As an electronic musician living in Berlin, this must be an exciting time for you. Tell us why you relocated there and how you've found it.
I moved here with my wife last June for what was supposed to be just a few months of gigs. We expected to head back to the US around October, but right before we were about to leave I was offered the position at Native Instruments and we've been here ever since. Berlin's great. It's substantially less expensive than any place we had been considering living in the US, with the added bonuses of having a functioning cultural scene and a fairly sane political climate.
Tell us about your work for Native Instruments as a sound designer. How do you go about creating a new sound?
Well, my title at Native is a bit of a misnomer. It's not so much actual sound design - most of that is outsourced to artists who are not regular employees of the company. Most of what I do is manage their work, which means writing specifications for the libraries and sorting and selecting from their patches and/or samples. When it comes to actually doing sound design though, I usually don't start with anything more than a vague idea of what I'm hoping the sound will do. From there, I mostly just experiment until it starts falling into place.
You are a prominent name on netlabel Thinner's roster. (www.thinnerism.com) Presumably you receive no fee for the music you provide, and it is free to the public for download. What benefits do you feel this has to your artistic career - and would you encourage other artists to participate in similar projects?
The benefit for me is that it provides another means of exposure, aimed at people who aren't vinyl junkies or club goers, and so are perhaps less likely to come into contact with this kind of music. I would definitely encourage other artists to get involved with net distribution, especially if they can find (or form) an organization with as much vision and energy as Thinner. As every 15-year old kid in the developed world has already figured out, the net is absolutely an ideal platform for media distribution. The only people who don't seem to get it yet are the labels. As for the financial angle, certainly I'd love to get paid for downloads. But there's no functioning infrastructure for this sort of economy right now - it's simply not possible to compete with free. So
for now, my hope is that the increased exposure that Thinner can provide will translate into more gig opportunities, thus filling in the money gap.
What is your favourite piece of studio kit?
Probably my Hammerfall Multiface. I just love the versatility and the routing flexibility. It's a really well-thought out interface. I realize that audio cards aren't particularly sexy "favorite" pieces of gear, but I've got a pretty boring studio - no hardware at all.
Your muscial background contains healthy doses of both experimental jazz and classical composition. Which influence would you say is dominant in your productions?
It's a bit of both. The harmonic language in my electronic productions is certainly more from the jazz world than the classical world. But something I definitely took from my classical studies is a sort of generalized approach to formal balance and proportion over time.
You've studied percussion and play the drums; a lot of cross-pollination occurs between drum and bass, breaks and techno, as demonstrated by the likes of John Tejada for example. Can we expect anything in that vein from yourself?
It's certainly possible. I've been playing around with some genre-hopping ideas lately that I haven't shown to anyone yet. Some of it isn't really dancefloor music at all, and probably borrows more from the acoustic music I write than from the percussion stuff. I'm certainly not wedded to any particular genre.
Are you aiming for the club or home with your music?
I'm aiming for the ears. Wherever they happen to be is up to the listener. I have no preference.
As someone involved at a grass-roots level in electronic production, what are your predictions for the industry going forward? Any cool new toys on the way to get excited about?
I think the biggest change we'll see will be a dramatic increase in Internet distribution. The labels need to lead, follow, or get out of the way. All of their litigation isn't going to stop people from
downloading music, so someone just needs to find a way to create a viable business model for it, which will certainly happen soon. In terms of production tools, I can't really say too much about any specific toys that I may or may not know about...
Someone with your musical background must own plenty of vinyl - what have you done with it all?
Actually, I own very little vinyl, and most of that is either promos I've gotten in the last few years or classic rock stuff I inherited from my dad. I haven't bought vinyl since the early 90s. I've never been a DJ - I'm all about CDs.
List five things you couldn't live without - and why.
1) My wife Alison, for putting up with my artsy crap and keeping me sane.
2) Fresh coffee, for giving that little extra push that sleep can't provide.
3) Deadlines, because they're the best motivation for chronic procrastinators.
4) Other people's music, especially when it sounds nothing like mine. I usually get my best ideas by listening to stuff that's as different as possible from my own. I've never known why.
5) As dorky as it sounds, the internet. Living on this side of the pond, this has proven to be the cheapest and most efficient way to not only stay in touch with everyone back home, but also to move material around for various musical projects. I can't imagine how anyone got anything done without it.
Give us some info on your forthcoming productions and remixes.
I recently did a remix for Ross Couch, which will be the A side of an upcoming release on his new label Tekstyle (http://www.tekstylerecords.com/). Also, look for a new Thinner remix by the end of September, this time for Jeff Bennett. As for my own releases, there should be a new full-lenth coming out soon on Third Ear (http://third-ear.net/), as well as a preview 12" with a bunch of remixes. I don't know an exact date for this, but probably this year. I'm also working on a pretty different project that's scheduled for an early '05 release on a label called Cantaloupe (http://www.cantaloupemusic.com/), an experimental new music label run by the Bang on a Can collective. This is a collaboration with the composer and clarinetist Evan Ziporyn (http://www.ziporyn.com/) and the electronic composer Peter Whincop.
OK - desert island disc time - what three tracks would it be?
3!? Man, most desert island questions give you at least 5...3 is brutal.
If "tracks" can mean any kind of music...maybe Stravinsky: "Rite of Spring", Meshell Ndegeocello: "I'm Diggin' You (Like An Old Soul Record)" and Steely Dan: "Aja".
If "tracks" means dance music...maybe Theorem: "Embed", Alexander Kowalski "Progress", and Squarepusher "The Exploding Psychology".
What other musical projects are you involved in right now?
I'm still working with many of the same classical musicians I worked with when living in the US, although not as frequently because of the logistical issues involved in just getting there for gigs. When possible, I play percussion and/or do remixes with the new music chamber orchestra Alarm Will Sound (http://www.alarmwillsound.com/), with whom I've recorded two CDs of the music of Steve Reich. I also continue to work with an organization I co-founded, called the Minimum Security Composers Collective (http://www.minimumsecurity.org/), through which I recently wrote a saxophone quartet and am currently working on a piece for chamber ensemble based on the work of author and illustrator Maurice Sendak. I'm also, somehow, still finishing my doctoral dissertation, which is an opera for three singers and four percussionists based on Punch and Judy.
Where can we catch you live in the near future?
Actually, I'm pretty open right now. I have a gig in Utrecht on October 8th and nothing scheduled beyond that. It seems that dance music, much like academia, is very much a "publish or perish" industry. I haven't had a release of my own since last spring, and I've seen the gigs steadily decrease since then. It'll be interesting to see if this changes after the next round of records comes out!
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