Chaos Control Issue #3
Chaos Control Issue #3
Chaos Control is a bimonthly electronic magazine that exists in both
Macintosh Hypercard and text formats. The focus is on electronic music,
particularly those who use technology in new and creative ways. Occasionally,
the magazine will cover other types of music, but only when it is equally
innovative. Chaos Control strives to cover both major acts and underground
talent.
Chaos Control is published on a bimonthly basis. The next issue, due out
October 15, will feature articles on Front 242, Sunscreem, EON, EBN, Instinct
Records, Havoc Music, Chem Lab, Orbital, and more. For Mac users, the best
way to get Chaos Control is in the Hypercard format, as it also features
graphics, photos and sound in an interactive environment. Currently, this
version is available from America Online or on disk by mail order. FTP
information will be sent out over lists when the Hypercard version is posted.
Feel free to Email for more information.
-Bob Gourley
Chaos Control Digizine
rsgour@aol.com
Rgour@world.std.com
Unless other wise noted, all articles are
written by and copyright 1993 Bob Gourley
CONTENTS
-New Order
-Skin Chamber
-Big Catholic Guilt
-Billy Idol
-Miranda Sex Garden
-Prayer Tower
-Clockdva
-808 State
-------------
NEW ORDER
By taking chances and pushing the existing technology to the limits, New
Order proved to be pioneers of electronic music back in the early 80's,
before wide spread use of computers, sequencers and samplers in music. And
unlike many bands of that era, New Order have been able to progress rather
than burn out. The group has always managed to stay in touch with the dance
music scene and incorporate elements of it into their own sound without
"selling out." With the collapse of their long time label Factory, New Order
have moved on to London and released Republic, their first album in four
years, which also marks the first time the band has worked with a producer.
Despite the label problems that the band was having at the time,
Republic shows New Order still in top form. While the acid house influence
that dominated their last outing (Technique) is not as evident, the band
still proves that they are masters at fusing electronics with more
traditional guitar and bass oriented music. It's been a long wait for new
material, but Republic is well worth it.
"We actually started writing it about two years ago, sort of very
quietly, little bits, and then moved on a bit and picked up the pace," says
bassist Peter Hook on making the LP."Of course, we've all been doing the solo
stuff."
Those solo projects were Hook's band, Revenge, vocalist Bernard Sumner
collaboration with Johnny Marr, Electronic, and, most recently, Stephen
Morris and Gillian Gilbert's The Other Two. The latter saw the first signs of
Factory's downfall when they ran into problems getting their Other Two and
You album released. The members of New Order feel that taking the time off
and doing other things has helped keep the band fresh, though they do admit
that it was a bit strange going back and working together. It was also
strange for the band to be working with producer Stephen Hague, as in the
past New Order had produced themselves.
"The fact that we used a producer on this record, that was the main
difference," explains Morris. "When we started writing for this record it was
always done with the notion that we'd be using a producer. Basically, one of
the things that happens when you've been together as long as we have is that
you know each other very very well and then when you're producing yourself
it's very hard to take criticism, everything's personal basically."
While their previous incarnation, Joy Division, had a pretty standard
guitar/bass/drum set-up, New Order's incorporation of electronics has blurred
the picture in terms of who actually does what in the band. Using electronics
was something that the members had wanted to do since the beginning, but it
wasn't until shortly before singer Ian Curtis's suicide prompted them to
re-group as New Order that the technology really became available to them.
Gilbert recalls one of the group's first ventures into the realm of
non-traditional instruments and their effect on the band.
"I remember when Stephen was doing Close, he said 'we've got a drum
machine, they don't need me!," she says. "And he was like dead upset, but of
course he's seen that you shouldn't take that attitude; Stephen plays
keyboards and everything."
Starting to use electronics and the more varied sound they provide
allowed New Order to go beyond the Joy Division sound that everyone seemed to
be copying at the time.
"In England, after Joy Division ceased it was like every band on the
John Peel show sounded just like bloody Joy Division!," explains Morris. "It
was like, oh god, the idea being that it was great to inspire people to get
together and make music but not to clone it. They should be trying to do
something a bit different."
But as an attempt to stop people from copying them, the change was not
effective, as Morris says that "it didn't work out because 'Blue Monday" was
copied bass-drum-riff."
From the start, New Order were willing to risk taking the electronics on
stage with them instead of using backing tapes. When asked if this was a
cause of frustration at the time, Gilbert lets out a sarcastic "no, why?",
with Morris following suit, laughing as he asks "how can you tell."
"When computers first came out, you wouldn't dream of taking them
anywhere! But we did," explains Gilbert. "So it was like a really big hassle
every night and we used to check all of the leads, because it was just like
plugs and wires then, and I used to go on and sound check all the gear before
we actually played the concert, which is stupid, you just don't do that now,
but we had to. The gear kept breaking down so we got like second stand ins
and we ended up with four lots of stand ins on the stage because they were so
unreliable."
At one time, New Order would go out on tour with all of their material
prepared for live performance, giving them the chance to pick and choose
which songs to play each night. But starting with the last US tour, the group
realized that they had to skim things down as it was getting to be a bit too
much. Given the fact that everything is running live, their soundman ends up
having 24 - 42 tracks to mix on each song. "If you think about it, it's like
him mixing an LP as it was going along, because every song is different,"
says Gilbert. "It's like juggling."
But while the band has been forced to streamline their set list, they
still strive for spontaneity, something missing from many electronic band's
shows. "Most bands do 'a performance' which is essentially the same set to a
certain extent choreographed," says Morris. "It shouldn't get away from a
gig-type, spur of the moment type feeling which is hit-or-miss ,basically."
Another difference in making the new album was the band's getting away
>from the cryptic song titles, which often have no relation to the music.
"Basically, the New Order method of titling is just writing down words
that are completely abstract and don't relate to anything, and then when
you've written the songs, it's just like pin the tail on the donkey," says
Morris.
This time around, the band got away from this to some degree.
However, New Order are still not about to make things easy.
"We said let's do something different, let's name the songs!," Gillian
says. "For instance, 'Regret' was always 'Regret'."
Unfortunately for listeners, the band was not as direct with the naming
of the rest of the album. While they did have about half of the tracks titled
before making the album, they felt the need to switch most of them around
just to confuse matters.
The bands' problems with Factory stem from the fact that New Order did
not have a normal business relationship with the label; they were friends, or
at least had personal involvement with those who ran it. Morris explains
that while it was great not having a contract in some ways, in the end "the
unspoken obligations you have to each other are sort of like the ultimate
contract." So when the band was getting sick of all the meetings regarding
The Hacienda, which the label and band were part owners of, they couldn't
just walk out. And when Factory started to experience difficulties, it turned
to the band for assistance.
"Every time they had a problem they used to come to us to sort it out
for them," explains Morris. "But we just don't say 'well look, if we've got a
problem with music, what do we do, come to you? Can you explain MIDI to us? I
don't know why this lead isn't working, could you fix it for us?' The other
way around would just be completely ridiculous."
On the other hand, Morris feels that New Order may not be around today
if it weren't for Factory. Being with that label enabled the group to exist
outside of the main stream music industry, and it gave them a great deal of
freedom. Now that they are on London, New Order are getting their first taste
of the confines of the mainstream music industry.
"That's one of the funny things about London, it's like 'well you can't
do any solo stuff unless you ask us first. If you appear on any records
you've got to have a 'guest appearance'," explains Morris. "With Factory, it
was do what you want, really."
Had they followed a more traditional path of signing directly to a major
and not having the freedom Factory allowed, the group may have burned out and
become another casualty of the 80's. Still, at this stage of the game, New
Order see the incident as the dawning of a new era and a relief in some ways.
"The only good thing about the demise of Factory is it's like a great
burden weight off the shoulders in the way that we were involved with so much
business rubbish, I never wanted to be a business man, I never wanted to own
a club," says Morris. "Now that's all over, it's sort of a fresh start and
you can sort of concentrate on music again."
Special thanks to the Reader's Digest Foundation for covering the
transportation costs that made this interview possible
---------------
SKIN CHAMBER
Back in the early 80's, Controlled Bleeding were one of the pioneers of
dark, electronic music on this side of the Atlantic. The group's extensive
body of work encompass three distinct styles; aggressive, electronic dance
music, gothic, soundtrack-like work, and harsh, wall-of-noise compositions.
While Controlled Bleeding were between labels, members Paul Lemos and Chris
Moriarity started up Skin Chamber, a side project that further explores the
latter. Skin Chamber's music is much darker and noisier than Controlled
Bleeding's recent work and reminiscent of "Knees and Bones" era of Controlled
Bleeding. Their debut album, "Wound" came out in late 1991, and now they have
followed it up with "Trial". The following is a telephone interview conducted
with Lemos about Skin Chamber.
Q.Why did you start up the Skin Chamber side project?
A.Skin Chamber developed when Controlled Bleeding had left Wax Trax!. It was
a tough situation for Wax Trax! and everybody involved and so the band took a
rest for about 11 months - we just stopped. Chris and I have always had a
very volatile relationship, from the time when we were recording Knees and
Bones together and I think this kind of level of frustration that started
out in our early music was very much happening at that time. We had just
gotten together, playing drums and bass, no programming, no keyboards and
were just playing. What started developing would become Skin Chamber. It
really was just a different face. To call it Controlled Bleeding was very
inappropriate and it kind of harked back to the early music that we did in
purpose - it had that same kind of venting. We just had a need to do
something that was completely different and much more visceral and maybe a
different emotional level.
Q.When you originally started up Skin Chamber, did you see it as a one-off or
a continuing project?
A.Oh yeah, Skin Chamber to me is at least as dominant, maybe more so in the
major market. I think Skin Chamber is something that's new, it has no history
behind it, there's no big catalogue of obscure releases. And so it's kind of
in a way a fresh start in a whole new orientation for us. Because none of us
are tech-heads, and we don't really like computer music that much in terms of
creating it, and so Skin Chamber is the way we like to work in an organic
manner. I don't know if we'll be working with Roadrunner anymore, but we'll
certainly pursue the group.
Q.Why don't you think you'll be working with Roadrunner anymore?
A.They dismantled a lot of the Third Mind label so Controlled Bleeding at
this point will probably be label shopping, even though the last record did
so well for us. They've just got big problems there, and I don't think
they're going to support Skin Chamber either because they don't really
understand the music. Their main interest is metal and even though they
experiment with genres outside of metal, they don't handle them particularly
well.
Q.How would you describe the new Skin Chamber LP?
A.It just kind of continues where Wound left off. It's a lot more focused
than Wound. There's not nearly the variation on the record. But I think the
songs are straighter in certain ways but sonically a lot better. I think the
production is a lot more interesting, and within it are certain structured
frameworks; there's a lot of experimentation going on. I'd say there's much
more experimentation than on Wound. The textural aspects of the record are
much more interesting.
Q.Do you keep the different projects completely separate or do you tend to
come up with ideas and then decide which project to develop them for?
A.Oh, never. Controlled Bleeding can go a number of ways, it's like
Controlled Bleeding is almost three combinations. Joe and I work on
semi-choral, progressive music, the Controlled Bleeding music I work on
myself is generally very noisy, very experimental, and the stuff Chris and I
do under Controlled Bleeding tends to be more ryhthmic-yet-melodic, like
what's on Penetration. Skin Chamber is a completely different entity; it's a
completely different creative process.
Q.Do you see the two groups aimed at the same audience?
A.Well, I suppose. I don't really think about audience very much when I do
any kind of music. I mean Roadrunner being a metal label, even though Trial
is not a fucking metal record, they're going to market it to a metal
audience. That's the audience that they know, that's their tried and true
audience. I would say that people that are interested in any kind of noisy
guitar-driven music would find Trial interesting, but I don't know it those
same people would find Controlled Bleeding interesting. I tend to think that
the Controlled Bleeding audience has found Skin Chamber maybe a little
difficult to deal with.
Q.Will you be doing any live dates as Skin Chamber?
A.We want to, it's just hard going from two people to the necessary six or
seven people. It's real hard to find a band for the live setting that can
commit to going a month or two on the road. So it hasn't been easy getting
the thing off the ground. We did one show, and we really want to go on tour
this summer. We might go out as Controlled Bleeding/Skin Chamber doing music
>from both, but it's been hard getting the number of people involved that we
need for a long term tour.
Q.What is the current status of Controlled Bleeding?
A.As far as corporate music, we're quite possibly going to sign with a major
label or another large indie sometime in the next five to six months. We'd
like to be able contractually to be able to continue the smaller kind of
maybe more artistic projects that we've been pursuing.
----------------------
BIG CATHOLIC GUILT
As anyone who has seen them live can attest, there are few bands that
can come close to matching the intensity and innovativeness of Big Catholic
Guilt. The Boston-based group has often been compared to Ministry because of
their combination of thrashing guitars and samplers, but that comparison is
not really accurate. Big Catholic Guilt are more concerned with writing
strong songs, not just piling on the noise. With the extremely intense,
almost possessed looking Sam Jordan as frontman, the group has proven to be
one of the strongest live outfits around
The group was started up in 1990 by core members Jordan and
sampler/programmer Tim Osbourne, who are responsible for the basic
songwriting. Guitarists Jason Kahn and Jon Walsh and drummer J. "Bodo" Potts
were then brought in to round out the sound and adapt the music for live
performance. The current line-up is Jordan, Osbourne, Kahn, Walsh, M Crazz
(bass) and Perry James (drums). Big Catholic Guilt have a self-released CD,
Possession, and now have a new EP, Judgement, out on Cherrydisc (distributed
through Relativity).
"We felt that now was the time to get something out, we wanted something
out now," says Jordan on the release. "We wanted to not have to go through a
lot to get something out nationally so we went ahead and went for it. It was
easy to negotiate with Cherrydisc, John Horten's a great guy and was very
easy to work with."
The first Big Catholic Guilt radio tapes hit the airwaves in August of
1990. By the next spring, Big Catholic Guilt was rapidly gaining recognition,
earning a nomination in the WFNX/Phoenix Best Music Poll, and audiences
started wondering whether the outfit was just a studio project or a full live
band. So the duo put together a band and quickly became famous for their
strong live shows.
Sonically, Judgement is superior to its predecessor due to improved
recording conditions. While the first CD was done in producer Lamar Lowder's
home studio, the new release was done in state of the art 24 track recording
facilities. This time around, the group used all 16 bit samplers, and the
improved technology allowed the group to push the medium to the limits.
Electronics figure prominently in Big Catholic Guilt's music, and the
group manages to use them in a very creative fashion. For example, the remix
of "Silence," off the new CD, was created by Big Catholic Guilt sampling
their own music. "There's technically no live performance," says Jordan of
the track. "But the samples are of our own guitar loops, of my voice off of
tape, all off of our own tapes ... so you get this live thing that still
heavily deals with technology and sampling."
For live performances, Osbourne stands behind an elaborate set up of
MIDI triggers, playing virtually all of the samples live. Technology
constraints have made this difficult, but the group is almost to the point of
being able to do everything live. "And when we say that, that's to say that
there's still a lot of sampled stuff, but it's 100% triggered. If it be a
bass line, it's a bass line that he's triggering note by note of measure by
measure, but it's performed live, it exists because Tim makes it exist."
"In the past, tape would take over some overflow, because our gear just
wouldn't handle that amount of information," Osbourne explains. "That's been
minimalized and will disappear. Our goal is to remove that element so that
everything is live."
Early on, Jordan would use vocal processing to distort his voice, but is
now getting away from that, primarily because it has become over used. "The
emotion that's there is more important than the effect, at first is was kind
of fun, we basically just did it because it was fun and it had a cool feel to
it, but then as we did more performance we realized that there was more depth
without the effect."
Another reason for getting away from the effects was to avoid sounding
like everyone else"It's become cliched," explains Osbourne on the use of
distortion. "I think the effects actually strip away the nuances and angst
and the real emotion in the vocals and you sound like Nitzer Ebb"
Although they use technology and create aggressive music, Big Catholic
Guilt do not feel that they are not "industrial." As Osbourne explains, the
current crop of bands being slapped with that label are a far cry from such
"industrial" pioneers are Throbbing Gristle. Rather, Big Catholic guilt see
their music as a healthy fusion of styles."It's no sin to use guitars blended
with samplers, I think more and more that's happening," says Jordan. "All
elements are starting to cross over more. "I think cross over is a natural
part of popular music at this point."
Jordan goes on to say that like any new technique being incorporated
into music, electronics were looked down upon at first but are now gaining
acceptance within rock music.
"People made just as big a stink when the first guy came walking our
with the Fender Precision Bass. Because you don't do that, it's just wrong to
do that," he says. "Bob Dylan gets booed for playing an electric guitar at
the Newport Jazz festival. It was much the same type of rebellion over
anything new, it takes a lot for someone to break out."
Now that they have a national release, Big Catholic Guilt are eager to
hit the road and do more extensive touring in the future. But Jordan stresses
that the group is not really looking to get away from the local music scene.
"The Boston local scene is much more vibrant than people give it credit
for," he says. "There's a lot of bands who are getting signed and doing well
in Boston.....You go down to New York, and I defy somebody to find that many
bands in New York who do that well. It's a much more vibrant scene then in a
lot of places."
------------
BILLY IDOL
On his new LP, Cyberpunk, Billy Idol has re-defined his approach to creating
music without really changing the music itself. The album was created in
Idol's home studio, which is controlled by a Macintosh computer and makes
extensive use of other electronic gear. But despite the samples, dance beats,
and strange electronic noises, Cyberpunk is musically more in tune with
Idol's early work than his last few albums. The electronics have enabled Idol
to re-embrace the DIY ethic of the punk era and come up with his best album
is years. Idol does not allow himself to be overcome by the electronics, as
all of the songs on Cypberpunk would be strong enough to stand up with more
traditional instrumentation. Idol's fascination with technology does not end
with the music, as he is also put out a limited edition Cyberpunk computer
disk and is getting into computerized video. In addition, Idol has discovered
the Internet, which was the medium used for the following interview.
Q.Some people see computers and sequencers as just an extension of
traditional studio recording, saying that there is no difference in recording
a track to computer or tape. But others like to look at it as a completely
new medium and use it to come up with things that would not be possible with
traditional recording techniques. How do you see it?
A.I've always wanted to blend rock and roll with technology. Back in early
'80 I started doing dub mixes of my songs just to stretch the boundaries of
the norm. "White Wedding" was released in two parts--one with my live band,
one all machine. In 1987, I tried to take this to an extreme with the
recording of WHIPLASH SMILE. But I wasn't right, the technology wasn't right.
And it was a painful album to make. Then for CHARMED LIFE, I went back to the
process of recording in a more traditional rock and roll fashion. Again, it
was painful.So much so that I literally threw myself into the jaws of death
with my motorcycle accident. While I was recovering from the leg surgeries,
punk rock journalists Legs McNeil interviewed me and called me cyberpunk
because of the muscle stimulator on my leg. It looked like man merging with
machine. Legs kind of reaffirmed my punk rock beginnings and picked up that
I was still thinking that way--it's just that the process of making music had
escaped me a bit.
Q.Was their anything in particular that influenced you to start using more
electronics in your music?
A.I still really wanted the DIY think, and I wanted to start to command the
recording process. I was tired of being someone who had to go through a
producer and an engineer and their interpretations. I wanted to be right in
the action. I just needed a little help to do it. Robin Hancock, my
producer, really helped. With today's computers you can really capture the
personalities of the people playing the instruments, or playing the computers
for that matter. Mark Younger-Smith (my guitar player), Robin and myself were
the core of the project, but we also used my drummer Tal Bergman on a few
tracks and my bassist Larry Seymour on one track and Living Colour's Doug
Wimbash on quite a few tracks. Computers have become more human as they work
with you. You hear a real band on CYBERPUNK. Through the computer, you're
listening to a live, little garage band flailing away. And it was done in my
house. No money wasted at the big studios. DIY. Punk rock. Cyberpunk.
Q.What equipment did you use?
A.I used Studiovision and Protools programs for the Macintosh.
Q.You obviously started making "Cyberpunk" before the media really started
latching on to "the Cyberpunk movement," but are you afraid at all of people
thinking you're just cashing in on a trend? Don't you think that naming the
album "Cyberpunk" might fuel this type of thinking?
A.I have never given a fuck what people think of me. Isn't that obvious?
CYBERPUNK is my reality, my passion and my journey. And I'm sharing it with
all my fans. Fuck anyone who doesn't get it.
Q.How long did "Cyberpunk" take to make?
A.The good news is that CYBERPUNK took 10 months to make. A miracle for me.
The last two album took three and four years to make. And they hurt.
Q.Did you have a good grasp on the technology before hand or were you
experimenting with it as you made the album?
A.After Keith Forsey and I parted ways, I went to Trevor Rabin's studio to do
some work for my new album. He had a virtual studio set up. I was excited
because I felt that I finally found a way to record that would be true to my
original ideas. Most of what you hear on CYBERPUNK are original demos done in
the home studio. I incorporated the virtual studio idea at my home. I didn't
know how to use it. Robin Hancock educated Mark and me. I had to learn about
computers. I learned about graphics, recording, the WELL. I hooked up with
Mondo 2000 folk and Mark Frauenfelder of boing boing. We tried recording with
BiNaurel Heads, Roland Sound Space. We wanted to expand the limits of where
sound is thrown.
Q.Can you elaborate more on the "Blendo" video?
A.I loved "Lawnmower Man" and through a group of friends ended up meeting
Brett Leonard. He and I swarmed various images with Hi-8 cameras--me at the
accupuncturist, me at Aha Spa--a mind gym, various LA landscapes, "Heroin"
related images--and fed them back through a band of desk-top computers. The
operators of these computers act as musicians, for as they hear the music
played back in real time, they edit the images, one on top of the other. I've
been building a blendo bed of footage to use on the tour. Additionally, I'll
have folk out in the audience with Hi-8s swarming the crowd, and we'll swarm
the stage, as well. There will be another person on stage, editing the blendo
footage--he'll be like another band member-- and throwing it on the in-house
screen. So, in essence, this will be an interactive show.
Q.What else can we expect from the live show?
A.Rock and roll, mate. Rock and roll.
Q.Will your new interest in computers affect the way older songs are
performed?
A.When I get back from Europe at the end of June, my band and I begin
rehearsals. I'll see then how we will be playing the older stuff. I haven't
really got that sorted yet.
Q.When will you be touring?
A.The U.S. tour begins in late October. I'll be doing a warm-up stadium tour
in the late summer in Europe.
[note:the US tour has since been postponed until early 1994]
From rsgour@aol.com Fri Oct 15 20:16:59 1993
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Date: Sat, 09 Oct 93 01:03:42 EDT
Subject: Chaos Control #3 part 2
-------------------
MIRANDA SEX GARDEN
Miranda Sex Garden have gone through several phases in their relatively
short career, but now they seem to have truly found their niche. The group
was originally started up by singer and multi-instrumentalists Kelly
McCuster, Katherine Blake and Jocelyn West. The debut 1991 LP, Madra, was
comprised of mostly a capella madrigals, but the follow up EP, Iris marked a
major change in the band and their sound. With West replaced by Donna
McKevitt and the addition of guitarist Ben Golomstock and percussionist
Trevor Sharpe, Miranda Sex Garden now has a fuller, and even more unique
sound. This Spring, the group released their second full length LP, Suspiria,
an album that full realizes the potential of the new line-up.
While the new Miranda Sex Garden sound is not really more commercial,
but it is certainly more accessible and interesting than the band's early
work. The rich, almost classical arrangements tailored to the rock format
mesh perfectly with the three singers. And most importantly, it is a true
"band" situation, unlike the dance track "Gush Forth My Tears," which
introduced American audiences to the band several years ago.
"At the time it was kind of like 'how can we commercialize this vocal
thing'," explains Trevor. "So they got Thrash from the Orb and other people
coming in doing all these dance mixes to kind of like get it out to the
public. I mean musically, its nothing compared to what we're doing now."
The new line-up hasn't really affected the way the band works, since
Blake still comes up with most of the lyrics and basic melodies.
"A lot of our songs come about in different ways," explains Trevor. "Ben
comes up with a lot of the original ideas and then we'll all work on it. It's
just a noise or some chords that he's into and I'll put a rhythm to it and
then Donna will come up with the Viola line or something, it's just like
patching pieces together. Some of the songs start off on keyboards, some of
them start off on guitar. We just sort of collect it and try to turn it into
an event"
Although the wide variety of instruments used on their recordings may
make it seem that the music would be difficult to adapt to the live setting,
Miranda Sex Garden actually create their music with performance in mind. The
live instrumentation consists of drums, guitar and bass with lots of effects,
electric viola and two violins.
"It's got more of an edge," says Donna. "It's how we originally
intended the music to come across. it's quite hard. It's a different
experience"
Trevor adds that this sound will become more apparent on their next
studio endeavor. "We're going to get nastier," he says. "We're going to try
to be as intense on record as we are live and try and be a bit more
straightforward."
The latest LP, which takes its title from the horror film of the same
name, is filled with off-beat touches. "Play," for example, features vocals
by Blake that start off as sweet singing before evolving into evil sounding
yells. There's also some some interesting covers: a version of "My Funny
Valentine" and a rendition of "In Heaven (Lady in the Radiator Song) from
David Lynch's film "Eraser Head."
The album took 6 months to make total, and 14 days to actually record.
The band says that they could have got it done faster, but they find working
8 hour days "dull" and say that they are too lazy anyway.
Because of their dark and gothic style, the name "Suspiria" is a
fitting one for a Miranda Sex Garden album, as the 70's horror film was all
about witchcraft.
"It's visually really intense. There's a real atmosphere in it, it's
like really quite chilling. It's quite stylized. There is a kind of link
between the film, or I'd like to think there is anyways. Because it's a great
film and we're a great band," says Trevor, laughing.
Although in past interviews the Miranda Sex Garden have said that their
name doesn't really mean anything and they just took it because they needed a
name in the hurry, Trevor and Donna decide to be a bit more creative this
time.
"It was this girl called Miranda, this friend of ours. She's a bit of a
tart, basically, and she kept having sex in our Garden, that's where the name
came from," explains Trevor. "She's out there, she's always on the guest
list."
Donna adds, "She was wearing wellies when she did it."
"It was a bit of a muddy garden," agrees Trevor. "She actually had
three of them out there on one night. I think that's where the name came from
because it was such a notorious event."
With their gothic image and their fusion of classical music and guitar
rock, Miranda Sex Garden don't really fit into any particular category. But
the group enjoys not just appealing to any certain audience.
"I could say people who are into classical music, we're aiming things at
them, and people who are into horrible guitar dissonance, we're aiming things
at them, but there's loads of people," says Trevor. "I met this strange woman
in Amsterdam, she was mid-40's, she travelled all the way from god knows
where to see us, it was really odd. We don't seem to get typical gig
audiences, we get a wide range of people."
----------------
PRAYER TOWER
Third Mind Records has always proven to be the home of the most
innovative electronic and experimental bands, and this tradition is carried
on with Prayer Tower, a new Canadian addition to their roster. The band's
hi-tech, ultra-clean sound places just as much importance on strong and
catchy songwriting as it does on strange electronic noises and "Hellraiser"
samples. With so much of today's electronic music sounding the same, Prayer
Tower comes as a breath of fresh air. The debut LP, Halo, is right up there
as one of the best electronic albums of all time.
Prayer Tower is essentially the solo project of musician Robert
Weston. Weston, however, prefers to see the project as a "band," even when it
is just him.
"It really is a band in a sense, whether it's just myself or five
different people," he explains. "Prayer Tower is more of an extension of the
music than just calling myself Robert Weston. You don't see very many artists
going by their names in the industrial genre of music."
Purists will argue that Prayer Tower are not really "industrial," and
Weston agrees that the music bears little similarity to the early industrial
music. But he is not uncomfortable with the term and repeatedly uses it when
discussing the music. One difference between Prayer Tower and some other
electronic bands is the content of the lyrics, as Weston prefers to write
more personal songs than make music "about the movie Blade Runner or
whatever."
The debut Prayer Tower release was what Weston describes as a "really
horrible" cover of "Warm Leatherette".
"The first single I did basically by myself, financed it and recorded in
really cheap and cheesy studios and pumped out a white label and spawned some
interest from that'" he explains. "I got some backers and at that point went
and started working on the Halo album and released "Temptation" about a year
and a half ago."
Released on CNG, "Temptation" proved to be the breakthrough for Prayer
Tower. It garnered good response in Rockpool and Billboard and did well in
Europe. At that point, labels starting showing interest and Weston settled on
Third Mind. Halo hit the shelves earlier this year on that label. The album,
produced by Greg Reely, contains "Temptation," as well as nine other
virtually flawless electronic tracks. The CD edition adds remixes of four
tracks.
Weston is a self-taught musician whose love for keyboards got him
further and further into the realm of electronic music. Despite the
industrial elements heard in Prayer Tower's music, Weston cites sound track
and classical music as his biggest influences, adding that there aren't
really any industrial bands that he's followed over the years. And while it
is fairly common to musicians in this genre not to have any formal training,
creating music has prompted Weston to educate himself further.
"I've gone back now and I've studied chord progressions and different
classical training books and what not," he says. "I mean I would like to
learn how to play classical piano better a lot than I do."
To create Prayer Tower's music, Weston usually starts off with a
certain sound or sample that he will sketch out on the keyboard, though
sometimes he will first come up with the rhythm or bass line. In the
beginning, he tended to use a lot of factory pre-set sounds, but now all of
the instrument voices are created and programmed from scratch or sampled and
manipulated. Weston says that he "really enjoys" sampling and has been having
a ball using cable TV as a source.
"It could be anything really, just off the television, the 80 different
channels that we get here. It's just a wealth of stuff," he says "We've got
shows now like 'Vision TV,' 24 hours of evangelists, you know like 'I did too
many drugs when I was a kid.' And they're just great, and they have some
really bad interview shows. I'll sit there with a tape in the VCR and I'll
flip from channel to channel and just stop here and there and pick up the
most bizarre things going through."
Weston doesn't feel that there is all that much difference between
creating electronic and more traditional music, as he sees using a sequencer
being no different from composing in a multi-track studio. "You come up with
an idea and you're in a sense recording it, to the computer," he explains "A
lot of people don't realize that. They think the computer magically writes
the songs for the bands. If you talk to people who generally don't like
electronic music too much, they're under the impression that you turn the
computer on and you can go downstairs and make a cup of coffee, come back up
and have a hit."
-----------
CLOCKDVA
The sense of history behind Clockdva is just as impressive as their music.
Since1978,Clockdva has been developing and discovering musical ideas and
methods that capture the glowing quality's of each of their works. Now with
their thirst for extreme knowledge in technology searching to know the
future, the future seems like it just may have to catch up to Clockdva! Their
future has no limit!
Q.Where did it all originate for Clockdva?
A.Clockdva formed in 1978- by Adi Newton and Steven James Turner (R.I.P.).
Our intentions were the continual experimentation of electronics/ sonology.
DVATION AND EVOLUTION. Initially based in the U.K. but have become
independent of time and space.
Q.How would you describe the progression of Clockdva through the years?
A.The progression of Clockdva is akin to the process of negentropy, in that
all factors are relevant to the outcome of Clockdva's recording.
Q.What do you feel has been the band's biggest accomplishment over the years?
A.I think that we are currently working towards this. The work has only just
begun. The past is part of the present accumulation of energies that are
being focused on new aims.
Q.'Man-Amplified' was such a highly advanced album! When you write songs,
where do your ideas come from to create music so advanced?
A.The process of creation is always for us a different one, in so much as we
are continually endeavouring to devise new techniques, applications and
methods of composition, production of sound, structure etc. Ideas are born
>from other ideas that are in a continual advancement and development, in the
course of research one finds more and more and so ideas expand into other
ideas. In this process one is always developing all the aspects of
Creativity.
Q.Does critical analysis get in the way of your creativity?
A.I think that critical analysis can be a bonus. In that it can make clearer
some of the principles and concepts, and in doing so can illuminate other
aspects.
Q.Do you hope your music influences people?
A.I am very pleased to hear the influence in other people's work. But it's
not a primary concern. We are in the process of expansion for our own
artistic desires, this is the fundamental, what occurs after this is really
secondary. But obviously it's a bonus for us too.
Q.What are your favorite pieces on "Man-Amplified" & why?
A.'Dark Attractor' and 'Memories of Sound'. Maybe this is partly due to the
fact that they are more in the form of sound pieces rather than songs "par
se". But saying this I do like 'Axiomatic and Heuristic' and 'NYC Overload'.
It is very difficult to mention all the specifics or reasons why but I feel
it's such an important intuitive, heuristic thing, in some senses beyond
analysis and definition.
Q.A new album entitled 'Film' is in the works coming this spring. How will
this album differ from "Man-Amplified"?
A.I'm afraid the title 'Film' has been dropped at this stage. It was a
working title we adopted early as an alternative to the much used expression
"T.B.A." since the concepts, theories and research have focused on more
specific areas. These being metaphysics, technology, soul and artificial
intelligence. Technology as a means to enhance and restrict information,
hidden implications inherent in the space program, the questions of extra
dimensional intelligence and the written concepts of J.G. Ballard. The album
has now been titled "Sign". The album is more to do with feeling and
emotions than the clinical precision of Man-Amplified.
Q.What is your opinion about playing live? What visible elements is Clockdva
using in the shows?
A.Currently we are looking at the way we do live performances. We are looking
towards new ways and new techniques although the specific details cannot be
given at present. We have always used a strong visual element in all our
shows from the earliest time - 1978 onwards.
Q.How do you want the crowd to feel when they leave a Clockdva show?
A.To be visually and audibly lifted to a new realm of perception in all
senses.
Q.Do you feel Contempo International will further your musical horizons?
A.I hope so as now we have been building up the profile for the last two
years and Contempo are very dedicated to the success of Clockdva.
Q.Now you've put together a video-collection of all your cybernetic clips
from, 'Buried dreams' & 'Man-Amplified'. Could you talk about this and how
you adapt your music to the video imagery?
A.We use a number of techniques when we apply visual images. For us the
visual side is a separate element that can be enhanced with sound, but each
piece we have worked on takes a specific theme and is developed in this way.
The Compilation of 'Man-Amplified' and some of the videos produced for
'Buried Dreams' is entitled "Kinetic Engineering" and will be available in
April '93.
Q.Tell us more about your side project 'The Anti-Group'? Whats it all about?
A.TAG- The Anti Group was initiated in 1985 as a means of diversification
>from the format normally associated with groups. The Anti Group can adopt any
number of personnel and techniques. Between 1985 - '92 TAG have released four
albums, these include t he 'Meontological Series' and 'Digitaria' which is an
ambisonic recording. TAG have made a number of live performances which
include "The Museum of Contempory Art" - Florence, " The ARS Electronica-
(symposium on Virtual Reality)" - Austria and the Atonal events in Berlin.
Currently three albums are in preparation including "Burning Water" a 35
minute film and soundtrack that explores the boundaries of visual
interpretation. To summarize the work of TAG is to limit its conception. That
is that there are no defined limits within the context of art. TAG represents
a research and development project, working in areas such as psychophysics
and meontological engineering.
Q.What was your reaction to the rumors of Jeffrey Dahmer listening to 'Buried
Dreams' when he was picked up by the police?
A.Initially I was quite surprised but then it occurred to me that as an
individual there is no legitimate reason for him not to listen to 'Buried
Dreams' or for that matter any other recording that is commercially
available. I suppose the context of 'Buried Dreams' opens it to
interpretation of any kind.
Q.What are your impressions of music in general?
A.I think that music in a general sense is ninety-nine percent without
content and idea. The remaining one percent is the interesting side of
things that is generally ignored and rather more difficult to obtain. There
seems to me like a very limited number of groups or individuals that are
operating in the field of sound which we could refer to as exploratory and
interesting and which is furthering the field of sonology.
Q.Where would you like to see the technology of music go in the future?
A.I would imagine that sound eventually will reach a new form of sonic
realization. Where science augments the introduction of systems that will
enable (music) in its broadest sense to be experienced and felt in a
physiological and psychic way.
Q.As we must all go forward, how do you analyze the future of Clockdva?
A.I see Clockdva in the pursuit of this sonic realization described above.
Interview by Bobby Silver. Orginally published in For Crying Out Loud issue
#3.
For more info on Clockdva and their related projects send two
international reply coupons to Anterior Research or their label Contempo:
Anterior Research Contempo international
P.O. Box 684 Corso de tintori 6
Sheffield S6 2EP 50122 Firenze
United Kingdom Italy
------------
808 STATE
When 808 State toured America in 1991, techno and rave music was still
very much underground here and the group's shows provided many people with an
introduction to the music. But when the group returned this spring,
headlining a package tour with Meat Beat Manifesto and Supreme Love Gods, it
was a different situation entirely. Sitting in their tour bus prior to their
show in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the three members of 808 State took the
time to talk about their band and the state of dance music in general.
"We've noticed a difference because it's got a foot in the door now,
where as when we first came over it was a little bit novel still. Now
everyone knows about it and has an opinion." explains Graham Massey on how
techno has caught on in a big way since their last visit..
For the 808 State, touring means more than just plugging their latest
LP, Gorgeous. The group feels that it is important to get out into the clubs
and see what is going on. Audiences in different areas respond differently to
various styles of rave and dance music, and observing what is going on will
have an impact when the band returns to the studio to work on new material.
For their live shows, 808 State rely on DATs for the bass and drum
parts. They do have some sequences coming straight off a computer, but the
groups says that this is too risky to make a big part of the sound,
especially in America. Another reason for the DATs is that it's difficult
enough getting some of the older equipment into the studio without it
breaking down, so bringing it on the road is out of the question. The group
uses keyboards, guitar, sax, and percussion triggers to play the live parts
and in the future hopes to also use a vocorder.
"We've got it to a point where it's completely different every night,"
explains Graham. "It's quite interactive now."
While intense hardcore techno is still being overplayed, 808 State have
chosen to slow things down with Gorgeous. Feeling that style has been
overdone, the group is going back to the more house-oriented sound that
originally inspired them back in the mid-80's "It's coming down. It's hit a
peak. It couldn't get any faster, it couldn't get any more annoying or
aggressive," says Darren Partington. "And that's it, forget it now, let;s try
and go somewhere else."
"It's going back underground as well to a certain extent," adds Graham.
"Which is a good thing. Techno is now pop music. It's official, it is pop
music. I think Gorgeous is a back lash against some of the aggressive, 180
bpm. We were making Gorgeous while that was being played in the clubs and in
the big raves."
That type of techno is often made by DJs or rave kids who get together,
string together a bunch of samples and emerge with a white label. Graham says
that in England several pirate stations emerged that play hours and hours of
music that sound like it was being played at the wrong speed.
"That was dragging anything remotely good down in everyone's eyes," he
says.
The members of 808 State explain that is the Djs and record store
owners who control the direction of dance music. The import shop owners can
decided whether or not they want to order a track and pass it on to the Djs,
and the Djs themselves are prone to sometimes starting trends that go against
good music. But the group says that some of the major DJs have been kicking
in with good music over the past year and are back on track.
"It's at the point that I like which is that it doesn't have a name at
the moment; something's going on and no one's given it a label yet," says
Graham. "And the minute they do it will probably be over and then everyone
just follows the formula and does it. That's the way it goes. Its good when
it's in turmoil and it is at the moment."
While 808 State's music is primarily instrumental, they have used such
guest vocalists as Ian McCullough, Bernard Sumner and Bjork Gutmondsdottir.
In 1990, the group collaborated with Manchester rapper MC Tunes, first on the
single "The Only Rhyme That Bites" and then on his full length album, The
North at Its Heights.
808 State recently worked with Robert Owens (Fingers Inc) on a cover of
"Gimme Shelter" for a charity compilation. Most of the time, it is the
singers who approach 808 State, and the group refuses to do collaborations
just set by record companies for purely commercial reasons.
"It's too C+C Music Factory., That's not what we're about," says Darren.
"Yeah, we're dance music, but we like to be a little bit on the edge, we
like to play around. It would be somebody taken out of context."
808 State are following up their tour with Meat Beat by going out on the
road in America with fellow Manchester band New Order. Once all the touring
is done, they will put the finishing touches on their own studio. The group
admits that the amount of writing they have done in the studio in the past
was "a bit foolish really," so setting up their own facilities will give them
even more freedom.
Chaos Control is a bimonthly electronic magazine that exists in both
Macintosh Hypercard and text formats. The focus is on electronic music,
particularly those who use technology in new and creative ways. Occasionally,
the magazine will cover other types of music, but only when it is equally
innovative. Chaos Control strives to cover both major acts and underground
talent.
Chaos Control is published on a bimonthly basis. The next issue, due out
October 15, will feature articles on Front 242, Sunscreem, EON, EBN, Instinct
Records, Havoc Music, Chem Lab, Orbital, and more. For Mac users, the best
way to get Chaos Control is in the Hypercard format, as it also features
graphics, photos and sound in an interactive environment. Currently, this
version is available from America Online or on disk by mail order. FTP
information will be sent out over lists when the Hypercard version is posted.
Feel free to Email for more information.
-Bob Gourley
Chaos Control Digizine
rsgour@aol.com
Rgour@world.std.com
Unless other wise noted, all articles are
written by and copyright 1993 Bob Gourley
CONTENTS
-New Order
-Skin Chamber
-Big Catholic Guilt
-Billy Idol
-Miranda Sex Garden
-Prayer Tower
-Clockdva
-808 State
-------------
NEW ORDER
By taking chances and pushing the existing technology to the limits, New
Order proved to be pioneers of electronic music back in the early 80's,
before wide spread use of computers, sequencers and samplers in music. And
unlike many bands of that era, New Order have been able to progress rather
than burn out. The group has always managed to stay in touch with the dance
music scene and incorporate elements of it into their own sound without
"selling out." With the collapse of their long time label Factory, New Order
have moved on to London and released Republic, their first album in four
years, which also marks the first time the band has worked with a producer.
Despite the label problems that the band was having at the time,
Republic shows New Order still in top form. While the acid house influence
that dominated their last outing (Technique) is not as evident, the band
still proves that they are masters at fusing electronics with more
traditional guitar and bass oriented music. It's been a long wait for new
material, but Republic is well worth it.
"We actually started writing it about two years ago, sort of very
quietly, little bits, and then moved on a bit and picked up the pace," says
bassist Peter Hook on making the LP."Of course, we've all been doing the solo
stuff."
Those solo projects were Hook's band, Revenge, vocalist Bernard Sumner
collaboration with Johnny Marr, Electronic, and, most recently, Stephen
Morris and Gillian Gilbert's The Other Two. The latter saw the first signs of
Factory's downfall when they ran into problems getting their Other Two and
You album released. The members of New Order feel that taking the time off
and doing other things has helped keep the band fresh, though they do admit
that it was a bit strange going back and working together. It was also
strange for the band to be working with producer Stephen Hague, as in the
past New Order had produced themselves.
"The fact that we used a producer on this record, that was the main
difference," explains Morris. "When we started writing for this record it was
always done with the notion that we'd be using a producer. Basically, one of
the things that happens when you've been together as long as we have is that
you know each other very very well and then when you're producing yourself
it's very hard to take criticism, everything's personal basically."
While their previous incarnation, Joy Division, had a pretty standard
guitar/bass/drum set-up, New Order's incorporation of electronics has blurred
the picture in terms of who actually does what in the band. Using electronics
was something that the members had wanted to do since the beginning, but it
wasn't until shortly before singer Ian Curtis's suicide prompted them to
re-group as New Order that the technology really became available to them.
Gilbert recalls one of the group's first ventures into the realm of
non-traditional instruments and their effect on the band.
"I remember when Stephen was doing Close, he said 'we've got a drum
machine, they don't need me!," she says. "And he was like dead upset, but of
course he's seen that you shouldn't take that attitude; Stephen plays
keyboards and everything."
Starting to use electronics and the more varied sound they provide
allowed New Order to go beyond the Joy Division sound that everyone seemed to
be copying at the time.
"In England, after Joy Division ceased it was like every band on the
John Peel show sounded just like bloody Joy Division!," explains Morris. "It
was like, oh god, the idea being that it was great to inspire people to get
together and make music but not to clone it. They should be trying to do
something a bit different."
But as an attempt to stop people from copying them, the change was not
effective, as Morris says that "it didn't work out because 'Blue Monday" was
copied bass-drum-riff."
From the start, New Order were willing to risk taking the electronics on
stage with them instead of using backing tapes. When asked if this was a
cause of frustration at the time, Gilbert lets out a sarcastic "no, why?",
with Morris following suit, laughing as he asks "how can you tell."
"When computers first came out, you wouldn't dream of taking them
anywhere! But we did," explains Gilbert. "So it was like a really big hassle
every night and we used to check all of the leads, because it was just like
plugs and wires then, and I used to go on and sound check all the gear before
we actually played the concert, which is stupid, you just don't do that now,
but we had to. The gear kept breaking down so we got like second stand ins
and we ended up with four lots of stand ins on the stage because they were so
unreliable."
At one time, New Order would go out on tour with all of their material
prepared for live performance, giving them the chance to pick and choose
which songs to play each night. But starting with the last US tour, the group
realized that they had to skim things down as it was getting to be a bit too
much. Given the fact that everything is running live, their soundman ends up
having 24 - 42 tracks to mix on each song. "If you think about it, it's like
him mixing an LP as it was going along, because every song is different,"
says Gilbert. "It's like juggling."
But while the band has been forced to streamline their set list, they
still strive for spontaneity, something missing from many electronic band's
shows. "Most bands do 'a performance' which is essentially the same set to a
certain extent choreographed," says Morris. "It shouldn't get away from a
gig-type, spur of the moment type feeling which is hit-or-miss ,basically."
Another difference in making the new album was the band's getting away
>from the cryptic song titles, which often have no relation to the music.
"Basically, the New Order method of titling is just writing down words
that are completely abstract and don't relate to anything, and then when
you've written the songs, it's just like pin the tail on the donkey," says
Morris.
This time around, the band got away from this to some degree.
However, New Order are still not about to make things easy.
"We said let's do something different, let's name the songs!," Gillian
says. "For instance, 'Regret' was always 'Regret'."
Unfortunately for listeners, the band was not as direct with the naming
of the rest of the album. While they did have about half of the tracks titled
before making the album, they felt the need to switch most of them around
just to confuse matters.
The bands' problems with Factory stem from the fact that New Order did
not have a normal business relationship with the label; they were friends, or
at least had personal involvement with those who ran it. Morris explains
that while it was great not having a contract in some ways, in the end "the
unspoken obligations you have to each other are sort of like the ultimate
contract." So when the band was getting sick of all the meetings regarding
The Hacienda, which the label and band were part owners of, they couldn't
just walk out. And when Factory started to experience difficulties, it turned
to the band for assistance.
"Every time they had a problem they used to come to us to sort it out
for them," explains Morris. "But we just don't say 'well look, if we've got a
problem with music, what do we do, come to you? Can you explain MIDI to us? I
don't know why this lead isn't working, could you fix it for us?' The other
way around would just be completely ridiculous."
On the other hand, Morris feels that New Order may not be around today
if it weren't for Factory. Being with that label enabled the group to exist
outside of the main stream music industry, and it gave them a great deal of
freedom. Now that they are on London, New Order are getting their first taste
of the confines of the mainstream music industry.
"That's one of the funny things about London, it's like 'well you can't
do any solo stuff unless you ask us first. If you appear on any records
you've got to have a 'guest appearance'," explains Morris. "With Factory, it
was do what you want, really."
Had they followed a more traditional path of signing directly to a major
and not having the freedom Factory allowed, the group may have burned out and
become another casualty of the 80's. Still, at this stage of the game, New
Order see the incident as the dawning of a new era and a relief in some ways.
"The only good thing about the demise of Factory is it's like a great
burden weight off the shoulders in the way that we were involved with so much
business rubbish, I never wanted to be a business man, I never wanted to own
a club," says Morris. "Now that's all over, it's sort of a fresh start and
you can sort of concentrate on music again."
Special thanks to the Reader's Digest Foundation for covering the
transportation costs that made this interview possible
---------------
SKIN CHAMBER
Back in the early 80's, Controlled Bleeding were one of the pioneers of
dark, electronic music on this side of the Atlantic. The group's extensive
body of work encompass three distinct styles; aggressive, electronic dance
music, gothic, soundtrack-like work, and harsh, wall-of-noise compositions.
While Controlled Bleeding were between labels, members Paul Lemos and Chris
Moriarity started up Skin Chamber, a side project that further explores the
latter. Skin Chamber's music is much darker and noisier than Controlled
Bleeding's recent work and reminiscent of "Knees and Bones" era of Controlled
Bleeding. Their debut album, "Wound" came out in late 1991, and now they have
followed it up with "Trial". The following is a telephone interview conducted
with Lemos about Skin Chamber.
Q.Why did you start up the Skin Chamber side project?
A.Skin Chamber developed when Controlled Bleeding had left Wax Trax!. It was
a tough situation for Wax Trax! and everybody involved and so the band took a
rest for about 11 months - we just stopped. Chris and I have always had a
very volatile relationship, from the time when we were recording Knees and
Bones together and I think this kind of level of frustration that started
out in our early music was very much happening at that time. We had just
gotten together, playing drums and bass, no programming, no keyboards and
were just playing. What started developing would become Skin Chamber. It
really was just a different face. To call it Controlled Bleeding was very
inappropriate and it kind of harked back to the early music that we did in
purpose - it had that same kind of venting. We just had a need to do
something that was completely different and much more visceral and maybe a
different emotional level.
Q.When you originally started up Skin Chamber, did you see it as a one-off or
a continuing project?
A.Oh yeah, Skin Chamber to me is at least as dominant, maybe more so in the
major market. I think Skin Chamber is something that's new, it has no history
behind it, there's no big catalogue of obscure releases. And so it's kind of
in a way a fresh start in a whole new orientation for us. Because none of us
are tech-heads, and we don't really like computer music that much in terms of
creating it, and so Skin Chamber is the way we like to work in an organic
manner. I don't know if we'll be working with Roadrunner anymore, but we'll
certainly pursue the group.
Q.Why don't you think you'll be working with Roadrunner anymore?
A.They dismantled a lot of the Third Mind label so Controlled Bleeding at
this point will probably be label shopping, even though the last record did
so well for us. They've just got big problems there, and I don't think
they're going to support Skin Chamber either because they don't really
understand the music. Their main interest is metal and even though they
experiment with genres outside of metal, they don't handle them particularly
well.
Q.How would you describe the new Skin Chamber LP?
A.It just kind of continues where Wound left off. It's a lot more focused
than Wound. There's not nearly the variation on the record. But I think the
songs are straighter in certain ways but sonically a lot better. I think the
production is a lot more interesting, and within it are certain structured
frameworks; there's a lot of experimentation going on. I'd say there's much
more experimentation than on Wound. The textural aspects of the record are
much more interesting.
Q.Do you keep the different projects completely separate or do you tend to
come up with ideas and then decide which project to develop them for?
A.Oh, never. Controlled Bleeding can go a number of ways, it's like
Controlled Bleeding is almost three combinations. Joe and I work on
semi-choral, progressive music, the Controlled Bleeding music I work on
myself is generally very noisy, very experimental, and the stuff Chris and I
do under Controlled Bleeding tends to be more ryhthmic-yet-melodic, like
what's on Penetration. Skin Chamber is a completely different entity; it's a
completely different creative process.
Q.Do you see the two groups aimed at the same audience?
A.Well, I suppose. I don't really think about audience very much when I do
any kind of music. I mean Roadrunner being a metal label, even though Trial
is not a fucking metal record, they're going to market it to a metal
audience. That's the audience that they know, that's their tried and true
audience. I would say that people that are interested in any kind of noisy
guitar-driven music would find Trial interesting, but I don't know it those
same people would find Controlled Bleeding interesting. I tend to think that
the Controlled Bleeding audience has found Skin Chamber maybe a little
difficult to deal with.
Q.Will you be doing any live dates as Skin Chamber?
A.We want to, it's just hard going from two people to the necessary six or
seven people. It's real hard to find a band for the live setting that can
commit to going a month or two on the road. So it hasn't been easy getting
the thing off the ground. We did one show, and we really want to go on tour
this summer. We might go out as Controlled Bleeding/Skin Chamber doing music
>from both, but it's been hard getting the number of people involved that we
need for a long term tour.
Q.What is the current status of Controlled Bleeding?
A.As far as corporate music, we're quite possibly going to sign with a major
label or another large indie sometime in the next five to six months. We'd
like to be able contractually to be able to continue the smaller kind of
maybe more artistic projects that we've been pursuing.
----------------------
BIG CATHOLIC GUILT
As anyone who has seen them live can attest, there are few bands that
can come close to matching the intensity and innovativeness of Big Catholic
Guilt. The Boston-based group has often been compared to Ministry because of
their combination of thrashing guitars and samplers, but that comparison is
not really accurate. Big Catholic Guilt are more concerned with writing
strong songs, not just piling on the noise. With the extremely intense,
almost possessed looking Sam Jordan as frontman, the group has proven to be
one of the strongest live outfits around
The group was started up in 1990 by core members Jordan and
sampler/programmer Tim Osbourne, who are responsible for the basic
songwriting. Guitarists Jason Kahn and Jon Walsh and drummer J. "Bodo" Potts
were then brought in to round out the sound and adapt the music for live
performance. The current line-up is Jordan, Osbourne, Kahn, Walsh, M Crazz
(bass) and Perry James (drums). Big Catholic Guilt have a self-released CD,
Possession, and now have a new EP, Judgement, out on Cherrydisc (distributed
through Relativity).
"We felt that now was the time to get something out, we wanted something
out now," says Jordan on the release. "We wanted to not have to go through a
lot to get something out nationally so we went ahead and went for it. It was
easy to negotiate with Cherrydisc, John Horten's a great guy and was very
easy to work with."
The first Big Catholic Guilt radio tapes hit the airwaves in August of
1990. By the next spring, Big Catholic Guilt was rapidly gaining recognition,
earning a nomination in the WFNX/Phoenix Best Music Poll, and audiences
started wondering whether the outfit was just a studio project or a full live
band. So the duo put together a band and quickly became famous for their
strong live shows.
Sonically, Judgement is superior to its predecessor due to improved
recording conditions. While the first CD was done in producer Lamar Lowder's
home studio, the new release was done in state of the art 24 track recording
facilities. This time around, the group used all 16 bit samplers, and the
improved technology allowed the group to push the medium to the limits.
Electronics figure prominently in Big Catholic Guilt's music, and the
group manages to use them in a very creative fashion. For example, the remix
of "Silence," off the new CD, was created by Big Catholic Guilt sampling
their own music. "There's technically no live performance," says Jordan of
the track. "But the samples are of our own guitar loops, of my voice off of
tape, all off of our own tapes ... so you get this live thing that still
heavily deals with technology and sampling."
For live performances, Osbourne stands behind an elaborate set up of
MIDI triggers, playing virtually all of the samples live. Technology
constraints have made this difficult, but the group is almost to the point of
being able to do everything live. "And when we say that, that's to say that
there's still a lot of sampled stuff, but it's 100% triggered. If it be a
bass line, it's a bass line that he's triggering note by note of measure by
measure, but it's performed live, it exists because Tim makes it exist."
"In the past, tape would take over some overflow, because our gear just
wouldn't handle that amount of information," Osbourne explains. "That's been
minimalized and will disappear. Our goal is to remove that element so that
everything is live."
Early on, Jordan would use vocal processing to distort his voice, but is
now getting away from that, primarily because it has become over used. "The
emotion that's there is more important than the effect, at first is was kind
of fun, we basically just did it because it was fun and it had a cool feel to
it, but then as we did more performance we realized that there was more depth
without the effect."
Another reason for getting away from the effects was to avoid sounding
like everyone else"It's become cliched," explains Osbourne on the use of
distortion. "I think the effects actually strip away the nuances and angst
and the real emotion in the vocals and you sound like Nitzer Ebb"
Although they use technology and create aggressive music, Big Catholic
Guilt do not feel that they are not "industrial." As Osbourne explains, the
current crop of bands being slapped with that label are a far cry from such
"industrial" pioneers are Throbbing Gristle. Rather, Big Catholic guilt see
their music as a healthy fusion of styles."It's no sin to use guitars blended
with samplers, I think more and more that's happening," says Jordan. "All
elements are starting to cross over more. "I think cross over is a natural
part of popular music at this point."
Jordan goes on to say that like any new technique being incorporated
into music, electronics were looked down upon at first but are now gaining
acceptance within rock music.
"People made just as big a stink when the first guy came walking our
with the Fender Precision Bass. Because you don't do that, it's just wrong to
do that," he says. "Bob Dylan gets booed for playing an electric guitar at
the Newport Jazz festival. It was much the same type of rebellion over
anything new, it takes a lot for someone to break out."
Now that they have a national release, Big Catholic Guilt are eager to
hit the road and do more extensive touring in the future. But Jordan stresses
that the group is not really looking to get away from the local music scene.
"The Boston local scene is much more vibrant than people give it credit
for," he says. "There's a lot of bands who are getting signed and doing well
in Boston.....You go down to New York, and I defy somebody to find that many
bands in New York who do that well. It's a much more vibrant scene then in a
lot of places."
------------
BILLY IDOL
On his new LP, Cyberpunk, Billy Idol has re-defined his approach to creating
music without really changing the music itself. The album was created in
Idol's home studio, which is controlled by a Macintosh computer and makes
extensive use of other electronic gear. But despite the samples, dance beats,
and strange electronic noises, Cyberpunk is musically more in tune with
Idol's early work than his last few albums. The electronics have enabled Idol
to re-embrace the DIY ethic of the punk era and come up with his best album
is years. Idol does not allow himself to be overcome by the electronics, as
all of the songs on Cypberpunk would be strong enough to stand up with more
traditional instrumentation. Idol's fascination with technology does not end
with the music, as he is also put out a limited edition Cyberpunk computer
disk and is getting into computerized video. In addition, Idol has discovered
the Internet, which was the medium used for the following interview.
Q.Some people see computers and sequencers as just an extension of
traditional studio recording, saying that there is no difference in recording
a track to computer or tape. But others like to look at it as a completely
new medium and use it to come up with things that would not be possible with
traditional recording techniques. How do you see it?
A.I've always wanted to blend rock and roll with technology. Back in early
'80 I started doing dub mixes of my songs just to stretch the boundaries of
the norm. "White Wedding" was released in two parts--one with my live band,
one all machine. In 1987, I tried to take this to an extreme with the
recording of WHIPLASH SMILE. But I wasn't right, the technology wasn't right.
And it was a painful album to make. Then for CHARMED LIFE, I went back to the
process of recording in a more traditional rock and roll fashion. Again, it
was painful.So much so that I literally threw myself into the jaws of death
with my motorcycle accident. While I was recovering from the leg surgeries,
punk rock journalists Legs McNeil interviewed me and called me cyberpunk
because of the muscle stimulator on my leg. It looked like man merging with
machine. Legs kind of reaffirmed my punk rock beginnings and picked up that
I was still thinking that way--it's just that the process of making music had
escaped me a bit.
Q.Was their anything in particular that influenced you to start using more
electronics in your music?
A.I still really wanted the DIY think, and I wanted to start to command the
recording process. I was tired of being someone who had to go through a
producer and an engineer and their interpretations. I wanted to be right in
the action. I just needed a little help to do it. Robin Hancock, my
producer, really helped. With today's computers you can really capture the
personalities of the people playing the instruments, or playing the computers
for that matter. Mark Younger-Smith (my guitar player), Robin and myself were
the core of the project, but we also used my drummer Tal Bergman on a few
tracks and my bassist Larry Seymour on one track and Living Colour's Doug
Wimbash on quite a few tracks. Computers have become more human as they work
with you. You hear a real band on CYBERPUNK. Through the computer, you're
listening to a live, little garage band flailing away. And it was done in my
house. No money wasted at the big studios. DIY. Punk rock. Cyberpunk.
Q.What equipment did you use?
A.I used Studiovision and Protools programs for the Macintosh.
Q.You obviously started making "Cyberpunk" before the media really started
latching on to "the Cyberpunk movement," but are you afraid at all of people
thinking you're just cashing in on a trend? Don't you think that naming the
album "Cyberpunk" might fuel this type of thinking?
A.I have never given a fuck what people think of me. Isn't that obvious?
CYBERPUNK is my reality, my passion and my journey. And I'm sharing it with
all my fans. Fuck anyone who doesn't get it.
Q.How long did "Cyberpunk" take to make?
A.The good news is that CYBERPUNK took 10 months to make. A miracle for me.
The last two album took three and four years to make. And they hurt.
Q.Did you have a good grasp on the technology before hand or were you
experimenting with it as you made the album?
A.After Keith Forsey and I parted ways, I went to Trevor Rabin's studio to do
some work for my new album. He had a virtual studio set up. I was excited
because I felt that I finally found a way to record that would be true to my
original ideas. Most of what you hear on CYBERPUNK are original demos done in
the home studio. I incorporated the virtual studio idea at my home. I didn't
know how to use it. Robin Hancock educated Mark and me. I had to learn about
computers. I learned about graphics, recording, the WELL. I hooked up with
Mondo 2000 folk and Mark Frauenfelder of boing boing. We tried recording with
BiNaurel Heads, Roland Sound Space. We wanted to expand the limits of where
sound is thrown.
Q.Can you elaborate more on the "Blendo" video?
A.I loved "Lawnmower Man" and through a group of friends ended up meeting
Brett Leonard. He and I swarmed various images with Hi-8 cameras--me at the
accupuncturist, me at Aha Spa--a mind gym, various LA landscapes, "Heroin"
related images--and fed them back through a band of desk-top computers. The
operators of these computers act as musicians, for as they hear the music
played back in real time, they edit the images, one on top of the other. I've
been building a blendo bed of footage to use on the tour. Additionally, I'll
have folk out in the audience with Hi-8s swarming the crowd, and we'll swarm
the stage, as well. There will be another person on stage, editing the blendo
footage--he'll be like another band member-- and throwing it on the in-house
screen. So, in essence, this will be an interactive show.
Q.What else can we expect from the live show?
A.Rock and roll, mate. Rock and roll.
Q.Will your new interest in computers affect the way older songs are
performed?
A.When I get back from Europe at the end of June, my band and I begin
rehearsals. I'll see then how we will be playing the older stuff. I haven't
really got that sorted yet.
Q.When will you be touring?
A.The U.S. tour begins in late October. I'll be doing a warm-up stadium tour
in the late summer in Europe.
[note:the US tour has since been postponed until early 1994]
From rsgour@aol.com Fri Oct 15 20:16:59 1993
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From: rsgour@aol.com
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Date: Sat, 09 Oct 93 01:03:42 EDT
Subject: Chaos Control #3 part 2
-------------------
MIRANDA SEX GARDEN
Miranda Sex Garden have gone through several phases in their relatively
short career, but now they seem to have truly found their niche. The group
was originally started up by singer and multi-instrumentalists Kelly
McCuster, Katherine Blake and Jocelyn West. The debut 1991 LP, Madra, was
comprised of mostly a capella madrigals, but the follow up EP, Iris marked a
major change in the band and their sound. With West replaced by Donna
McKevitt and the addition of guitarist Ben Golomstock and percussionist
Trevor Sharpe, Miranda Sex Garden now has a fuller, and even more unique
sound. This Spring, the group released their second full length LP, Suspiria,
an album that full realizes the potential of the new line-up.
While the new Miranda Sex Garden sound is not really more commercial,
but it is certainly more accessible and interesting than the band's early
work. The rich, almost classical arrangements tailored to the rock format
mesh perfectly with the three singers. And most importantly, it is a true
"band" situation, unlike the dance track "Gush Forth My Tears," which
introduced American audiences to the band several years ago.
"At the time it was kind of like 'how can we commercialize this vocal
thing'," explains Trevor. "So they got Thrash from the Orb and other people
coming in doing all these dance mixes to kind of like get it out to the
public. I mean musically, its nothing compared to what we're doing now."
The new line-up hasn't really affected the way the band works, since
Blake still comes up with most of the lyrics and basic melodies.
"A lot of our songs come about in different ways," explains Trevor. "Ben
comes up with a lot of the original ideas and then we'll all work on it. It's
just a noise or some chords that he's into and I'll put a rhythm to it and
then Donna will come up with the Viola line or something, it's just like
patching pieces together. Some of the songs start off on keyboards, some of
them start off on guitar. We just sort of collect it and try to turn it into
an event"
Although the wide variety of instruments used on their recordings may
make it seem that the music would be difficult to adapt to the live setting,
Miranda Sex Garden actually create their music with performance in mind. The
live instrumentation consists of drums, guitar and bass with lots of effects,
electric viola and two violins.
"It's got more of an edge," says Donna. "It's how we originally
intended the music to come across. it's quite hard. It's a different
experience"
Trevor adds that this sound will become more apparent on their next
studio endeavor. "We're going to get nastier," he says. "We're going to try
to be as intense on record as we are live and try and be a bit more
straightforward."
The latest LP, which takes its title from the horror film of the same
name, is filled with off-beat touches. "Play," for example, features vocals
by Blake that start off as sweet singing before evolving into evil sounding
yells. There's also some some interesting covers: a version of "My Funny
Valentine" and a rendition of "In Heaven (Lady in the Radiator Song) from
David Lynch's film "Eraser Head."
The album took 6 months to make total, and 14 days to actually record.
The band says that they could have got it done faster, but they find working
8 hour days "dull" and say that they are too lazy anyway.
Because of their dark and gothic style, the name "Suspiria" is a
fitting one for a Miranda Sex Garden album, as the 70's horror film was all
about witchcraft.
"It's visually really intense. There's a real atmosphere in it, it's
like really quite chilling. It's quite stylized. There is a kind of link
between the film, or I'd like to think there is anyways. Because it's a great
film and we're a great band," says Trevor, laughing.
Although in past interviews the Miranda Sex Garden have said that their
name doesn't really mean anything and they just took it because they needed a
name in the hurry, Trevor and Donna decide to be a bit more creative this
time.
"It was this girl called Miranda, this friend of ours. She's a bit of a
tart, basically, and she kept having sex in our Garden, that's where the name
came from," explains Trevor. "She's out there, she's always on the guest
list."
Donna adds, "She was wearing wellies when she did it."
"It was a bit of a muddy garden," agrees Trevor. "She actually had
three of them out there on one night. I think that's where the name came from
because it was such a notorious event."
With their gothic image and their fusion of classical music and guitar
rock, Miranda Sex Garden don't really fit into any particular category. But
the group enjoys not just appealing to any certain audience.
"I could say people who are into classical music, we're aiming things at
them, and people who are into horrible guitar dissonance, we're aiming things
at them, but there's loads of people," says Trevor. "I met this strange woman
in Amsterdam, she was mid-40's, she travelled all the way from god knows
where to see us, it was really odd. We don't seem to get typical gig
audiences, we get a wide range of people."
----------------
PRAYER TOWER
Third Mind Records has always proven to be the home of the most
innovative electronic and experimental bands, and this tradition is carried
on with Prayer Tower, a new Canadian addition to their roster. The band's
hi-tech, ultra-clean sound places just as much importance on strong and
catchy songwriting as it does on strange electronic noises and "Hellraiser"
samples. With so much of today's electronic music sounding the same, Prayer
Tower comes as a breath of fresh air. The debut LP, Halo, is right up there
as one of the best electronic albums of all time.
Prayer Tower is essentially the solo project of musician Robert
Weston. Weston, however, prefers to see the project as a "band," even when it
is just him.
"It really is a band in a sense, whether it's just myself or five
different people," he explains. "Prayer Tower is more of an extension of the
music than just calling myself Robert Weston. You don't see very many artists
going by their names in the industrial genre of music."
Purists will argue that Prayer Tower are not really "industrial," and
Weston agrees that the music bears little similarity to the early industrial
music. But he is not uncomfortable with the term and repeatedly uses it when
discussing the music. One difference between Prayer Tower and some other
electronic bands is the content of the lyrics, as Weston prefers to write
more personal songs than make music "about the movie Blade Runner or
whatever."
The debut Prayer Tower release was what Weston describes as a "really
horrible" cover of "Warm Leatherette".
"The first single I did basically by myself, financed it and recorded in
really cheap and cheesy studios and pumped out a white label and spawned some
interest from that'" he explains. "I got some backers and at that point went
and started working on the Halo album and released "Temptation" about a year
and a half ago."
Released on CNG, "Temptation" proved to be the breakthrough for Prayer
Tower. It garnered good response in Rockpool and Billboard and did well in
Europe. At that point, labels starting showing interest and Weston settled on
Third Mind. Halo hit the shelves earlier this year on that label. The album,
produced by Greg Reely, contains "Temptation," as well as nine other
virtually flawless electronic tracks. The CD edition adds remixes of four
tracks.
Weston is a self-taught musician whose love for keyboards got him
further and further into the realm of electronic music. Despite the
industrial elements heard in Prayer Tower's music, Weston cites sound track
and classical music as his biggest influences, adding that there aren't
really any industrial bands that he's followed over the years. And while it
is fairly common to musicians in this genre not to have any formal training,
creating music has prompted Weston to educate himself further.
"I've gone back now and I've studied chord progressions and different
classical training books and what not," he says. "I mean I would like to
learn how to play classical piano better a lot than I do."
To create Prayer Tower's music, Weston usually starts off with a
certain sound or sample that he will sketch out on the keyboard, though
sometimes he will first come up with the rhythm or bass line. In the
beginning, he tended to use a lot of factory pre-set sounds, but now all of
the instrument voices are created and programmed from scratch or sampled and
manipulated. Weston says that he "really enjoys" sampling and has been having
a ball using cable TV as a source.
"It could be anything really, just off the television, the 80 different
channels that we get here. It's just a wealth of stuff," he says "We've got
shows now like 'Vision TV,' 24 hours of evangelists, you know like 'I did too
many drugs when I was a kid.' And they're just great, and they have some
really bad interview shows. I'll sit there with a tape in the VCR and I'll
flip from channel to channel and just stop here and there and pick up the
most bizarre things going through."
Weston doesn't feel that there is all that much difference between
creating electronic and more traditional music, as he sees using a sequencer
being no different from composing in a multi-track studio. "You come up with
an idea and you're in a sense recording it, to the computer," he explains "A
lot of people don't realize that. They think the computer magically writes
the songs for the bands. If you talk to people who generally don't like
electronic music too much, they're under the impression that you turn the
computer on and you can go downstairs and make a cup of coffee, come back up
and have a hit."
-----------
CLOCKDVA
The sense of history behind Clockdva is just as impressive as their music.
Since1978,Clockdva has been developing and discovering musical ideas and
methods that capture the glowing quality's of each of their works. Now with
their thirst for extreme knowledge in technology searching to know the
future, the future seems like it just may have to catch up to Clockdva! Their
future has no limit!
Q.Where did it all originate for Clockdva?
A.Clockdva formed in 1978- by Adi Newton and Steven James Turner (R.I.P.).
Our intentions were the continual experimentation of electronics/ sonology.
DVATION AND EVOLUTION. Initially based in the U.K. but have become
independent of time and space.
Q.How would you describe the progression of Clockdva through the years?
A.The progression of Clockdva is akin to the process of negentropy, in that
all factors are relevant to the outcome of Clockdva's recording.
Q.What do you feel has been the band's biggest accomplishment over the years?
A.I think that we are currently working towards this. The work has only just
begun. The past is part of the present accumulation of energies that are
being focused on new aims.
Q.'Man-Amplified' was such a highly advanced album! When you write songs,
where do your ideas come from to create music so advanced?
A.The process of creation is always for us a different one, in so much as we
are continually endeavouring to devise new techniques, applications and
methods of composition, production of sound, structure etc. Ideas are born
>from other ideas that are in a continual advancement and development, in the
course of research one finds more and more and so ideas expand into other
ideas. In this process one is always developing all the aspects of
Creativity.
Q.Does critical analysis get in the way of your creativity?
A.I think that critical analysis can be a bonus. In that it can make clearer
some of the principles and concepts, and in doing so can illuminate other
aspects.
Q.Do you hope your music influences people?
A.I am very pleased to hear the influence in other people's work. But it's
not a primary concern. We are in the process of expansion for our own
artistic desires, this is the fundamental, what occurs after this is really
secondary. But obviously it's a bonus for us too.
Q.What are your favorite pieces on "Man-Amplified" & why?
A.'Dark Attractor' and 'Memories of Sound'. Maybe this is partly due to the
fact that they are more in the form of sound pieces rather than songs "par
se". But saying this I do like 'Axiomatic and Heuristic' and 'NYC Overload'.
It is very difficult to mention all the specifics or reasons why but I feel
it's such an important intuitive, heuristic thing, in some senses beyond
analysis and definition.
Q.A new album entitled 'Film' is in the works coming this spring. How will
this album differ from "Man-Amplified"?
A.I'm afraid the title 'Film' has been dropped at this stage. It was a
working title we adopted early as an alternative to the much used expression
"T.B.A." since the concepts, theories and research have focused on more
specific areas. These being metaphysics, technology, soul and artificial
intelligence. Technology as a means to enhance and restrict information,
hidden implications inherent in the space program, the questions of extra
dimensional intelligence and the written concepts of J.G. Ballard. The album
has now been titled "Sign". The album is more to do with feeling and
emotions than the clinical precision of Man-Amplified.
Q.What is your opinion about playing live? What visible elements is Clockdva
using in the shows?
A.Currently we are looking at the way we do live performances. We are looking
towards new ways and new techniques although the specific details cannot be
given at present. We have always used a strong visual element in all our
shows from the earliest time - 1978 onwards.
Q.How do you want the crowd to feel when they leave a Clockdva show?
A.To be visually and audibly lifted to a new realm of perception in all
senses.
Q.Do you feel Contempo International will further your musical horizons?
A.I hope so as now we have been building up the profile for the last two
years and Contempo are very dedicated to the success of Clockdva.
Q.Now you've put together a video-collection of all your cybernetic clips
from, 'Buried dreams' & 'Man-Amplified'. Could you talk about this and how
you adapt your music to the video imagery?
A.We use a number of techniques when we apply visual images. For us the
visual side is a separate element that can be enhanced with sound, but each
piece we have worked on takes a specific theme and is developed in this way.
The Compilation of 'Man-Amplified' and some of the videos produced for
'Buried Dreams' is entitled "Kinetic Engineering" and will be available in
April '93.
Q.Tell us more about your side project 'The Anti-Group'? Whats it all about?
A.TAG- The Anti Group was initiated in 1985 as a means of diversification
>from the format normally associated with groups. The Anti Group can adopt any
number of personnel and techniques. Between 1985 - '92 TAG have released four
albums, these include t he 'Meontological Series' and 'Digitaria' which is an
ambisonic recording. TAG have made a number of live performances which
include "The Museum of Contempory Art" - Florence, " The ARS Electronica-
(symposium on Virtual Reality)" - Austria and the Atonal events in Berlin.
Currently three albums are in preparation including "Burning Water" a 35
minute film and soundtrack that explores the boundaries of visual
interpretation. To summarize the work of TAG is to limit its conception. That
is that there are no defined limits within the context of art. TAG represents
a research and development project, working in areas such as psychophysics
and meontological engineering.
Q.What was your reaction to the rumors of Jeffrey Dahmer listening to 'Buried
Dreams' when he was picked up by the police?
A.Initially I was quite surprised but then it occurred to me that as an
individual there is no legitimate reason for him not to listen to 'Buried
Dreams' or for that matter any other recording that is commercially
available. I suppose the context of 'Buried Dreams' opens it to
interpretation of any kind.
Q.What are your impressions of music in general?
A.I think that music in a general sense is ninety-nine percent without
content and idea. The remaining one percent is the interesting side of
things that is generally ignored and rather more difficult to obtain. There
seems to me like a very limited number of groups or individuals that are
operating in the field of sound which we could refer to as exploratory and
interesting and which is furthering the field of sonology.
Q.Where would you like to see the technology of music go in the future?
A.I would imagine that sound eventually will reach a new form of sonic
realization. Where science augments the introduction of systems that will
enable (music) in its broadest sense to be experienced and felt in a
physiological and psychic way.
Q.As we must all go forward, how do you analyze the future of Clockdva?
A.I see Clockdva in the pursuit of this sonic realization described above.
Interview by Bobby Silver. Orginally published in For Crying Out Loud issue
#3.
For more info on Clockdva and their related projects send two
international reply coupons to Anterior Research or their label Contempo:
Anterior Research Contempo international
P.O. Box 684 Corso de tintori 6
Sheffield S6 2EP 50122 Firenze
United Kingdom Italy
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808 STATE
When 808 State toured America in 1991, techno and rave music was still
very much underground here and the group's shows provided many people with an
introduction to the music. But when the group returned this spring,
headlining a package tour with Meat Beat Manifesto and Supreme Love Gods, it
was a different situation entirely. Sitting in their tour bus prior to their
show in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the three members of 808 State took the
time to talk about their band and the state of dance music in general.
"We've noticed a difference because it's got a foot in the door now,
where as when we first came over it was a little bit novel still. Now
everyone knows about it and has an opinion." explains Graham Massey on how
techno has caught on in a big way since their last visit..
For the 808 State, touring means more than just plugging their latest
LP, Gorgeous. The group feels that it is important to get out into the clubs
and see what is going on. Audiences in different areas respond differently to
various styles of rave and dance music, and observing what is going on will
have an impact when the band returns to the studio to work on new material.
For their live shows, 808 State rely on DATs for the bass and drum
parts. They do have some sequences coming straight off a computer, but the
groups says that this is too risky to make a big part of the sound,
especially in America. Another reason for the DATs is that it's difficult
enough getting some of the older equipment into the studio without it
breaking down, so bringing it on the road is out of the question. The group
uses keyboards, guitar, sax, and percussion triggers to play the live parts
and in the future hopes to also use a vocorder.
"We've got it to a point where it's completely different every night,"
explains Graham. "It's quite interactive now."
While intense hardcore techno is still being overplayed, 808 State have
chosen to slow things down with Gorgeous. Feeling that style has been
overdone, the group is going back to the more house-oriented sound that
originally inspired them back in the mid-80's "It's coming down. It's hit a
peak. It couldn't get any faster, it couldn't get any more annoying or
aggressive," says Darren Partington. "And that's it, forget it now, let;s try
and go somewhere else."
"It's going back underground as well to a certain extent," adds Graham.
"Which is a good thing. Techno is now pop music. It's official, it is pop
music. I think Gorgeous is a back lash against some of the aggressive, 180
bpm. We were making Gorgeous while that was being played in the clubs and in
the big raves."
That type of techno is often made by DJs or rave kids who get together,
string together a bunch of samples and emerge with a white label. Graham says
that in England several pirate stations emerged that play hours and hours of
music that sound like it was being played at the wrong speed.
"That was dragging anything remotely good down in everyone's eyes," he
says.
The members of 808 State explain that is the Djs and record store
owners who control the direction of dance music. The import shop owners can
decided whether or not they want to order a track and pass it on to the Djs,
and the Djs themselves are prone to sometimes starting trends that go against
good music. But the group says that some of the major DJs have been kicking
in with good music over the past year and are back on track.
"It's at the point that I like which is that it doesn't have a name at
the moment; something's going on and no one's given it a label yet," says
Graham. "And the minute they do it will probably be over and then everyone
just follows the formula and does it. That's the way it goes. Its good when
it's in turmoil and it is at the moment."
While 808 State's music is primarily instrumental, they have used such
guest vocalists as Ian McCullough, Bernard Sumner and Bjork Gutmondsdottir.
In 1990, the group collaborated with Manchester rapper MC Tunes, first on the
single "The Only Rhyme That Bites" and then on his full length album, The
North at Its Heights.
808 State recently worked with Robert Owens (Fingers Inc) on a cover of
"Gimme Shelter" for a charity compilation. Most of the time, it is the
singers who approach 808 State, and the group refuses to do collaborations
just set by record companies for purely commercial reasons.
"It's too C+C Music Factory., That's not what we're about," says Darren.
"Yeah, we're dance music, but we like to be a little bit on the edge, we
like to play around. It would be somebody taken out of context."
808 State are following up their tour with Meat Beat by going out on the
road in America with fellow Manchester band New Order. Once all the touring
is done, they will put the finishing touches on their own studio. The group
admits that the amount of writing they have done in the studio in the past
was "a bit foolish really," so setting up their own facilities will give them
even more freedom.
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