Is it true that you first meet your Ealing sound associate Max Duley at a Napalm Death gig?
Yes. That was the kind of music that brought us all together - really hard chaotic death metal, and punk. I suppose the first electronic element of that was Godflesh, they were the first electronic influences we had, and then we got into the Aphex Twin. I think that's a very British way of getting into electronic music, as opposed to the Detroit thing where it's sort of hip hop, Electro, funk and stuff. We were on the weirder side of things.
So you never approached electronic music from the early days of rave...?
No, I used to hate dance music. I still hate most of dance music. It wasn't really the dance aspect that got us interested anyway - it was the attitude behind the music that got us into electronic material, and then the body followed I guess [laughs].
So you've never been one for harping on about old-skull house tracks...?
No, never. 'Strings of Lite' was never an important track for me. All of those supposed classics... I think history has been written and people assume that's the way it is. History is a personal thing - it's not something that can be imposed in some way.
What were your other early influences apart from Godflesh?
You mentioned Drummers of Burundi...
Yeah, I think Kodo more than Drummers of Burundi. I've seen them about six times. I'll never forget the first time I saw them - it was absolutely amazing. You could really feel energy coming from the stage, and you could feel they'd put one hundred percent into their music. It was the same sort of electricity that Napalm Death had, but it was lust in a different form. For me there's no difference between Napalm Death, Kodo, Jeff Mills or Coil - it's just the vehicle they use to get their ideas across. The intention behind it is the same.
You've been living in London all your life. How has this affected your music?
London is such a good piece for experiencing different cultures - its the best place to live in England, and the variety of mediums you can experience is amazing as well. You've got galleries, you can go and see classical music, electronic music, funk - anything you want, so in that way it's really good. One time I'll go to Lost, then I'll go to the Royal Festival Hall, and then a jazz club or something. It's an incredible melting pot of different things.
Are you into much jazz then?
Miles Davies - I've been getting so into him recently. He's been a real influence on the album I've done for Meta, especially 'Bitches Brew' - that was amazing, it doesn't sound dated at all. It was released at a time when Miles Davies was known for doing quite straight jazz, then he released this album called Bitches Brew which was a totally dark fusion - the first real fusion album. People were going 'this isn't jazz / we don't know what this is I we don't know how to relate to this' - in the same kind of way that new music now is accepted. It's an inspiration to try and do something like that.
You've used vocal samples extensively in your Meta material, unlike the Blueprint / Surface releases...
I had been making music that was right for Blueprint, and music which was right for Surface. Then I had this other kind of music that didn't seem right for either of those labels, and so I needed to have an outlet for that, and that was Meta.
What projects will follow the release of your Meta album?
I'm doing a compilation album, and this compilation will be part one of a project I'm starting called 'Exist'. The concept of Exist is to draw different art forms together. Each release will try to embrace a different medium, so the first couple of releases will be sound, there will be a film, and at some point there will be a book. Then there will also be individual events showcasing different artists, and hopefully at some point there's going to be an online gallery. The first release is going to be a compilation of really experimental soundworks done by artists such as James Ruskin, Karl O'Connor [Regis], Tony Child [Surgeon], Max [Duley], Mick Harris and Steve Bicknall. Its showing people that we've got more than one dimension to our creativity. Everyone thinks we are just about loops and looped techno, and we're not. The second Exist release will be a 74-minute continuous ambient track by Tommy Gillard [also from Ealing]. This is good because the first release will get people's interest, and than I can put something out by someone who no one knows. We're about more than one idea, and Exist will try to redress the balance between club music and listening music.
So, is your Light and Dark imprint also trying to redress the balance?
Yes. Light and Dark is more based around sound than rhythm. It's the go-between between Meta and Exist. I see Light and Dark as the thing in the middle - the stepping stone between club or rhythm music and formless music. They're club tracks that deconstruct themselves and end up being ambient tracks. The next one is going to have Mick Harris deconstructing some of my tracks.
So, was Mick Harris the drummer when you met Max at that Napalm Death gig?
Yeah, it's amazing - it's come full circle. When I was sixteen I used to go and see him play with Napalm Death, and now... It's almost like we've all gone on the same journey independently of each other.
Did you enjoy doing the EP for Steve Bicknell's Lost offshoot label, cosmic ID?
Yes, that's a full circle thing as well. The cycle being completed, because we went to Lost and were inspired by Lost, and now our music is played at Lost, being released by the people that run Lost. We can give something back, and become people involved with presenting new ideas.
The current state of techno...
I think it's in a really, really good state. If you ask most people, they generally moan about it. I think it's in the healthiest state it's ever bean in, because now, more than ever, there's more bad music being made, but at the same time there's even more good music be
made. You need bad music to be made because you need that sort of impetus to get new ideas and try and progress. I also think it's healthy in the way that the scene refers to itself - like the User stuff and Utility Plastics. I like the way that they are self-referential - records sampling records that might be sampling records. Its an ongoing process, a sort of mutating process as well. It's like manipulating something so heavily that the thing you started off with has changed so much it just doesn't have any relation to what you get at the end - the outcome. And that's really good.
You once spoke of music being a metaphor for a thought so abstract that you can't use words. Would you apply this philosophy to all forms of music?
Yes.
Even chart fodder that has been packaged to get to number one?
Yes. A metaphor doesn't necessarily have to be a wholesome thing. In those cases it would be a metaphor for a lifestyle, an image that you are buying into. If you buy a Britney Spears CD, the music is a metaphor for a certain age group aspiring to be something, like a fourteen year-old cheerleader or something. I suppose it's not particularly abstract [laughs].
Do you think that non-dancefloor orientated techno is generally misunderstood?
Yes. The thing about bass drums and hi-hats is that they provide a framework, and when you take that framework away people find it hard to understand what's going on. It's like a sort of context. One of the really good things about techno is that it's often set in this recognizable context. You can serve up something very, very strange and get people to consume quite abstract ideas but not really realize it because there's a familiar packaging of bass drum and hi-hat. It's like having a canvas. The bass drum and the hi-hats provide a foundation, and you can put anything you want over that. Take that away and people don't really know how to consume it - I don't mean consumption in a commercial sort of way.
You've been DJing extensively with three decks and a drum machine, is it quite an important progression from just two decks and a mixer?
Totally, but it's not really a new thing.
Not many people seem to do it though...
Which is surprising. It's important to try new things, have more spontaneity, and have something that's more unique. You can only be so unique playing records, but if you have your own sounds and sequences that you've programmed it's much more than that. On the night, that's perhaps the only time you're going to hear those tracks. Its so important to be unique, because there's so many techno DJs that play minimal funky techno at the moment.
Have you ever thought of doing a full-on live performance?
I've done that once in Spain. That was good - I would do it again, but it would have to be special circumstances. I'd have to know the club, know the sound inside the club, and know the vibe as well for it to work.
Did it work in Spain?
Yeah, it did work very well. It's a hassle though, and that's one of the other reasons I don't do live sets - it's just the logistics of it. Also people aspect to hear tracks that they recognize, and it's boring to do that. With some live sets it's like they've got all of the sequences already there and they just press start. I think if I did a live set now I would involve musicians as well - percussionists. I've used a percussionist on the album, and I played with a percussionist in Ireland about three months ago. That was excellent, It loses that sort of coldness and becomes more organic.
You've done a lot of remixes - is that something you enjoy doing?
Yes. I don't ever intend to do so many, but someone will ask me and I'll like the idea of it and do it. Also it's an opportunity to do a track that maybe wouldn't be right for any of the labels I record for. It's an opportunity to do an individual event - a self-contained track. I was talking to Tony Surgeon about it. He described it as the one-night stand of music. You just do it once, and that's it [laughs].
You've rarely been remixed yourself though...
No. Damon Wild has done the one ever remix.
You seem to give support to a lot of new labels, i.e. Delay, Sequential, etc. Are you approached much for material?
Yes I am, but I do turn a lot of stuff down. When something feels right then I'll do it.
You've been very prolific in terms of production. Are you pleased with everything that's been released?
I wouldn't have it any other way, but at the same time not every release works. I think in the last year the releases have been working, but I'd say the first five Meta releases were experiments - I don't mean in the way that they sound experimental, but rather they represent me trying to find what Mete was about, It was only on the sixth or seventh release that everything started congealing. I think you can see in the first five releases that I'm looking for something. Every release is like road-testing an idea. This album represents everything I've done for the first ten releases. It represents all the ideas in that consolidated.
Out of your many releases, do you have any that stand out as being 'favorites'?
My second release, Surface number one, theta the one I'm most proud of. Well - not proud of, it just works and it's always worked for me. It still sounds fresh. That and Mete 8, because for me everything just clicked on that release as well. It's hard to single out any one release, because they're all links in a chain, and each is as important as the other. You can't take one Out - the chain is the important thing, not the individual links.
A lot of DJs played Meta 8 who wouldn't normally play your material...
I went through a year of experimenting lots, and a lot of the times it didn't quite work, but for me that's good. It's interesting to hear records where someone's experimenting with a new idea and you can see them finding their way. You'll know that within two releases time, it will have clicked, It's like hearing Jeff Mills' last two or three releases, you can tell he's sort of searching for a new sound, and the records he's been making haven't quite worked. But it's interesting to hear him looking for that sound, and you know that in maybe three releases time it will have clicked and he will have found something new and it will work well. It's important to have releases that are slightly unsure of themselves.
Have you become very set into a way of working?
Yeah, I have - completely. The equipment you use is just a tool set, and should always be expendable. You should be ready to just destroy it all and get new stuff. You should never be too attached to your equipment.
If someone dropped a bomb on your studio, would your music be very different then?
I imagine it would, and it would probably be quite healthy for me to do that, It's easy to get locked into a way of making stuff, and you have to force yourself to change things around. That does happen slowly. It's important not to get too preoccupied with the technology of it - it's about loosing that emphasis. I'm all for using technology and combining it because it's the main tool that we have to express ourselves. In that way it's important, but in another way you should always remember that it's something that you use and it's something that is constantly changing as well. It's the ideas that you have that are important.
Finally, you mentioned releasing a book through your Exist project. Any works of literature you'd like to talk about?
My favorite book is 'Crash' - by JO Ballard. I thought the film was translated interestingly. I didn't think it was amazing - it was a bit detached, but I think that was on purpose. David Cronenbourg put a different spin on it - it was less erotic than the book, far less pornographic as well. It's a strange book, but something that just really caught me. It's about technology basically - the sex and the cars are a sort of metaphor for how humans use technology in the pursuit of basic desires, it's why computer games are so important, it's why techno is so important. Pornography owes everything it is to technology - from the invention of the printing press through to video. Technology is in every crevice of human experience.
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