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  1. Vapourspace

    November 7, 2001 by admin

    “Sonic Residue From Vapourspace” is not your usual remix album. In re-interpreting music from various Magna Carta artists, Mark Gage (aka Vapourspace) refrained from using any sounds not found on the original recordings. Thanks to Gage’s studio wizardry, the tracks ended up sounding radically different without relying on any new beats or samples. In an email interview, Gage told us about the making of the album.

    How did the “Sonic Residue” project come about?

    Mark Gage: Pete morticelli who runs the label phoned me up, and we talked about if i thought that somehow we could do some sort of a project. I wasn’t familiar with the label in the sense of knowing or owning their releases, but i was quite aware of the label, the “tribute” cd’s that they’ve made and especially the artist roster. While they’re definitely not techno or even electronic, i didn’t think i was above working with the source material. My friend CHARLES K SNIDER/DJ FAKE’ who ran the WIRE offshoot label WMO (releasing obscure spin-offs from the band WIRE and it’s members) and the electronic label THOUSAND, is quite a prog head as well, so i’ve been reliving my past through his mp3 discs of live yes concerts and such…

    I think the idea of actually spending the time it would take make an album of original works seemed kinda boring when i thought i could make an album of original works with some other people’s source material, kinda claiming it for myself, while still allowing their virtuosity to ring through. I didn’t want to make a disco remix record, a piano beat laden 909 mush pit, or a coldcut click glitch loop edit extravaganza, i wanted to make a VAPOURSPACE record with TONY LEVIN, TERRY BOZZIO, STEVE MORSE, STEVE HOWE, TIM ALEXANDER, STEVE STEVENS, DREAM THEATRE members…Not to mention my complete boredom with what’s going on with the music business and the dj mixed cd! I wanted to do the opposite! I’m not sure whatever happened to music, but i rather listen to performance any day instead of a dj pro tooling a mixed cd. It’s obvious a percentage of these cd’s are actually recorded live with turntable mixing, so it’s kinda sad people are being immortalized for compiling a cd (trust me, i do understand a lot of these people are good live dj’s too, but how far will this go?…Until the record industry kills it, which already happened)…

    Did you initially have a clear idea of how you would approach it (creatively and technically), and if not was it difficult getting started?

    Mark Gage: Getting started is the easy part when i do a remix. I don’t take the typical approach of just sampling a bit and slamming out a mix, i learn the entire piece through uploading and disseminating it in the computer, laid out linear style. For this job only 3 pieces arrived in pro tools sessions ready for me to deal with, so i had to upload 7 of the compositions from adat’s or da88′s (some songs were 32 multi-tracks), and then bar and meter graph all 10 pieces, so the computer sequencer stayed in time with all of the music. Then i edit in small bits to toss to the sampler, or to RECYCLE to hack into even smaller bits to use in programs like REASON…So getting started with this job wasn’t an issue, i knew i couldn’t really get creative with it for a couple months, so i had to start with the technical end first. Very sterile, very boring…A lot of dvd watching while i work on the computer during those periods, and fortunately i have access to 2 macs in the studio, so i can often have one processing while i work on other things.

    Can you describe how the software you used (I believe Reason/Recycle?) Played a big role in the project?

    Mark Gage: I only used RECYCLE and REASON for 5 of the 10 pieces of music, mainly because i got very tired of the process through the mixing desk using OPCODE”S STUDIO VISION and rack gear and a mixing desk. A friend got REASON and the cogs started spinning cause i really needed a diversion with the job…Leaving the audio ‘in computer’ i hacked the songs in 1, 2 or 4 measure phrases by individual instrument, based on their phrasing and ACTUAL bar lines (which kept it easy to upload in REASON). If there were rests within those measures, i kept that info intact, and chopped the phrases up in RECYCLE first and created REX files. For example, with a lot of the masters, the engineers had mixed 2 track composite drum mixes from all the mic sources somewhere on the multi-tracked adats, so i would use those composite drum mixes to break apart, laying in markers in RECYCLE, making breaks out of TERRY BOZZIO’s drum lines. Since electronic music is about breaks, i would work with various phrases of the drum performance (not every measure, i would definitely repeat some of the original measures so i didn’t have to edit absolutely everything!) To recreate the song in REASON, uploading REX’s into REX players, which would give me the power of a synth/sampler for each phrase i uploaded, laid out in sequence form with a mixing board, effects and everything in ONE software package! I actually recreated my home studio within the computer for each piece, which helped with the boredom of the other way of working, and was quite exciting! So, i would edit small phrases this way with the guitars, and basses and keyboards, create REX’s and finish the pieces of music in their entirety on the mac. The challenge now for you is to figure out which 5 i used REASON on…

    As you were working on the project, did you run into any unexpected limitations with the tools you were using?

    Mark Gage: Never

    Did you have a choice at all in terms of which songs would be included/remixed?

    Mark Gage: Yes. MAGNA sent me current releases that were from their original artists/project roster ONLY, as per my request, and i picked what songs i wanted to work on, primarily based what i heard in them. I thought trying to remix anything from the tribute series of stuff was a mute point, since they were already cover songs (ie ANNIE HASLAM from RENAISSANCE doing a GENESIS cover on the GENESIS tribute cd)…While the thought of getting ANNIE HASLAM’s bare vocal track was cool, i thought it would stretch my imagination and creativity more to work with original pieces of music from current releases on the label, and everyone involved was well enough known, so sifting through those masters was also quite fun! Also i hoped this would give MAGNA a double edged sword and help them promote their original album releases.

    Were any songs particularly difficult to remix? Did any turn out to be easier than you expected?

    Mark Gage: Probably the vocal numbers were the most demanding, because coming from the techno perspective, the original thought is to just turn them off…Then you concede and throw in bits and pieces, mabye do a dub mix, so their tripped out. At that point i then decide to use ALL of them, whether it’s gonna bum someone out or not. A very non-techno approach, but if you’ve heard my meat puppets or chris + cosey remixes, i’m not ashamed of vocals. If some of the trance stuff i hear and UNDERWORLD can get away with vocals, i have no qualms with trying to present STEVE WALSH’s or DC COOPERS’s vocals in a tasteful manner.

    What else is new? What projects are working on right now? Any new releases coming up soon?

    Mark Gage: Sometime around march 2002 or so, i have an full length cd and 12″ ep coming out for my MIMI+BOYD project with detroit DJ PUNISHER, MICHELLE HERRMANN, co-owner of SEISMIC records. Both will be released on LA based PHTHALO label, owned and operated by my good friend and talent, DIMITRI FERGADIS. The cd ANGULAR ISLAND has 9 tracks (3 were released over 2 years ago on german label CONTACT.ED operated by superstition). The 12″ has 4 remixes of the track “HOVER+POUNCE” by SCUD, HELLFISH, VENETIAN SNARES, and VAPOURSPACE. MIMI+BOYD is the direct opposite of what i did for MAGNA CARTA, it’s a straight forward four on the floor kick techno thang…Very bangin and metallic.

    Since “THEMES FROM VAPOURSPACE” and “THE MAGNETIC GRAVITY ARC SUITE” are currently out of print …. Is there any chance of re-issues in the near future?

    Mark Gage: Probably will happen at some point…I’ve got some great ideas for a cool little box set from that period, with some live stuff too.

    How has the Vapourspace website been working out for you?

    Mark Gage: Probably will work much better when my next update happens over the next several weeks! I’m gonna simplify it and give people more info and images, scans of flyers from performances, mp3 downloads of dj and live shows…Love to use splashes of BEATNIK on it (i did a BEATNIK track for MTV’s website a couple of years ago using a telephone conversation i recorded with COLIN NEWMAN’s son ben (he must have been 8 then) called AS BIG AS GIANTS, drum and bass in style). We have the artwork and flash stuff ready for the update, i just gotta get all the info inputted. I do all the work myself, so unfortunately, it has to go at my pace!

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  2. Rasputina

    by admin

    “The Lost & Found, ” the EP that marks the long-awaited return of Rasputina, is one of the more unusual collections of covers out there. Who would have thought that Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll” would sound great played on cellos? The disc also features songs originally by Marilyn Manson, Pink Floyd, Lou Reed, and a rendition of “This Little Piggy.” Rasputina don’t fall into the trap of thinking that simply putting a song into a new, unexpected context makes it good; they truly re-interpret the songs to make them their own.

    Rasputina are currently selling “The Lost & Found” exclusively over their website. Having parted ways with Sony, they are in talks with Instinct about releasing their new album in late Feb. or March (the label with probably re-issue “The Lost & Found” after that’s out.) Rasputina’s line-up has changed since their last album, currently consisting of cellists Melora Creager, Kris Cowperthwaite, NaNa Bornant and drummer Jonathon TeBeest. We sat down with Melora in early December to talk about the covers ep, label situation, and whatever else came up.

    What made you decide to do a covers ep?

    Melora : “I just wanted to get back into doing music. Being pregnant and having a baby, I didn’t do much music and I wanted something to ease my way back into it. And then the recordings were good, so I released it.”

    How did you pick the songs to do?

    Melora : “I had a few more than that. I wanted to do a T-Rex song because I like T-Rex a lot, but all the lyrics are really silly. They’re too silly for me, so that was too bad. I wanted to do an Elton John song, ‘Someone Saved My Life Tonight.’

    But those just seemed to be the right ones, the other ones didn’t get done, or there was a reason not to use them.”

    When you do a cover and are singing someone else’s lyrics, do you try to get into them and re-interpret?

    Melora : “A lot of the covers I’d chosen to do in the past were easy to do, because they were from a woman’s point of view and had the kind of emotions I would be into exploring , so there wasn’t anything to change. With the Marilyn Manson one it made sense to me just to make it all from the girl’s point of view. ‘Wish You We Here,’ I can’t imagine what’s going on in there. I don’t really know, that’s just like pure emotion. There’s definitely a story, but I don’t know what it is!”

    What happened with Sony?

    Melora : “I just had a 2 record real with them, and the 2 records were done and we didn’t do anywhere near the numbers they need for that kind of big company. It’s funny to be such a weird group, but my only experience on a professional level has been with a major label. I don’t know how they possibly could have marketed us to get the kind of numbers they need, I don’t hold any grudge or anything like that . I wouldn’t have known how to do it. So we’re going to sign to Instinct any day now I think, and it’s a completely different attitude about working. The numbers are way smaller, but it feels a lot more like I’m doing it, rather than businessmen I don’t know. It’s always been in the past ‘we have to bring in a producer, and it’s going to cost a lot of money.’ I don’t have to work like that anymore.”

    How has it been going selling the ep over the internet?

    Melora : “I’m glad we did it, just because I didn’t really know if the recordings were good enough, or if it was a lame thing to do. But our fans are so passionate and affectionate and they love it so much. It’s not huge numbers of people, but it’s people that feel strongly. I don’t know what those kind of numbers mean, but I think we sold 1000 in 2 months with no push at all.”

    How has the website been working out for you? What are your feelings about the Internet in general?

    Melora : “It’s really, really important to us as a way to communicate with people fairly directly. A lot of our fans communicate that way . We’re not communicating with anyone through ROLLING STONE, it’s all on the Internet. I have mixed feelings about how it’s easy to get music. As a songwriter, I have a lot of mixed feelings about that. But it seems like it will all be positive in the end, as it allows people to be able to hear stuff and find stuff. When I was a kid growing up in Kansas before the Internet, you couldn’t find anything different. You couldn’t buy it or steal it or anything, you couldn’t get it.”

    Can you describe the upcoming album?

    Melora : “I recorded it by myself, Kris played on it too. With changes in equipment, you can do by yourself what you couldn’t do years ago. You don’t need the expensive studios. I did the drum programming myself out of samples and it sounds great, really symphonic. With drummers, I could never get them to do exactly what I wanted them to do. But if I’m sampling, I can get it to do just what I want. I was thinking kind of rustic, more blues-based.

    What else have you been up to lately?

    Melora : “We played with the Goo Goo Dolls, that was really fun. It was funny. I hadn’t done any big session work in a while, and for them to call, it was like ‘WHAT? I didn’t know you were into what we’re doing, Goo Goo Dolls!’ So they flew us out to LA, and Kris had never been there before. That was really fun.”

    “We played at an alternative cello festival that takes place every year, this was at the University of Connecticut. You’d think we’d rule an alternative cello festival, but this was more jazz oriented so they never had us before. But it was a great experience, I gave a few workshops. Then we played a show, it was great to play in an academic setting . The sound in a recital hall is fantastic compared to the clubs, we’re used to crappy sound everywhere. Plus all our gothic teenage fans traveled far to go to this really academic kind of setting. It was really fun.”

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  3. Pet Shop Boys

    by admin

    NOTE : This article was written when preparations were underway for the WOTAPALAVA tour in 2001. With tickets already on sale, the tour was canceled, reportedly because a suitable replacement for Sinead O’Connor could not be found. We’d had the opportunity to ask Neil Tennant a few questions, and decided to keep this article online despite the tour not happening.

    Created by The Pet Shop Boys and their management, WOTAPALAVA represents the biggest openly gay pop music festival to tour the US. It’s also notable because it marks the return of one of the finest synth-pop duos -Â Soft Cell.

    “It’s really exciting,” says Neil Tennant of The Pet Shop Boys. “When Chris and I met in 1981, one of the things we used to talk about a lot was Soft Cell. We particularly like their record ‘Bed Sitter’ and I think they were really the first of the great synth duos, and maybe we were the last of them [laughs]. They were a really big influence on us when we started, and I think their music is brilliant, the way Marc Almond gave his incredible voice and personality against the beautiful electronic musicscapes of David Ball. I know they’ve been making a new album, so I’m very excited to see them.”

    Besides The Pet Shop boys and Soft Cell, the main stage at WOTAPALAVA will also feature The Magnetic Fields and Rufus Wainwright. Sinead O’Conner had been slated to perform but backed out shortly before the full schedule/lineup was officially announced. A replacement has yet to be named. There will also be a dance stage with such DJs as Danny Tenaglia, Junior Vasquez and Paul Oakenfold, and some dates will feature such special guests as Village People and Gloria Gaynor.

    “I think it would be great if it became an annual event, that is our aim at the moment,” explains Tennant. “It’s quite interesting because our initial idea with this was to put together out gay performers; people who we feel in the past have had a big gay audience, or made a gay statement. Like Village People. It’s surprisingly difficult to put together a bill like that. We have some names on hand for next year, but it’s quite interesting that in North America, how few out gay performers there are. For instance, [in Britain] you could think of George Michael or Boy George, or Erasure or many other people. In America, there doesn’t seem to be too many at the moment. We hope this will help to bring about a climate where this sort of thing is normal. The reason we’ve called this festival WOTAPALAVA is ultimately that is our attitude towards sexuality – ‘what a fuss about nothing.’ When we’ve achieved the goal of equal rights for everyone, sexuality is only one facet of our lives. It shouldn’t rule it, it shouldn’t define our culture, it shouldn’t restrict us. This is one of the things that WOTAPALAVA wants to put forward. And we want to put it forward through the music business first.”

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  4. Juno Reactor

    by admin

    An interview with Ben Watkins of Juno Reactor

    How did the recent US tour go?

    Ben : I always enjoy trying to mess around with this idea of playing electronic music live. Where on the Moby tour we only did half an hour or 35 minutes, on this tour in some cases we did an hour and a half. You learn a lot more about pacing. When you just do a 35 minute set opening for someone, it seems like it’s gone so quickly. It seems like you blink and you’ve missed it. When you’re doing an hour and ten or an hour and a half, you’ve settled into it a bit more. I just love working with the African guys, and experiencing the improvisation that we do.”

    How long have you been working this them?

    Ben : “Well I met them I suppose 95ish, or 96. And then I started working with Mabi (Thobejane) for “Bible Of Dreams’ and through him I started producing some tracks for them. And literally 10 days before the Moby tour started we were offered it, and I thought it would be a great idea if they came along and played just to give the whole sort of electronic thing a bit more of a kick, really. More of a live show environment. Sometimes electronic music gets to sterile in the studio environment, and to take just that studio out live is again sterile and doesn’t really connect with the audience.”

    How do you try to avoid that?

    Ben : “It is a funny form of improvisation. Because basically what I’m doing, apart from playing guitar, is remixing our stuff live, with the added involvement of the guys playing percussion. If they do something, it makes me do something , and if I do something, that should make them do something. You sort of do things, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Generally, it’s not really thought about. You try not to think while you’re doing it, you just let the impulse take you. And I think maybe for some techno purists, it might not be the right thing. But it feels right for the moment, and that’s what I like about it. I think what we do live, we do it for the moment. You can’t package it, you can’t re-sell it. You can’t put it on the internet. You’ve got to experience it there, then, at the moment. Nowadays, everything is so cosmopolitan. I can find sort of Aztec Indian earrings down in the corner shop. I can find anything I want almost by accident on the Internet. But the thing you can’t access is like the vibe and emotion of a real performance, and how that can psychologically affect. you.” Are there any songs that surprised you in terms of the direction they’ve taken in live performance?

    Ben : “Yeah, there’s certain tracks, like ‘Insect.’ It’s on the album and I don’t think it’s a particularly good track, it’s not my favorite. But live, because it’s so open and empty, you can do a lot with it. That surprised me.”

    What type of set-up do you use?

    Ben : “I use a G3 computer with a PCI expansion bus, and I’m running Cubase, and I’m running 8 outputs of audio, and I’m running a program called Reaktor. I’m also running MIDI stuff. So essentially, depending on if everything’s running and working, I’m allowed a great freedom to cut things up, put new things in and generally be a sonic nuisance.” Have you run into any problems in using a computer on stage?

    Ben: “Not with Powerbooks, because I think before I got the G3 Š when I first started doing live stuff, I had an MC500, years ago, in like 84 or 85. I’ve always trusted hardware that’s been made for live. And then I went from there to early Powerbooks, like the 165 and I was running lots of MIDI then. I couldn’t put audio on it. And then when I wanted to run more audio, I started using DA88′s and I got ahold of a G3 literally just before this tour. It allowed me a much greater freedom to put sounds where I felt they should go. Just a much greater freedom. I’m going to carry on with this Powerbook. I’d love to get one of those new G4 Powerbooks!”

    How is Reaktor working out for you?

    Ben : “I’ve seen a lot of software synthesis now, but Reaktor to me, comparing the others to Reaktor is like comparing a bicycle to a Ferrari. Reaktor is the only program I’ve come across that really has got it’s shit together in a massive way. A lot of people find it very hard to get into it, because it’s relatively complex. But to me, it’s almost like a reinvention of the wheel. There’s a revolution waiting to happen with that particular program. It’s absolutely stunning, I don’t think I can praise it any higher. It’s just so amazing. You can throw everything else away, and just use Reaktor, and you’ve got yourself enough sounds until the end of the world. Which isn’t too far away [laughs].”

    How big of a roll did it play on “Shango”?

    Ben :“I used it just on the very end of the album, I got hold of it on the last two tracks and I didn’t really have any knowledge of the capabilities of it at that time. So the extent that I used it was minimal. But I’ve written god knows how many tracks with it now.”

    How has it affected your more recent music?

    Ben: “I’ve just gone completely back to doing heavy electronic stuff. I think the next album will be a really fuck-off electro album, if it keeps going the way it’s been going.”

    Do you see any danger in tools like Reaktor giving you too many options?

    Ben : “Well sometimes, yeah. But I tend to trust my psyche and on this album I think I might have overdone things because it wasn’t so easy to see the best way forward. There wasn’t an easy way forward, I didn’t really want to do a dance album, and it’s not a world album. I was working with people that come from a world background, and it’s really about the collision that we all have together. I just always try to trust my psyche, what feels good, what do I like. I wrote a number of other tracks that didn’t appear on the album, and the reason they didn’t appear on the album was because I didn’t like them.”

    Are about to write at all while on the road?

    Ben: “I haven’t been able to yet. The thing I like about being on the road is meeting people that are into Juno and going to a lot of parties and meeting different musicians and stuff. Going to funny places like Denver or Pittsburgh, it’s gives you a different way of thinking. Sometimes it’s good to have a rest from writing music. You come back, and you find you’re full of it.”

    How did you come to work with Steve Stevens?

    Ben : “I bumped into him through Tracy Lords, when I was producing some of her stuff. And she had turned Steve onto Juno Reactor and he rung me up and I said ‘look, we’re in LA, do you want to come down and play.’ And I thought he wouldn’t bother, but he did, he turned up with his guitar. We had a good chat then and decided to get together and do a track sometime. He came to London, and we sat down and did that together. I think he’s a fantastic guitarist.”

    What else has he been up to lately?

    Ben : “He put his own flamenco album out recently. And I haven’t heard it, which is bad, really, because I should have gone out and bought it. But I haven’t yet. He’s been playing a lot in Japan, he’s sort of a mega superstar in Japan. I’m really hoping we can do a real heavy metal techno track!”

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  5. Hana

    by admin

    A collaboration between former Sky Cries Mary vocalist Anisa Romero and ‘sound scuplter’ Jeff Greinke, Hana originally formed in 1997 to create music for a performance art piece. Now they are back with a new CD, “Omen,” that shows definite progression for them as band. The haunting vocals and intricate sound textures can still be found in Hana’s music, but the new material is much more song-oriented. It’s more easily accessible, while still keeping an experimental. Chaos Control asked Greinke about the project via email; here’s what he had to say.

    Chaos Control: How did you come to work with Anisa Romero? Had you been familiar with Sky Cries Mary previously?

    Jeff Greinke:Anisa had been invited to sing for a multimedia performance and was looking to create a bigger sound than what she could do alone with her voice. Her husband Roderick (of Sky Cries Mary) suggested she recruit me to enhance her vocalizations and create ethereal backdrops for her to work within.

    I had been familiar with SCM since the beginning.

    Chaos Control: Can you describe the performance piece you initially worked on with her?

    Jeff Greinke: It was the most bizarre piece I had ever been part of. It took place in an indoor horse arena involving several Andalusian horses, Spanish dancers, elaborate costuming and sets, flamenco music, complex lighting, and my prerecorded soundtrack with Anisa singing live. This was presented in a rather rural community, the audience comprised primarily of horse lovers. Seeing those incredibly beautiful horses moving in syncopation to our music was truly amazing.

    Chaos Control: How would you compare the resulting debut album to the music you’d initially done for that performance?

    Jeff Greinke: We composed two of the works (“Lizard Opera” and “Horse Dance”) for that performance, so the album really is an extension of the music we composed for that show.

    Chaos Control: Did you see it as a continuing collaboration from the start, or was it reactions to the first album that prompted you to do a follow-up?

    Jeff Greinke: Anisa and I hit it off immediately. We knew we would continue as soon as we began working together. I think we were both primed to explore new avenues. For Anisa, it was an opportunity to really experiment with her voice and allow it to be a much more prominent feature of the music than it was for SCM. In fact our first composition, the center – piece for the multimedia piece I spoke of, revolved entirely around her vocalizations – layered, transposed, and manipulated. For me, it was very exciting just to be able to work with such a lovely voice, and then, with our second album “Omen,” to realize my growing interest in making a more song-oriented, almost “pop” style of music.

    Chaos Control: Were there any particular ways your approach differed in making “Omen,” to either the first Hana album or your other projects?

    Jeff Greinke: Our first record was made entirely from a studio perspective, meticulously layering tracks onto my 8-track, and letting the pieces develop and evolve in that way. This was a familiar approach for me having applied this method for most of my solo work.

    After that album came out we began doing gigs. Having composed the first record as we did, most of those pieces presented a considerable challenge to play live. Additionally, some of those works simply aren’t meant to be performed. None the less, our early shows proved successful, so we began creating pieces that were more suitable for a live setting, primarily clubs. This lent itself wonderfully toward my interest in composing song-oriented, groove based music. So ‘Omen’ was made from the opposite direction, by creating works that could be performed live to begin with, and then taking them into the studio to make the record.

    Chaos Control: Are there any plans for future live performances of the Hana material?

    Jeff Greinke: We’ve been performing quite frequently locally and plan to continue, however much less for the next year. Anisa is pursuing a graduate degree in fine art at NYU beginning this fall, so it’s going to be more difficult to collaborate for a while. However, it’s likely we’ll be doing Hana gigs in New York.

    Chaos Control: To what extent has the evolution of musical technology over the years affected your approach to music?

    Jeff Greinke: It’s a lot easier now to make “good-sounding” records. I’ve always operated on a small-budget, so I was fairly late in working with digital recording. I now have the low-budget version of Pro-Tools. The editing power and clarity is amazing relative to what I had been working with. Although my approach to composing music is very similar in terms of layering, building pieces in a vertical way, I had much less control prior to going digital. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, in fact it eliminated the inherent danger with digital recording, i.e. the potential to work all the life out of a piece. I tend to work well with limitations. My studio is still very modest, so I’m not overwhelmed with possibilities. It feels to me like a good balance.

    Chaos Control: What type of studio set-up do you currently use?

    Jeff Greinke: In addition to Pro-tools LE, I have an Ensoniq ASR 10 sampler which I’ve been using for about 10 years, a Nord Lead 2 synthesizer, and a few months ago I purchased a Kurzweil 2600 keyboard. I’ve also got a Pro-1 analog synth, my first keyboard synth module I picked up in the early 80′s. It was the only synth I used for many years. I still use it occasionally. It’s all over my last solo record ‘Ride.’ Otherwise, I’ve got a couple of multi-effects processors, some long-delay pedals, and use trombone, guitar and a few noise making instruments.

    Chaos Control: Do you tend to start off by finding interesting sounds and then seeing where experimenting with them leads, or do you usually have an idea of how a song/texture should sound and then seek out appropriate sounds to use?

    Jeff Greinke: The former of the two approaches is the way I generally compose. It’s either by creating an interesting bed of sounds to work off of, or perhaps a groove that feels and sounds good. Or it might be a little melodic figure repeating.

    In recent years I’ve been asked to contribute more to other artist’s work, pieces that have already been sketched out. I’ve enjoyed this opportunity. It relieves me of the burden of having to generate something from scratch, which is the case as a solo artist or primary writer for my two groups. It’s difficult to keep finding new and fresh ways to begin. Collaborating with others in this way has afforded me space and time away from my solo process.

    Chaos Control: What’s in the immediate future for you?

    Jeff Greinke: I’m getting close to finishing my next solo album. It’s been a couple of years since I released ‘Ride.’ I’m continuing to write for Hana, and I’d like to rejuvenate my LAND project, which has been quiet since the release of our last album, ‘Road Movies,’ earlier this year.

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  6. Foetus

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    Over the years, J.G. Thirlwell has made quite a name for himself as a remixer. Now his own Foetus project has been given the re-mix treatment. “Blow” is a collection of re-interpretations of material from the recent “Flow” cd, featuring such remixers as Amon Tobin, DJ Food and PanSonic. In an email interview, Thirlwell told us a bit about the disc.

    Of the remixes on ‘Blow,’ did any particular ones surprise you, in terms of the direction the remixer took the track?

    J.G. Thirlwell : I chose the track for the remixer,sometimes having a vibe of where I’d like them to take it, and sometimes because it seemed like such a left field choice (of song vs. remixer) and i was pleasantly surprised each time; for example I’d never expected the Berlin style dub approach Franz Treichler did for “The Need Machine) (after he had started it,i re-recorded the lead vocal for it) each time i was quite blown away, it was liking opening a present.

    How did the line-up of remixers come together? Did you give them a choice of tracks? Or did you have particular people in mind for particular tracks, based on their past work?

    J.G. Thirlwell : “Blow” started life as “Blow Aka Overflow”, with additional studio material that i was going to finish off and include plus remixes by other people. I have remixed other people extensively but hadnt had others tackle my work; as this idea took root it superseded the original plan of the album, then slowly my “wish-list ” came into being. Some of the people i knew, others i had to track down and introduce myself to.

    You’ve done quite a bit of remix work yourself – are there certain things you look for in a song in deciding to take on one?

    J.G. Thirlwell : No there isn’t something I look for as a criteria as to whether I’ll take on a song or not. As i start working on it, what i’ll do with it emerges. Sometimes i know in advance, other times not. Sometimes the spirit veers further away from the original than others, and sometimes they are “sounding boards” for ideas i havent had a chance to integrate into my songwriting. I dont have to be a fan of the band i remix, and I dont have to “like” the song to remix it, I see what i can do with it, see what bits may be useful to me and i end up digging what i put the song thru.

    What effect has the evolution of musical/studio technology had on the way you create music?

    J.G. Thirlwell : It’s alaways been crucial to the way that i work,i have never drawn a line between production and composition and now engineering, or melody and sound/timbre. The process and the compostion are inextricably linked, especially for an avowed “bad” musician like myself! I have gone thru many evolutions in the way that i work and a lot of different technologies have been invented and then e]ventually become affordable since i started. When i started making records, sampling technology didnt exist but what i was doing….working with tape loops, flying in sounds, varispeed, manipulating sounds…is not dissimilar to what sampling technology can offer. Sampling just affords an orderly way to create it. But i am glad i reached my conclusions the arcane route because I discovered a lot a long the way.

    What made you decide to release the Manorexia “Volvox Turbo” CD only online?

    J.G. Thirlwell : A new business model where people who really want to get it. I want to bypass labels and distributers. Also it was created from a different place, under less scrutiny, which i needed to return to. It’s back to old school, converting people one by one.

    Hows has the foetus.org site been working out for you? What do you see as being positive (and/or negative?) when it comes to the internet’s use by musicians/listeners?

    J.G. Thirlwell : It’s positive in keeping people abreast of what you are doing, up to the minute, in an exhaustive manner, if they are interested. (and it seems some are!) The negative is the democratization….there is too much CRAP and FILLER out there which devalues art and makes it CONTENT.

    As someone who’s explored various forms of creative expression and also has an online presence, do you have any desire to attempt some kind of internet-only art form (one that does not have a direct parallel offline)?

    J.G. Thirlwell : I dont really think about the internet that much.

    What’s in the immediate future for you?

    J.G. Thirlwell : I am currently completing the Steroid Maximus album “Ectopia” which i hope to unleash in the spring. Early next year i will be working on the second Manorexia album and hopefully some euro dates in the spring,and then working on new Foetus material. On the short term,i have a date this evening.

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