, it’s like, once the Genie is out of the bottle, it’s done. I think that’s what The Books were about, an overflow of information that I really disagreed with and put it in a form that I could live with and give back to the world. Taking noise and making it something more resonant and helpful. There is an element in that with the new music, but [Zammuto] is more about being in the moment.
XV: Is what you are doing with Zammuto similar to having a family and raising your children?
NZ: My livelihood at making music is absolutely intimately connected with having a family. I don’t separate the yard work from the studio work. There is a chemical change that happens when you have kids. It’s universal. It’s so deep seeded that I can’t even remember what it’s like to not have kids, it’s a complete transformation. And it’s not about me anymore, it’s about us. We’ve got to protect this thing.
XV: What music do you listen to that is going on now?
NZ: To be honest when I’m working on music I don’t listen to much music because my brain is already full on that regard. But we just went out on tour with Explosions in the Sky and it was really inspiring. Now I listen to their records and it means something totally different to me. I also listen to what my kids like, and they mostly like dance music. My oldest, he’s stiff like me and when he spasms he just spasms in a strange, funny kind of way. But my youngest moves so fluid, like my wife, he just kind of floats through the room. It’s really fun to watch him. He was whipping out these moves, it’s like he was built for it. One of my friends over in London gave me a huge amount of African music and it’s awesome. It’s a beautiful counterpoint to how we look at music over here.
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Zammuto will be headed back on tour with Explosions In The Sky, below are the following dates and cities.
06/17 Sun Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live 06/18 Mon Mobile, AL @ Soul Kitchen 06/19 Tue Tampa, FL @ The Ritz Ybor 06/20 Wed Miami, FL @ Grand Central 06/21 Thu Athens, GA @ Georgia Theatre 06/22 Fri Charlottesville, VA @ Jefferson Theater 06/24 Sun Baltimore, MD @ The Ottobar (Headline Show, Full Set!) 06/25 Mon Morgantown, WV @ 123 Pleasant Street 06/26 Tue Chicago, IL @ Chicago Theatre 06/27 Wed Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium 06/29 Fri Hudson, NY @ Club Helsinki (Headline Show, Full Set!)
— Fall shows:
09/07 FRI Raleigh, NC @ Hopscotch Music Festival
11/10 Minneapolis MN @ Walker Art Center (with Eluvium)
This is a recording from our first ever show… It was also the first time anyone had heard ‘Shape of Things to Come’ outside of my studio. The performance took place at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams MA, on February 3rd, exactly two months before the record was released. It was recorded as a multitrack from the monitor board, then mixed by yours truly at home. We were all a bit nervous and shakey, since it was our first time on stage together, but it has that ‘New Band’ smell. We’ve grown a lot tighter since.
Thanks to EVERYONE at Mass Moca (our hometown venue) for an amazing night…Can’t thank you all enough for helping us kick off the new band, in the place we love the best.
Chicago, Illinois three piece Volcano! have been releasing music together for almost a decade now, fulfilling an evolution of sound that ranges in experimentalism, math rock, noise, pop and so many other genres that the division lines are completely blurred and untraceable at this point. 2005′s Beautiful Seizure, released on the almost 20 year old UK imprint The leaf Label, was possibly one of the most played albums of my life in 2005/2006. With a sonic integrity that still makes me unhinge on contact, Beautiful Seizure set the bar really high for this band. Volcano! followed up with Paperwork, another full length released three years later on the same imprint. More playful in the composition and make up of the album, Paperwork became an evolving step for a band whose had done so much with their first. Volcano! takes their time when constructing and recording albums and nothing has chnged with the launching of their third full length this year. Piñata is their latest endeavor and finds the group once again evolving into a new plateau with the help of The Leaf Label. The group has never changed members since Beautiful Seizur so it was an honor to connect with drummer Sam Scranton of Volcano! for an exclusive interview at Sound Colour Vibration. Sam and myself had a good time doing this interview a few months ago and we hope you have as much fun reading it.
Q&A with Sam Scranton of Volcano! Conducted by Erik Otis
Where was the new album recorded at and how many songs are making the final cut?
Sam Scranton: We recorded it at Key Club in Benton Harbor, Michigan this past December. All of our songs always make the final cut. We are too slow at writing to abandon anything. Actually, that’s not true, we have abandoned many songs, but at that point they are still fetal songs. Any song that we complete we record. We have 7 new songs, and 1 semi-old one- So Many Lemons, which I guess at that point is actually really old. We’re just so slow it doesn’t seem that old to us.
What type of influences come to mind when you think about the drum work that you brought to this new album?
Sam Scranton: I can’t say that I was trying to emulate any one drummer directly, it’s more that for this release, I “composed” beats instead of just improvising in the style of rock n’ roll. The feel on this one is a lot less loose and more propulsive, more toms, maybe it’s more krauty. I’d say it’s a new lens on our characteristic Volcano! energy. We were trying make the whole thing tighter but retain some of our old-style sloppiness that lets the listener feel that it all could fall apart at any moment.
Where does the band plan to tour in support of the new full length?
Sam Scranton: We hope to play one show in every country in the entire world, but some of that depends on how this record makes it out there into people’s hands.
How much time does the band dedicate to composing and rehearsing together right now?
Sam Scranton: We rehearse two times a week. Wed. 7-10, and Sun. 3-7, and we each contribute some hours on our own to bring in scraps of ideas for future songs. So maybe 10 hours a week?
Guitar player and vocalist Aaron of Volcano! is one of the most dynamic musicians with his mutated yet pop guitar lines and the unique way he molds his vocals over them. How has working with Aaron affected the way you play drums?
Sam Scranton: You’re right, Aaron is great. The biggest difference is that I play rock n’ roll drums now instead of jazz drums, which is a good thing. I suppose that this is more of a Volcano! effect, however, rather than an Aaron effect. I wouldn’t have made it very far as a jazz drummer (who knows I guess), but my practicing wasn’t methodical enough so I would never have attained jazz-precision at a high level. I guess playing in Volcano! helped me to develop more of what I am good at, and allowed me to ignore my weaknesses. It’s like realizing that I could only eat chocolate cake all the time and still feel great, be healthy, more muscular, a better smile, shinier mop. One Aaron-specific change is that I play extremely loud now, which is because his first amp was eardrum-shreddingly loud, so I had to play equally loud, and then use earplugs, which caused us to play even louder so that we could feel it in our viscera.
Who are some of your favorite artists or bands right now?
Sam Scranton: James Blake is the best thing to come out since Dirty Projectors, who have long been a favorite of mine. I liked the new-ish Kanye record. Nicky Minaj is exciting. Bloom off the King of Limbs was great. I grew to like and fear The Weeknd. I’m playing in another band Bastardgeist. I’ve been listening to Gyorgi Ligeti, Per Norgard, Georg Friedrich Haas, Thomas Ades, Horatiu Radulescu, Gerard Grisey. Those are some 20th/21st century classical guys. They all make some brutal and beautiful music.
I am going to have to check out these composers, really interested to get into that area of music more. There was a great amount of transition in the sound of Volcano! from 2005′s Beautiful Seizure to 2008′s Paperwork. I loved how the band evolved and presented something new. Can we expect this same state of transitioning to something new with Piñata?
Definitely expect serious transitioning. At least it feels like a serious transition to us. Our new songs for the most part are punchier, shorter, more “poppy”, except for a few where the opposite is true. There is one track we refer to as our old-Volcano! song; it’s kind of Palimpsest-y or Red and White Bells-y in form but with our newer feel. Hendirx-style melodizing, classic Aaron and Mark shredding, screaming, emoting, but more like we’re thirty instead of twenty in a cool, life-experience way.
What influenced you guys in choosing that album title?
Sam Scranton: Its basically the title track of the album. It’s probably the most fun
and characteristic of what we are making right now.
Did you compile a top 10 favorites of 2011 list for the year or no? Or top anything?
Sam Scranton: Off the top of my head: James Blake killed it, Azealia Banks had two awesome songs, umm…
James Blake was incredible in 2011, really gathered a lot of momentum, did you get into the new Tom Waits record Bad as Me?
Sam Scranton: I heard it. Didn’t get to into it though. I can’t remember what else came out right now embarrassingly.
I get those moments from time to time with how many good albums we have coming our way, seems like I can’t even think straight when trying to summarize it all in one conversation. Now that you are really close to album launch, what are some dream gigs you have in mind for the upcoming year?
Sam Scranton: I’d like for Kanye to discover us and take us around a bit, play some shows, record on his record.
I really think that would be one of the most bizarre experiences ever and you’d have to get me in backstage if that goes down.
Sam Scranton: Totally, so weird, I don’t think I could handle it. Other albums: I liked that Drake and Weeknd.
Did you see the Ghostface Killah article where he calls Drake softer than baby thighs?
Sam Scranton: I did see that.
He gave Drake the top 3 slots for softest rapper, I couldn’t agree more.
Sam Scranton: Ghostface is right.
That was a good article.
Sam Scranton: But what can I say, Kanye was in there too for wearing women’s clothing.
I don’t remember him being on the list but when you are skinny, got height and raised in the 90′s, they didn’t have clothes for you like that, so I guess it’s all good as Kayne is a little older and from the 90′s. Kayne is tall, right? or nah?
Sam Scranton: No, he’s actually short. You’re in the UK, right?
Southern California, I’d say my city name but that would be pointless, I don’t think you do meth or drive a big truck.
Sam Scranton: Oh, whoops. I thought you were UK.
So I doubt you’d know about this place.
Sam Scranton: Yeah, don’t do meth.
Me either, that’s bad news bears. For Volcano!, have you guys changed working together since the days of the first album?
Sam Scranton: So much, it’s way easier now.
How so?
Sam Scranton: It used to be really intense and we would argue all the time, now we realize that no idea is sacred, so if one of us doesn’t like something we just don’t talk about it too much. Knowing that there are a million ideas and then just coming up with a solution that we all like. It’s way better that way. I think we’ve just mellowed a bit too, which makes collaboration easier and more fun. We make serious stuff but don’t take ourselves as seriously.
Well this about wraps it up, thanks for your time Sam and we hope you the best.
As a poet, actor, musician, screenplay writer and author, Saul Williams legacy in the public forum of the creative arts is without a doubt timeless. With almost a dozen films released, many books, half a dozen full length albums and scores of musical collaborations with the likes of Zach De la Rocha, Buckethead, Sage Francis, Nine Inch Nails, Thavius Beck, Nas and many more, Saul has defined a path unlike any contemporary artist. Saul Williams released a new full length in Volcanic Sunlight and already premiered what is his latest film in Aujourd’hui, a film shot in Senegal that depicts a fictitious small village and ones last day on this earth in the context of something very different than what you would expect in a last day type of situation. Saul’s path as a creative entity is unrestricted and only bounded to his own imagination. It was because of this endless amount of imagination along with an unlimited source of inspiration, we are very proud to present this exclusive and very lengthy interview with Saul about his new album, film, a book he is planning to release in September, his dream collaborations, old songs and much, much more.
Conducted by Erik Otis
Transcribed by Ramzi Jamal Shalabi
Volcanic Sunlight, in the context of your career, is a completely different approach to sound for you in my opinion, the biggest leap from any one album to the next. We always love to dive into the methods, approaches and environments an artists takes when constructing an album. How many instruments do you typically run through during a session?
SW: When I start working, I work alone. I love collaborations but for me the collaborative process doesn’t necessarily start from the beginning all the time. The musical ideas for the album came from me working alone initially. I don’t really play any instruments, I play with instruments kind of like a kid would play with an instrument. I can play it enough to get what I want out of it but other instruments I have no idea how to get a sound out of it. When I started making this album I was pretty clear on the fact that I was going to be dealing with tribal or percussive drums and horns. Those were the two elements I wanted to play with, horns and drums and some synth sounds as well. I sampled and programmed drums at first. Then I used synth sounds and then I used those same synths to create fake horn sounds. After the album was completely demo’d all like that, then I moved to Paris and started working with the other producer. Then we brought in real horn players and real drummers to replace or play with some of my sounds. With horns for example, we had three horn players but each of them could play 2 different types of horns. We had French horns, bassoon, tuba, trombone and a bit of trumpet. In terms of drums, we had one drummer and one percussionist and I also played a lot of percussion with the percussionist. We would spend hours just adding layers and layers of percussion to songs. There is a lot of percussion on this album. Usually it started with me just doing everything, even just programming drums off a keyboard and then after that is when we would bring in all the other instruments and instrumentalists.
Do you keep notebooks around your house to make sure you don’t loose anything and have you kept all of your old notebooks of rhythms and poetry since you were little?
SW: Yeah, I keep journals. I don’t keep them randomly laying around the house but I have a collection of journals. In fact, I started making my own journals now because I used to collaborate with a women from San Francisco who used to make journals for me. I love writing but I also pay close attention to what I am writing in. I used to have this friend who would make journals for me for years. Of course I had to buy journals as well and now I make them. I keep all of my old journals and I do go back to my old journals, primarily in terms of what I am playing around with writing. My journals are where I chronicle my thoughts and ideas in relation to words. In relation to music, my ideas are stored in hard drives. There are times when I have a musical idea, I don’t open up my journal, I go to my keyboard or drum machine, computer, bass or guitar and I work it out then and record it. My musical ideas stay in hard drives and my written ideas stay in the journals. Those are the only things I moved to Paris because it was too expensive for me to bring all of my books. The only thing I did bring was all of my journals.
On Volcanic Sunlight, there is a huge array of percussive styles and tones that underlay the layers of vocals and synth that you blend, how many percussion instruments do you use as opposed to beat machines and how much time do you dedicate to practicing different drum patterns and tones?
SW: Oh man, I max out on stuff. For instance, let’s take ‘Vacations’ for example, I remember making that drum beat on the drum machine and the thing that made it warm was when I played those synth sounds and put those layers of sounds up under it that just made it sound super warm and like a soundscape. Once I played with that soundscape, I must have played that literally 300 times, non stop. I never wanted to leave that sound and with that, then I’d pick up percussion instruments and start playing. What you hear on the recording is none of the programming that I did; you hear Renaud and I playing on top of it and getting lost in it. I love beats, and if the beat is amazing for me I would let it play forever and play with it with other instruments. I experiment with types of poly-rhythms and what have you, but I’m also a fan of making quick decisions. I might make something, keep it and I feel it’s great and then I’m just dancing to it and it’s not so much I’m experimenting with stuff on top of it. I might layer it a lot, like for instance when Renaud and I are playing tom toms. We’re both playing with two hands then we have another drummer playing with two hands, so that’s six drums and we must have layered that I don’t know how many times. There’s a lot of layers, there’s a lot of listening. I’ve listened to my albums probably a million times before they come out and after they come out, maybe I listen to it ten times. The fun I have with the music is before it comes out. That’s when I’m listening like crazy as I walk down the street, walking around the house and I might keep the mic on and run to the mic with an idea when I have it. I’m totally into listening and re-listening and re-listening and re-listening as part of the creative process. Everything is layered a lot and we try a lot of different instruments, a lot of different percussions, sounds and what have you. This album is all organic, it starts with me programming then I’m playing on top of that and eventually taking out the drum machine and just keeping the real drums.
We just wanted to say we love the amount of singing and vocal layering on Volcanic Sunlight, it’s a very defining element that gives the music an undeniable light and integrity. The piece ‘Diagram’ is one that we feel really shows your dynamic abilities. You broke the seal on the last album with the type of direction you’d be taking your music with the inclusion of singing and Volcanic Sunlight feels like the full realization of that reality. Did this bring a very fresh and unique feeling to the creation of the album or have you always been doing this without releasing it to the public?
SW: Oh yeah. I felt so excited making this album and sharing it with people. I made the music first and I refused to record vocals until pretty much a year and half after I made all the music but I had some of the songs. I remember with ‘Diagram’ I sang that song to a 1000 people, just friends. They would ask about my music and I’d play it for them and I’d sing it for them. I would only record the music, no vocals. And wow, when I was working on this album, like any other album, it was the sound that I wanted to hear. I listen to the radio, I listen to what’s out there and a lot of times I’m writing what I feel is missing. Like this is what I wish I could hear and ‘Diagram’ falls completely into that path void. It was written early in the process, very early. It’s one of the first three of four songs that I wrote. I was excited because I was clear on the fact that I was sharing a new part of myself. A part that I knew existed and was comfortable with but perhaps not everybody knew existed. The person I guess who was most familiar with what was happening was my daughter because she would hear me working on it and singing it. You know I’m on a good path when the day comes when she’s like “do you mind if I, um, take these songs off your computer and put them on my iPod?”. [laughs] That’s when I’m like, okay, she wants to hear them. My daughter is fifteen right now, so I’m dealing with the case where they usually say “that’s boring” and most of my music career has been gauged off of kids response. Like that’s a Grippowiz. The idea of Grippo comes from me and my best friend, we were both expected fathers for the first time, thinking what kind of music will our kids will listen to. Like ah it’ll be crazy, they’ll call it Grippo and it’ll be fast and crazy wild and we were trying to describe it. Then a few years later I wrote the song Grippo that’s on the Saul Williams album. I was like ‘this is it!’ and knew that because I wrote it one Saturday morning when my daughter was watching cartoons and we lived in a loft in Downtown LA and it came to a commercial and I turned down the volume of the TV and turned up the music. She got up and started dancing wildly. I was like ‘gotcha! I knew it!’. I was like ‘That’s Grippo!’ Anything while I was recording this album, especially like ‘Dance’ and ‘Triumph’, I was dancing and happy and happy that I had a way to share my happiness. Before I knew how to share my anger and my angst in several ways but I wanted to share something more than that. I wanted to balance the equation so if you were going through your playlist of my stuff it wouldn’t all fit in one category.
We truly feel like Volcanic Sunlight is your Electric Ladyland, the record that leaps very far into the future and shows everything that has come to that point.
SW: I will clearly say that, that is the biggest compliment I have ever received for this album thus far.
How long did it take for you to pick the final tracks on such a new project and was selecting the track order process easy for you or tough to birth?
SW: Oh it was easy, it was easy. You know when you hear about women talk about the first child was really difficult, the labor was difficult, the second labor was difficult, and the third, they say ah, it just popped out? That’s kind of how Volcanic Sunlight felt, it really felt like it popped out. I was clear on the fact of what I had. Every song that came when it came I was super excited, I couldn’t wait to share it with friends and I thought it was funny and fun. I just loved the process of writing it. Nah, it wasn’t difficult. There’s only one song that I wrote for the album that I didn’t put on the album. Why didn’t I put that song on the album, because it wasn’t fully realized. Because most of the songs that I had written were better developed when I started working with my producer Renaud and that was the only song that wasn’t fully developed yet so we decided to focus on whatever the fourteen songs I had and that was it, that was enough.
When I had first heard the track ‘Dance’ I was really excited as I have been getting into a lot of Kollywood, Bollywood and so forth and this track has that immediate groove and vibe. After getting the record I was really happy to see that you had used a sample from the great Bollywood composer Rajesh Roshan. With this being one of the few samples, what compelled you to choose it and would you say Bollywood has influenced your film career?
SW: Well obviously it has influence just based on the fact that I sampled it. However I came across that song because of a great friend of mine whose a DJ named Frosty who runs a site called Dublab. Frosty used to be our tour manager and sound engineer when we would tour and basically when we were touring the main thing we would do is share our music collection. Frosty had come back from India, Cambodia and Vietnam and he made me a mixtape, maybe seven or eight years ago and that song was the funniest song to me. It was just funny. One day, early on when I first started working on Volcanic Sunlight, this is to say while I was still touring for Niggy Stardust, that song popped on my iPod shuffle and I was just cracking up and I wrote to it immediately and I wrote ‘Dance’. I wanted to write how that song made me feel and I like that little ‘dance, dance, dance’. I liked that it brought out that weird unexpected approach. It was, I guess, a bit of an epiphany but really everytime I have heard that song I have wanted to do something with it. It was just really a great thing for me, it’s one of my favorite songs.
I wanted to dive back a little bit into my formal entry point for your career with the track ‘Ohm’ on the Rawkus Records Lyricist Lounge Compilation. When I finally saw the SlamNation version, I was deeply impacted by the way you articulated each section with the Ohm’s, beat boxing and poetry. With your music evolved into a new state of inner consciousness, do you still perform solo poet sets like this and the ones most have seen through Def Poetry Jam?
SW: Yeah, definitely. Poetry readings remain for me, one, probably my greatest source of livelihood and really it’s my kitchen, my sanctuary. It’s really the place where I hear and think and contemplate. I go through phases with it but I’ve definitely continually re-encountered these poems and these opportunities to share them and leave them as I go with a lot of excitement. Basically, I’ve spent years studying some of these things and writing new things and also studying that. I don’t understand everything that pops out when it comes everytime, it takes years to eliminate some of the things that I think I understood that I thought I was saying but it was more receptive of what I was going through and I realize now that what I was going through was leaking through the page more than what I thought I was saying. It’s a continual sort of learning curve and process that I go through as I recite these poems. They’re really like mantras for me, and yes, I do poetry readings all the time.
The first time I had experienced you perform live was in 2004 at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles when you came out for one song to The Mars Volta’s live set. If I remember correctly, you did a unique version of Coded Language. The performance was extremely uplifting for me, do you ever see yourself making a record with a group as sonically diverse as The Mars Volta?
SW: Oh please, I would love to do that, oh my god, that would be fucking crazy. Come on, that would be incredible, that would be a dream. I knew them when they were At The Drive-In, that’s when I met them and we became friends before they quit At The Drive-In and started this new thing. It’s funny, for instance, the first time I toured with The Mars Volta, Omar gave me six tracks that he wrote for me, just guitar and I still have them that I’m supposed to be writing to that I never really wrote to. The idea with collaboration was from the start, but those things they take shape and they form over years and over time and what have you. I’m a huge fan of At The Drive-In and him and The Mars Volta and those first two albums for me were life changing. They confirmed everything I believed in and everything I wanted to hear. It was the biggest gift of my life at the time to do be able to do the De-Loused in the Comatorium tour with them. The first 50 shows they did I was their opening act, you know, set the shotgun to the head. Man I watched every show, I watched every show and I felt like suddenly I understood what somebody else might of told me when they told what it was like touring with Nirvana or some shit. I felt it so strong, so that would be awesome [and] yeah I remember that night in LA.
Around the same time of this performance in 2004 I was shown K-PAX and was blown away. The imagery, concepts, question of human morality and the ending of letting the audience choose what had really occurred was beautifully orchestrated. I loved your roll as Ernie, the germaphobe, what type of preparation did you take to jump into this roll?
SW: KPAX was really great the way we shot that film because what they did is they built the asylum on the paramount lot in Hollywood and it was really shot on ensemble-like. I was there for siz weeks everyday like a patient. I’d put on my bathrobe and my pajamas and walk around like a patient. All the characters were there, we were all there the whole time, they kept us there everyday. Beforehand, the preparation that I had done was simply my imagination of how a character like that would be. Even when I auditioned for that piece, that audition was hilarious because I came to the audition in a surgical mask with gloves. I refused to shake the directors hand and I’m like, I’m Saul Williams, I’m not the character but I came in character. They wanted me to do an audition in front of the camera and I went through two minutes with them about whether the camera was clean and if there’s going to be another person in the room and is this person clean?, have they washed their hands?. I was playing with the character the entire time. In fact I wouldn’t let them record me and bring in another person into the room to record me unless they opened a window and when they opened the window I’m like “oh no close the window, it’s too many germs’. So the directors cracking up just the whole audition and I left like that, I refused to shake his hand. Of course I got the call the next day saying they want you. (laughs) That was my little lesson on how to audition.
What have been the strongest ideas, theories and new practices to film did you take from K-PAX that you could have never dreamed you would walk away with?
SW: What I learned about K-PAX: One, the writer of the book was there. I read the books and I loved the story and I got into the story way before we shot the film. I read all the books and so I was really happy to be able to sit there with the writer of the book beforehand and discuss how the ideas came up and all that buut the craziest thing that i got from that experience was really being there and playing chess with Kevin Spacey everyday and playing the guitar with Jeff Bridges. There’s one guy, the main character, the other dude, not Kevin Spacey, I can’t think of his name right now, he was in one of my favorite films Warriors. He plays my best friend in the film but he had been in one of my favorite films called the Warriors which is about gangs in New York in the late 70′s or mid 70′s. Me, I was just learning about people while I was there. I was learning about people and celebrity and how it affects some and doesn’t affect others. I was very self conscious when I moved to LA and when I was there. I really came from Brooklyn and New York with a lot of judgement like “what the fuck am I doing here?”. Mostly I went to LA to make music and I was repulsed kind of by what I thought I might encounter in the film world but I had because of my film SLAM, I had a lot of opportunity here. Some of it I liked and some of I didn’t care for too much and K-PAX was one of the first times where I said “okay, okay, okay, I’ll do this, I like this, this seems interesting.” It was really funny because Alfre Woodard was in it, who I had met as a person, in fact my film SLAM had won Sundance he was the juror that had read the huge speech announcing that we won. I was happy to be around here to sit back and talk with these guys and find out about who they were and what have you. Jeff Bridges was really a beautiful experience for me because you know he has a lot of down time, earned a lot of money through a little bit of work, right? With the crews fixing up all the lights and lenses and so forth, he has a lot of downtime when making a movie. So the question is how do you use that downtime? For me, it’s always been writing poetry and making music and here’s someone like Jeff Bridges who had his own camera that he kept off camera and as soon as they would take cuts he would pick up his camera and start taking pictures of what was happening on the set. This is someone who grew up with Hollywood, his father was in that. I’m watching him, just learning the different apertures of his camera and he’s shooting the entire two months that we are there, he’s shooting everyday whenever he’s not being shot. Then like a month after the film ends I get something in the mail from him and it’s a book: The Making of K-PAX. He’s makes a book called The Making of K-PAX and he pays in full and prints them up himself and writes little personal notes like “Saul, this is great”. He put together a book, a real book that he called the cable book that he just did himself. So me, I was really monitoring and watching peoples work habits and also that habit. That to me is also related to the film and to the story of all these people and in this institution and how they use their time. Whether they use it inebriated by fear and paranoia like the character that I had before he went through his script or in some sort of psychotic rage or open. That was my observation, I didn’t walk away from there with something solid. I walked away from there with just a really cool experience.
Do you find that when you make a film the characters you tap into become an influence with your writing and music?
SW: Sometimes yes, sometimes no. For instance, with K-PAX, I can’t say that it influenced my writing and music. It was a welcome escape from my writing and music at the time. However, I just finished shooting a film called Aujourd’hui which I shot in Senegal over the summer for two months. While I was shooting that film, before I even started shooting it, the director had written this script for me and it’s the story of this man that lives in this fictitious village in Africa where the dead come and choose one person to go back to the land of the dead with them. This sort of sacrifice happens once in a generation and that person is called the chosen and if someone is chosen during the course of this time it’s a huge celebration in the village because they get a new hospital, they get a new school, his family gets new houses and the kids get to go to college. It’s a huge sacrifice done for the wealth of the community, sort to speak. So it’s a big honor to be chosen. As opposed to a curse, it’s an honor. If you are the chosen, you find out on the morning of your death. You find out that morning that when you close your eyes that night it will be the last time. I play that character, essentially from the moment he opens his eyes to the moment he closes them, like what does he want to do with his last 24 hours. I knew I had this role for nine months before we shot it and right when I got the role I was mixing Volcanic Sunlight and I was scared. I was scared of death for example. One, I was like why did I get a role like this. Of course the writer is playing with the idea of looking at everyday like it’s your last day. So I began doing that and than yes, that influenced everything that I wrote musically, like hearing the percussion. The music, I was going to tell you, the director gave me to prepare for the film, the main thing the director gave me was music. Music from Mali and Senegal and the Congo. So for months while I was finishing Volcanic Sunlight I was listening to this African music and it was a beautiful, most beautiful transition from finishing my album with all this percussion into this real friendly, real realm of percussion that culminated it when we shot the film. I was surrounded by drummers and all this stuff and it was just crazy in Senegal, it was beautiful. So yeah, a character like that and a story like that, yeah, the fact that everything I did is still affecting me. I still return to that music, That music, it’s a part of me now. You know the stuff you want to play for people when they come by or what have you? I’m always playing that stuff and of course will affect whatever I do next musically.
As an artist who has deep seeded roots in music, poetry, hip hop, film, books and so much more, do you find that each of these disciplines requires a slightly different Saul Williams or have you generated enough experience and foresight to command all these energies into one organized and focused stream of how you process everything?
SW: Well the fact of the matter is I’m one person, and I don’t really look at myself as having a split personality. In a very simple real way, all of these things come from me. Let’s just say I can walk and chew gum at the same time. I keep journals, I keep instruments near by, I keep journals near by, I love reading, I love watching film. Really, I’m devoted mostly to love, I spend most of my times immersed in my love life and I come out every now and then and take a sip of poetry or wine, you know. Most of the time I’m looking for good music to play in my love life movie. [laughs]. That’s really what it’s all about. Some of that continual sense of inception and deception comes in a few poems, comes in a few songs and comes in a few ideas that might be filmic so to speak and so I keep paper, pen and computer handy and nearby so I can monitor those. I like being my own boss but I love the creative process. What I have learned with time is how to trust that process. I realize now there’s a time and place for everything, like I don’t get frustrated too much if it’s been a few days and I haven’t written anything. Maybe it’s not the time to write. Sometimes I sit down at the piano before I sit down at the desk and sometimes it’s more about the music and sometimes it’s more about the words and what have you. I kind of take it as it comes and I also take in a lot of things. I’m a huge student of film and literature. I’m always being sparked to watch something I haven’t watched and I’ll go on huge binges, like I’m on a Cassavetes binge or I’m on a Jarmusch binge. I go on huge binges of directors and musicians , Faulkner binges and all types of things and I entertain myself to those binges. I enjoy those binges, I allow myself to go off without knowing why, you know, like ‘Why am I into so much Bukowski right now?’. I don’t know, but, if I’m doing that and I’m thinking about writing I know that when I eventually turn back to the page with what I have learned from that is going to come on free. I keep on in that fashion basically and then it moves me in different directions. Right now I’m pretty clear on the fact that I’m thinking a lot about film. I have a few films I’m working on, I have a film that’s coming out this year. I have a film that I’m writing, I have a film that I’m acting in and another film I’m going to be acting in. To me, I’m really excited about that because that’s really what I’ve been waiting for. I really spent a lot of time writing poetry and making music to past the time. [laughs] I’m finally in a place where I’m really learning how to conceptualize film because the first time I did it I kind of lucked-up on it. My first film, I did it without really knowing how I did it. So after that it’s taken time to really bring it to the next level. That’s important to me, so I’ve been learning but yeah, all those different art forms, they come and go as they choose.
From all of your travels around the world through your music and your films, what has been the most prized possessions you have collected?
SW: I guess my most prized possessions are probably my journals. All that is is me collecting myself, me collecting my thoughts. My most prized possessions, I’ve given them all away, that’s the music and the poetry. Those are my souvenirs from my travels and it’s funny because in French souvenir means ‘to remember’. My souvenirs are in my writings. If you ask me about anything I could tell you where I wrote it. If there was some sort of location device connected to my songs or poems and what have you, that would probably be the most interesting part. You’d say, “oh wow!”. Like the amount of stuff I’ve written on airplanes. The amount of stuff I’ve written in a crazy bar in Turkey or in a hostel in India. There’s so many places where these things come from that you would never get from the poem. I’m talking about Brooklyn it seems like or whatever but I didn’t write it there. Those are my most prized possessions. That’s my way of showing them, is by releasing them to the public, that way I know I can’t loose them.
I love hearing quotes from artists about their dream jams, one that comes to mind is Hendrix speaking about Roland Kirk, Miles Davis and himself and getting together for a session. Do you have a dream set of musicians that you’d love to create an album with?
SW: Ah man, sometimes I have those dreams. I’m not really clear on that today. Shoot, if you put me in a room with PJ Harvey, Thom Yorke and Bjork, I’m sure I’d have fun but I’m not sure that I’d be saying anything. I’d probably want to just play around with percussion or something and let them handle the other shit. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. So that’s an idea. Who else, who else, who else? I know I had a strong idea the other day but I can’t remember it right now. I don’t know if I have an answer for that today. Sometimes I’m strong in that mood and other times I haven’t the slightest. Today is one of those days. I haven’t the slightest who I would love to vibe with. I’ve had some cool vibes. I was able to collaborate with Kayne, for example, when he was working on ‘Love Lockdown’. I was able to help him with that sound and that was fun. And to collaborate with Nas, Zach de la Rocha and Serj Tankian. For me to be in the studio with some cool people, Damian Marley and stuff [...] I loved being a fly on the wall. For instance, one time I was at a party at Princes’ house and we were in his basement and he was playing music. He had his friends band that was playing there with him and he’s like, “Saul, come up here, come grab the microphone.” and I was like, “No.” [laughs]. “No thank you.” I honestly didn’t feel like playing. I didn’t feel like it after he announced me. I don’t have that thing where it’s like ah, you know what would make this better? Me. [laughs] I don’t really have that thing, I hear something great, it makes me want to shut up. That’s really the theme of Volcanic Sunlight, that’s why the phrasing and everything is so minimalistic is because I don’t want to get into the way of the music. if I was loving sounds of the music itself, I just really wanted to add to the music, I didn’t want to detract from it by bringing in my voice. So I just shut up most of the time. That was my whole approach with Volcanic Sunlight was don’t let the words get in the way. That’s why also in terms of artists that I love; artists that I love I don’t always necessarily want to collaborate with them, I just want to hear them. I’ve been able to have a few cool experiences like being in a living room with Erykah Badu and she sits down at the piano and sings and you’re like, “ah, thank you, thank you, this was cool, wow, wow, wow.” Janele Monet or something and there’s tons of those people and that’s enough. Most of those moments I didn’t say shit. The only times where it strikes me and it’s hard to say but in that sense I’m more of a hip hop head. If I’m in a place where the beat is wild then maybe I might start dreaming of stepping up and grabbing the mic from whoever has it if it’s really really moving me. That’s actually when the New Yorker in me steps out but otherwise I’m just happy to be in the room and I’ve been in the room. I stay quiet, I remember being in the studio in Electric Ladyland with D’Angelo when he was recording Voodoo and not once did I have the inclination of being like, oh you know what this song is missing? Me. (laughs) My main thing was I just wanted to hear. I’m just wishing that I could squeeze my thumb and index finger together and my eyes and ears could record so that I could play it back later. I’ve been through some beautiful experiences like that and in most of those situations I had no desire to do more than being on the table or get my feed. In most cases like that I become a percussionist.
I wanted to ask you about a collaborative track you did for Blackalicious called ‘Release’. I have always loved the visual imagery that the wordplay in Gift of Gab from Blackalicious and yourself bring to that song. My hairs stand up as your verse slowly winds in and boils to a heated finish lyrically and musically. I feel this piece is one of the best (of many) moments in modern poetry through sound. Do you go back to these old recordings and poetry that stems from it and recollect?
SW: To me, the track that I go back to the most is probably ‘Talk To Strangers’. I haven’t gone back to ‘Release’ in a long time. I can’t remember the last time I heard that but I do hear people people tell me that they love it and that’s how they first heard me or something like that. For me, yes I do go back to some of these tracks, some of them, but my favorite in that sense is ‘Talk to Strangers’ and maybe that’s because it was sort of a mystical experience for me. I was in the studio, finishing and mixing my second album and Serj Tankian did not know I was in the studio doing the finishing touches. He did not know that the night before I was thinking that the only thing I need now is an introduction, just [for] me to write an introduction. I was thinking about that night and I woke up the next morning to a phone call. It was Serj from System of a Down and he said “Hey Saul, how’s it going man? You know I was just thinking about you last night and I wrote this music on piano for you and I have really no idea, but really I was just building a new studio in my house and I was just trying out recording for the first time but I was thinking of you and I recorded this beautiful piano thing and I had a friend over whose singing in the background a little bit and I was just wondering if I could mail it to you.” I’m like don’t mail it to me, let me come get it. I drove to his house and I picked up the CD and I knew it was going to be my introduction before I heard it. I put it in my car and heard the piano start and I was like, holy shit. I went back home and I just wrote. I just wrote about what I wanted people to feel when they listened to this album which is I wanted them to feel open. So that’s why I went to an open space because I know you wouldn’t see it, no one could see me do it and nobody else could prove it and I tried to write from this simple place. I was super moved by it, I was moved by the experience. I knew, I alone knew that I had spent the night before wondering how I was going to find an introduction and it just appeared the next morning. I wrote it that afternoon and took it the studio that night and recorded it and the album was done but it’s hard for me to listen to some stuff. I’ll try ‘Release’ again, I haven’t listened to ‘Release’ in years honestly but I remember writing it. I totally remember writing it and I remember recording it. I had two days with that song before I recorded it. They had contacted me through my manager, I had never met them and they were recording at Mario Delgado’s house who had produced for the Beastie Boys, and they’re like meet us at Mario Delgado’s house. I drove there and I had met Zach before but Zach De la Rocha showed up right when I showed up, and they played us the music. He was like we want to record it tomorrow and so I took the music home and everything that I’m describing is what was on the wall or on the floor of my house as I’m sitting on the floor in my bedroom looking around the room. That’s what was there, mandolin cased in glass was a gift that someone had given me from India that I had just had framed. Everything I was describing was there and even more than that. So many things seemed to be made of wood it overwhelmed me, oak and elk and me. I was literally surrounded by these things and I wrote a very detailed narrative on everything like if I had just made a song about myself, what I thought.
We wanted to talk about the newest film projects you are involved with, what can we expect to come forth in the next few years and have you been actively writing scripts in this phase of your life?
SW: One, we have my film Aujourd’hui which means ‘today’ in English. It’s coming out this year and premiers at the Berlin Film Festival Berlinale competition at the Berlin Festival. Next month the film premiers February 10th then will come out in theaters. I don’t know when though, but sometime during the year. After that, there are three other films that I’m working on right now but I won’t really talk about that. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble. That’s really where my head is at right now, mostly film, but I’m also just finishing this book that comes out in September, September 4th which is called Chords. What that book is, it’s a literary mixtape. It’s kind of like an anthology but a little bit different. I put a call out through social media that I wanted 100 poems to make a book with. I ended up getting people responding from facebook and twitter. I ended up getting 8000 [poems]. I hired two co-editors and we choose 100 poems and then I took the poems and I put the titles on one side and just kept the poems on another, no title. I tried to find a theme in the story-line and make one story, one continual poem. 100 different poems with the titles leading in the back like song credits. There was no distractions, just between the words and the stories. That’s why I call it a literary mixtape because it’s more of me trying to blend and find one true story-line as opposed to the idea of here’s a 100 poems, here’s a 100 titles by a 100 different authors. It is that but it’s not presented in that way. That comes out on September 1st, so I’ll be touring with that and inviting those 100 poets from all over to appear in whatever cities they’re in with the book to do readings and they can initiate readings. My whole goal with that is I wanted to find a way to creatively introduce 100 new poets to the experience of being published.
We really wanted to tell you how much we truly love Volcanic Sunlight. You have stated in many interviews that this album is a representation and embodiment of the underground rising and a shift of consciousness. The record cover immediately interjects me into this shift, how much of the packaging to your releases and specifically Volcanic Sunlight do you have a hand in with being on a major label?
SW: Oh Always. I’ve always had most of my hands in the packaging. The only thing that I’ve gone through is that my ideas are always too expensive. I remember for my first album I wanted a twelve page booklet inside and they’re like you have enough money for six pages. Okay, okay, okay, I don’t want it in a plastic case, and they’re like you can only afford it. Each time I get closer to being able to do what I want. I spent probably a year trying to figure out what I wanted to do for this album cover. I knew at the end of the day that I wanted to keep it simple, I wanted to keep it super simple and I saw that this did it.
I love that your lyrical presentation reflects a joy and the rhythm of cultures of dance for me in the name record, I really feel good when I listen to Volcanic Sunlight. When I listen, the sounds of the words and how the nuances and approaches of each word really feels beautifully in the imaginative sense of how the tones string together from word to word. I really feel the love and internal illumination that springs forth on this record with the vocals. Do you approach your vocal parts like Billie Holiday and the other great vocalist where spontaneous and composed vocal melody is the center piece to how the songs transform and mold into shape or do the lyrical song concepts in the poetry become the root in how the music will be directed and constructed?
SW: No, in terms of Volcanic Sunlight particularly and most of my music in general, especially the later albums, it’s the music that determines what the words are and where they go. Even in terms of singing, I keep it super spontaneous and a lot of times I’ll sing as I’m making the music or the chord immediately after. It’s just gibberish and then I’ll try to find the words that fit the gibberish because as I’m playing with gibberish I may know where certain phonetic sounds should repeat or not repeat. So I’ll just find words that match my gibberish. The singing is spontaneous and that’s how you know where words go or don’t go. I think for the most part, the words are more important to the listener than they are to me. I find that because I hear a lot of people say but we can’t understand what you’re saying. I’m like who cares, it’s not about what I’m saying but how I’m saying it. [...] I’m singing and playing around with sounds and melodies before the words.
What have been some of your favorite albums, books and films from the last 5 years or so?
SW: Probably my favorite books that I’ve read this year [...] well I’m reading Faulkner right now, I’m reading Wild Palms, but before then I read a book called Habibi by Craig Thompson, a graphic novel, and that’s probably one of my favorite books of 2011. I also read a book called The Ninth Circus last year which I really liked. I’ve been reading a lot of old books as well, I always feel like I have a lot of catching up to do, you know. I know a lot of the America classics and now I’m learning a lot of the French classics that didn’t get across here in the states. There’s always old stuff to be read so I draw a melange of old and new. Music-wise I would say last year the album I probably listened to the most was PJ Harvey’s England album. Caribou, that was huge for me, the Caribou album. It was exactly what I wanted to hear. I like the The Age of Adz by Sufjan Stevens. I liked Lil Waynes The Carter IV a lot. It was pretty clear to me that it was his first ‘written’ album, meaning I knew that he was in prison writing, not like just free-styling off the top of his head and I could feel the energy that comes from being in solitary confinement in prison. I really enjoyed his sharpness on that album. I was doing a lot of listening online to like Jay Electronica. I had a lot of fun dancing and listening to Lil’ B. The hip hop group called the Death Grips. At the same time as all this I’m going through old PJ Harvey, I’m listening to Patti Smith, a lot of Serge Gainsbourg. A lot of old stuff I’m listening to too. New films, I had a bizarre extreme experience that I ended up liking this film Melancholia. I also liked Tree of Life. I saw Inception a few times and I had to see it a few times because I kept falling asleep, not because I didn’t like it but because I would close my eyes and listen to the music and I really love how the music works in that film. A film called The Separation, that’s a good a French film. There’s another film called L’incendies that I liked, that’s French-Canadian. With film I’ve been mostly going through old stuff, like this past year if I looked at the name I’d say its been the year of Cassavetes. I’ve watched so much Cassavetes again and again and again this year it’s crazy. The past week has been a very type of Jarmusch week but more so than that I’ve been going to French films, watching a lot of French films. I was also been watching a lot of Pasolini, Andrei Tarkovsky; the guy who wrote The Mirror. [...]
The enigmatic experimental rock duo Nice Nice are one of our favorites here at Sound Colour Vibration. Having signed with Temporary Residence Limited in the turn of the 21st century, their move to Warp Records in recent years has produced the phenomenal full length Extra Wow along with a future for the band that compliments the work they built their name on. We caught up with guitarist Jason Buehler of Nice Nice to dive into many subjects he had not touched on in interviews prior along with discussing their new partnership with the Warp Family and the Extra Wow album. We are really excited to see where Nice Nice take us in the future as every album has been a completely different album from the rest and a joy to experience.
“I think that anything that one puts great value into has the ability to affect them greatly, and the more power that the person gives it, the more powerful the effect on the person. That said, music has been the main focus of my life for a long time and it has gotten me extremely high very many times- like, laughing and crying at the same time high.”
Q&A with Nice Nice of Warp Records Conducted by Erik Otis
EO: Nice Nice signed with the famous Warp records in recent times, what was the circumstances that brought this move in labels about?
JB: It was completely random. A guy who worked with Warp was in town checking out the Portland music scene and we wound up meeting at the record store that I was working at. He had heard Nice Nice and asked if we had anything new so I gave him a bunch of stuff and, not expecting anything to come of it, promptly forgot about it. Then he emailed me a couple of months later out of the blue and said that Warp might be interested in talking with us about releasing something. We were totally shocked! Warp artists had been a huge influence on the musical direction that we took when we first started the band in 2000, and the opportunity to work with them was just too cool.
EO: How has the transition to Warp records changed your approach to making your albums?
JB: I don’t think that it has- not yet, at least. We were already planning to make a record before we signed to Warp and I think that we pretty much made that same record. But there were some changes to our normal process that did affect the way that the album was produced- most notably changing to a new recording system and having to restart the process after a terrible computer crash basically destroyed an almost finished album. We were able to salvage some of it, but were just left with little bits and pieces of recording strewn about randomly: a piece of a guitar part from one song, a drum part from another, etc… it was a complete mess. But we got a new computer and I learned some new recording software and set out to reconstruct the record as best as I could using the bits that we still had. It was not my normal way of working, but the new approach allowed the songs to start going in new directions and morphing and changing in weird ways that we didn’t expect. It was actually pretty cool to see the evolution and some of the tunes wound up much better as a result, but it took way longer than it would have and was a huge headache. So, yeah, some outside factors did influence the way our first Warp release was made, but the label was not one of them.
EO: Your group Nice Nice released a set of seasonal ep’s on Temporary Residence Records that were very different from the works you have completed around it, what inspired this type of release?
JB: Well I think that most of our releases have been pretty different from one another, really, but I guess the seasonal eps do stand out a bit. The reason that they sound and feel like they do though, as is the case with all of our recordings, is just because that is how we were playing at a time that we happened to also be recording. We play music a lot- usually a few hours a day four or five days a week- and we are constantly exploring different musical ideas and following tangents and digesting influences and experimenting, so our sound is constantly changing and going through phases. Sometimes we will move through a phase very quickly and sometimes we will stay there for a while, but if we happen to record at any point then we wind up documenting whatever phase we are in at the time. So our recorded output is essentially a series of snapshots of us at particular moments in time. Prior to recording the seasonal eps we had released the “Awesome” ep, which was extremely aggressive and violent and physical, and I think the seasonals were sort of the aftermath of that chaos. After the seasonals we recorded “Yesss!”, which was more colorful and rhythmic and electronic sounding- probably a reaction to having just played a bunch of mellower drone stuff. Oh, and the reason that we did the ep’s as a series of four is because we were stuck in that zone for a long time and wound up with tons of material- plus the “seasonal” theme gave us an excuse to do some “autumnal” acoustic stuff for the first time.
EO: The two of you have been creating for over a decade, how did this connection form and when did it become a situation where releasing albums was a direction you both wanted to take?
JB: We actually met in high school and played in the school “Jazz/Rock Ensemble”together, performing questionable renditions of Steely Dan numbers and regrettably arranged jazz standards. It was bad. But we got along and started trading music and stuff and then, a few years later, Mark moved to Olympia, WA, where I was living. We played in some bands up there and, when one of them fell apart in 1999, we started jamming as a duo out of necessity. Neither of us had ever seen live looping at that point and didn’t really think that we could actually be a Band as just a duo, but we both wanted to keep playing music so we just kept doing it for fun. Then we started getting better at it and taking the music in different directions and we realized that being a duo was actually pretty awesome. We no longer had to worry about a lot of the things that can be problems for larger bands- complex interpersonal dynamics, artistic direction conflicts, stupid stuff like scheduling issues, etc. And since we were doing a lot of improvising at the time we didn’t have to run through parts of songs over and over (our previous band had been really tight and academic)- we could just play whatever and however we wanted at the time. I was free to deal all of the harmonic and melodic stuff however I wanted, Mark could do whatever he wanted on his end, and we could take the music in any direction at any given moment because we didn’t have to stop and talk about key signatures or arrangement issues with anybody. It was super liberating. And we started playing more and more and incorporating new sounds and finding new ways to interact and playing all kinds of new music that we had never played before- free music, electronic music, experimental stuff, weird angular no-wave and atonal funk and whatever other crazy new shit we could come up with. And, since we didn’t really take it seriously as a Band or have any ambition or interest in the music business at all, we didn’t worry about songs or setting up shows or anything- we just locked ourselves in our tiny practice space and played like maniacs for about a year. It was just an awesome time for us and it gave us a psychotic passion for music that has sustained us for a long time. But, yeah, eventually we started taking shows and releasing stuff and became, like, a real band.
EO: Your first record Chrome saw a large mix of styles and modes, was that album long in the making or was it a more spontaneous effort?
JB: “Chrome” was very spontaneous- it was entirely improvised and recorded in our practice space over the course of a few months. We would just jam for an hour or so and then go back and find chunks of music that sounded like songs. We were trying to play a little more compositionally at the time because we knew we were making a record, but otherwise it was like a regular practice edited down into digestible portions. And that album is so diverse because we were exploring a lot of different directions at the time and our jams were really diverse. I actually found a cdr recently that was labelled Halloween ’02 (the same night we recorded “Nein” and one other song from the album), and one of the tracks was an insane riffy Metal-sounding tune that sounds like an entirely different band! It cracked me up. But, yeah, that album was a snapshot of what we were up to in late ’02 and early’03. A few months of jams chopped up into songs- the same approach we used for all of our recordings until about 2005, when Mark messed up him arm and we had to start building tracks in the studio (first on Fall and Winter and then again on Yesss!).
EO: How much music does your group have recorded that’s not out?
JB: An insane amount. There are unused tracks from the early albums and tons of unfinished songs or alternate mixes from Extra Wow, but the bulk of what we have is jams. We have taped most of our practices since the beginning and, unless we are working on material for an album or a new song for our live set, our “practices” are just long jams. A ton of unique and original music there. Hopefully we can get some of it out into the world because a lot of it is pretty good and it offers a cool view into our process. I’m working on figuring out how to do that right now.
EO: You performed at the Warp 20 show with Battles, Flying Lotus and Broadcast, what was that experience like?
JB: It was amazing. Of course, getting to play with any of those bands in any context would be great, but to have them all together like that was phenomenal. A really incredible show. The rest of that tour- our first trip to Europe- wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, though. The flight over wreaked havoc on my gear- to the point that I couldn’t get any sound whatsoever out of my amp until right when we had to be on stage for the first show. Not how you want to start a tour. But things got worked out over the course of the trip and we got to play some amazing shows and meet the wonderful folks at Warp and see Europe and the U.K. via plane, train, automobile, and boat!
EO: Who are some bands under the radar you feel people should know about?
JB: Honestly, I’m going through a phase of listening to a lot of really old music right now, so I’m not sure if I can offer much here. The modern stuff that I have been enjoying is mostly electronic music of various styles, but I only have scattered tracks and haven’t dug too deep into the artists themselves. There are some Portland bands that I like who may not be know well outside of town- Miracles Club, Golden Retriever, Operative, and Purple and Green are all doing good things- but I am really just listening to, like, Albanian vocal music and old Indonesian Kroncong and new age synth stuff and minimal techno. Just enjoying music that is detached from the modern timeline for the moment, I guess.
EO: What are some of the highest states music has taken you physically and or metaphysically?
JB: I think that anything that one puts great value into has the ability to affect them greatly, and the more power that the person gives it, the more powerful the effect on the person. That said, music has been the main focus of my life for a long time and it has gotten me extremely high very many times- like, laughing and crying at the same time high. It doesn’t happen as often as it used to- the time before I was technical enough of a musician to be able to analyze and understand everything that was happening in real time was really the golden time- but I still listen to tons of music and do get off from time to time. I remember listening to some music one day when I was about 16, though- right as I was developing the ability to listen to the various parts of the band and hear how everything fit together to create the whole- and I was trying to process it all but it was coming so fast and the syncopations and harmonies and patterns were so relentless that it overloaded my brain and I just started laughing. That was the first time that I really had a strong visceral reaction to the awesomeness that is music- apart from, like, rocking out to some punk rock or something. I have had some very high moments at concerts and playing music as well, but I think that active listening to recorded music has worked the best on me over the years. Good stuff.
EO: What direction will Nice Nice take for the future and when can we expect another release?
JB: I have no idea- we will see! We are recording right now using the old “Chrome” jam & chop method, and I also have some tracks that I am working on using a more traditional studio approach. Not sure what either of them will turn into at this point but we are looking to get some more music into the world in 2012. And hopefully I can get a bunch of our practice jams out in some capacity, as I am curious to see how people respond to them. Not a lot of bands out there generating that kind of output. Either way, looking forward to the new year and seeing where it takes us!
Academy Award winning director Kevin Macdonald (“A Day in September” and “The Last King of Scotland”), recently gave Sound Colour Vibration a few moments of his time while promoting his new film Marley, the definitive and family authorized documentary on the life of Bob Marley. Macdonald was off the coast of Venezuela on the small island of Curacuo and was more than gracious to chat with us about some of the finer details that surround his latest film Marley. Macdonald was very enthusiastic about his new film. This interview was filled with very a positive dialogue regarding the task of telling the tale of a great man. Clearly Kevin did not come into the position for a paycheck; his genuine love to uncover truth and re tell it to a large audience is undeniable and actually led him to rediscover his love for the musician as well. I enjoyed the time I spent conversing with him and I feel that this interview will allow our readers some insight towards the man who harnessed all of Bob Marley’s confidants, family and bandmates to tell the most intimate story made on the man to date.
“This man has this impact that goes on. He’s unlike any other popular musician. His impact, which is more than just being musical, it’s spiritual, it’s political. He’s a spokesman for the dispossessed [...]“
Kevin MacDonald Q&A With Sound Colour Vibration Conducted By Jason Hedge
JH: Which members of the Marley family did you have the closest relationship with during the whole process of creating Marley?
KM: I guess the person who took point as it were was Ziggy Marley, whose Bob’s eldest son. I think it was kind of a personal passion of his to get this film and to have a film that was very personal and intimate made that was about Bob. Bob the man rather than Bob the myth.
JH: Did he give you any key points that he (Ziggy) wanted to emphasize?
KM: No, I’ve made rock and roll films before; I made one about Mick Jagger before and I’ve had a few scrapes with authority in those films and so I’m pretty wise about making sure I get to make the film I want to make. Ziggy was very enthusiastic to take part and very helpful in giving us family photographs and footage and helping get the other family involved. But he didn’t tell me what I should or shouldn’t say.
JH: What type production requirements were needed to capture the essence of Jamaica (the Arial shots), The Slave port in Ghana and the Footage of Bavaria?
KM: Well we shot this film on every format going for one reason or another. So the slave Fort at the beginning was in Ghana; it’s incredibly hot and humid there. We were worried about taking digital cameras so we shot that on 16mm because 35 was too bulky and heavy to carry over. We had a small documentary team so we shot that on Super16, you can see the grain there but it looks rather beautiful. It’s good at coping with those extreme contrast changes. Also, we shot some of the interviews on the Red camera, some of them on the Alexa and some of them on the Canon 5D. Than we shot bits and pieces on 35mm as well just for fun. Than the aerials were shot by a London company, excellent guys, called Flying Pictures. They’ve done Harry Potter and they’ve done War Horse. They have a small portable kit that you can fly pretty much anywhere in the world and one guys comes out with it on his own and works with a local helicopter pilot and that was how they captured those gorgeous shots. We were very lucky, we shot early in the morning then late in the afternoon with beautiful low light. We were lucky with real clarity which often you don’t get in the tropics, you get a sort of hazy like but we were very lucky.
JH: Where were you as a Bob Marley fan prior to making this film? Where were you during production as a fan? Where are you now as a fan? Do you have a favorite Bob Marley album?
KM: I was bit of a fan when I was a kid, when I was a teenager. One of the first handfuls of albums I ever bought was Uprising. I was struck, growing up in the Scottish wilderness as I did, by the melodies and sucked in by the melodies but kept listening because of the depth and rebelliousness, I suppose, of the lyrics and the lyrical content. Than there was always that mystical and the Rasta side, which I didn’t really understand. You know, whose Jah? Whose Halie Selassie? But maybe that gave it more of a mystique. Later in my life, I wasn’t a huge fan, I wasn’t the kind of person who would collect everything and listen to everything and watch everything. I liked it but I think everybody likes Bob Marley and really, I became more interested in him the person and in the legacy of him. When I was in Kampala in Uganda making a film called The Last King of Scotland, I went to the slums and I was introduced to all these Rastas and saw all these Bob Marley murals on the wall and I thought this is amazing.
This man has this impact that goes on. He’s unlike any other popular musician. His impact, which is more than just being musical, it’s spiritual, it’s political. He’s a spokesman for the dispossessed, so that was sort of fascinating to me. Than when I had the opportunity to make this film; I had already tried once before about seven or eight years ago, to make a film congenitally that had to do with Bob. It was going to be about Bob’s 60th birthday celebrations which were happening in Ethiopia and I was going to go with a plane load of Rastafarian’s out to Ethiopia from Jamaica and obviously just observe how they responded to being in Africa for the first time. What the reality of Ethiopia was like for them and also record some of the concert. That film didn’t happen but I got to know a few people including Chris Blackwell, Diane Jobson Bob’s lawyer. It was through them that I was recommended to the producer of this film a man called Steve Bing, who had negotiated and purchased the rights to the music to make a Bob Marley documentary from the Marley family and from Universal Music. I suppose I was a little bit skeptical about Bob going into the film.
I felt, and maybe a lot of people do, he’d been commodified to such an extent that something had been lost but as I got more and more into the research, as I learned more I began to admire him more and more. I began to see him as a very admirable man, as somebody who was not a hypocrite, who had never sold out really. He gave a lot of his money away, he slept in a single bed, he lived in a commune with the rest of his band, you know, all of that. And the way he was driven really by spiritual values, driven by the desire to get his music heard by a wide audience. I admire that rather than being driven by money and pure celebrity. So I began to admire him more and more. I began to listen to the music more and more and I think that’s the biggest testament I can say about Bob is the more you find out more about him the more you’re interested in him, the more you want to listen to the music. So I find myself by the end of the project listening to his music constantly, non stop.
The albums I like the best: Uprising, obviously because it’s the first one I heard but also I grew to love the material he did in the late 60′s, early 70′s. The slightly lesser known Marley, you know before Island Records. And probably the Soul Revolution album, I really like, which is produced by “Scarcth” Perry.
JH: If you were releasing the directors cut; what footage or interview(s) would you add to the film?
KM: That’s complicated. Well my first cut of this was over three hours long and I was contracted to make a two hour or less film but fortunately the producer and everyone agreed the best film was the important thing. Let’s make the film the best length so we ended up with this long film, two hours and twenty five minutes but it felt like we went through such an effort. We discovered so much stuff, wither it be footage or new versions of songs or just what people had to say to us. About a third of the interviewees had never spoken before in public about Bob. There was so much stuff it felt like nobodies going to get the chance to make this film again. I want to make it authoritative, I want to include as much as I can. So that’s what I did. I didn’t leave out that much. There are some things, there are a lot of great anecdotes of course that are going to be on the cutting room forever but I’ve actually included a lot on the DVD extras so there’s three or four songs from a previously unseen concert, there’s twenty minutes for of interview with Bunny Wailer, talking mostly what it was like working in the early days at Studio One. There’s more interviews with the family, with some of the kids. There’s a eight or nine minute song where Bob is creating a song and he’s jamming and he’s messing around with a couple of girls who he’s flirting with. You hear the real Bob, the off the record Bob, flirting with these girls creating a song in the spur of the moment in this kind of magical piece of audio. There’s a lot of things I’ve put on there so because of that, because of the wonders of the DVD extra, I don’t feel like I’m missing that much.
Marley will be screening by way of On Demand and the following theaters. This is a must see film for anyone who is looking to deepen their understanding of Bob Marley and the values, insights, revelations and virtues he instilled and contributed to this world.
4/20/2012 Tempe, AZ: Valley Art 1 Theatre Berkeley, CA: Shattuck Cinemas 10 Claremont, CA: Claremont 5 Los Angeles, CA: Cinefamily North Hollywood, CA: Laemmle NoHo 7 Pasadena, CA: Playhouse 7 Cinemas San Francisco, CA: Lumiere Theatre 3 San Jose, CA: Camera 3 San Rafael, CA: Smith Rafael Film Center Santa Ana, CA: South Coast Village 3 Santa Cruz, CA: Nickelodeon Theatres West Los Angeles, CA: The Landmark 12 Boulder, CO: Boulder Theatre Denver, CO: Mayan Theatre Washington, DC: E Street Cinema Miami, FL: O Cinema Atlanta, GA: Midtown Art Cinemas 8 Honolulu, HI: Kahala Theatres 8 Chicago, IL: Music Box Cambridge, MA: Kendall Square Cinema 9 Grand Rapids, MI: Wealthy Theatre Royal Oak, MI: Main Art Theatre Minneapolis, MN: Lagoon Cinema New York, NY: Elinor Bunin Monroe Film Center New York, NY: Sunshine Cinema 5 Portland, OR: Hollywood Theatre Philadelphia, PA: Ritz at the Bourse Pittsburgh, PA: Regent Square Theater Providence, RI: Cable Car Cinema Nashville, TN: Belcourt Theatre Austin, TX: Violet Crown Cinemas Dallas, TX: Angelika Film Center and Cafe San Antonio, TX: Santikos Bijou Cinema Bistro 6 Seattle, WA: Harvard Exit Theatre
4/22/2012 New Orleans, LA: Prytania Theatre
4/25/2012 Christ Church, BB: Olympus Expo Theatres Nassau, BH: Galleria Cinema 11 Paramaribo, SR: The Backlot Cinemas Lowlands, TOB: Movietowne 4 Chaguanas, TRI: Movietowne Chaguanas 10 Port of Spain, TRI: Movietowne Port of Spain 10 San Fernando, TRI: Empire Cinema Trincity, TRI: Trincity 8
4/26/2012 St. John, ANT: Antigua Megaplex 8 Cinemas Hato Rey, PR: Fine Arts Cafe Cinemas Basseterre, St. Kitts, VI: St. Kitts Megaplex 7 St Thomas, VI: Market Square East St. Croix, VI: Sunny Isles Theatre St. Lucia, VI: Mega Plex 8 @ Choc Estate Tortola, VI: Up’s Cinemas
4/27/2012 Hamilton Hm 12 Bermuda, BM: Liberty Theatre Madison, WI: Sundance Cinemas 608
4/29/2012 Savannah, GA: Psychotronic Film Society of Savannah
5/4/2012 Hamilton Hm 12 Bermuda, BM: Neptune Theatre Long Beach, CA: Art Theater Fort Collins, CO: Lyric Cinema Cafe 2 Columbia, MO: Ragtag Cinema Springfield, MO: Moxie Cinema 2 Houston, TX: Sundance Cinemas 8
5/11/2012 Tucson, AZ: The Loft Cinema Durango, CO: Back Space Theatre Dormont, PA: Hollywood Theatre Spokane, WA: Magic Lantern Theatre
5/13/2012 Portland, ME: Space Gallery
5/18/2012 Columbus, OH: Gateway Film Center 8
5/21/2012 New York, NY: The Maysles Cinema
5/27/2012 Nevada City, CA: Nevada Theatre
6/6/2012 Oklahoma City, OK: Oklahoma City Museum of Art
6/13/2012 Albuquerque, NM: Guild
6/14/2012 Oklahoma City, OK: Oklahoma City Museum of Art
8/8/2012 Wilkes-Barre, PA: FM Kirby Center for Performing Arts
The Gaslamp Killer is a self-taught producer and DJ originally from San Diego and now a resident of Los Angeles who embodies the spirit and raw power of our generation. Over the past decade William “The Gaslamp Killer” Bensussen has released over a dozen mixes, EP’s, and other produced materials, as well as relentless world touring. The amount of dedication alongside GLK has given him the opportunity to move in motion with the entire world, whether inside the studio or on a stage. Gaslamp’s comrades, his friends who complete the Low End Theory and Brainfeeder rosters are artists whom never cease to lose sight of the truth inside of electronic music. Then across the pond is the talented array of hundreds of artists that GLK shares bills with, giving his communication around the globe and the networks that exist with it answers leading to results in music that are endless.
SCV phoned Gaslamp Killer early this year and discussed matters of history, present-day, and of course events/projects in the future. We discussed gear, thoughts about his travels of the world, the importance of the drum, mentors, his five most anticipated albums of the year and many more topics in the time we had with GLK. The Gaslamp Killer is a very intelligent and insightful human being, an artist who’s grasping more technical abilities to realize his musical visions as time progresses and someone who brings people together in euphoric ways. With his first official full length in the works, this is an interview we are very happy to bring to Sound Colour Vibration.
SCV: First wanted to start off talking about the power of percussion and specifically, the drumset, along with how many different emotions it can put us through as listeners. I was introduced to your work 5 years ago while waiting in line at a concert at the Ventura theater and was thrilled to hear a producer who tracks his own drum beats. Why is drumming is so important to you?
GLK: The drum… I think the drum is probably the first music that was ever created in the world. I think the heart beating is like a drum. The ultimate rhythm of the world is coming from the drum. I believe that we are driven by rhythm and emotion. [With] our bodies being made up of so much water, I feel like the rhythm of the ocean and the rhythm of the drum is very similar. I just think the rhythm section, of any song, that’s what gets people right away. For me, if the drums are bangin’, I’m immediately intrigued and I want to listen deeper right away.
SCV: You have an enormous amount of touring coming up, and it’s something you’re used to. Has the process of touring become a bit therapeutic at times?
GLK: For me, I don’t partake in any drugs or alcohol and have not for 4 months. I am trying to continue to do so for a while. I’m focused on feeling energy from the audience and I’m addicted to that high and I want to share my music with as many people as I can, perform for as many people as I can. I find that that’s what makes me most happiest in the world; is creating music and playing it for people. Being able to play my friends’ music for large crowds and stuff like that. It’s what moves me, it’s what drives me. That’s what I enjoy the most, that’s what gets me going.
SCV: Sometimes while traveling, culture clash freaks people out, does the culture clash inspire and intrigue you as you tour across the world?
GLK: Yeah, it does every time. I find that young people are pretty much the same all over the world. Everybody goes to shows to escape. Everybody goes to hear music to try to catch some kind of spirit and be free from their stress and their worry and their day to day issues and their humanity. The reason why I go out to hear music is because we don’t have tribal ceremonies anymore where everybody gets together and a band will lead a community into a trance. We don’t have that anymore but human beings are constantly looking for that peace inside them. They’re constantly looking for that togetherness. They’re constantly looking to go into trance with their community and find freedom in their spirit and their mind without having to be locked in their body that has to go to work everyday and has to deal with the dramas of boys and girls and relationships, and has to go through all this stupid bullshit. We just want to be let free from that and everybody’s trying to get that from going out and myself included. I find that it’s a much needed escape and that our generation, our culture, doesn’t have that. We don’t have that tribal society where that happens anymore and I think that’s a integral part of humanity and being a human being in general. Like wanting to escape your body and be free. That’s how people used to do it, and it’s been lost in recent times. But I believe that is what drives people who generally are broke and can’t even afford a movie ticket, they would rather pay to go to a show and break free in a show. That’s where they want to spend their money even if they’re are hella broke they still wait in line and pay for Low End Theory because they want to be a part of that and I think all of us as human beings need that.
SCV: I wanted to talk about your live show, I notice that it’s almost like a creative lecture, what I mean is you’re basically showing your peers what’s hot and fresh in terms of new music while teaching them new things. Have you learned a lot through similar process with all the brilliant different label-heads [Andy Votel of Finders Keepers/Twisted Nerve, Daddy Kev of Alpha Pup] that you meet and collaborate with?
GLK: I find them more as friends more than label heads. Daddy Kev, Alpha Pup or no Alpha Pup, I found a lot of guidance in Kev and a lot of knowledge in Daddy Kev and definitely mentoring me in every way imaginable. He knows more about me than a lot of people. He knows as much about me as my own parents do. He definitely mentored me as well as Brandy Flower from HIT+RUN crew. Brandy Flower is my art director and he’s always got good advice for me and always knows what to say. He lives his life on the edge for life, and he’s always coming out ahead, and he’s always sharp and he’s always giving 100%. Same as Kev, they barely sleep. They devote their lives to their community and they do it so well and I find a lot of knowledge and a lot of guidance from those two. I try to teach the kids when I’m on stage. I try to educate, not just entertain. I’m not just their just to play whatever makes them happy and I’m not just there to jump around and act crazy or play whatever they want to hear. I’m there to play music I believe in and if I’m feeling it, than perform with that same enthusiasm that I have for sharing the music.
SCV: How is your new full length album coming along?
GLK: I’m thinking about 70% done which is great for me. I have been playing new songs from the record for people. At my shows, I’ve been playing some of the stuff and it’s coming together pretty well. I got Daedelus, Dimlite, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Mofongo, Gonjasufi and a lot of other guests. It’s shaping up nicely. Little by little, I’ve been working on this for many years. My EP’s, I kind of just threw out there because they were burning a whole through in brain and I felt like they needed to be released to the world. But this has been something I have taken my time on and I’m still working on it and I’m still really devoted to the idea of having the first album be exactly how I have envisioned it for this many years instead of trying to rush against time.
The Gaslamp Killer
SCV: What kind of stuff will you play at the upcoming Low End Theory Stage at Cypress Hill’s Up In Smoke Fest and the other shows coming up?
GLK: I don’t know, it depends on what kind of crowd I have. That’s another thing, I kind of choose who I’m going to play my own material to very wisely. I can tell the difference between true Gaslamp Killer fans and just some people who want to get crazy. I can tell the difference between them. People who just want to get crazy, generally don’t want to hear music that’s all about the head. They want to hear music that’s also about the body, which is fine with me because I have tons of both. But if someone asked me to come play an art show it would be way different than somebody who would ask me to play a concert which would be way different than somebody who asked me to play in a small dance club where everybody’s sweating their ass off, dancing. I don’t try to cater but I always try to direct it and change my set accordingly but not to cater per say, more to interact with the audience on many levels and I’m always trying to flip it up for myself too. It just helps me keep it original.
SCV: SCV has talked to a lot of gearheads in the past, are there any new toys that you have been messing with onstage or in the studio?
GLK: Well my OP-1 has been a good friend to me. Teenage Engineering: OP-1. That’s definitely a fine tool for both recording and performing. That’s my newest piece of gear that I’ve been using a hell of a lot. It’s this new keyboard. I also have the Korg MS2000, and the [Moog] Little Phatty, and the Univox [miniKORG], and the Virus TI, and uhhhhh.. a few other things that I’m gonna let remain nameless that I used all over the new album.
SCV: Last year when my colleagues and I were listening to some Prefuse 73 records we noticed your name in the liner notes of Everything is Ampexian? Do you collaborate a lot with Guillermo?
GLK: It was a minute there when I was on tour with him and I was drumming and playing drums a lot during sound check. I’d come up during his show and his drummer would leave and I would get on the drums for the finale. Basically, he asked me, “Send me some of those drums if you have any studio recorded sessions.” So I just sent him some of my drumming and he made a song with it. We never actually got in the studio together, it was always just like we admired each other’s work and he asked me to jump on and I said “yeah.”
SCV: Are there any films or books that you have seen the past year that have really affected you and your perception of art?
GLK: I reread Jack Keruoac “On The Road” and I also reread another book called “Acid Dreams” and I’ve been kind of trying to go into the past with literature, not just music, to try and find inspiration. I find a lot of inspiration from the 60′s and I find a lot of inspiration coming from the beatnik generation, which is also my mother’s generation, my father’s generation. The Americans in the 60′s experienced so much change, in the late 50′s through the late 60′s.They experienced so much change and it just reminds me how important it is to go outside of yourself as much as you can. Killing the ego was something that a lot of people were about back then and people just wanted to just exist. We didn’t choose to be born and we can’t really kill ourselves gracefully, there’s no real good way to do that. So you kind of just have to live and instead of always chasing my goals and my dreams and my aspirations, I just want to be. I just want to simply exist as a human being and I’ve been trying to get back to that as much as I can. It’s really hard though because I have a lot of ambition and a lot of drive and I have a lot of need to go further and go harder and be better but sometimes, you know, I just want to be a human being and all of us deserve that. That has a lot to do with “On The Road”, just going out, hitchhiking and experiencing the world. Acid Dreams is all about the 60′s and LSD and the CIA and how America changed and how LSD changed the whole world. More than the drug, I’m interested in the social change that it created and the way the people of that time tried to kill the ego. That’s the type of stuff that intrigues me and that’s what I find inspiration from as well musically.
SCV: Besides your new album what are your top 5 most anticipated releases of 2012?
GLK: That’s tough. I think, definitely top two are EPROM and Flying Lotus. EPROM’s album is fucking next level, Flying Lotus’s album is next level. They both definitely set the bar really, really high. Gonjasufi and his wife have a new project, it’s called Black Hail Mary and it’s one of the most goosebumps-evoking records I have ever heard. So those are my top three. Niki Randa who’s all over Flying Lotus’s records, she has a group called the Triangle Method. Their record is really, really heavy and I don’t even know if that’s going to come out this year, that might come out next year, but that’s definitely like wow, incredible. I think Computer Jay’s new record is also going to be really, really heavy. I’ve already been listening to a lot of Computer Jay’s new record and it’s so fucking dope. It’s so original and he’s mixing so much of this modern funk vibe that he got while creating Master Blaster with Dam-Funk. He’s got this modern funk vibe up in it a lot more. He always had a funky vibe but now you can hear he’s comfortable. He understands, like alright, this is my sound and you can hear that in the record and it’s fucking amazing. I’m really, really looking forward to Computer Jay’s record dropping. Everything Dimlite has been playing me and everything Mophono has been playing me. I don’t know if Dimlite will put out another record because he just dropped that one at the end of the year. Mophono from San Francisco, Mophono’s new record is fucking incredible as well. Really, really, really, really good. So yeah, EPROM, Flying Lotus, Gonjasufi, Computer Jay, Mophono, Triangle Method. It’s crazy because I hadn’t even thought about that but you helped me narrow it down now, I’m glad we did this.
SCV: SCV noticed that Low End Theory are gearing up for another showcases in Japan, how is that coming along this year?
GLK: Unfortunately, I can’t be with them but I can tell you it’s going to be the best Low End Theory Japan yet. Even though I’m not going to be there, I can already tell you, the way they are putting it together is so incredible and so on point and so impressive. It’s going to be the best Low End Theory Japan ever, than the next one in June will be equally as impressive. Then the next one in September will be equally impressive and there’s a lot of really good details that I’m not going to be the spoiler to. I’m just going to let the Japanese people enjoy that.
The Gaslamp Killer – ‘When I’m In Awe’ feat. Gonjasufi via Brainfeeder
Sean Carnage is always at forefront of bringing the best underground music to the Southern, CA region. Through radio, bookings and so much more, it’s been a bizarre ride of the most indescribable proportions when collecting the types of music I have accessed because of Sean. Recently, he highly recommended a band from Los Angeles called Colombian Necktie through his social networks after a show he organized. Through the word of mouth of many other friends who have had a chance to see them live, this was a group I had to check out right away. A few hours after having fully absorbed the music they have available through bandcamp, I have become excited again for the emergence of heavy music inside the sub cultures of the Southern, CA underground world. There is musicality that stretches towards extreme noise to virtuoso harmonic lines and onto the early Slayer rawness, something that pulls at your emotions at every corner you don’t expect. It’s a true knock you off your feet type of sound, something I am eagerly anticipating in live performance.
Colombian Necktie has been active for a few years now and they are preparing some very interesting releases that we are really eager to get our hands on. A project that revolves around an artist and the groups compositions along with the bands impulsive reaction towards the art, a new split with Orange County’s Seizures and new material always being recorded, 2012 will be the most active year for the band. We contacted Colombian Necktie and Juan Hernandez graciously accepted to take some time after one of their rehearsals to answer these email questions. The group will be touring this year in support of the new releases they have scheduled and from many people I know that have had the chance to see them live, this is one band you really have to see for yourself. Enjoy this dialogue Juan and I created through email about the many areas that encompass one of most dynamic, strange and explosive bands in LA right now, Colombian Necktie.
Sound Colour Vibration interviews LA’s Colombian Necktie Conducted by Erik Otis / February 2012
Before we dive into the future of the band, we wanted to speak about the beginning stages of the group and where it has all come to now. How many changes has the band gone through and what have been some of the most defining turning points for the group in arriving at this point where you can physically press your music for the world to hear?
Colombian Necktie: Well most of the band is from the east coast. We all mostly met online at first but as we solidified the band, we turned to friends from the community to fill in. Where things first started to “change” for us was after a show in a back yard in Compton. It was the most energizing show we have ever played as a band. The audience really connected with our sound and that made us want to push further. So that push for us was to release music and luckily we have great friends that help us release records.
When I hear Colombian Necktie, I feel a sense of controlled chaos that shocks me when I hear all of the technical and dynamic nuances that flourish through this chaos. It’s not just power and towering speaker levels but something very different is brought to the color schemes and it really blows my mind. How much rehearsing goes into your live sets and recordings and does certain types of gear, speakers, performance spaces and so forth bring out something special in the music?
Colombian Necktie: We rehearse 2 time a week at Earth Capitol Studios. Ben and I run different tonal rigs. Ben uses a Madison, a typical American Gain style head which is fantastic when defining his leads and I use a Laney GH100L which I run really dirty and hard to give a more raw effect. We both use speaker cabinets with Vintage 30′s. Our secret weapon that most guitarists would scoff at it is our EMG 707 pickups. We use 7 string Guitars because we hated de-tuning 6 strings also the 7 string Guitars hold our tuning better.The one thing that has remained a constant for us is Earth Capitol Studios. We have recorded everything we have ever done with Alex Estrada. He’s an amazing guy and an excellent engineer. We just recently just started practicing there and the music is pouring out of us. Must be the lighting.
The conceptual EP you guys have planned based on the work artist Patrick Hyde is something that has really intrigued us at SCV. Could you elaborate on anymore information regarding this project?
Colombian Necktie: Well as of now the concept is a secret however Patrick has been coming to practice and drawing images for us and we get directly inspired by his image so from there we write the songs. The way we will package this experience is to have the images be a part of the actual vinyl art. This is one of the most sinister, depressing and insane songs we have ever created which should give you a better understanding of what the art would look like.
The EP will be released on June 10th on Irish Voodoo Records.
We were really happy to see that Colombian Necktie will be performing at SXSW this year. Where will you guys be performing and if so, what type of shows do you have planned?
Colombian Necktie: We are not officially on SXSW, we are sorta crashing shows, playing impromptu house shows and promoting the shit out of our split with Seizures. If you want to know where we are playing keep your Twitter and Facebook on! Austin explodes with unofficial shows so we hope next year we will be playing some awesome showcases…but I have my fingers crossed for this year as well.
The music video ‘You Are Under The Sun’ was the next topic we wanted to ask about. There feels like a large sense of parody in this video, can you share the direction that the group had when making this video?
Colombian Necktie: You are spot on. We actually were really inspired by Busta Rhymes ‘Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See’ which obviously has nothing to do with hardcore or metal. But that was the point. So many people try to categorize us in a genre or argue whether we are too hardcore or too metal. We think that’s bullshit so to sort of be able to mock that was fun. But what I loved about that video was that it was action packed and fun which really describes our live performance. Also, it’s always fun to use corpse paint.
With your band existing in the underground networks of music, who have been the closest mentors in the bands existence and how important do you feel this underground world of making and releasing music is for artists to experience?
Colombian Necktie: Our biggest mentors and friends have been a band called Seizures from Orange County. We are a band that has no roots here and Seizures helped us gain roots and introduced us to the underground scene here in southern California. What’s wonderful about our relationship is that it falls very true to that classic hardcore ethic of friendship and brotherhood but in a non violent way. That’s why we are stoked on the new split being put out by Cameron of Seizures on his Sun Terrace Records.Everyone should hear their music because they are one of the best bands our scene has to offer. I think it’s important for all artists to start from the underground because it’s where you gain true creativity. There’s something about coming up from the bottom that is more artful than just blowing up overnight. It’s about the struggle.
It’s been a tough time trying to nail down a genre I could label you under, one of those if I worked at a record store where would I put you guys kind of thing. If you worked at a record store and your boss handed you a Colombian Necktie album, where would you put it?
Colombian Necktie: We would create a new category for the store called “Stuff That Makes You Feel.” But really, we don’t worry about the genre, we just focus on what the song feels to us. That’s why we write the way we do. We feel that mixing the feels of different genres throughout aggressive music gives our musical tapestry more depth because it’s not just a one-toned sound.
With an auspicious name such as Colombian Necktie, we had to ask, where did this band name come from?
Colombian Necktie: The band name came from watching Cocaine Cowboys on Netflix and drinking Coors Light.
We were wondering, as we always love getting the views of people on the road playing shows a lot, who are some bands you can recommend that have really made you excited as fuck about music like you were when you first felt that deep crave and addiction towards music?
Colombian Necktie: The music that gets us going right now and always is Seizures, Slave, Behold the Monolith, ACxDC, KDC, Pablo Mendez,Jean Michael Hoffman, Pig Destroyer, Fuck the Facts, Majority Rule, Pg99,Post Punk (Tom), the song “Cold War” off of the RZA and GZA Liquid Swords album and various ignorant hip hop songs like “Rack City.”
Is there anything else you would like to share about Colombian Necktie?
Colombian Necktie: First up is the Seizures/CN split which is currently available for pre-sale through Sun Terrace Recordings. We are also excited to announce a cool new project that we’ll be starting after our Irish Voodoo EP (out June 10). We will be working on the first ever conceptual location-aware album. A location-aware album is a free formed experience that utilizes technology from smart phones in order to create your own album based on the riffs that we created. Using an app (which can be downloaded from various app stores) that geo-locates your exact position, the music is tailored to the specific path you take, pulling from a digital database of riffs that we have already created. This means everyone gets a different, one-of-a-kind Colombian Necktie experience.
Sounds like you guys will have a lot of work ahead of you, we hope for the best, thanks for your time Juan.
Colombian Necktie: Thank you.
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Colombian Necktie – “You Are The Sun” Official Music Video
Colombian Necktie “You Are The Sun” Colombian Necktie/Seizures Split Irish Voodoo Records
Directed & Shot By: Aric Abraham Edited By: Aric Abraham & Bryan Bailey
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There comes a time in everyone’s life where they are exposed to the rich and colorful works of David Lynch. Whether it be his long collection of short films, his trademark trance-inducing feature films, or even the timeless classic Twin Peaks TV series, we all have been exposed to them one way or another. At SCV, our favorite work by David Lynch is definitely the entire Twin Peaks series, two seasons of murder-mystery, dream-like and intuitive storytelling that leaves the viewer guessing and jaw-dropped. Late last year we at SCV got in contact with Kimmy Robertson who plays the character of Lucy on the Twin Peaks series. Lucy’s character is the definition of cohesion and innocence in the show. She is the secretary at the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Department and always expresses a sense of calmness and clarity when everyone else seems to exert the opposite. Lucy’s voice is such a beautiful sound, one that is unmistakable and truly belongs in this world that David Lynch had created. The following dialogue is a reflection on Kimmy Robertson’s past as well as her character in the Twin Peaks series.
Conducted by: Pouya G. Asadi
Your gripping character Lucy Moran from Twin Peaks, like many others from the show, did not appear in the film. There is an emphasized sense of darkness and menace in the film. Did this envelope-pushing edge and focus on Laura Palmer David Lynch was going for account for Lucy being left out of the shooting altogether or did you act in scenes that did not make the final cut?
Harry Goaz and I, (Andy and Lucy) did shoot a scene for the Twin Peaks film, Fire Walk With Me. In it we talked about the “raccoons being up at the mill again.” Raccoons entered the picture of several movies and various things I have been in because I would talk about my aunt and uncle’s cabin and how they fed the raccoons. Directors I’ve worked with seemed fascinated by that and I think it was in “Honey I shrunk the Kids” as well as Twin Peaks and the movie. As far as being cut out……I have heard there is a director’s cut that has most of the scenes that were cut, in it. I like to think that I am in David’s version ;-)
It has been said, Justin Theroux ” [...] belongs to a new generation of actors, familiar with Lynch’s early work, who have a great deal more insight into what Lynch is trying to achieve than the actors in [...] previous films. Interviews [...] suggested that they and the other actors they worked with were able to give Lynch what he asked for, and enjoyed the process, but remained rather puzzled about what was going on” (The Cinema of David Lynch, 180). IMDB notes that Mark Frost and David Lynch both encouraged you to ad-lib. What was that like to not know the intended outcome of the show, even on an episode to episode basis? Please, explain what the process was like for you, acting and not knowing how your part fit into the whole. Did you ad-lib whole scenes or just dialogue for scenes that were kind of generally out-lined?
I never ad-libbed ANYTHING on Twin Peaks. This is something that is really bugging me at this point in time. Media has a matter of how it works… which is called ‘selective reporting.’ They’ve taken a beautiful story I told on an interview and left out most of the important words. I digress… So when you act, you are asked to read lines and you do that in the character’s body. Mark Frost and David Lynch interviewed me and hired me from that interview because they saw something that either fit or inspired the character of Lucy. I remember from the very first shoot (on the Twin Peaks pilot episode) when we would be getting ready to shoot a scene David would do something very different than any other director on Earth. On MY Earth anyway. He cleared the set for a few minutes and sat with me on the set of the [Twin Peaks police] office. He was very focused…..as if we were talking about real life. He was also peaceful. He created a feeling of Lucy being at home. He told me that “Lucy has her finger on everything that goes on in the town of Twin Peaks. Lucy is ultra efficient and clear. She wants to make sure that the Sheriff does NOT misunderstand her in any way. No time is to be wasted on mistakes. Now… ‘How would Lucy tell the Sheriff that he has a phone call?’ Remembering that perhaps the office had recently been redecorated…”
What’s interesting to me is the effort that [David] made on clarity; it has been the most unclear and most misunderstood point of my life thus far.
It must have been astounding to be part of Andy Kaufman’s historic Carnegie Hall performance, how did that come about? Did you meet Andy personally? What was your part in the show? Did you get milk and cookies with him?
I recently walked by the theatre that Andy Kaufman did his show in here in Hollywood….it is not there anymore. He brought the show here from New York and recast the small parts like the dancers and stuff. I was asked to go to an audition where I did nothing at all. I got the job. It was being a Rockette. Andy was really nice all of the time. I remember him thanking me for being in his show and looking down at me….Andy was quite tall……a big warm smile and warm hands. I never went to get milk and cookies because I was a dancer and didn’t eat milk and cookies back then. Plus, one day they piled everyone into these buses and then they all drove away somewhere…..seemed kind of scary to me.
For Kimmy, what is Twin Peaks Fest to you? Have you been recently? What do you look forward to the most when attending?
I love the Twin Peaks Fest. It is a one of a kind event that was started by my friends Pat and Don Shook. It is a love fest where you get to hang out in a magical place remembering the magical world called Twin Peaks. People have met and married there, broken up there, rested there and made life long friends there. The talent contest has become a serious event that is a little bit scary to judge. Don’t know how many more cans of cream corn are gonna win it. I really look forward to staying at the Salish in those fabulous beds with a fireplace.
And seeing everyone again.
As IMDB has it, you were starting a career in ballet before an agent who worked in the same office as your ballet company took a liking to your idiosyncratic style and unique sense of humor. Then you went on to get the first acting gig you tried out for, appearing in the teen comedy The Last American Virgin (1982). Was it the sudden attention you were sparking that made you want to act in the first place or was this already a passion of yours to some degree? Would you have gone on in your pursuit of acting had you not landed that role?
Yes, I was a ballet dancer for many years before acting became part of the picture. I took a job with a company that went on tour to Israel and I didn’t go, so I worked in the office for them. There at the office, an agent thought I was funny and asked me to go on an audition…there’s lots more to this story but I type really slow. I went on the audition and that turned into a job in the movie “The Last American Virgin.” Boaz Davidson was the director and the movie was an autobiography of his life in the 50′s. He was a great first director for me because he would listen to me talk, find something that he liked and then put it in the movie. I felt the creative spark turn on and that was it for me. I was now an actor. Of course my next directors were not like that at all. I had to be what they wanted me to be, rather than being an aspect of me. So the fun wasn’t there. But I was still dancing and did so until I got T.P. I didn’t have time to go on tour anymore. American Folk Ballet was who I had been dancing with for over 10 years. That was sad to have to let that go completely.
Back when Twin Peaks was on the air you appeared on television for an interview with David Letterman. You commented on how the actors were being given “fake scripts” and asked to do two-three versions of the same scene. But, when Letterman asked if this was tedious for you, you said, “I don’t mind because I don’t do it. I just do mine, just, it’s like the Lucy, Andy and Dick show, and then everybody else is on the regular show, Twin Peaks”. Would you elaborate on that?
No I can’t elaborate on that because that is what it became. The Lucy, Andy and Dick show….and then there was the regular show…Twin Peaks. I felt like all the ideas that they had for our characters were just abandoned and some one else was writing these scripts just to write something weird. The magic was sort of gone. But that’s TV for ya. Business as usual…
In Twin Peaks Lucy is an attractive lady on the road to becoming a woman. She is supportive, quite funny, and besides being a bit naive romantically she possesses poise, strength and what seems to be a guiding instinct to do good. This is demonstrated stunningly when she performs her dance number for the Miss Twin Peaks contest. How much did your training in ballet come in handy for this scene? Did you improvise this as well?
One day Mark Frost and David Lynch came up to me with silly grins on their faces and I thought “uh oh”….this could be scary. They said that they wanted me to dance on the show so they were having a beauty contest with a talent show in it. AND that they wanted me to choreograph it! I asked if it was supposed to be good and they nodded…I asked how long it was supposed to be and they said about 3or4 minutes. Then I said “is it supposed to be good in a real way or a Twin Peaks way?” They said a Twin Peaks way. SO I went home and choreographed a disney-ish dance to “Mac The Knife.” Angelo Badalamenti (Twin Peaks composer) wrote new music for it but you can turn the sound down and hum “Mac The Knife” to it and it works great. I tried to be kind of a good dancer but not too good in the show because that’s what seemed appropriate. That was a fun scene.
Sound Colour Vibration has been following the new releases from Alpha Pup Records for years now and the arrival of new artists in the development of experimental electronic music tends to find a tentacle or two back to Alpha Pup. Dot, a 20 year opera singer, composer and now beat maker is one of the newest artists to sign with the Los Angeles based imprint. Rooted heavily in the expanding Low End Theory scene that now encompasses showcases in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Japan, Dot is one of the few female producers to emerge in these circles and her first electronic works carry a vigor and power that is going to raise a lot of eye brows this year. Most of Dot’s musical history background bridges deep studies in classical music and vocal acrobatic skills through opera. Her arrival into the beat scene has an endless amount of potential to shed light on worlds that have been rarely touched upon in modern electronic music.
Dot is presenting her first collections of electronic works with the Calliope EP on Alpha Pup Records. Seven tracks that all find a new origin and foundation of sound serve as the first glimpse of what’s to come in the future from this young Los Angeles producer. Calliope is one massively heavy ride into a new ideology of electronic music. You can hear many sounds from her colleagues in the Calliope EP but she pulls it together in her own way. Hearing her bass tones through the Low End sound system is proof of this when seeing the crowd react. The title for this new EP sources itself from a popular steam whistle in 19th century circuses and there is a lot of sound on Calliope that represents this odd time in history. The influences spread wide and far and by the ending of Calliope, the works come full circle and a breath of light and elegant beauty through sound ends the album.
We contacted Dot to conduct an interview to ask about her new record, her background, Low End Theory and more. We are also presenting the exclusive premier of the track ‘Desert Storm’ that Alpha Pup released a little bit ago with this interview. Dot is surrounded by some of the best producers and Calliope feels like a true snapshot of this world with the unique nuances that make it all her own. Dot will be doing a record release show at Low End Theory tomorrow, February 29th with Gonjasufi, Jeremiah Jae and all the residents of the Low End Theory Los Angeles nights.
SCV Interview with Dot of Alpha Pup Records Conducted by Erik Otis
SCV: We wanted to first say thanks for your time. Shilo of Alpha Pup sent us the new EP Calliope you have coming out soon and whenever she sends of stuff we know we are in for a treat. I have to tell you, I really fell in love with this record on the first listen. In the press release it stated that these are among your first collection of beats ever created. Knowing that you are an opera singer and have a background in composition, was there fundamental teachings from this world that you tried to instil into your first album Calliope or is this a separation of the mediums?
Dot: Calliope is really one of my first writing attempts to bridge the gap between my classical composition background and more recent music interests. I hate how there seems to be an uncomfortable divide between the “classical music” and “popular music” worlds, so I tried to approach my writing from both angles. I started taking piano lessons when I was 6 years old, and was lucky enough to have teachers that also taught me music theory and composition. Since these are some of my first beats, I relied heavily on my previous composition and orchestration knowledge to make up for my initial lack of production experience.
SCV: I wanted to ask about the tones, instrumentation, hardware and other devices you utilized for Calliope as every song notches out a completely new sense of colors and foundations in my opinion. Did you sequence a lot of your material or is it a mixed bag of layered recordings, sequenced sections, programmed beats and so forth?
Dot: I mostly work in Ableton Live with a lot of Native Instruments plugins, although some of the earliest beats that I made were done in Reason (like ‘Calliope,’ ‘Artichoke,’ and ‘Simple Simon’). I like to use a wide variety of timbres and textures in my music, so I try to maintain a sense of consistency in my music through the style of my writing instead of my sound palette. I created Calliope entirely with software and without sampling, but I’m currently working on incorporating more live elements into my music and shows.
SCV: For Calliope, did you see a lot of the pieces before you created them or was this something that you had to fight for to see the final vision after production had begun?
Dot: The title track was the first beat that I made on the record, so it more or less set the stage for the rest of the EP that I envisioned. A lot of ideas for the rest of my beats definitely stemmed from that first track.
SCV: With the title of the album coming from the same name as the steam whistle that populated circuses in the 19th century and artwork reflecting that as well, did you have this concept in place before you created the music or was this a choice made after the music was created? Was there particular books, films, dreams, stories or other sources of inspiration for the concept used on Calliope?
Dot: The concept for the EP started to come together as soon as I began experimenting with the steam whistle sound. That style of music seemed to translate to beats fairly easily, so I decided to keep exploring it. I pulled from a range of sources of inspiration – mostly psychedelic imagery from films by Gaspar Noé and Tim Burton. Although a lot of my music is dark, it’s always done with a slight sense of humor.
SCV: When I listen to Calliope, I feel like I am inside of Jodorowsky’s Santa Sangre with The Gaslamp Killer providing soundtrack music. Beautiful in some respects and mind altering in almost every other. I finally listened to it on a good sound system and it really blew me away. Who recorded, mixed and mastered the album and are you really happy with how all the levels came out?
Dot: I recorded the EP, both Elvin Estela (DJ Nobody) and I mixed it, and Kevin Moo (Daddy Kev) did the mastering. Being able to test some tracks on the Low End sound system helped me out a lot during the mixing process, and I’m extremely happy with the way it turned out.
SCV: ‘Simple Simon’ is a song on the record that I can’t get enough of. It has that very open, dreamy, fresh and vibrant feeling, one that makes me feel like I am inside of one of Nobody mid 2000 era LP’s or a Teebs record. It really ends the album on an incredible note for me. Was it really hard sequencing the album or did that shape together pretty fast?
Dot: The sequencing happened pretty naturally… I think I only switched around one or two tracks after initially putting it together. It’s nearly in chronological order of when the beats were created (except for ‘Simple Simon,’ which was made earlier).
SCV: What is the song from Calliope that you love to hear the most in a good sound system, like the one Low End has?
Dot: Probably ‘Freakshow’ because the bass is so gnarly. Plus, it’s fun to watch the look on people’s faces when they realize a girl is playing that shit.
SCV: I wanted to ask you about your background before the electronic scene took place in your life. What were some of the biggest musical accomplishments of your life leading up to this point and do you see yourself introducing your vocal work into later Dot records or other projects?
Dot: Before I started studying at Chapman’s Conservatory of Music, I was very focused on classical singing and piano, and I had my heart set on becoming an opera singer. I had been in a number of summer opera programs at different conservatories and universities across the country, but once I got to Chapman and started taking more advanced music theory classes, I realized that I was more passionate about creating my own music instead of performing works by other composers. So I switched my major to music composition, and eventually discovered beat music (and Low End Theory) through Steve Nalepa’s music technology class. I’m currently working on incorporating vocals into some of my new music in non-traditional ways, but the bulk of my work will remain instrumental.
SCV: You have had the privilege of seeing Low End Theory and all of its artists expand in a way unlike most, how much time do you spend with the Low End Theory family outside of the gigs and so forth and what have been some of the wildest and fun times with them?
Dot: I can’t really measure how much time I spend with them, but I can say that they’re some of the most inspiring (and hilarious) people I’ve ever met. I feel so fortunate to be surrounded by artists that are truly supportive of one another, because I hated the competitive atmosphere that I felt in the classical music world.
SCV: Do you have any mixes, tours, radio appearances or other activity that will coincide with the release and promotion of Calliope that you can share with us?
Dot: Yes! My record release party will be at Low End Theory 2/29 with Gonjasufi and Jeremiah Jae, and on March 2nd I’ll be playing Low End SF with Daedelus, Slugabed, and Low Limit (and of course all Low End residents).
SCV: We are really looking forward to your performance with Gonjasufi, Jeremiah Jae and the residents of the Low End Theory on the 29th of this month. We wish you the best of success in this coming year and the future and look forward to meeting in person very soon. Calliope is something I really love, take care and thank you again.
Los Angeles, CA based label Plug Research has created a very strong partnership with the Allston, Massachusetts duo Sonnymoon. As one of our favorite modern electronic groups from the last year or so, it was really great news when we heard they had signed with Plug. It feels like yesterday when a good friend highly recommended I buy a new EP from Plug Research called 1983 by an artist named Flying Lotus. I knew nothing about the artist and after grabbing the record, I knew I would always take chances with the label. This was in 2006 and was a wave of new energy that has continued to spiral outward until this day. Fast forward 6 years and it feels like Sonnymoon has drawn upon a very similar new wave and presence of energy in modern music. Sonnymoon’s first official EP 2012 is a phenomenal record to us at Sound Colour Vibration, pushing boundaries of electronic music far into beautiful and unknown regions. We can’t tell you how excited we are for the full length coming from the group this year.
With the duo set for an east coast tour of the States and Canada with Teebs and Time Wharp along with the debut LP set to release in May, we had to request for an interview with Sonnymoon. We are very proud to present our exclusive interview with Dane Orr of Sonnymoon about the 2012 EP, the Sonnymoon full length, album art, touring and more. Included for your listening pleasure is the first single, ‘Just Before The Dawn’, from the Sonnymoon full length coming in May. The digital b-side features the superb composer Miguel Atwood-Ferguson of the Brainfeeder providing string work over the song ‘Just Before The Dawn’, you can purchase the single ‘Just Before The Dawn’ from itunes. Also included at the end of this article is the latest official music video from the group for the song ‘Morning Person’ off the 2012 EP. Enjoy!
‘Just Before The Dawn’ from Sonnymoon’s full length Sonnymoon.
Sound Colour Vibration interview with Dane Orr of Sonnymoon Conducted by Erik Otis January 2012
Hello Dane, I just wanted to first say thanks for taking the time. We were really blown away when we first gained exposure to Golden Age and when Jasmine De La Paz sent us the 2012 EP, all of us at Sound Colour Vibration fell in love with the record right away. With the debut full length planning for release with Plug Research in May of this year and 2012 so new to the world, what type of plans does the group have for touring this year? Will you be hitting Big Day Out or any of the other big festivals this year and next?
Dane: We are indeed about to embark upon our first tour ever with our good friends Teebs and Time Wharp. It’s going to be a Post-SXSW east coast run and then we’ll hit Cali and the West Coast this summer when the record comes out.
There is a lot of visual imagery in the lyrical presentation and synth work with a grounding of heavy beat experimentation on the rhythm side. Were there any artists or albums that you leaned towards more heavily for influence while constructing 2012 or do you try to isolate yourself from the current mediums of expression to channel something in that is beyond easy explanation?
Dane: I’ve discovered that you can pick apart any little riff or line or rhythm or metric/tonal modulation and pinpoint somewhere in the last 100 years where its already been used so I think the most important part about our process is just sitting down and discussing a feeling or problem or memory or vibe and go for it from there. We really dig the concept of sound painting or sound poetry, so it’s cool that you tapped into that vibe.
Knowing that your self titled debut full length is already scheduled for release in less than half a year, when did the sessions for 2012 EP occur? Was 2012 a collection of songs that spans many different periods and stages of growth or did they all take shape around the same time?
Dane: They all took place around the “same time” but that “same time” period was every second between when Golden Age came out and August of 2011, so yeah, it’s all from the same group of work.
Will Sonnymoon be a continuation of the 2012 sound or will this represent a new chapter and path in the bigger picture of the Sonnymoon story?
Dane: In some ways both. Like I said above, it’s all from the same group of work but they fit into different molds. Sonnymoon is really a journey, it takes the shape of a full 24 hour cycle on earth. 2012 is a lot more free form, as a group of tracks. However the same general, next-step-in-our-sound approach is prevalent throughout both the EP and the LP.
You mentioned recently that there will not be any collaborations musically on the debut full; which we were really happy to hear. Are you already working with any visual teams for music videos or other projects that will help shape the overall presentation of the record?
Dane: Yes!!! So glad you asked. We’re blessed to have amazing friends. We’re working with a couple of visual artists across the board, but the guys who did the “Near Me” video, Gordon Hendrick and Hunter Steinman are working on another for us as well. Lauren Santorio, who did the “run away” animation, has played a huge visual role in our artistic experience. We played numerous shows with her before we left Boston. When she’s available, Lauren is really the third member of Sonnymoon… she puts on one bitching visual set, and we all lived together for over a year, so you can imagine the closeness that experience incited.
Who did the album art for the debut full length and how was the process from conceptual stages of the art to now?
Dane: We worked with Ed Kramer (kramerart.net) for this whole gang of releases. The EP, the Singles, the LP, its all Ed. We talked a lot with him about what some of our favorite pieces of his represented conceptually and talked with him about our approach and what we’re trying to say with this record, then picked the pieces from there. We met each other in Boston the same time we both met our good friend Erik, who is also on the record. There were 7 of us in this apartment and the only request we had from the T-Mobile store below was to not play music BEFORE 8PM… which meant we had all night to make all the noise we wanted. Anyways, Erik invited us to his neighborhood music extravaganza, and that’s where we met his father Ed, and witnessed first hand the power of his work. His paintings are all over his house; we end up staring at his work for hours, totally enthralled. We knew we wanted to ask him to be involved, but it took a bit of courage because we almost felt unworthy of his work.
I feel his works compliment the music so well. You had the honor of performing with the Low End Theory family in San Francisco, November of last year. Thundercat, Knxwledge, Co.fee along with all the residents were there including special giests, something that must have been mind altering considering the diversity of everyones works. How was this night for the group and what type of set did you give the Low End Theory crowd that night?
Dane: Don’t forget Flylo, Dibia$e and Strangeloop!! That night was so fun. It really felt like we were all supposed to be there. Sometimes I have a bad habit of like being too zen when things like that just feel so in place and perfect and when a normal person would be freaking the fuck out or something I’m just like, Oh! Yes. Yes, of course we’re here. Would there have been any other way? It was a truly humbling and exciting experience though. As far as the set goes, we fit the vibe of the event like a glove. We gave DJ Nobody a treat that night and played “Houstatlantavegas”, which we never EVER play live anymore. We’re stubborn. Anna was up in the balcony “glitter bombing” the audience, which Fly Lo found annoying, then amusing, haha. Our friends Teebs, Time Wharp and Blum came out too, just to hang, which was dope. We are very very lucky, the whole Low End crew has been supportive and excited about our music. We are beyond grateful. What up Daddy Kev!
For live shows, do the both of you leave a lot of room for improvisation or do you try to nail the songs as close to the record as possible?
Dane: Sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t. Depends on the crowd, the other peeps on the bill, how long we have to play. I’ll tell ya one thing though… we try to make it different every time, and we’ll never just be satisfied with what we got. Anna is constantly modifying her melodies and rhythms…We’re forever a growing baby.
I wanted to ask about stage backdrops, visual cgi and other visually enhancing elements that are available to artists. How much importance does this world mean to your live show presentation and do you have plans or visions of more ways to dive into this medium of connecting the audience into the music?
Dane: Yeah! Like I said above, Lauren provides the visual representation to our music. I personally feel that the visual aspect is incredibly important. Unfortunately we’re not lucky enough yet to make this happen every time, but I do think it’s an inevitable part of live performance. We seem to be breeding ourselves to be engulfed in multimedia!
Dane, 2012 alone sounds like you really dived into a lot of sound territory. What type of instrumentation, gear, hardware and programs did you trust the most for finding the sounds in your head?
Dane: I have musical ADD.
We are really excited to hear the debut full length coming in May. We wish you both the best of luck and will be tuning in closely, thank you again.
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‘Morning Person’ from Sonnymoon (2012 EP Plug Research). Video by Max and Alex Blum.
Teebs, Sonnymoon, Time Wharp announce North American Tour Electronic artists plot East Coast US and Canada dates, March 22 – April 6 2012
After a busy 2011, forward-thinking electronic artists Teebs, Sonnymoon, and Time Wharp have announced a run of North American dates to kick off what looks to be an even busier 2012. Fresh off the releases of Teebs’ recent Brainfeeder LP Collections 01, Sonnymoon’s Plug Research EP 2012, and Time Wharp’s Astro Nautico EP BLK, the artists will begin the tour in Athens, GA with a support date for internationally-acclaimed producer Four Tet before continuing on up the East Coast with two stops in Canada. Sonnymoon also tour in anticipation of their forthcoming eponymous Plug Research LP, due to be released in May.
San Francisco’s Deafheaven is a band that unlike many, has catapulted into the public consciousness in a way that few can claim experience with. George Clarke and guitar player Kerry McCoy formed the group in 2010 with a self produced, recorded and released demo. Adding in three additional musicians with second guitar player Nick Bassett, bassist Derek Prine and drummer Trevor Deschryver to fulfill the vision presented on the demo, the band signed with Deathwish Inc. after a handful of shows and the band has been touring non stop since. Deafheaven released a limited edition 7″ that collected two songs from the demo and the full length Roads to Judah followed soon there after in 2011.
Combining so many fields of raw and invigorating formats of 20th and 21st century underground rock music, Deafheaven has become a powerful presentation of the heaviest yet brightest proportions. They display an exquisite balance of beauty and chaos with crescendos that fall into dripping colors of tone fragmentation that lead to a deconstruction of sound and ultimately chaos. As momentum builds exponentially and the scene changes at the blink of an eye, not a second is wasted before machine gun blasts are augmented by an excruciating type of pain that bleeds from the guitar, bass and vocal work. With their roots seated in a vast plethora of sound in the 20th and 21st century rock idiom, definition and relation to the whole of music comes at the hands of your own entry way, but the power and sonic aura of their studio and live show presentation is undeniable.
When we hear a band who incorporates a vast plethora of worlds and compacts it into micro fragments of coagulation, it sits right at home with the content we live for. Tradition is stripped down to include new formats, new ideas and new visions of tomorrow and Deafheaven is thriving in this world of tomorrow. The San Francisco based quintet is now managed by Cathy Pellow of Sargent House and this partnership between the two immediately compelled us to request an interview. Lead singer of Deafheaven George Clarke was gracious enough to lend us some of his time and answer the questions we sent. We hope you enjoy our exclusive interview with George and get a chance to see Deafheaven live, they are touring heavily in Europe and the States in the next 2 months.
Sound Colour Vibration interview with George Clarke of Deafheaven Conducted by Erik Otis January 2012
Just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to answer these email questions, it means a lot to us at Sound Colour Vibration. I first wanted to ask about the label who put out your last full length and 7″, Deathwish Inc. How did you guys meet the label and how has the label treated you guys so far?
George Clarke: It’s not a problem. Deathwish originally approached us after we had released our demo online at no cost. Through various blogging networks, they became aware of it, enjoyed it, and approached us about releasing material. So far, everything has been great. We’ve taken a lot of big steps since our signing with them and it feels good to know that they constantly support us in all that we do.
Now that you guys have Sargent House on your team for management, how did you come to meet Sargent House and how different has it been working with Sargent House than anyone else in the past?
George Clarke: Sargent House and us became in contact after our US tour with Russian Circles this past November. We had a few talks about what direction we were trying to pursue and the things that we wanted to accomplish as a band and it just worked out. The relationship has been short, but Sargent House has brought a lot of vision and force to the table. It’s nice having that aggression on our team.
On the record that you released last year “Roads to Judah”, I was immediately taken to the raw energy found in a lot of music I was absorbing about ten years ago, a lot of bands like Yaphet Kotto, Fuel, Orchid and many others on the Ebullition imprint and distribution circuit. I was also reminded of the surreal and dynamic crescendos of groups like Explosions in the Sky and Mono. You guys bring that together and so much more in a really unique way to us. What labels/distros and artist/band circles really caught your attention growing up and shaped a lot of the musical principles and foundations for Deafheaven?
George Clarke: Throwing these things together wasn’t intentional, but it seems to have worked out. As far as influence, it’s a pretty vast range of artists. Like you had mentioned previously, bands like Yaphet Kotto and Orchid serve as an influence. Bands like Explosions, Mono, and GY!BE are also present. I think our sound relies heaviest on influences like Slowdive, My Bloody Valentine, Chapterhouse, and Ride along with black metal acts like Burzum, Weakling, and Hate Forest.
Do you guys still find yourself buying records the way you used to when you were younger?
George Clarke: Not at all like I used to, but I wish. I’ve pretty much had to forfeit my entire life to pursue Deafheaven to the degree that I want to, so there is very little room for extra expenses.
I wanted to ask you about the way you guys present your music live. I have always felt bands who can extract a certain element of melodic features inside of a massively heavy live set have entrancing and almost metaphysical effects on the crowd. It has created a lot of states for me where sound enters my body in a very different way than listening to an iPod or even a good home sound system. I saw Sunn O)))) at the El Rey in Los Angeles some years back and by the end of the set there was only about 30 of us left from 300. The band bowed to us as they knew what we had endured. Do you feel the intensity and power of sound outside of what the melody or beat is becomes its own entity in performance? What have been your strongest experiences with all of this?
George Clarke: Yes, we do our best to showcase the intensity that I hope a listener feels while listening to the record. We enjoy a harsh, loud live sound. Though the melody and beat remain important, the dominance that the wall of sound provides is the emphasis of the show.
When I picked up “Roads to Judah”, I was really surprised to see the name Jack Shirley in the notes. As a guitarist of Comadre, a favorite of mine for many years, his involvement behind the scenes really intrigued me. Acting as producer and engineer along with mix and mastering work, did Jack become an extension of the album or was he a means to capture what you guys had in full vision?
George Clarke: The vision was ours, but Jack is fantastic to work with and knew the tools necessary to complete what we wanted to do. We’ve known him for years and working with him is always a great experience.
The lyrical presentation is something that on contact was very abrasive for me but when reading the lyrics I really felt the reason and purpose of why the lyrics were being presented the way they have been. Are lyrics an extension of the music or does the music stem its creation from the concepts and meanings behind lyrics created before hand?
George Clarke: The lyrics and music are written separately, but I think we’re fortunate that the two go very well together. Our guitarist Kerry and I have been best friends for a lot of years. Because of that, I think we have a great mutual respect and understanding of each other’s talents. I can connect as much with a melody of his that he can with a line or phrase of mine. The two end up synching well in the end.
Your band has been touring since 2010, has the communication level strengthened for your live performances over the last two years or did you guys all lock in right away from the beginning?
George Clarke: Touring has been interesting for us. With most bands, they have time to find finesse in their live show by playing locally. Most play locally for a long time before audiences around the country are exposed to them. Deafheaven was picked up for a record release after only playing four shows. Because of that, we’ve had to grow on the national road, fine tuning our performance and ultimately, figuring out what sort of angle to take. Some have raved about our live show while others seem confused or disappointed by it. From my perspective, it’s still a learning experience. You take stage losses and victories, eventually finding comfort in how you perform. That being said, I do think we get better and better as we play, finding strong stage communication and fluidity.
We were wondering if you had already made lead way on a new record to release in the near future and if so, will Jack be the man given engineering credits on this one again?
George Clarke: We have started writing new material and already have a timeline for its release. Further information regarding the follow up release will be issued in good time.
With “Roads to Judah”, you reached out to the very talented Reuben Sawyer for cover album art and inner sleeve art, both of which are mind blowing and really add to the feel of the album when holding the vinyl. Will you be working with Reuben in the future or do you see yourself working with different artists for your next releases?
George Clarke: Reuben did a fantastic job on Roads to Judah and we’ll continue to work with him on various projects. We do try and work with as many talented artists as we can though.
I had to ask about the very end of “Roads to Judah”, there is a beautiful solo piano section that brings the album to a close. This is a dynamic element to this record that really separates itself and one that is laid in small moments all over the record, even with the addition of acoustic guitar on the first piece ‘Violet’. Do you see Deafheaven diving more into these areas of sound for future records or will these always be small additives that show the different shades and interests that stem outside of the main pulse of the music created with the band so far?
George Clarke: Thank you. Yes, we are always aiming to expand our sound and the new material will be no different. We’ve been experimenting with a lot of different musical directions and the new material will undoubtedly showcase that.
Does the group have any plans for films, books or other projects that deviate from the norm of an album release?
George Clarke: As of now, no. I would absolutely love to work in a different medium though. Perhaps sometime in the future.
Thanks for your time, we really appreciate it and we wish you guys a lot of success in this new year.
George Clarke: Thank you, and to you as well. Hoping 2012 is a good year for everyone.
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Deafheaven will be touring non stop for the next few months in Europe and then the States, all of the following dates are sourced from AMP Magazine:
DEAFHEAVEN EUROPEAN AND UNITED STATED TOUR JAN/FEB/MARCH 2012
01/24: Santa Cruz, CA @ Catalyst Atrium w/ Wolves in the Throne Room, Worm Ouroboros
02/3 – Antwerp, Belgium @ JH Kavka
02/4 – Essen, Germany @ Cafe Nova
02/5 – Hamburg, Germany @ Astra Stube
02/7 – Leipzig, Germany @ Conne Island Kafe
02/8 – Berlin, Germany @ Cassiopeia
02/9 – München, Germany @ Feierwerk
02/10 – Linz, Austria @ Ann and Pat
02/11 – Budapest, Hungary @ Trafik Klub
02/12 – Vienna, Austria @ Arena, 3 Raum
02/13 – Ljubljana, Slovenia @ Orto Bar
02/14 – Rimini, Italy @ Grotta Rossa s.p.a.
02/15 – Stuttgart, Germany @ Juha West
02/16 – Trier, Germany @ Ex Haus, Balkensaal
02/17 – Amsterdam, Holland @ Winston
02/18 – Leper, Belgium @ Ieper Winter Festival
02/19 – Brighton,UK @ The Haunt w/ Kylesa, Circle Takes Square, Ken Mode
02/20 – Manchester, UK @ The Star And Garter
02/21 – Margate, UK @ Westcoast Bar
02/22 – London, UK @ 02 Academy Islington
02/23 – Bristol, UK @ The Croft
02/24 – Paris, France @ La Miroiterie w/ Celeste
03/09 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Smell w/ DNF, Whirr & Marriages
03/10 - Phoenix, AZ @ The Trunk Space w/ Whirr & Marriages
03/11 – El Paso, TX @ Low Brow w/ Whirr & Marriages
03/13 – Denton, TX @ Rubber Gloves w/ Whirr & Marriages
3/14 – 3/17 – Austin, TX @ SXSW
03/20: New Orleans, LA @ Big Top w/ Alcest
03/21: Tampa, FL @ Crowbar w/ Alcest
03/22: Orlando, FL @ Will’s Pub w/ Alcest
03/23: Atlanta, GA @ 529 w/ Alcest
03/24.2012 Johnson City – The Hideaway w/ Alcest
03/26: Raleigh, NC @ Kings w/ Alcest
03/27: Richmond, VA @ Strange Matter w/ Alcest
03/28: Baltimore, MD @ Golden West w/ Alcest
03/29.2012 Washington DC – DC9 w/ Alcest
03/30.2012 Philadelphia, PA – North Star Bar w/ Alcest
03/31: Brooklyn, NY @ Public Assembly w/ Alcest
"Roads to Judah" by Deafheaven / Art by Reuben Sawyer
West coast electronic producer and owner of Frite Nite Paul Salva has been in our rotation pool of artists we have been going back to for multiple listens. With tons of recommendations from so many different types of people I know for over a year now, I knew something good was happening every time I kept feeling the buzz around him. To summarize his background would be a hard task, as his trail of work extends from Mary Ann Hobbs exclusive track features on her very influential radio show to bass heavy and mind liberating sets at the infamous Low End Theory curated weekly by The Gaslamp Killer, DJ Nobody, D-Styles, Nocando and Daddy Kev. As of last year, Salva is a proud member of the Red Bull Music Academy alumni and has been proving his stability in the touring world with constant guest appearances in all the right spots for his type of sound. With his first official full length album Complex Housing released on Tall Corn Music and the Los Angeles based imprint Friends of Friends in 2011, everyone at Sound Colour Vibration was really taken by the sheer beauty and presentation of it all. Atmospheric nuances, west coast electronic funk, experimental sections and some of the most tasteful house music we have heard in years sprawl all over this record, never dwelling in one place or genre setting and always pulling from the electronic foundations that are so wide and vast now. Salva quickly left the world with another release late last year called Yellobone. Prepared as a limited edition vinyl, Yellobone comes in a lavish format that is a must own record visually and sonically. The mastering is superb and the record hits on every perfect level because of it. The track ‘Komodo’ has to be one of the best things we have ever heard from Salva and makes us anticipate his future material even more.
With Salva heading out to Europe this February with Friends of Friends label mate Shlohmo, we contacted Salva to ask him about the recent EP release Yellobone, his tour coming up and more. We really believe this producer is going to emerge in a very huge way in the coming years as his catalog expands and his concepts and techniques do the same. If you are in Europe, don’t miss one of the performances on the 2012 Friends of Friends European Tour. Enjoy this exclusive interview Sound Colour Vibration held with Salva this last week.
Sound Colour Vibration Interviews Salva Conducted by Erik Otis January 2012
‘Komodo’ by Salva off Yellobone
Before we dive into the interview, we wanted to say thanks for your time and that we are really enjoying your latest EP Yellobone. What were the deciding factors to doing an EP over a full length and how did you come up with the name?
Salva: Well I just released an album Complex Housing on Friends of Friends earlier in the year (we’re talking 2011 now) so really the label and myself wanted to just follow up with a 12″, sort of extending where the album left off. The name Yellobone is a play on “yellow bone” — here in the states its southern slang for a light skin black girl — for which I had sampled many of fine black women in my records, hahaha. That was the name of the first tune the label liked so I went with it.
Did you build your tracks over long periods of time for Yellobone, periodically going to tracks for more production while finding the right remixes or was the EP shaped in a small window?
Salva: No it was all written in the late spring and early summer of 2011, released in November. For remixes, I’ve always wanted one from my label mate Shlohmo, and the LOL Boys started coming into the FoF fold and I always play their stuff when I play dance music…so we just kept it in the family.
The artwork for Yellobone is lovely, who did the art and how much time do you put into molding the designs and overall vision of how the finished package will come out?
Salva: You know, I feel it goes the same with the art as the music. You can’t force it. I tried a ton of different designs that didn’t work, and finally I asked a designer/photographer named Oliver Kish who’s part of the FoF-affiliated Young Adults crew in LA, and a good friend of the FoF label owner Leeor Brown. Once Oli got involved it sort of took shape very easily. It looks really nice on the vinyl.
I really love the remix work Shlohmo did on Yellobone. How did you guys link up and is there any other people you are linking up with for collaborations or remixes that most might know about yet?
Salva: Shlohmo is family. I’ve known him I think before he was even old enough to get into the clubs…and I’ve always loved his music. Now as he’s on his way to becoming a household name, him and I are a part of the same label (FoF, LA) and we’ll be touring together in February. I’ve remixed lot of of artists over the past year or two that I definitely plan on tapping them for return favors! I’m collaborating with a slew of my close friends and new friends I’ve met on the road….but keeping it all secrets for now.
Salva / Photo by Trevor Traynor
Your collaboration with B. Bravo on Yellobone is a lot different than anything on the EP, a lot more Dâm Funk influenced from what I can hear. How did the piece come together in terms of composition and was there anything else completed by the two of you outside of ‘Obsession’?
Salva: We have some demos in the can for sure. B. Bravo is one of my best friends and one of the reasons I started and continued my own label — Frite Nite, of which he’ll be dropping a new record this spring. I wanted to make sure to drop a west coast funk joint on here because again I wanted it to be a mini extension of Complex Housing, which had some dark grime and garage stuff, as well as shimmery funk and beat stuff. Much of my music that sort of carries that funk aesthetic is thanks to lots of work and shows with B. Bravo and another one of my funk mentors J. Todd.
The LOL Boys present the final remix of Yellobone and brings the EP to a close. What was your first introduction to LOL Boys and do you plan to work with LOL Boys again?
Salva: Yeah I hope to work with them again for sure. They’re a dual-country act, one lives in Montreal and one lives here in LA, but I’ve been fortunate enough to play with both of them in their respective cities — great people, great DJs. I had them do one of the most recent podcasts for my label Frite Nite as well, and I know they they have some special things in the works that are really going to put them on the map this year.
You will be headed to Europe in February with Shlohmo and I recently saw a list of 9 dates in the UK, Poland, Germany, Denmark, France, Romania and Italy. What type of rehearsal schedule are on right now and what type of equipment set up will you bring on this tour?
Salva: Have to keep it light…I’ve broken some important pieces of gear going through airport security, and going through international customs I don’t like to risk it. I have more of a mobile setup with includes most midi stuff and I use Touch OSC on my iPad to control ableton Live. I also will probably pop in and do turntable style DJ sets if its more of a dance club instead of a concert venue…I love DJing on turntables.
As this tour approaches, have you set out time for yourself to see the cities as much as possible or will the press responsibilities and a tight travel schedule prohibit enjoying the cities on your own terms?
Salva: A little bit of time for play on this run, but really we have a ton of press stuff to do and also visiting the Red Bull Music Academy offices and I’ll be doing some lectures actually too. I’m lucky to be an RBMA alumni from this past session — so I hope to visit as much staff and participants as I can that I shared the experience with since a lot of the crew is based in various countries around Europe, specifically Cologne, Germany.
For this tour of Europe, will there be a visual team involved? Do you see that as an essential element for a live performer in your field of music?
Salva: I’m on my way to building a true live show that will be festival stage ready, in which case yes I think visuals could be crucial. It’s obviously become a staple in many of the big touring acts, and it’s an undeniable point of energy and entertainment for the show..especially for an electronic act that many times is just sitting behind a laptop. It happens to be crazy costly though! So I’m hoping to do my own visuals, been working on it for a while — the technology in Ableton for meshing A/V is almost there.
Salva
Are you a producer that tries to balance out the use of hardware and programs with studio recordings and your live presentation or do you sway to one side more heavily?
Salva: I feel my best records have always had a combination of samples, outboard synths and yes I sequence everything in Logic. It all depends track by track, especially when I tread through completely different genres and styles. ie., for like a straight House or Techno track I won’t be noodling funk synths on top of it, I’d want everything real tight on the grid…as where with Hip Hop and Boogie, everything has to be nice and free, so a lot of real recording takes are what makes those feel right.
Do you compose new songs with headphones and studio monitors or do you try to place yourself in a situation closer to a live performance with a full sound system?
Salva: Yeah studio monitors and headphones for sure, but I love testing out my mixes in my car. I have a decent stock system so it’s a good indicator. Of course for any system-heavy music though — only one way to be sure, test it out at your shows. I love testing my stuff out at places I’ve played and frequented a lot like Low End Theory here in LA…I know that system well so even during sound check I sneak in a ton of tunes and hear how they pump.
I have always been intrigued by the culmination of human energy in a club or performance hall, especially with a situation where large waves of people are dancing and taking part with the experience, including myself. What have been some of the most intense states of energy exchange between an audience and yourself while in performance?
Salva: I go back and forth. Sometimes I think nothing can top DJing in a real club with a proper dance floor, big sound system and people that really want to DANCE, not pump fists, not stand around and observe. Especially with 4×4 music that a lot of beat kids don’t understand and find even find boring — it’s actually really interactive, we’re all in the groove together. But some of my live performances last year where some fans (to my delight!) actually knew my material and would go crazy for a track, it feels so humbling and incredible for people to actually cheer for music you’ve put your heart into.
Out of all the work you have done, remixes and all, is there one track in particular that you are proud of the most?
Salva: I think one of my most celebrated remixes and my personal favorite is of Om Unit’s “Prawn Cocktail” that came out early last year on a Civil Music 12″. It just speaks to everything I love — it takes from his original which is old school Electro influenced, it’s very 808, it’s foortwerky, dark, and even has elements of deep Dub. For originals I think “Wake Ups” and “Obsession” are always the tracks I get the most love on…I’m proud of those.
With a new year here and the Yellobone EP so new, what are some of your biggest goals for the future?
Salva: Lots of collabs. Continuing to build my own label Frite Nite. Touring as much as possible, and overall I want to step my game up musically. I really just want to impress my peers and myself really, do things I haven’t done before. All I hope for is longevity. I will never stop making music, but hopefully I can keep doing it as a career for the rest of my life in some form…I can’t really see myself being in any other industry, I love the game.
Thanks for your time Salva, we wish you the best of luck on your tour coming up with Shlohmo this February.
Salva: Thanks very much!!! My pleasure.
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FoF European Tour w/ Schlohmo and Salva
2012 Friends of Friends European Tour w/ Schlohmo & Salva
Feb 01 Donky Pitch, The Green Door Store, Brighton (UK)
Feb 02 Ernest Endevours, Camp Basement, London (UK)
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