Kate Simko

After
reviewing Detalles’ “Shapes of Summer” for the previous issue, I
chatted electronically with the Chicago half of the duo–Kate Simko–
and managed to catch her live performance at Danny’s on Memorial Day
(September 1). After her set, which was executed on a Macintosh running
Abelton Live, we talked briefly about her process as a musician. In
opposition to the stereotypical image of a solo beat jockey hunched
over computers and knobs engaged in a nonverbal discussion with the
machine, Kate welcomes collaboration with other artists. “Shapes of
Summer” was born from the musical rapport she established with Andres
Bucci while studying in the Meditteranean climate of Chile. We followed
up our discussion over email in the following days.

You mentioned you studied classical piano at Northwestern. When
where you first introduced to the instrument and why did it appeal to
you?
There are a number of pianists from my father’s side of the family. His
mother is a pianist and her father was an organist in Czechoslovakia,
etc. So, it was a priority for my family that my brother and I learned
how to play the piano at a young age; I began lessons at age five.
Although practicing the piano was pretty much required of me growing
up, the instrument did appeal to me on a personal level. Learning to
play, along with the theory and technique behind it, came very
naturally to me. Playing the piano has always appealed to me as a
release and an outlet.

How did it lead to your involvement with electronic music production?
Basically, the transition happened while I was studying at the
university. I began college at the University of Miami, where I was
studying classical piano on a much more intense level than what I was
used to previously. I practiced an average of four hours a day – never
missing a day. That first year of college I learned a Beethoven Sonata
and a more obscure Brazilian piece by Heitor Villa-Lobos, among other
pieces. I really grew as a pianist and musician. At the same time, I
began hanging out at the radio station there, WVUM, and started hanging
out with the Schematic guys. My main passion for music at that time
(since about ’94) was electronic music.

Seeing the lifestyle of my new friends – making things happen with new
electronic music (they were just signed to Warp Records) – while
viewing myself as secluded playing classical piano, led to me deciding
to give up the idea of playing classical piano professionally. Instead
of interpreting the music of the classical masters, I decided to move
towards making my own music and finding my own musical voice.

So, I left Miami and moved back to Chicago where I began learning jazz
piano and studying at Northwestern. Eventually, I transferred into the
Music Technology program at NU. This program was super small and super
cool. There were about six people in the entire undergrad program when
I entered it. My first class involved learning how to make patches on
the Arp 2600 and splice sounds from tape. From that point on, I’ve made
a gradual transition from classical piano into solely producing
electronic music, incorporating a lot of piano work into the tracks.

How did you find yourself in Chile? How did you meet Andres Bucci?
I found myself in Chile studying abroad during my fifth year at
Northwestern. By this time, I felt that I would grow more in a new
environment. I had to give up a lot to go, but it was worth it. So, I
left the WNUR / Chicago scene to go study music composition at the
Universidad de Chile in Santiago. Also, my goal was to
have a lot more down time to work on music on my laptop and create new
music of my own.

After realizing that music gear is insanely expensive in Chile, I
started looking to buy a used keyboard from someone. To make a long
story short, I called Atom Heart, who referred me to call Pier Bucci
(Andres’ brother), who a while later played a piano cd of mine for
Andres. That’s how we met.

How did you get involved with Traum?
When I returned to the states from Chile, I sent out our material to
the different people I knew with appropriate labels in the U.S.
Everyone seemed swamped, or a bit conservative after September 11, so I
ended up sending a second wave of demos to Europe. We heard back from
Traum that they wanted to put out the record, and things progressed
from there. Andres and I felt that the music we recorded was worthy of
being released, but Chile is very disconnected from the rest of the
world in many ways (geographically, to start). That’s why almost all of
the Chileans that put out music live in Germany or the states.

What are you listening to for inspiration these days?
As far as electronic music, I’ve been listening mainly to the Tied and
Tickled Trio (Morr Music) and various releases by Jan Jelinek (~scape).
I’ve also been listening to a soon-to-be-released vocal album by Juana
Molina, and I always listen to John Coltrane.

At the Danny’s performance you were using Abelton Live but you
perform with Andreas as Detalles with live keyboards. What mode of
performance do you prefer?
I prefer the Detalles performance with Andres performing also. It’s a
more accurate representation of our musical roles and process in
collaborating. Also, no matter how live I’m playing in Ableton, the
performance has a more unique and live feel when Andres is working in
Abelton or on the MPC and I’m playing the keyboard. Plus, I haven’t
figured out a way to manipulate the beats and textures in our tracks
while I play the keyboard parts. I’m working on that….

Kate Simko has a radio show on WNUR 89.3 FM (Northwestern) in
Chicago and has a release on Traum as Detalles: “Shapes of Summer.”

Copyright © 2003 Modsquare.

Cepia aka Huntley Miller is a Minneapolis-based musician who started out in a traditional band that combined downtempo, hip-hop, IDM, drum n’ bass thing with 5 live musicians with releases on the Merck label before moving to Ghostly.

What is your background with music? What brought you to where you are now?
My music background and how got where I am now is a long story, but I
will do my best to condense it. I got an electric bass when I was 13
and taught myself to play. I played funk, rock, jazz, R&B, and all
kinds of other stuff in bands from age 13-20. When I was 20 I went to a
music college to study upright bass with Anthony Cox. I did that for a
couple of years, my upright broke and I couldn’t afford to fix it, so I
started playing alot of electric again. I was playing in an indie rock
band called tugboat. The guitar player had an insane custom made
effects pedal board that he let me mess around with. I just fell in
love with the sounds you could get out of it. I was really liberated
because my bass didn’t sound like bass anymore, it sounded like some
alien violin shit. The drummer in the band played me some Autechre
stuff and I was totally floored.

I co-founded a 5-piece band called Suki Takahashi. It was sort of like
a downtempo, hip-hop, IDM, drum n’ bass thing with 5 live musicians. We
had a track on the Merck dosage compilation. Then, I started playing
bass in a 3-piece band that was like Photek / Source Direct /
Squarepusher with a live band. After that I started an all-electronic
thing with one of the guys from Suki called Grid. Then I got a
Powerbook and started working on my own just under a year ago. A couple
of months later I started learning Max/MSP and I’ve used it for almost
everything ever since.

So what’s your latest project? What will you be
playing at Dannys as?
My latest project and what I’m touring as is Cepia.
Cepia is my own music, all digital, composed and
performed on my laptop.

What’s your gear / software situation now?
Just an iBook running Max/MSP, EMI 2|6, Doepfer pocket
control, and I’ve recently picked up a couple of
analog synths- a Roland MC202 and Juno 106. I have
been doing everything with Max. I don’t use samples,
so I synthesize sounds, sequence, process, and arrange
them all with my own programs.

Have you always lived in Minneapolis? How is the scene there conducive
(or not) to what you do?

I grew up in a Minneapolis suburb. After high school, I moved to Kansas City, then I
moved back, then I lived on a sailboat in Florida for a year, then I moved back
here to go to school.

I think there is a great scene here. I have been hosting weekly or bi-monthly
electronic music events for well over a year and people always come out and support
what you’re doing. My
event that I do is called Parse. It’s 2 Fridays a month
at the Kitty Cat Klub. The local artists are myself,
Tiki Obmar (Merck), Eric Skogen (Surgery), Adam
Johnson (Merck), Dave Olson (Parotic), Mr. Projectile
(Toytronic), DJ Pat Morita, Dosh (Anticon). I’ve had
Greg Davis play a couple of times, Miles Tilmann is
playing this Friday, and I’m playing with the whole
Schematic crew here in October.

Do you have a day job or does music support you?
Yes, I have a day job. I do archive work at Minnesota public radio. I
do transfers from DAT and analog tape into Pro Tools. It is a great
job. I used to support myself playing and teaching bass, but I was
pretty unhappy and just barely getting by.

What other musicians do you admire?
I love Donny Hathaway, Curtis Mayfield, Steve Reich,
Johnny Cash, Eric Satie, The Meters, Bjork. As far as
electronic music- Autechre was the first artist who
really grabbed me. Also, Phonecia, Fennesz, Arovane,
Funckarma, Farben, Merck folks, Lexauncuplt.

What’s the best technological invention (in your
opinion) related to music
creation / production / inspiration?
Definitely Max/MSP. If you choose to learn the
environment and have a concept or vision of what you’re
after, you can do anything with it. It’s extremely
powerful.

Cepia has releases scheduled with Ghostly International and Six
Records and will play at Dannys on Monday, Oct 20 with Tiki Obmar and
Kra[n]k. Check out Http://www.driver2165.com/cepia/ for more details.

Modsquare 2008 copyright

Matt Arnold prefers to call himself Mr. Projectile, smokes Kool cigarettes, only buys electronic music, and is slated to release a new album on Music Aus Strom and Merck in the near future.

Talking with Adam Johnson has put me in a silly mood and I’m giggling about ridiculous things more than usual. Matt Arnold is taking it all in stride. With an easygoing manner he’s smoking and finishing up a White Russian while discussing his musical history with me before he takes the stage for the first date of his tour. Under the alias Mr. Projectile he’s released albums on Toytronic and Parotic, with appearances on compilations by Benbecula, Six Records, Topscore and others. A new one, slated for release on Music Aus Strom and Merck is
forthcoming, called Sinking.

“The first record I ever bought was Safety Dance when I saw that shit on MTV… the sample-heavy, really synth-based stuff, …I think its always been ingrained in me ever since before I even knew what the hell electronic music was.” In 1992 he was introduced to the club/rave scene of the early 90s and immediately fell in love with it. Matt started by collecting electronic music compilations, and since then has only bought electronic music. Eventually he decided to have a go at making the music himself, starting off with varied gear arrangements until finally ending up with the setup he has now, involving a Nord Modular and a G4 laptop. From the beginning he had the intention of both composing and DJing live.

As for his compositional process he tells me, “The best thing to do, for me, is to just sit around and to allow accidents to happen as much as possible, then sort of turn those accidents into songs…. That doesn’t mean that my songs are created completely randomly–I’m very
into having themes and emotions rather than some weird sounds and some crazy shit going on. I definitely want something that’s been thought out and something that’s catchy. You cant just say, “I want a weird noise” and just make it; you kind of just have to let things happen accidentally to get those weird sounds. I’ll base the song around that sort of weird sound, and then sort of make it melodic and pretty and catchy, you know? Have some sort of human feel to it.

“And humans have certainly begun to congregate on Danny’s this evening. As we’ve been speaking, people have been filtering into the back room, chattering loudly and taking up residence on the seats around us, so I slide closer to hear Matt over the din. He explains to me how his label affiliations came about and suggests that its more permissible in this kind of genre for artists to have more creative control over the sonic fingerprint of an album than in other sorts of genres.

Like Adam Johnson, he’s looking forward to the tour with Adam Johnson and Miles Tilmann [see his interview in issue #4] and is especially excited about the Seattle date with someone he particularly admires–L’usine.

As for the approach he takes to performing his music live, he says he plays songs from the upcoming album he’s promoting, but finds that its hard to get excited about listening to his own songs repeatedly, so he incorporates different software, such as Abelton Live and CamelToe. He
says “I’m much more interested in Djing these days,” which he does digitally with Traktor and traditonally with vinyl.

Living up in Minneapolis with Adam, the two of them began working together and hosting events at clubs and promoting their music. While the “scene” may have left a bit to be desired, he gushed about the local music store with an entire room devoted to edgier electronic
music. Most recently he’s been spending time in Santa Fe, and he’s eager to get on the road to promote his music, and even more excited about visiting Europe with Adam in September.

His favorite city on previous visits was Hamburg, Germany, “It’s so awesome, the people are fucking beautiful. My own theory [as to why] is that there’s so much shame regarding their history that they’ve ended up producing music that’s the opposite. People just want to have fun
and be loved. … Germany is just really, really cool.”

I break form to agree with him and relate my experiences at Love Parade in Berlin a few years back. We chat for a while until we notice that Adam has started performing. I thank Matt and then enjoy the rest of the night, involving superb Pinot Noir and excellent music the rest of
the night from the 4 boys (including a lovely set from Dave Olsen (Parotic)).

—-

It’s Friday and Darkstar 7 (a showcase featuring Adam and Matt as well as Aparat, Velocette, Todd Sines, Matt Mercer…) is winding to a close. Miles Tilmann enlists me to schlep gear to the car and we decide to head down to Smartbar, but not until Adam attempts to breakdance on
asphalt in the parking lot. After wrangling with our available communications technology, we decide to equally distribute ourselves among the available cars, and so Matt and I head towards my car on the other side of the campus.

Matt seems to enjoy the goofy miniature stuffed animals that litter my car and we both relax a bit and begin casually discussing what albums we’re into lately and such things. Matt confides in me that he’s been analyzing how change is made in society. The US is at a strange point where its’ possible to make a change in the world. People don’t really have faith in the politicians and a positively minded change can step in and change the structure and it’s easy for people like us to make a difference. After a bit of conversation he tells me how he’s begun to notice a lot of coincidences happening since the tour started–though it may just be that’s he’s more aware of it now that he doesn’t have the structure of a daily grind to distract him.

“I know what you’re referring to…” I tell him “I’ve noticed the same kind of thing when I’m really focused on something that I want to have happen. It seems like the world is conspiring to help you do it…” This whole tour, he says, is helping him remember that life can be magical. Its inspiring, he tells me, to meet up with other people who are into the same sort of music, but who are from different parts of the world.

The postcard for the tour has a decidedly psychadelic 60s feel to it and one cant help but think “magical mystery tour.” The tour should definitely be exciting, all three have mad talent and high aspirations and the tour will assuredly convince a larger audience of the fact.

http://www.toytronic.com
http://www.affectrecords.com/projectile/

Copyright © 2003 Modsquare.

Some people know him as “Atropa,” others as “that one guy in American Heritage,” others call him Scott. The man behind the aliases chats with Modsquare about his musical endeavors.

What’s the deal with all your personalities?

Whenever I’ve seen you live it seems like you run through all of them over the course of the night.. i get bored with what i’m doing quite easily. i’m an ADD kid. originally i wanted to keep the different projects completely seperate, but it just hasn’t worked out that way lately. mostly because i’ve been slacking, and i hate everything i make after a week or two.

If you made a track today, what are the factors that would make you decide if it would be released under “Fredrique Garvin” or Atropa?

I make stuff with a project in mind when i start it. fredrique garvin is pretty much just a four on the floor endevour. atropa is the more melodic mamsy pamsy stuff cups and saucers has more of a hiphopity beaty feel to it penisplusvagina is all out fuck you obnoxious shit.

Does anything that has live drums qualify it as an Atropa track?

I’ve never done an atropa track with live drums. i wish people would stop saying that. so no. i think atropa happens to have more live sounding samples overall… but i’m not trying to pretend that i have headphones on and am playing along with it on my drumkit. that wouldn’t even be possible at this point as my drums had been sitting in a basement for acouple years and are now all my rims are rusted out, this dickhead SOB broke my snare while using it without permission and never got it fixed as promised, and the piece i need to order is a specialty item that i’m not gonna have an easy go at finding. plus i don’t have much reason to get it fixed now. i’m not playing drums in a band now. i’ve wanted to make atropa more of a live endevour from the get go but honestly i’m too lazy. i’ve had to lug shit around with the bands ive been in, it’s just really nice to show up with just a backpack and not have to take everything back to the space after a show.

How many cigarrettes do you smoke during a typical live performance? If that number varies, what are the causes?

I use an elaborate set-up of ropes and pulleys. there is also a bucket of water i use as balast. the number of cigarettes varies according to moon cycles. but i ussually go through 2 pints of beer regardless of the tides in the pacific northwest.

What do you think of MSP/MAX?

I don’t. i’ve never seen it or used it. i’m not a techie. i don’t geek out on software. sorry.

What albums/artists are you excited about these days?

Jeez, i dunno…. just offa the top of my head i’d say sweet cobra, mastodon, knut are prolly my favs at the moment. i will say that rye coalition rocked my arse off acouple weeks ago at the bottle. mmmmm. i’m an adult and also somewhat contemporary so i dug the last cardigans album. other recent listens: the flashing lights, lollipop, enon, blonde redhead, and i’m listening to bongzilla right at this second.

Do you have a replacement car now that you’ve sold your Mazda Miata on eBay?

yes. i bought my dad’s old chevy lumina off him for a dollar when he was going to junk it.

What’s the latest illustration work you’ve done? How does it relate to your music project(s) if at all?

The last paying project i did was for the cover of the christian century magazine. i’m in the process of tryin’ to build up a more solid portfolio so i can try to land some satan loving projects too. there really isn’t any sort of connection to music at all. it’s just something else i do.

Anything specific you want to H8 on?

George w. bush, cucumbers, my laziness, heroin, the fact that HSN canned don west, the price of popcorn at the movie theatre, hernias, comedians who suck, ordering cajun chicken sammich and ending up with an un-cajun chicken sammich, raw tomatos, not having a record out, kids that go around shooting cats with a pellet gun in my neighborhood, budweiser headache, the amount i ussually get paid to play a show ($0.00), people that hold grudges way longer than the offense warrants, the price of beer at double door and bottom lounge, touring the US, adult christian contemporary praise music, people that take themselves WAY too seriously… should i go on?

http://www.automaticbutt.com/atropa

Copyright © 2003 Modsquare.

8 bit construction

.

The 8 Bit Construction Set and the Beige Programming Ensemble have completed such projects as a 12″ containing software executable on Atari and Commodore computers, re-programmed Nintendo cartridges, collaborated with Bodenstandig 2000, and initiated the World Cassette Jockey Championship competition. Scott Shelhamer takes on the Beige boys in an email interview in which they disclose their favorite kernal routines, debate the importance of hardware and software, and discuss the degree to which their 8-Bit basslines induce booty-shaking.

Scott: What is up with the The 5kHz low energy U-Haul disk?

Cory: Check it: http://www.beigerecords.com/Cory/5.img You’re going to need a MAC, and a program called disk copy to un archive the image.It was made on operating system 7.1 [circa 1990] so it might not even work anymore…and it is in mono. But it was a floppy disk I made with 5 songs on it.

Scott: So as musicians, do you try to tread new ground or reiterate / replicate what those before you have already done? How do you feel your music is unique?

Joe: I think its obvious that the ability to “reiterate / replicate” previously marked territory lends itself to the crafting of something unique. On the 8-Bit record, we attempt to match the quality of tracks written by the likes of Ron Hubbard, DeBarge etc., And in doing so create tracks that stand on their own. Sure you might say our songs sound like the stuff you hear on video game sound tracks from the 80s, But did those games boast bass lines like the one in “Dollars” Or did they claim to possess ‘the sauce’ ?

The techno buyer for Gramaphone records once said to Paul and myself (after having just sold him some records) “You guys really have your finger on the pulse.” He said this because another record under the guise “Sid Musique” Or something like that had just come out (one year post 8-bit release). The record featured a C64 controller on the cover and a multitude of mediocre tracks written with samples and drum machines. Upon inspection beyond the jacket design, the release of this record only made “The 8-Bit Construction Set” stand out in its originality. In a way, It confirmed why the four of us had gone to such painstaking efforts to create this record. It wasn’t for the sake of being retro or clever, nor was It an attempt to feign a music style. The 8-Bit was created in the spirit of computer music as a craft.

Scott: No…the bass lines did not make my booty shake as that of “Dollars,” nor did they have the sauce. You said “The 8-Bit was created in the spirit of computer music as a craft.”Does this mean like popsicle houses / model airplanes, or more like making swords on an anvil?

Cory: [Paul,] true or false: “Acid is the name of a sound, can you feel it when you dance? Acid has a certain groove that makes your body want to move, when you hear it when the acid hits your soul. It makes you lose control of your body, it has a sound so unique you just have to move your feet when you hear it.”

Paul:: Very true. Except on the 12″ that I have that song doesn’t use a 303 in it, it uses those early techno pitch shifted minor chords. Never understood that. But I have a UK remix 12″; I don’t have the original.

Joe: [Cory, Paul,] Which kernel routine from the original commodore 64 ROMs do you hate the most?

Cory: Not zure about my != favorite kernal routine, but I can add that my favorite 6502 opcode is: TAX and least favorite is: NOP.

Paul:: I would say I hate CHKIN [FFC6] the most. Although if you squint your eyes it looks like CHINK.

Joe:: $e72a…yeah.

Scott: I don’t really care, but I’m sure someone reading this wants to know about your gear / software / process. What is 6502 assembly language exactly?

Paul: How old are you and why is it that you don’t seem to care about someone’s process or software? I’m curious because it’s just this sort of phenomena that we’re trying to combat with our main long-term project — a series of computer programming books for boys and girls.

Scott: I really just don’t give a shit how someone makes music as long as it sounds good going into the sides of my head. Granted I can appreciate the effort that certain processes require, but in the end I just don’t care. I realize y’all are probably on the opposite side of the “end justifying the means” music debate…

Paul: I think you have a good point, because music that sounds good maybe would have to be produced with new ways or processes, otherwise it would sound stale. More of the same ol’ same ol’. But another side is that maybe you like stale music, and maybe we all do? It would explain a lot.

Also I am a firm believer in exploring what’s behind the things I consume, because it gives More meaning to my decisions. with music, maybe I hear something I don’t think quite succeeds, But I learn that the girl who made it wrote all her own software and built her own weird string instrument to make it with. It would mean something then just to buy it and support what she’s doing. Or when I go into Weekend [Records and Soap] and listen to about 40 records and maybe like two of them. Sure, the others might be passable But It’s all the same structure, all the same software, all the same shit and it means something to leave It on the racks.

Likewise when I buy food and try to keep away from the genetically modified stuff or whatever. These days It’s a huge pain in the ass to learn about what you’re doing as a consumer, But I think It’s worth It in the end, especially with the arts, because you (Or at least I do) feel slightly less at a loss when trying to explain yourself to the world.

And that’s also why we’re working on the kids’ books, because if we could help these younger kids to realize that they can make their OWN games and programs, and that the computer is truly most interactive when It’s being programmed, I think it would be a huge benefit to them.So when issues come up like digital copyright/distribution or government data collection/privacy invasion or just getting tired of first person shooters and wanting to make a truly new style of game, they would know what’s up And they would know it much better than us because someone showed them the deal when they were at an age where they picked up stuff faster And had tons of time to make things.

Scott: Hmm… I think you have an interesting point. I do think educating kids on the technology they use is a darn right spiffy idea. I also agree with you in many ways regarding redundancy in electronic music due to similar usages of software. But at the same time feel you are contradicting yourself. Although you are indeed writing your own music creation software, is the end result not derivative, if not the same as, sounds we heard in the 80s from our computing devices and/or gaming systems?

Joe: Michael McDonald recorded songs using technology now considered obsolete. Yet, every musician aspires to reproduce his style And tone. What’s the point? Michael McDonald. That’s the point.

Scott: Mr. McDonald’s “technology” (yeah I’m making that annoying quotation mark motion with my hands) may be obsolete now.. But his music isn’t. End result over process perhaps? And for the sake of argument, let’s say his achievements are a result of pushing the boundaries of what was considered music at the time via technology… not pushing the boundaries of what is considered technology via music.

Paul: Scott, in regards to a contradiction, I think you said it best with “No…the bass lines did not make my booty shake as that of “Dollars,” nor did they have the sauce. ”

In other words, there is no contradiction because the things we do are a new take on obsolete technologies using a path of thinking which has seemingly been forgotten about nowadays – computational craft. So “Dollars,” for example, can’t be derivative and makes your “booty shake” more than any Commodore 64 song you might have heard 20 years ago (assuming you were alive then). It would be like saying Bartok string quartets are the same as Handel string quartets simply because they are both pieces for string quartet.

Plus the fact that dollars was recorded direct from a Commodore 64 and is coming off of a vinyl record mastered at +8db RCA which is also, unfortunately a relatively new idea.. You didn’t hear many people treating music produced on home computers as a legitimate art worthy of a traditional medium for music distribution in the 80s, people usually only listened to them coming off the computers themselves and usually considered it toy music or something. Anyway at this point we’ve left the record behind for other projects (making Nintendo music cartridges, the kids books, etc.), It’s well over 3 years old now, And aside from the live 10″ with 8bit and Bodenstandig 2000 which we’re still waiting to put out we don’t have any other 8bit records in the immediate future. I think there will be at least one more eventually, But we haven’t figured out what to do for it next And we hate doing the same thing twice. In the meantime people can still get the 8bit from us www.beigerecords.com Or at your favorite record shop (like Weekend Records in Chicago), Or purchase a remastered version of “Dollars” on the “Other Mistakes” 12″ off of Matthew Herbert’s Soundslike label, Or Also hear us on DJ Q-Bert’s Wavetwisters DVD.

Scott: how did y’all end up on the Soundslike “other mistakes” 12″?

Joe: We played, he paid.

Check out the Beige crew at http://www.beigerecords.com

*images from http://www.beigerecords.com/cory

Copyright © 2003 Modsquare.

bud melvin

Bud Melvin sounds like a Doc Watson video game complete with power ups and end screen songs…In November at the Bottle Top, the Empty Bottle’s secret upstairs venue, Bud and a couple of us Chicago GB peeps got together to play the First Annual Game Boy Challenge…Bud rocked the house with his 8-bit folk.

Mark: So how’s it goin’ Bud? I liked your set on Friday at the Bottle Top. Your Hillbilly electronic music…it’s danceable. What parts do you hail from, Brother?

Bud: Hey there. I had a great time this weekend, too. I’m from Milwaukee but moved here about 14 years ago. Hillbilly electronic is a nice description, I’ll have to remember that one.

Mark: Was there folk music in Milwaukee when you lived there? What kind of scene was going on at the time?

Bud: Milwaukee probably had a great folk scene in the 80s when I lived there, but I didn’t know anything about it then. My friend Will Branch does music there now with a lot of people in the scene, Dave Fox, Lil’ Rev. Milwaukee has some great music going on these days. When I was younger, I was mostly into Devo, Husker Du, Beatles, Zep, Talking Heads all sorts of other music. Even Glen Miller and other big band jazz.

In my last year of high school I spent a lot of time randomly checking out records from the public library. I wound up with a Doc Watson double album and the Deliverance soundtrack. I couldn’t believe how awesome they were, the playing, the intensity and the feeling. I would force all my friends to listen to it when we hung out and just kept saying how much faster it was than even Slayer.

The scene I knew about in Milwaukee was the North side suburban punk rockers. I was never a punk rocker, but I went to a lot of cool house parties with bands like Iowa Beef Experience (one of my favorite experiences ever), Die Kreutzen, Necromatix. I also saw Husker Du, Circle Jerks, MDC, Killdozer, stuff like that. Anyway, my friends bought a PA, started writing to labels saying if the tour goes through Milwaukee, they would do a show. They would set up the PA at the Unicorn club, or just have a party and do the show in someone’s attic.

Mark: You have an interest in Hindu spirituality in your music…I think I’ve heard at least 2 songs about Ganesha video games. Do you plan to make Hindu videogames?

Bud: I have an interest in spirituality in general and it makes it way into my music. A good book on this subject is “Mysticism of Sound and Music” by Hazart Inayat Khan. I’ve done some songs based on Indian concepts (probably an obligitory move since the 60s) I’ve also done a CD, “The Seven Last Words of Christ” I think a Hindu videogame would be great, but I don’t have the expertise to do such a thing. The stories are just so interesting, with such a variety of characters and animals, that it seems like a cool concept.

Mark: Are you into Hindu films at all? They always seem to be singing…Are there films that influence your music???

Bud: I like watching the Bollywood music shows on UHF stations Sunday morning. I love movies, but I’m not sure if they have a specific influence on my music. Certainly, anyone who has listened to Ennio Morricone soundtracks (who hasn’t!) feel their power seeping into the way they do things. I like horror and sci-fi soundtracks like Goblin or Jerry Goldsmith, too.

I think I’m more influenced by the movement and pacing of movies in my music as well. Directors like Tarkovsky, Jordowsky, Leone are not afraid to let things so very slowly, repetitively to create a feeling.

Mark: When you’re writing songs, do you like to compose with LSDJ or nanoloop?

Bud: Ever since I got LSDJ, I think I’ve only done one song in nanoloop. I still pull it out for live improvising, but LSDJ is so much better for the way I’m approaching things. I probably will go back to nanoloop again, just cause there’s some really great techniques I haven’t been able to do w/LSDJ.

Mark: Do you ever use live functions for gameboy or is it all presequenced?

Bud: I presequence all my stuff. I’ve seen handheld somehow do live stuff, it seems like DJing your own songs. Someday, I’d like to get a loop pedal w/ midi sync so I can layer LSDJ loops with live stuff and have it all stay on beat. I might get more into live mode then. Right now I don’t even really understand how to do it.

Mark: What was the last electronic album that really impressed you?

Bud: An album I really love is Caural – “Paint EP” I’m hopefully going to buy his new full length soon so that might become my new favorite. I bought it at reckless records cause it had the coolest cover there and it wound up being one of my favorite albums of the year. It’s more DJing-trip/hop than electronic, but I’m not really sure what electronic music is really supposed to be defined as anyway. Turns out he’s from Chicago, too.

Mark: So Bud…I just got an e-mail from you about your gigs coming up…how many cats are you workin’ with right now in Chicago? what’s your take on the collaborative aspect of the Chicago music village?

Bud: I’m playing with Bosco&Jorge, William MacKay (the jazz group you saw me with) and Roller Boulder, a new band I’m getting off the ground. In the past I’ve also played banjo with Moonshine Willy and Country Melvins, drums for 36 Invisibles and Apostles of Liberty and played bass with Proletariat 7. Probably others I don’t remember, too.

There’s a good joke I heard. What do Taco Bell and the Chicago music scene have in common? Everything is just the same six ingredients in different combinations.

Mark: Do you ever confused with “Larry ‘Bud’ Melvin” from David Letterman?

Bud: Yes, people sometimes mention that reference. It’s very unfortunate, because he’s actually called Larry ‘Bud’ MelMAN. I used to love that guy. The very first Letterman show I saw, I was in high school and they had Larry Bud Melman on with a big ‘toast on a stick’ promotion. It might have been the same show or a different show where there was a huge pile of lobsters and they were giving them out to the audience. That guy is amazing.

Bud Melvin’s site: www.budmelvin.com

Copyright © 2003 Modsquare.

mark denardo

Mark DeNardo is an unusual dude. He calls other dudes “cats” and plays acoustic guitar while singing, sometimes along with his Gameboy. I saw him play at a party for Select Magazine. I was like, “Who is this guy?” Then Mark gave me a copy of his self released CD called “Fight Geometry.” It’s a nice collection of understated, folky, 8-bit pop tunes. We e-mailed back and forth over several weeks.

What’s your background in music, specifically electronic music?

I started working with electronic music back in 1990-92. One of my friends was really into prog-rock and experimental music at the time…he was about 10 years older than me, so he grew up in the late 70s and early 80s actually seeing some of these cats, like Kraftwerk, Sonic Youth and some early Hip-Hop. He was really into Throbbing Gristle back when industrial music was true experimental
music, played with industrial construction equipment [arc welders, jack hammers, metal drums]. A lot of that shit had this primordial quality, and it didn’t seem to require a lot of classical music training. John and I used to run around and record things, people, thoughts, passages from novels via William Burroughs cut-up method, and just string them along as tracks.

Then I started programming with Fruity Loops and cutting wave files with my computer at my last job. All the studio work I’ve done in the last few years has been on computer, except for when I’m tracking at home. I always just jump right into the interface and start using it, like we would if we were taking apart a piano and rigging it with contact mics, or learning a new instrument…the interface changed, but the technique I learned never did.

Learning more about tracking and sequencing programs has come recently, with using Little Sound DJ and other Game Boy tracking programs. I’ve only been using LSDJ for a year! It’s dope that you can apply any of your training to any of your music. I mean, I use the ear and theory training I had for violin, guitar and bass guitar all the time when I’m writing shit on LSDJ. I don’t think it’s separate.

How did the idea of playing acoustic guitar with the Gameboy come about?

I had some experience in programming. I was taken by bands like Bjork and Gastr Del Sol integrating acoustic/electronic elements. It suited me to try a project like that, ’cause at times I feel I’m a cultural synthesis…not really from one or another.

I’ve played guitar for 6-7 years and the music I was writing on guitar was always limited…I could only play two or three melodies at a time…and they were in a fixed mid-range. By incorporating a four-channel sequencer with that it allows more possibilities that if I did just Gameboy or guitar.

I think that it was an idea I had before I even bought the thing. I wasn’t sure if it would work at first. Machine’s the first one I did that had guitar and vocals. I was listening to a lot of Kraftwerk and digging their electro-simplicity.

I remember a few months ago when my buddy Graham said you should change your name to Mark DeCarlo, like the host of the game show Studs? That was funny but glad you didn’t
beat him up! Yeah, people are always fucking up my name…Denerdo, Retardo…the N almost never gets capitalized, and actually my last name is De Nardo. Most people actually call me my whole name or last name…it think it has some kind of iambic rhythm that works well in
English. I don’t know…it’s all narcissm anyways–being a musician and getting all
hyped up.

I was in Puerto Rico two weeks ago and there’s these tiny treefrogs everywhere called Coquis, they make this cool chirp, it sounds like that Gameboy blip that comes in every 8 measures of Onomatopaoea. Maybe I’m reading into this, but I bet that blip is in your song because of the Puerto Rican half of your heritage. Coquis were my favorite when I was a kid. I had a Puerto Rico t-shirt with one on it…my grandmother used to imitate the sound for fun.

So, why is the EP called “Fight Geometry”?

I used to like geometry class in high school, you wanna fight me? Fight Geometry is a euphemism for video games. In traditional Western literature the classic conflicts depicted don’t include the man vs. machine scenario, but it still is a valid conflict in modern fiction.

When you think about what a video game is, it’s really man vs. machine, or man vs. man via machine…and it’s all about figuring out the angles, either literally or through metaphor…so I guess its just that.

How do you remain inspired?

That’s a good question…I’m not sure really how I continue to write, but I can say that I do a lot in the city to stay busy. I’ve got a job, and I see movies, I play video games and read comics and see gigs and parties and events where I get to talk with people. Chicago really is an easy city to work in, because there are so many people doing so much for the scene. I think collaborations musically and otherwise keep
me movin’ in a direction and workin’ on new trax. As long as I’m in motion creatively, I can keep doin’ it.

Sometimes I need to see that what we do is important for our culture. I mean, I think that there’s a really vital electronic underground in Chicago, but normal life is total bullshit. It definitely makes for good art. It seems I only really work well on projects when I’m doing work I don’t wanna do.

Do you think it’s necessary to hold a day job in order to remain productive?

The format of music I work in allows me to say fuck it, basically all the tools I need are readily
available at work. Ninety percent of artists in this situation do the same thing. I write music on hackerware and pull the volts from the man. We’re the real cyberpunks, yo.

What’s in the future for Mark DeNardo?

Well, I’ve got some tracks I sent to France for a Gameboy compilation. That shit’ll be on vinyl and released in the Spring. I’ll be talking on a panel and giving a presentation at the next Version [at the MCA], the electronic arts fest put on in the Spring. I’m workin’ on an album, and it’ll have some remixes [by Douggpound, Jaime Pickup, and Miles Tilmann] of Fight Geometry on it with new material.

I’m collaborating with Miles Tilmann, playing guitar for some of his tracks and Gameboy on Saturdays at Jinx cafe in Wicker Park with Douggpound and Jaime Pickup on turntables.

Sounds like you’ve got a full plate of activity… Are you an audio peasant?
Yeah, or a techno luddite.

People can check out Mark at http://www.markdenardo.com

Copyright © 2002 Modsquare.

quantazelle

Brien Rullman: Describe your music and process for creating it.
Quantazelle: My process is dependent on the software as much as one’s thoughts depend on their native language… I think that the software influences the end product; its interface puts certain limitations on what kind of things you can do to a piece. My work is sample-based as opposed to being a virtual analog or virtual traditional instrument-based, meaning it involves the manipulation of sound recordings or the manipulation of the sound file itself.

So for the first part of the process, I forage sounds. Mainly I go around with a laptop and a microphone and knock things over, slam doors, and get my dog to chew on things and record it right to the hard-drive. I’ve also recorded traffic noises with the laptop open on the passenger seat and a mic hanging out the window, stood in the alley on recycling day and got some nice breaking-glass noises, and defragmented my hard-drive.

The second part is editing the sounds, where I use a wave file editor and cut down the larger files into smaller, more interesting ones. Some times they stay fairly recognizable, other times they get pretty obscure when I zoom in to smaller parts of the wave and pitch shift or timestretch them. At that level sometimes I end up just drawing the waveform instead and creating nice glitchy noises. Then I file all the sounds away on a server under a proprietary organization scheme and then use a tracker program on the laptop to sequence them.

For the sequencing I use Buzz, which is a modular-synth program that runs on a windows platform. Even though it’s pretty robust with allthe “machines” (generator and filter modules), I use it only for its multiple stereo-tracker ability. I start out with one tracker and go through the sample directories and listen to samples and start imagining which ones would work well together. It tends to start out as a pretty arbitrary collection, but as I keep building the track I start looking for specific sounds, like a sound within a certain frequency range that will stand out or mesh well with the other samples. I add more trackers and start grouping the samples. Then as I’m working I can mute certain groupsto hear how everything is relating, which is The reason I switched to Buzz from Impulse Tracker. But I also wish there was more of an actual programming language where I could write out conditional statements and call functions and such to automate the process a bit more. I get to control in great detail which sounds happen and where, which is nice for composing, but makes it a difficult interface for improvisation in a live or performance situation. In a live situation, I play the tracks from within buzz so that I can have control over all the sounds and their arrangement, by marking in and out loop points and by adjusting the levels of individual samples to fit the physical space that I’m performing in. I’m still experimenting with the live setup I use.

BR: What are your Ultimate goals of your music and presentation?

Esthetically, I want to make music that I’d like to listen to, I guess that’s most people’s motivation… Well, to me, interesting music has a lot of different layers and relations and interesting sounds, while at the same time being groovable; I think the rhythmic quality of this kind of music is what makes it accessible, which can be a good thing since it allows you to experiment in different aspects of the internal relations of the music.

As for what I focus on in my compositions and the theory behind it,I create tracks out of sounds collected from different “environments” and arranged as a kind of sonic-Cubist audio-painting. Picasso and Braque’s Cubist explorations involved painting objects in a way where the sides that exist on a different plane are viewable from a single perspective.

All objects exist in four dimensions; the scope of three-dimensional objects is only viewable by experiencing the object within time. You have to take the time to move your self and eyes through physical space in order to view another side of an object. In this way, time and space are conceptually related.

Interestingly enough, around the same time as the Cubist paitings, physicists were discussing a new set of theories formulated by people including Heisenberg and Einstein that would form the basis for quantum physics. Among these is a notion that what would later be called the “spacetime continuum”. So then Cubist paintings can be seen as a visual representation or diagram of what things would look like as one were to approch the speed of light, since space (and its perception) is a function of time and vice versa. They represent a “compression” of space and, by that implication, time.

So my compositions are the audio equivalents of Cubist paintings. I collect the audio imprints of different “environments” that are in different “planes” in normal existance. The furthest being those that are removed from the environment where the sounds are later sequenced (which tends to be at my computer in my house), such as traffic. Moving inward would be the sounds produced by interaction with the physical projection of the computer itself (banging on the keyboard, harddrive noises). The next levels would be sounds created by malfunctioning software-hardware interaction (such as audio glitches), to sounds that exist only as binary represetatons in the memory of the computer. All these different environments (perspectives) are layered into the singular space of the composition and require time to experience it.

BR: Favorite performance / show and why? how can you improve it? changes?

The Select-Release party was the most fun so far, though I was experiencing a draft from the open door to the patio durning the first half until I got a nice crowd behind me to keep me warm. Also, a guy from Ann Arbor, Michican heard some of the tracks on my website and drove down to Chicago for the show. He said he hadn’t really been into music for the past year or so until he heard my work on my website and was totally insprired by it. I thought that was sweet.

I need to find a differnt sort of environment where I can acutally program instead of hard coding the sequencing like I do now. It makes for interesting tracks but it’s harder to really experiement with live. At the same time I want to avoid the virual analog environmnt, which i know I keep repeating….

BR: Favorite software?

I still really like Impulse Tracker becuase it feels like I’m working closer to the nature of the computer. Ir runs in DOS, is written in assembly, and NEVER crashes. It resembles nothing in the physical world and has a steep learning curve. It’s great. I ‘m dissapointed with software like Logic or Reason mainly because of the kind of process I use. I generally improvise as I go along and because of that, the mode of interaction with the computer influences the outcome. If I worked with Reason, I would have to think in terms of “patchbays” and “inputs” instead of “iterations” and “conditionals”. And then the kinds of sounds you would find yourself producing would be totally different as well. There are certain limitations on the creative process when you’re dealing with virtual analog setups, and working with a computer should not have those. The nature of a computer is also different than what tends to exist in real life. Computers are good at square waves (binaries) and real life is good at sine waves.

I think more revolutionary things will be done with computers when you’re working close to the language of the computer. I think it’s sadly ironic that these emulation programs call themselves “Logic” when they seem so far removed from that actual level of the computer. It’s a crying shame. Almost as bad as Apple’s marketing campaign where they sold themselves as “harware for hip hackers” when really they build metaphor-laden boxes and keep the inner workings hidden from anyone who goes looking for them. I am aware that the new OSX has a Unix kernel, but they’re still hocking designer cases dreamed up by marketing people, and they still have proprietary hardware that they can charge whatever they want for.

Anyway, when there are layers of metaphors between you and the computing part, your’re exposing yourself to the limitations of the physical world and you’re limited by the language you’ve chosen and you’re not really going to get anywhere interesting. It comes down to the tenets of linguistics. Computers should be a revolutionary tool, not one of the linguistic status quo.

BR: How do you feel about the IDM genre?

I prefer the term “samplebasedputermusic” represented in its ascii notation (hex) : 73616D706C65626173656470757465726D75736963 . I think that’s right, but mistakes caused by a decreased computing ability may be attributed to

function shutdown_mathcoprocessor($BRAIN.SELF, $thoughts)

if (awake_time >= (“24 hours”)

kill_processes($thoughts);
return true;

BR: Whats next for Quantazelle?

if (shutdown_mathcoprocessor($BRAIN.SELF, $thoughts))

sleep();

Quantazelle’s website can be found at www.wombatcombat.com/quantazelle

Copyright © 2002 Modsquare.

craque

On October 2, 2001, A SYNESTHEIA Performance at the MindField space on Kingsbury was supposed to happen with Craque, Peccaui, and Dumb American. Liz Revision chats with Matt Davis from Craque about the events of MindField, live performance, and fractal improvisation.

Liz Revision: So Wednesday at MindField was pretty strange…

Matt Davis: Yeah, these cops bust in hoping to bust a big rave and it turns out there was this guy on stage with a pile of rocks making abstract noises and the average age was about 30…

LR: Yeah, pretty funny … but then while we were all congregated around the door wondering what was going to happen next, so a bunch of us picked up ashtrays and bottles started a little improv drum circle…

MD: …so then Toula [the Synesthia coordinator] announces that the dance performance is going to happen anyway..

LR: …and there’s these cops standing around looking totally confused while people are drumming away on beer bottles and dancing…it was great it could still be pulled off despite the cops trying to shut everything down… So anyway, let’s talk about what you were doing at MindField before the whole operation got shut down. You were sampling noises from rocks and I thought it fit in nicely with the installation–there was video of grass up on the walls and certain areas of the floor could trigger nature sounds…

MD: I had wanted to start up while that was still happening so that people playing with the floor and listening wouldn’t *quite* know what sound was what. The reason I did that was to let the audience realize that the sounds around them are music. Obviously that technique doesn’t work in every performance space but it was suited perfectly for that installation.

LR: So tell me about your process when you perform live.

MD: The way I operate is a very exploratory and change-inviting process. I don’t *want* to have control over what the sound may be; I want to be enlightened by what it becomes. I’ve got a huge arsenal of objects and toys I use as sound sources: rocks, cap guns, legit percussion, noisemakers, conch shells, etc. It doesn’t really matter to me what the objects are–only that they make a sound. It’s my job as Craque to discover what those sounds are. So I’ve got open-air mics and contact mics to help me explore the sonic properties of these objects and of their relationship to each other. Rocks are a nice way to start because it’s engaging for the audience. I never forget that I’m there to perform, to entertain. The performer also has a responsibility – to themselves, to the audience, to the music itself – to be aware of what’s going on around them. In my improvisations I always like to take in the environment to which I’m listening and being aware.

LR: But there must be some structure you’re operating on, something that fuels how you will progress?

MD: Well…ok…the structure of the improvisation is related to the way Time – an integral part of the Music – is, itself, being structured as we live through it.

LR: …meaning?

MD: Well, meaning that I embrace improvisation and instantaneous music, but at the same time embrace mathematical structure and form. I love John Cage’s ideas of “structure as time and time as structure.” I like to think that a piece of music or a work of art is reified by its structure more than its content, though i know that this is never necessarily obvious to the listener.

LR: It’s not obvious to *me*…

MD: Ok, well, say you would structure something like this: you create a measure out of 6 beats 4 beats 2 beats. Then you’d have 6 measures, 4 measures, 2 measures of that little measure, and then would be a section that you could have 6 sections, etc…

LR: Ooh, like a fractal!

MD: Yeah, Cage called it Macro-Microcosmic Structure. I really like that idea because it means that the music is constantly building on itself and recreating the way it sounds. Cage was all about Time itself defining structure – you get up, you eat breakfast, you go get the paper, you walk to get coffee – these are all structural elements of time. Music, he saw, can be the same way – time can be the defining element – and that’s where my live improvisation work comes in. So there are no structural points at which we need to be one place or another, only Time being structured as we live it.

So then this other part of the process is letting the sounds be themselves and relinquishing a certain amount of control… Cage’s whole attitude was that the composer was removed from the sound, so you really shouldn’t even notice that the composer is existing at all. But in dance music its a different kind of atmosphere, you’re there to get people to respond, you’re looking for an specific emotional response. But I think that the kind of emotional response from this kind of music, call it IDM or whatever, is where people get more excited when they see that you’re grooving on what’s going on…even if its weird.

LR: So what do you think IDM is?

MD: I don’t actually think it’s a genre. I think that IDM is the same type of post-classification as something like Minimalism… like back in the 60s people like Phillip Glass were doing really experimental stuff and all of a sudden they’re being grouped into this huge, widely diverse group called Minimalism. I think what is being called IDM is really just a catch-all label for people who are genuinely experimenting, or making music the way *they* want to, but whose work tends to have danceable beats as their structure.

LR: Well, it’s also been called “headphone music”…

MD: …right, or “couch music” or whatever, but I think that’s because it’s interesting on many levels. It’s like creating a character when you’re acting. The thing that makes a character more interesting when you’re watching an actor is how dimensionally-rich a character is. Good music is the same way, its many different levels makes it interesting, whether or not one can be perceptive of those levels is one thing, but that’s what makes it a work of art.

Craque has some new wax out called “Trolling For Olives” (Really don’t know the reference. I asked, but I think the coffee was hitting Matt a little too hard at the time).

You can get it at www.craque.net/wax.html

Copyright © 2002 Modsquare.

.

String Theory

I met up with Nate Tucker and Josh Davison of String Theory early at Danny’s on a Monday night before the usual crowd started arriving for Play.

LIZ: Why did you choose the name “String Theory”?

JOSH: It’s is a theory in physics that has to do with theoretical structure of subatomic particles. When you start going down to these smaller levels, you get down to this theory of “strings” which are loops of energy that vibrate at certain frequencies and beat patterns, and when they vibrate in different ways they take on different characteristics. When one of these vibrates in a certain way, it takes on the characteristic of an electron. When one vibrates in another way, its a quark. So they think the lowest level of sub atomic particles is, these vibrating groups of energy called strings.

LIZ: How did you get started with electronic music?

NATE: Our first electronic experiments were with the Mac II. Josh was playing loops out of Sound Edit 16 and I was playing drums and he was playing my bass. Later, Josh bought an early Akai sampler, which wasn’t very useful at first because we didn’t have anything to control it with, so we just pushed the buttons on it and used it to trigger applauding sounds and fart noises.

JOSH: We got this loft in Wicker Park, and the landlord explicitly told us that there was to be no drums, so we set up this Yamaha PSR-400 and this cheesy Akai sampler, it had no user interface, just some matrix-programming thing–

NATE: And 6 seconds of stereo and 11 seconds of mono sampling time.

JOSH: Needless to say, pretty useless to do any production with.

NATE: Then Josh got the Roland R-70 Human Rhythm Composer drum machine, which was basically our first set, we played at 60dum with Joan of Arc (which was one of their first shows also)…for that gig we had the Akai sampler wired to this little metal TV stand, the Yamaha keyboard, the drum machine, and I played bass over all of our stuff at that point. It was fairly well recieved for how primitive it was.

JOSH: That was the “Shizaus” / “Joachim and the Professor” show in 1997… a friend of mine had built us these robot sculptures made out of 1950s household appliances, including one of them that had a functioning toaster as the head. At one point during our set we came up and put bread in the head of the robot and pushed down the lever and made toast.

NATE: It was perfectly timed with this one song we had called Uns which was about 45 seconds long… it was actually pretty forward-thinking of us…

JOSH: We had the Cologne-Minimalist sound before Cologne even knew it had a Minimalist sound to be sounded.

NATE: From there it evolved into more and more gear-acquisition, technological refinement, and more gear…

LIZ: So are you suggesting that your sound and process is related to the kind of equipment you’re using at the time?

NATE: It was much more arbitrary back then because we were just learning how anything was done in terms of electronic production. I think our composition style was a lot more musical then than now because we were relying on piano-playing and bass playing… a little bit of programming here and there, but it was pretty limited as to what we could do with the R-70.We would program some simple melodies into it, but it was kind of…

JOSH: It sounded terrible. It was a horrid mish-mash of clatters and really lame drums and other cheesy stuff… thankfully we didn’t record much of it.

LIZ: So when did you start recording as “String Theory”?

JOSH: It was when we were getting ready to shop our demo in 98, we had three new songs that were actually pretty good, we recorded those ourselves, put them on a cd-r and started sending them out all over the place.

NATE: We finalized the name String Theory because we needed a name for the demo, and then that turned into the SMAK 12 inch in 1999/2000. It took them three months for [Skam] to call us back after the demo, and then a year and a half to actually put out the record.

JOSH: We were very ambitious, we sent to to Warp, Ninja Tune–

NATE: Mo’wax, Matador…

JOSH: We even sent it to Astralwerks, even though they didn’t even put out records, they were just a distribution company, but we didn’t know any better.

NATE: Also Thrill Jockey, and they were the only ones who sent us a rejection letter.

JOSH: Oh, also, we sent it to Grand Royale… [laughs all around] We didn’t know!

JOSH: So when Skam called, needless to say there was rejoicing all around. We were both big fans of Boards of Canada and Gescom and all of the stuff they had done. The whole process took about two years, and then when the record came out it sold out in within a month or something, which was pretty remarkable.

NATE: Oh, and two days ago [August 20, 2002] they just released the cd, featuring songs we wrote three and a half years ago.

JOSH: The sound that we had then is so far removed from the sound we have now. I suppose there are some similarities, but the techniques have changed completely, the styles that we even work in have changed completely.

NATE: Well, there’s still a large melodic element.

JOSH: Actually a lot of the Skam stuff, which was an abberation at the time we did it, the 4/4 kickdrum, etc, just happened to be on two of the tracks that we sent to Skam and were only the two songs we had ever done like that.

NATE: We were more into breakbeats.

JOSH: And jungle, too, but we were never any good at jungle, thankfully [they laugh]. I did these two kickin’ jungle tracks, but I think that would fall outside of the realm of String Theory. That was more my DJ Magunk solo alias.

NATE: Right now Josh is also Touchmaster Infinity.

JOSH: Touchmaster Infinity is my producing name, but I come up with aliases all the time and use it for just one thing. When I DJ, I’m DJ Egon Spengler [Liz laughs. The resemblance is uncanny]

NATE: [to Josh] Oh, what’s that other one, you geeked out about it and called me on the phone and were like “Dude, I have the best fucking name…”

JOSH: Oh, that’s for the jackin’ house project I’m doing with my friend Jessica, it’s gonna be so kickin’ you won’t even be able to stand still the second the laser hits the cd. I called Nate while I was walking from work to my car. The name of it is “Imperial Jackmaster Barlow,” which on the face of it sounds pretty cool, but when you find out where the name came from, its even cooler. It’s actually the name of a pocket knife made by the Imperial Knife company.

LIZ: [Laughs] it sounds like the resident house DJ for that bar in Star Wars.

JOSH: Well, Jackmaster is a very traditional Chicago house name. There was Farley Jackmaster Funk, Jackmaster Silk, and hundreds of other Jackmasters… I found it looking on the web for “Jackmaster.”

NATE: …and Touchmaster Infinity got his name from a poker machine at the Empty Bottle next to the ladies room.

JOSH: It’s really great, if you watch it long enough it has this logo that paints out the words “Touchmaster Infinity” on the screen, and “Infinity” is like this laser that shoots across the screen.

LIZ: So can you talk about what your live process is like?

JOSH: Well, depending on how energized we are, we’ll try and come up with some good stuff to perform live. I mean, electronic music performance is not exactly the most easiest thing to do in terms of the word “live” and “performance” actually applying. If there’s a show we’re excited about we’ll actually break out the gear and haul the gear down and do mostly pattern-based knob twiddling stuff, but generally speaking, our live preparations are essentially the same as our recording preparations, which is basically assembing sounds in the studio, recording them to a hard drive…

NATE: and figuring out interesting ways to mix them live. At more ambitius shows I’ll bring out the MPC-3000 [a sampling workstation] which has 10 outputs and just mix live. [The sampler] is kind of a standard in the hiphop industrys

JOSH: Dr Dre’s weapon of choice.

NATE: Our live setup usually consists of three Moogerfooger pedals, a lowpass filter, a ring modulator, a delay, two laptops…

JOSH: Sometimes we play live keyboards over the top of the sequenced stuff and do some knob twiddling… first of all, there’s a lot of work just to get it to sound good in a live setting so it keeps one person busy just EQing, and then making sure patterns get played in the right order and parts drop out when they’re supposed to drop out.

NATE: Actually, the drum solos is the hardest part [laughs]

JOSH: Yeah, right, that really long drum jam that we do towards the end of the set when the lights go down and all the people are tired out from twirl-dancing [laughs all around]. But for the most part, live electronic music is a big joke, its some dork sitting up there with some sort of mystery gear and software that no one can see.

LIZ: How do you feel about having a projection for the audience of what’s going on on the laptop screen?

NATE: I hope that doesn’t happen, because at its most exciting you’ve got some plugins up on the screen and you’re twisting “knobs,” everythings’ automated….

JOSH: I mean, we do some improv stuff, but its so hard to do a dynamic live performance of any structured musical thing, when its only two people and you’re dealing with prerecored tracks…

NATE: The one elements that is nice about Logic, which Josh uses a lot, is that you can create an environment where you can pick a scale to work with and you can move that scale around and improv like that.

JOSH: You can set up a loop on the screen and draw notes in, and it loops indefinitely and you can create the song as you go. The results aren’t as interesting as the process going on with the performer… at its best it can sound good, but at its worst it can sound wanky, though I suppose that’s true for any sort of improvisation

NATE: I think we’re still trying to find the sort of audience that’s into us — because if we play here [Danny's] its people who are interested in the gear and the process, and then the rest of the people are there to talk to their friends. But if you’re playing at a place like the Hothouse, where people are encouraged to focus on the stage, where people are expecting to see a band, its a little harder to feel ok about just going up there with a laptop…

JOSH: On one hand [with a laptop performance] you don’t have to focus on whatever the performer’s doing on stage and you can focus more on the music. It’s really great when you’re seeing someone like Ryoji Ikeda [who performs with Dumb Type] who does a lot of stuff with his music that’s just amazingly intricate and insane to the ears.

But then there’s a lot of people who perform with their laptops who are not really doing much sonically, and they’re not really doing much physically, and there just isn’t much to pay attention to at all

NATE: I think we fall into that category now and then.

JOSH: Yeah, I think sometimes we bore the shit out of an audience, and I wouldn’t go as far to say that we’re a good live band. I kind of feel guilty sometimes when we play shows and people are paying to see us and we’re just sitting there with our computers and our knobs and we don’t do anything.

NATE: Well, one thing we do when we’re trying to appease the crowd a little more (which is rediculous to try and do in Chicago) is to make “dancier” music. People don’t dance, but they nod more, I guess!

JOSH: People will dance in Chicago, it just takes a certain atmosphere and a certain…

NATE: intensity to the music

JOSH: …that I don’t think we have. But I think that eventually what you’re going to see is that the bands who are going to be more successful with computer-based music will incorporate other instruments into it…Like Telefon Tel Aviv is a good example of this, because they use laptops when they perform, and also have piano, two guitars, there’s a lot going on on stage, and I think people respond really well to that. They make really good music, and its interesting to watch.

With any sort of live instrument, if someone can see the action and the result of that action, its much more effective in getting that person in the audience involved with the performance, moreso than watching some pasty, skinny white guy sitting there with his mouse going “click” “click” “click.” You don’t know what motion of my wrist made that noise happen, or, if really that noise came from a motion of my wrist made two weeks ago in my basement.

NATE: We did bring out an oscilloscope when we played live here a few weeks ago…

JOSH: Though we didn’t really excite anyone but the five geekiest who were sitting up in the front … but that was an attempt to give a visual correlation to the music, because you could “see” the music that’s coming out of the speakers…

NATE: And that’s one area where Pulseprogramming is really successful, because they have a member of the band who just does video, and they wont perform without him because they consider it to be part of the music, and it gives the audience something to focus on.

LIZ: Have you thought about using video?

NATE: We had one show at the empty bottle where we brought in Kelly Hicks who did some nice Super 8 stuff…

JOSH: We were very much into analog at that point, so we thought we should use 8mm film for that performance, and she did some really nice black and white films, but it didn’t turn out that well because we hung the screen in front of the exit sign, and it was lighting up the screen so much that it washed out the film…

LIZ: What was the obsession with analog?

JOSH: Analog circuitry will give you much thicker sound… a lot more solid bottom end to it. .

NATE: And analog is an infinite amount of information, where digital is finite… if you listen to a digital synthesiser, say the Roland JP-8000, if you have a patch on its that’s a sawtooth wave and then you have a Moog next to it, they sound similar, but there’s something more there with the Moog… [you can notice it more] when you sweep a filter…

JOSH: Also, analog circuitry can run at a higher voltage that digital circuitry, so you get much more power behind the sound, and a Moog synthesizer will always have more kick to it.. but now we pretty much only use digital circuitry and try to make up for it with the EQ… but really I like digital now because you can take a sound and reprocess it over and over, and you can always revert back to the original sound on your hard drive, the data isn’t lost… there’s more flexibility using digital software… also, its a lot less expensive. But the analog-digital debate will never be solved, they both rule.

LIZ: How would you know when you’re finally “successful?”

JOSH: I don’t think we’ll ever get to that point where we could say “yes, we’re satisfied, this is where we want to be.”

NATE: And I think that’s pretty analogous to our song writing process too, because a song in its finished state is never really finished…

JOSH: But there’s a certain point where you have to draw a line at some point and say “this is good enough, I’m ready to put my name on it,” because or else we keep pushing it to the point where it all falls apart in a terrible mess, or we get so sick of listening to it that we have to stop.

NATE: It’s a shame because we’ve lost so many songs doing that… I think now we’ve gotten really good about recording almost everything we do though.

JOSH: Its nice to have that kind of “safety net” so if you fuck something up you can always go back to another version… which also is why I really like the computer now more than hardware and samplers, because I’ve worked really hard on things and then lost an entire disk of samples… but that’s actually a really good filter for your material, to trash everything, because then you’re faced with asking yourself “Is that really worth re-creating?” If yes, then, chances are when you re-create it you’ll do a better version of it the second time, because you’ll have learned from your mistakes.

LIZ: Any thoughts on filesharing?

JOSH: I think its a really good distribution medium for exposing your work to more people. We have a lot of mp3s on our website and encourage people to download it, because any exposure that we can get is a good thing.

But I think filesharing of mp3s needs to be approached in a responsible manner by those sharing the mp3s. If you listen to something repeatedly you need to ask yourself the question of “Would I buy this record if I didn’t have the mp3? Is it worth supporting the artist?”

Also, artists like Joan of Arc put out an album that is, start to finish, a work of art. If you download the mp3 version its not the same presentation as when you buy the real album. I would hope that someone who really likes Joan of Arc would go out and buy the album because there’s so much more to it.

NATE: I really prefer having the artwork in front of me and be able to read liner notes. There’s a presentation aspect to it, that its a piece of art that you’re holding in your hands. Especially with vinyl: the sound of vinyl, a good, thick record…

JOSH: 180 grams of virgin vinyl

LIZ: What are you both listening to now?

JOSH: I’ve been listening to early house stuff., like Adonis. By today’s standards it has a silly sound, but in terms of historical perspective its very important. Jeff Mills, The Dabrye stuff is really nice… there’s this band called the Ural 13 Diktators, they put out this cd called Techno is Dead and its really hilarious. Ellen Allien did a good mix cd that just came out, and Justus Koehncke did a really good album on Kompakt that’s almost disco. Actually, pretty much anything suggested by Jim at Weekend Records rules!

NATE: I’m really inspired by Brian Eno’s ambient work, pretty much his stuff in the 70s. For the longest time he was immortal, he could do nothing wrong… up through Another Green World, then things started going awry. I also really like this band called Blind Idiot God, also Tarbabies have a record on SST. The last record by Ryoji Ikeda with Carsten Nicolai is a really great record, its a white album with white writing, and you can’t read it very well unless you hold it up to candle at an angle or something, but its a really amazing record, really abrasive at first, but after a while you begin to see the textures and what they were going for. Also, Kevin Drumm’s Sheer Hellish Miasma: its pretty brutal, but depending on the volume you listen to it you can gain an understanding of what he’s going for, you can compare it to Merzbow or other noisy stuff, but he really has his own sound.

The new cds coming out, Smak CD 1 and CD 2 are a re-release of what originally came out on vinyl. It comes with a fancy carrying case too. You can get them in Chicago at Weekend Records (1919 W. Division) or Hardboiled Records (Roscoe at Damen). .

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