Photo: Anna Hrnjak

AN APPEARANCE IN THE PARK
A halting conversation with Mark Lanegan

By J. Bennett

When we meet Mark Lanegan at a picnic table in a nearly-empty public park in Burbank, it feels like one of us should be carrying a briefcase full of money. Like there might be a sniper in the bushes, watching two guys in sunglasses make some sort of shady handoff. But really it’s just awkward, mostly because Lanegan clearly doesn’t want to be here, and essentially says as much before we even start the interview. A notoriously reluctant and guarded interviewee, he presumably picked the spot because it’s close to where he lives but not so close that we might actually get a glimpse of his pad. Fair enough, we figure: Privacy is a precious commodity these days. Still, there’re a lot of painful pauses and one-word replies, many (but not all) of which were edited out of the following transcript. But first, some basic facts…

As the singer of the Screaming Trees in the ’80s and ’90s, Lanegan just might be the only Seattle frontman who both made it through the grunge era alive and the aughts with his musical dignity intact. Aside from a brief stint in North Carolina—where he says he lived so far out in the sticks that he had to drive 20 minutes just to get coffee—he’s resided in Los Angeles for most of the last 15 years. And he’s done a lot of moving around, even here—from Pasadena to North Hollywood to the Hollywood Hills to Echo Park to Glendale and finally to Burbank.

Lanegan is either unwilling or unable to explain his inability to settle into one place, but it might not be a coincidence that his musical path mirrors his domestic restlessness. Over the course of the last decade and a half, he’s recorded multiple albums—nearly all of them superb—with the likes of Queens of the Stone Age, the Gutter Twins, the Twilight Singers, ex-Belle & Sebastian songstress Isobel Campbell and English electro-gospel gurus Soulsavers while releasing five excellent solo albums, marking each with his own inimitable and smoky singing style. His latest solo record—which, like 2004’s haunting Bubblegum, appears under the banner of the Mark Lanegan Band—is entitled Blues Funeral.

Photo: Steve Gullick

self-titled: Do you play or write music every day?
I used to. Now I pretty much only do it when I have something to write for. And then, I approach it like it’s work. I get up in the morning and do it.

Does the fact that it’s work take any enjoyment out of the process?
Well, I’ve been making music for a living for a while, so that would mean that the enjoyment went out of it like 20 years ago. [Laughs]

Does making music mean something different to you since it’s become a career?
Well, for a long time I was just figuring out how to do it. I was in the Trees for a long time, and made a lot of records before I even started really writing songs. It was kinda like that Rush song about the guy who discovers a guitar in his hands. “What is this piece of wood?” It’s kinda like that for me. I’m not really proficient on any instrument, but I know enough chords to write a song. I learned how to play stuff out of necessity. I’m still figuring it out, really.

So you write mainly on the guitar?
With this record, I wrote a couple of them on the keyboards and some with a synthesizer and drum machine, just to give it a different angle. But then I hand all that stuff over to a guy who can really play. But yeah, mainly guitar.

Did you write all the songs on Blues Funeral yourself?
Yeah, with the exception of “Ode to Sad Disco,” which came from a series of films by a Danish director, Nicolas Winding Refn, called The Pusher trilogy. The second film has a great soundtrack, and there’s a piece of music in there called “Sad Disco,” so I lifted the music and wrote my own song to it. Hence the title, “Ode to Sad Disco.” So that’s the only one that wasn’t specifically written by me.

What other kinds of things inspired the songs on Blues Funeral?
Well, I try to be open to inspiration no matter what I’m doing. For a large part, stuff starts from memory. Maybe a real experience, maybe somebody else’s experience, maybe something I heard about. I don’t know. Or it could be other people’s music. Wherever the spark comes from, I can’t really give any specific examples, although I’m sure there are some. I really don’t even think about where it comes from. I just let it go where it’s going and don’t really question it too much. I think it just comes from life in general.

Like your last solo album, Blues Funeral has some electronic elements—they’re especially present on “Ode To Sad Disco” and “The Gravedigger’s Song.”  Do you program that stuff yourself?
That stuff was mostly done by Alain Johannes on this record.

Is that something you specifically wanted to incorporate, or did it just work out that way?
We started to incorporate it on the last record, but with this one I wanted to use it in a less noisy or abrasive way, which is how I’ve used it in the past. This time, I wanted it to be more unabashedly beautiful. But those elements are things that people have been using since the ’60s, really, so it’s nothing new.

The press release for the new album says you have two dogs. Why did you want to include that information?
Well, the record company had somebody write a bio, and it was really long and really…well, personal. It was filled with facts that bored the shit out of me, and it also included a review of the record for people who were gonna review the record. It drew my ire immediately, so I wrote a really brief bio, just a couple of lines long. At the end, trying to be funny, I put in that I live in Los Angeles and have two dogs. That was the personal aspect of it. I didn’t really intend for them to use that—especially not the dog part—but they did.

It reads like a statement of exactly how personal you’re willing to get.
[Smiles and turns palms upwards]

You recently recorded a Johnny Cash song for the Hangover II soundtrack. Was that something you had kicking around?
No, they specifically asked me to do it for the movie. The Cash version is actually a cover of a Nick Lowe song, but the Cash one is the definitive version. When they asked me to do it, I thought, “Okay, but it definitely won’t sound like Johnny Cash.” [Laughs]

Were you hesitant to do a song for a movie that’s essentially a goofball comedy?
No, I’ll pretty much do a song for anything. Back in 1986, maybe I thought that was something that reflected on me. But in 1986, I was also afraid of having a record that sounded good. But music is music. If it’s anything remotely in the ballpark of something I can handle, I’ll usually think about doing it, at least.

You’ve been more prolific than ever in the last few years—making music on your own, with Isobel Campbell, Greg Dulli, Soulsavers, Queens. What do you attribute that to?
I’ve just been blessed with a lot of opportunity in the last ten years or so. That’s just the way it’s panned out. I can’t really tell you why. I’m glad it has, though, because I’ve enjoyed the music I’ve made and I’ve enjoyed playing with different people. But you’d have to ask someone else why that is.

Obviously, all those people I just mentioned play different styles of music. Do you specifically seek out projects with different styles to challenge yourself?
Well, I’d say for the most part that they seek me out. But the things I’m interested in are definitely things that I probably wouldn’t do left to my own devices. But then again, I guess what I’d do when left to my own devices is anyone’s guess at this point. [Laughs] But generally the criteria is that it’s someone whose music I enjoy without me being involved in it. It’s really not much deeper than that.

Do you feel less pressure in projects for which you’re not writing the music?
Well, there’s pressure in every situation. I’m not sure writing my own music changes that.

Do you work on your own material while working in these other projects, or do you generally concentrate on just one thing at a time?
It depends. I usually have several things going at once, and just concentrate on whichever one is most pressing—the one that’s gotta be finished soonest. Right now I’m just working on stuff for myself because I don’t really have much else going on. Although I’m kinda working on Gutter Twins stuff at the same time.

Are you involved in the new Queens record that’s reportedly in the works?
No.

Are you doing anything with Soulsavers?
No.

Isobel Campbell?
No.

Do you have a backlog of material—stuff that hasn’t come out or isn’t quite finished?
Well, there was an entire bag of cassettes that I’d been carrying around for years—some of them were songs, some weren’t quite songs yet, and whenever I was working on something, I’d reach into the bag. But when I went to do that for this record, they were all de-magnetized from all the moving around I’ve done.  So I have a few new cassettes, but I just got a new digital thing. I haven’t figured out how to work it yet, though.

Is there anyone left on your wish-list of people you’d like to collaborate with?
I’m sure there’s a million of them. If Brian Eno asked me to do something, I probably wouldn’t say no. But that’s probably not likely to happen. He’d be great to work with, though.

The long-lost final Screaming Trees record, Last Words: The Final Recordings, was released last year. Are you happy that it’s out?
Let me clarify that that was not a record and it was never meant to be a record. It was from different demo sessions done over a period of two years. I’m fine with it coming out; I thought the songs were okay. The other guys really wanted it to happen, but it wasn’t a record.  When I listened back to the songs, I was surprised that I thought they were as good as they were.

Do you stay in touch with those guys at all?
Sure, we send texts at the holidays and stuff. We talk occasionally. We’re like family.

But you’d never play shows with them again?
As Screaming Trees? I’d never say never, but I’m pretty damn sure it’d be never. [Laughs] You gotta really want to do that. We played together for so many years, and enough’s enough, really.

What kind of things have you been listening to lately?
Whenever somebody asks me that, I immediately draw a blank. [Laughs]

Okay, let’s talk about Queens. Your MO in that band was to walk onstage, sing three or four songs, and then walk off.  It seemed like the best job in rock n’ roll. Was it that way for you?
Absolutely. [Laughs] When Josh [Homme] first asked me to do it, I thought it was crazy. But I quickly took to it. It’s a great job if you can get it. [Laughs] Have we met before?

Yes.
In those days?

Yes.
You were on Lollapalooza. I remember you.

Yeah, you told me you thought I was a cop.
[Laughs] I probably thought everyone was a cop back then. Don’t take it personally.

I didn’t understand that—I had long hair back then. I looked even less like a cop than I do now.
That’s how you were trying to get me.

You know, the impression I get from your records…I don’t know if this is going to make sense to you, but it’s like someone is telling you about not their private life but rather their inner life, the life of the mind—but not in forthright terms. It’s up to the listener to decode what’s really being said.  Does that seem even vaguely accurate to you?
I couldn’t tell you. I think it’s cool that you think that, though, if that’s how it strikes you. I know that the music I enjoy usually has some element of mystery to it, where I’m left to draw my own conclusions and so on. If that’s the way the music I’m making strikes someone else, I think that’s fantastic.

You strike me as a very serious guy. Are you, or does it just seem that way because we don’t know each other very well?
It’s because we don’t know each other very well. I’m not David Caruso on, uh… goddamn, what is that fuckin’ show, where he’s so serious at all times, like:  “I will catch you!”?  CSI: Miami, that’s what it is. I’m not like him.

Does music in general mean something different to you now than when you started?
Not really. There’s two kinds of music in my life—the music I’m making, that I’m part of, and the music that I’m listening to for personal enjoyment. That’s never changed. The music I’ve been a part of has changed a bit over the years, and I think I’m finally figuring out how to do it in a natural way. But the music that I listen to as a music fan, that’s always been the same, luckily. That’s why I started making music in the first place.

In the breakout video for her single “212,” rapper Azealia Banks beams an eager, ever- present smile and dances playfully in front of a blank-canvas brick wall. Her pigtails draped over a Mickey Mouse–adorned sweater, she spits blush-inducing verses like an R-rated Pippi Longstocking. Banks is confident, care-free and, most of all, undeniably intriguing—a girl you feel like you want (need?) to know.

This isn’t, however, the Banks we meet near Central Park. The Azealia Banks we’re chatting with is genial but quite reserved—a slight 20-year-old in pink patent-leather platforms who isn’t afraid to remind us we’ve “already asked that question.” And has no qualms about telling our photographer where she wants to do our photo shoot: near her high school, Fame’s LaGuardia Arts—not at the Harlem neighborhood where she grew up, as we’d previously planned.

But none of this should be surprising. After all, Banks has flourished on her own terms for more than a decade. “By the time I was eight, I was really mature and got a key [to my mom’s house],” says Banks. “Catholic school was around the corner, so I would go home with some soda and some chips and use that time to sing out loud.”

Since then, she spent years as a vocalist and developing actress, at one point getting props from Diplo and earning an ill-fated development deal with XL owner/M.I.A. impresario Richard Russell in 2009. Now, thanks in part to “212,” Banks is enjoying somewhat of an early-career do-over, turning heads as an MC with a machine gun for a mouth and even topping (yes, topping) NME’s annual Cool List for 2011. She’s planned to spend time in London to work on music with producer Paul Epworth (of Florence + the Machine and Adele fame), and anyone paying attention to Banks’ Twitter can only assume that she’s days away from announcing some sort of big label news (“I’m about to be rich,” she Tweeted on Nov. 11, followed by, “I love having secrets,” and “The music industry is a battlefield, and I’m ready for fucking war”).

Clearly, 2012 belongs to Banks. “I really feel like I’m going to change the scope of pop music,” she tells us. And Banks is stone-faced serious when she says this.

Read our interview below or check out the fully enhanced iPad pressing here…

Photos by Jimmy Fontaine
Words by Andrew Parks

A sealed box of demos and cassettes sits in the corner of DJ Shadow’s tour bus. The 39-year-old producer recently hit Calgary’s Recordland shop for an after-hours dig and hauled in everything from guy-with-a-guitar throwaways to alt-rock casualties that sound a lot like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Questionable taste aside, the tapes are building blocks, the stuff sampledelic masterpieces are made of—like Shadow’s own seminal Endtroducing… LP.

“It’s just a personal preference,” says Shadow, born Josh Davis, of his antiquated method for consuming music. “When I download music, I don’t feel compelled to judge it on any other basis than ‘Is this the greatest thing I’ve ever heard or not?’ When I listen to one of these tapes, it’s like, ‘Wow, this is a total left turn,’ or ‘Who were these guys?’”

It’s telling that the first record he ever purchased, three decades ago, was “The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel,” a single that drops Blondie, Chic and Queen amid block-party breaks and a seven-minute live mix. Each Shadow album since Endtroducing… has been both thrilling and baffling—whether it’s the divisive bits of Bay Area rap on The Outsider or the brash modern-rock bait of “Warning Call” (featuring Tom Vek) from the producer’s long-awaited new LP, The Less You Know, the Better.

“All of the music I’ve ever been drawn to has been really immediate and raw,” he explains. “At the same time, it’s usually well-arranged and conceived. That doesn’t mean hiring a 50-piece orchestra and all of that pretentious shit. It could be one person and a guitar and amazing in the same way.”

In the following rare interview—an extended version of the one in our enhanced iPad/Web edition—Shadow helps us make sense of it all, from his painstaking creative process to the one record you won’t believe he owns (and loves)…

self-titled: So what was the timeline on this record? Some of the songs go as far back as The Outsider right?
I’d say I started listening to records and getting samples together in March of ’09. Then I worked on it on and off between shows and some of that DJ Hero stuff. I was working on it seriously all the way up until May of last year, then I toured from June until November. So I’d say I worked on it off and on for a little over two years, but solidly for about a year and a half.

How far along was it last fall?
It was about 40-percent there.

And at that point you didn’t want to have vocals right?
Right.

So when did it reach a point where you felt like some tracks needed vocals?
Well, I always start off with pretty stringent rules because it helps guide the music to some cohesiveness. Except for The Outsider, where the rule was me wanting extremes. But yeah, what happened was I really wanted that texture on “Warning Call.” I thought it was fine as a piece of music, and I tried a bunch of different options with vocals, but none of them worked out. Tom Vek had reached out about a remix but I couldn’t do it because I was wrapped up with my own work. So I asked him if he could help out.

That’s one of the ballsiest songs on the record. It basically sounds like a Killers song—like a straight-up band playing.
Yeah man. Thanks. That’s definitely one of the things I’m working towards. My methodology when it comes to sampling is distilling all these disparate elements into something that’s…in some cases, it’s a lot of fun to show your sampling prowess and have all of these fancy beat tricks, but in other cases it’s nice where people can’t even tell [what’s a sample].

Is there any live playing on this record like the last one?
Not really. Håkan Wirenstrand played keyboards on the Little Dragon track (“Circular Logic”).

That one stands out a lot too. It sounds like TLC.
TLC? For real?

Sure. Like classic ‘90s R&B. That’s not a bad thing—TLC sold a lot of records.
[Laughs] Well, that’s TLC, but yeah. Hopefully you can tell why I had to make some exceptions [about vocals] on those tracks. It’s weird though. Because I could sit here and say that I wanted the album to be instrumental, but I kinda knew last year that I wanted to have a rap track that was almost a throwback. Although I don’t like that term.

Well you don’t want to suggest that the golden age of hip-hop is over.
Exactly. But at the same time, I found myself missing some of the sentiments of ‘90s rap. Posdnuous and I were talking about that—the phrase “maintain,” how rap lyrics used to be all about overcoming a daily struggle.

About being hungry right?
Yeah. And [“Stay the Course”] is not a track I would have necessarily made six years ago. I feel like it’s a bit of an alternative now that the underground hip-hop scene in California has completely vanished, for all intents and purposes.

Well that vibe is in the lyrics, but the production doesn’t necessarily scream ’90s hip-hop.
No, exactly. I’m still trying to do things that are progressive. I just thought that beat was interesting, although I don’t usually make beats that are that straight up.

I’m really curious about songs like “Redeemed” and “Sad and Lonely,” because they sound like classic DJ Shadow. Are they the kind of thing you could write in your sleep at this point?
I love those songs; those moments of beauty are where I really feel like I’m doing something great. “Redeemed,” for example, even though I could hear that the samples would work together, it was the most extreme job I ever had to do in terms of beating the samples into submission over and over. Because the drums come from a poorly recorded high school record—the drums are really off. I probably spent a week on that, and a week on the vocal track. It was just pure science at that point. To see a song through that way—where I don’t hear any of the bending and twisting—I’m really happy with it. The same thing goes with “Sad and Lonely.” I think it shows a more mature mindset. Earlier on in my career I might have insisted on fancier programming or something like that. Instead I tried to let the tracks take over on this record. I tried to be a steward and shepherd them along to a conclusion that felt tasteful and complete.

I bet you wouldn’t have done a song like “Give Me the Nights” 10 years ago—something that’s that raw.
Yeah, I rely on the taste of a few friends. They’ve listened to as much music as me and have a great philosophy about it in terms of what’s good and what’s not. They’re the type of people where I can say, “Okay, turn this track on with your headphones and turn out the lights.” They really got the tone of the darkness there.

One of the advantages you have over a singer-songwriter is that it’s harder to tell when something is autobiographical because the songs don’t involve your voice or your lyrics. Is it fair to say that this is a very personal record for you? Because parts of it seem to suggest that.
I treat my albums as my firing-on-all-cylinders A-game. It’s like how I think good movies are often written and directed by the same person. And inevitably, there are some autobiographical elements in there. When one person is steering the entire ship, it’s very much  part of them. That’s how I look at my albums. With this one, I secluded myself so I could be free of distractions…

You did most of the record in a wine country cottage in California right?
I did about 70-percent of it there, including all of the important concepts. At that point, I just had to fill in the gaps.

Your process hasn’t changed much over the years, has it? I have one of your first singles here—the What Does Your Soul Look Like? 12-inch—and you made sure it said “composed and produced by DJ Shadow” even back then. Not just produced—composed.
All of the music I’ve ever been drawn to has been really immediate and raw. And at the same time, it’s usually well-arranged and conceived. That doesn’t mean hiring a 50-piece orchestra and all of that pretentious shit. It could be one person and a guitar, and be amazing in the same way. I like work that’s unapologetically audacious; everything from productions by people like Trevor Horn to albums that I name-drop all the time, like 3 Feet High and Rising, [Public Enemy’s It Takes] a Nation of Millions, Dr. Dre’s production for N.W.A. None of that stuff is just tossed together, and let’s hope for the best. You never perceive mistakes of bad decisions. You just nod your head and it builds inside of you.

I like that you insist on keeping things that way, too. I remember you wrote a long diatribe recently about how you’re going to keep working the way you always had, whether it’s for a hundred people or a million.
I feel like I have a standard to uphold. I have my own quality control and bullshit detector where I suddenly feel like I could try harder…I’ve never been inspired by people making statements like, ‘Yeah, I did my whole album on my laptop in an airport lounge. You know what I mean? I never understood why that should gain my respect. What I like are stories that come from deep, meticulous concentration–really getting everything right. I value that in the movies I take in, the books I read, everything. I value hard work. At the same time, I’m nonplussed when someone spends six years making a really mediocre record. That’s the other extreme.

What’s one film you saw recently that hit all of these points well?
My favorite movie I saw recently was Gary Weis’ 80 Blocks From Tiffany’s, a documentary about gangs in the South Bronx in the late ‘70s. What makes it amazing is they just filmed what was happening without trying to put it all into context or putting words into the interviewees mouths.

To bring things back a bit, you mentioned setting up rules for yourself before making your records. What rules were different this time around?
Well, funnily enough, you mentioned tracks like “Sad and Lonely” and “Redeemed,” and that’s the place I try to get to first. I remember at one point I wanted this album to just be one ID. So if you bought it on iTunes, you’d literally be getting a 60-minute ID.

So like “Entropy,” only longer?
Exactly. I like the idea of forcing people to not skip through songs. That’s what I liked about cassettes–it’s kinda pointless trying to zip around them because you’re always going too far in one direction. They forced you to weather the tracks you didn’t necessarily care for, and often those tracks became your favorites later.

The really immediate stuff on the album, like “I Gotta Rokk,” are designed to be…

Crowd pleasers?
Right. I wrote them with a live setting in mind. And the tracks that are slow burns, like “Sad and Lonely” or “Give Me Back the Nights,” if I can get them out of the way early on in the process, it takes some of the internal pressure off. Because I know those are going to be the harder fought tracks to make.

I’d argue that the slow songs are crowd pleasers in their own way as well because people have come to expect really melancholic music from you. Those kind of tracks kinda force you to stop what you’re doing and really listen rather than simply dance or whatever.
Yeah, it’s a dynamic. I was actually telling a friend in Chicago that I wanted to work “Sad and Lonely” into my set and make people weep. Songs like that are rare in most shows because DJs don’t want to risk people standing still. I’m always really thankful when those moments go over well. It’s great to feel like you’re actually reaching someone. Like I’ll occasionally do a signing after a show, and I’ve had a few people say they were in tears half the time. I love stuff like that. It’s another component of other work that I appreciate–when people nail certain emotions. I toyed with that on The Outsider a bit. I really loved having an album with parts that were really raw and not dumbed down or wimped out for the sake of my audience, who I thought maybe couldn’t take it. And on the other hand, there was a song that was as soft as you could get.

People really missed that part of the album, didn’t they? It was as if the handful of hyphy tracks made most people think the entire thing was like that.
I agree. It was an easy dismissal: ‘I don’t like that [kind of music], so I’m not going to like the rest of the record.’ Or, ‘I heard this blogger didn’t like it, so I probably won’t.’ There’s definitely some music [on The Outsider] that I could see people discovering somewhere down the road.

Do you view that record as being somewhat flawed in the same way you have spoken about the UNKLE record in the past?
The sequencing was flawed on that record; the fact that I chose to front-load the hyphy stuff made the album seem unbalanced. I endorse all of the songs on there, though. That’s one of the nice things about putting out an album every five years—it gives me a lot of time to consider what I’m trying to say. One of the major differences in how I think about music is that I don’t just scrap something when it’s gone out of fashion. Like how people who used to listen to drum ‘n’ bass say they only like dubstep now. That’s a strange way of looking at things. Once something enters my DNA, it’s there permanently.

That’s why “Def Surrounds Us” was a good single leading up to this record—it refuses to align itself with any one genre.
I suppose you could say the influences were equally crunk, tech-step, dubstep, whatever. But I’m not a dubstep guy. I don’t have the first clue about how to make a club record so inevitably my stuff ends up sounding like a mutt. That’s nice for people who don’t define themselves by one genre, though.

I think people also assume that you’re always looking back at the history of music through sampling, when really, you’re trying to create something completely new out of it all. You’re trying to push things forward, not backward.
I totally agree. I’ve noticed a lot of perceptions about what I like and don’t like. A purist aesthetic is so far from what’s really going on in my head. But that’s fine. You can’t go around dictating what people should think about you.

Is that why the artwork for this album puts all of the negativity of the press right out in the open?
Well, that’s a broader conversation that has to do with…basically I’m trying to use satire to show how it’s a strange time to be a recording artist. You’re sort of caught in relying on physical sales to be able to justify carrying on. That’s a broader conversation, though. I’m just trying to have fun with it rather than stand on a soapbox.

You’ve said in the past that The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash… was the first record you ever bought and that it taught you the true meaning of hip-hop—to challenge the very notion of genres by mixing up everything from disco singles to children’s records. What were some other seminal records that helped shape your sound and sense of self early on?
A partial list of huge records for me:  “Planet Rock” by Afrika Bambataa & the Soul Sonic Force, “Buffalo Gals” by Malcolm McClaren & Worlds Famous Supreme Team, “Beat Box” by Art Of Noise, “One For The Treble” by Davy DMX, and on and on.  On all of these, the programming and interplay between (sparse) lyrics and a plethora of sounds are paramount.  A scratch comes in here, a trumpet there…an intricate drum fill followed by complicated synth lines.  A “cut and paste” sense of arrangement.

What is it about vinyl that made you fall in love with that format in particular? Did you become a pretty rabid digger soon after grabbing that Grandmaster Flash record?
No, no…for one thing, vinyl was the only format then.  No self-respecting DJ was using cassettes, they just sat there.  CD’s weren’t around yet.  I was always seeking new rap records for my collection, but I only had whatever money I was given on birthdays and holidays, and later with my paper route money.  It wasn’t until I started selling my baseball cards and comic books, around ‘87, that I started focusing on original soul and funk records.  They were plentiful and cheap on the West Coast.

What are one or two hip-hop verses that especially apply to the point in your career that you’re currently in?
“When you sell out to appeal to the masses, you have to go back and enroll in some classes”- Guru

I don’t anticipate ever feeling so all-knowing that I could justify leaving the classroom.  There’s too much knowledge to glean from others.  To stop learning is to perish creatively.

What’s one record you really love that would surprise people?
“Against All Odds” by Phil Collins.  I’m dead serious.  He could write fantastic relationship songs.  But then again, I detest his faux-Motown mode.

What’s one song that practically brings you to tears every single time and why?
Without getting into specifics, there are many…sometimes it’s not necessarily because of the subject matter, but because of the back-story…the behind-the-scenes struggles of the artist.  And other times it’s because of the sheer awesome power of what was achieved.  I get the same emotional response at the end of a near-perfect motion picture.  When you turn to your friend and say, “that was fucking amazing.”  Same thing with music for me.  My admiration for another artist’s accomplishments can bring me to tears.

Your earliest recordings were done on a four-track and recently reissued. Do you feel like you wouldn’t be the producer you are today if you had grown up in this generation instead; a generation that can create dense multi-track recordings in their own bedrooms easily and cheaply?
I guess it’s impossible to know, but I have always felt that cutting my teeth on an imperfect and exacting machine toughened me up for my chosen instrument, the sampler.  Sort of like long-distance runners in Kenya.  When you don’t have fancy training facilities or sports drinks, you don’t know any better, all you know is that you have to run and run hard; there’s no shortcuts.

You recently released your first Cali-Tex reissue in a while. Are you hoping to do a lot more of those in the near future? What about compilations like the Schoolhouse Funk ones?
Cali-Tex has always been a labor of love, but as life gets more complicated it becomes harder for me to find the time to dedicate to it.  The passion is still there of course, but when you’re only selling 500 copies, you have to pick your battles pretty carefully.

Speaking of, do you feel like The Private Press is your dark horse record in a lot of ways? It has some of your best songs (“Blood On the Motorway,” “Six Days,” “You Can’t Go Home Again”), but people rarely bring it up when talking about your career.
I know what you mean.  I definitely thought it was far more sophisticated than Endtroducing…, but I would concede that it perhaps didn’t hang together as cohesively as its predecessor.  I think it had better songs, for sure.

Turntablism is barely discussed as an art form anymore. Have your experiments with programs like Serato shown you that people simply aren’t using it to its full potential; that they have thousands of records at their fingertips and only use about 10? I mean, you’re sitting there performing with like three turntables and lots of other gear at most shows right?
With regard to your latter point, what sort of gear I choose to use depends entirely on the show.  The last two big tours I’ve done are perfect examples:  in 2007-8, it was eight turntables, loop pedals, and all vinyl.  This tour, it’s Ableton, CDJ’s, and drum pads.  It all depends on the context of the tour itself.  Trying to play vinyl at large festivals is self-defeating, vinyl can’t compete with digital sound in terms of volume.

As far as turntablism, I think it was a battlefront that was ultimately won.  DJ’s fought for respect within a genre dominated by MC’s, and we achieved that re-balance.  I will always continue to value and demonstrate skills-based DJ’ing, but not everyone in the audience cares about the aesthetic.  There are a lot of good DJ’s with no technical skill, and when I see them play and the club is heaving with people, who am I to say they’re wrong?

You posted a very thoughtful commentary on the state of the music industry in early 2010. What triggered it? What pushed you to the point where you felt like you had to put your opinion out there?
I was having literally daily conversations with peers, both “small-time” (like myself), and successful, and everyone was feeling the same way, but nobody was taking their opinions public.  Everyone was afraid of being beaten with the Metallica stick, or viewed as being unappreciative of their fans.  I was having a hard time reconciling the fact that this great so-called democratizing force, the internet, was routinely shouting down any voice of dissent on the subject of downloading and the collapse of the music business.  It just seemed really hypocritical to me…like wait, you’re only allowed to have one opinion on the subject?  So, I decided to write something honest, as someone who makes a living selling art.  I don’t care about phones, I don’t care about social networking, I don’t care about Steve Jobs or Shawn Fanning or internet start-up guys that are just pimping music for their IPO pay-day.  I care about music.  Music is in a stasis…that sucks.  Let’s talk about it.  Maybe there’s a way forward.  Sometimes change starts with just a small stone being thrown.  That’s all I was trying to do.

You’re turning 40 soon. What’s one thing you miss about the early days of your career, and your twenties?
Honestly, I’m very content. I was talking to this promoter in Wales the other day about how when you’re 20, you think of women in their 30s and 40s and say, ‘Oh, she’s ancient!’ But then you get to be 30 and 40, and it’s like, ‘Actually no, they’re still beautiful.’ It’s just a different perspective.

The one thing I miss about being 23 is the feeling that there’s no off switch. I did anything people asked me to do back then. That’s why the Mo’ Wax guys really loved having me around. [Laughs] Because everything was always like, go, go, go. There was enough energy to fit everything in. ‘Oh, you need me in the studio for 18 hours a day? Fine, let’s do it.’

While that’s appropriate for that age, there’s something to be said about having some balance in your life and a long view on things. I’m not in any rush or trying to be on top. I’m just trying to follow my life’s passion and have the best body of work that I can.

Photos by Silja Magg
Words by Cassie Marketos

Charlotte Gainsbourg enters the room to a collective intake of breath. Towering and effortlessly composed, she seems built from elegant steel, an impression in no way belied by her polite, soft-spoken manner. Through numerous gritty film roles—her unhinged housewife in Antichrist still gives us nightmares—and high-profile musical collaborations (Air, Beck, Madonna), the 40-year-old daughter of French singer Serge Gainsbourg and English model Jane Birkin has carved her own creative path. Now, with Stage Whisper, a Beck-assisted double album of live and unreleased tracks, the distinction only sharpens.

Charlotte invites us onto the balcony—her hotel room at the Jane proving to be too crowded—and with privacy and a cup of tea, we settle in to talk life, music, pleasure and learning what it means to be worth it…

Photo by Shawn Brackbill

Check out the first part of our exclusive interview between Emeralds and legendary film composer/sound designer Alan Howarth in the magazine excerpt below (taken from our new issue), right alongside the rest of the conversation… 

Part two of the conversation…

John: That’s a great policy to have [laughs].

Alice is a great example of someone who’s on another plane than the rest of us without drugs.
Alan: Absolutely. A lot of ancient cultures had their own stuff that they did to [reach transcendence]. I’ve studied natural frequencies a lot, and it turns out that there’s ones that are in tune with the mind and the body. Some ancient cultures understood that. In fact, I discovered it while studying the acoustic resonances of the great pyramids of Egypt. The king’s tomb was actually tuned to be on these spiritual frequencies. It’s rigged so that anybody who went in there could go out of their body in there when they started singing. And that’s something that’s five thousand years old. It also turns out that whales, dolphins and birds naturally sing in tunings that are these same frequencies. Nature has a tuning. If you tune your A [note] to 424 [Hz] instead of 440, it puts you in this pocket.

I’m a little confused. What kind of tuning is most music in?
Alan: In order for everyone to be in tune with one another, the music industry established a set frequency for the note A. It’s called A440.
John: That’s the tuning fork standard.
Alan: And if you retune instruments to other frequencies, you’ll find they’re more resonant to the body, mind and spirit. The Egyptians and the Aborigines understood this. That’s when music became part of a religious experience. So that’s why I started studying this—to not only find out how it affects us as artists, but also find out how it affects our audiences.

So does your collaborative performance tap into these frequencies?
Alan: We elected to not go there because it was such a short schedule, but we’re going to work together in Cleveland when everything lines up again soon. We’ll probably make a whole album together, and get everyone to retune themselves to these other frequencies.

Have you guys messed with this before?
John: I dropped the frequencies of some stuff I did in Ableton down, and I thought it was better. It kinda freaked me out.

Is it something the average person could hear?
Alan: The average person will hear it.
John: But they won’t know what’s happening. It’s more of a feeling you get.
Alan: It takes some of the stress out of the music.
Mark: That isn’t something we worked with prior to meeting Alan, but it’s something we bonded over. We wanted to make our music more of a spiritual experience than just seeing a show or listening to a record, and Alan’s already way ahead of us on that so it brought us closer together.
Alan: Like I said, I’m 30 years ahead of them. Who knows where they will be 30 years from now? They should be able to levitate people by then.
John: It’s all a really interesting experiment with a lot of evidence to back it up.
Alan: It’s opening an alternate door.

So it’s more of a peaceful feeling?
Alan: Yes. It’s a resonance. It gets you into this place where people go when they meditate; where you’re open to new ideas and you have a clear head. Now that I’m an older guy, I’m interested in a wonderful, drug free spiritual experience that can be handed off to my audience.
Steve: Biofeedback has been used in art and music for more than 50 years. Like the experiment where they found you can play an instrument just by thinking. It works differently than a polygraph or something like that.
John: It’s natural stuff, which is just amazing.
Alan: It was easier 5,000 years ago because we weren’t so jammed up with outside information and alternate frequencies. Instead of living in a world with the Internet, television and radio, everything was just quiet.

So how did you develop your first performance together?
Alan: I came into it with a plan. Since we were short on time, I elected that we’d do some cues from films I’d already done, like “Porkchop Express” from [from Big Trouble In Little China] and some cues from Halloween. Not the theme; the more tension-wracked ones. Much to my surprise, some of the music we made back then is being listened to these guys as standalone pieces. They were created with the screen in mind, but now they’re being separated.
Mark: Which is how we feel about some of our textures and pieces. They’re in that vein, so to work on music from an actual horror movie is a lot like where we were coming from with some of our weirder material.
Alan: I started out in their place and went on this journey. Isn’t that what life’s about? Going on journeys and coming back to where you started with a new perspective? The only thing I’ve got on these guys is wisdom because I’ve already been there once and came back.
Mark: We can still beat you in basketball though.

Photo by David Black

Interview by Andrew Parks

Now that he’s gotten featured in The New Yorker; handed the keys to Mexican Summer’s in-house studio and a vanity imprint with the other half of Ford & Lopatin; and wrapped his most universally acclaimed record (Replica) yet, it’s safe to say that Daniel Lopatin’s had a hell of a year. He’s also clearly exhausted from months of cross-continental touring, recording, zine-making and whatever else entails maintaining the self-stylized world of Oneohtrix Point Never. That said, Lopatin took the time to answer some probing questions via E-mail, although he avoided anything related to “hypnagogic pop” or “cosmic synth recordings.” We can’t blame him.

Have a look below, and be sure to check out Lopatin’s classic Needle Exchange mix here…

Since you’re always working on several projects at once, let’s start with what we can expect from you in the coming months…
No firms plans for 2012 other than working on the sound for Small Crowd Gathers.

I read you’re working with Robert A.A. Lowe on something? Any details on that?
We’d like to and have been talking about it; hopefully next year when we’re both back from our respective winter breaks.

When can we expect to see your zine Cool Drool and what’s the story behind it?
There’s no real story behind it. I just had been amassing some images and wanted to do something with it, and it seemed better to do it as part of a zine with friends. After I make the money back, proceeds go to the ICRC.

When did you first start working on it? Is it something you’ve wanted to do for a while?
Yeah! I just thought it was a fun way to raise some funds for a good cause and bring some very interesting brains together. It’s a zine so there’s not much back story, but there is a coherent logical flow to the images and concepts at play which are curatorial or editorial in nature. I tried to make it fun to work your way through like a children’s book that reveals simple layers as you move forward in time.

What are some stories you’re particularly proud of in it? Did you do any writing or contribute to its design?
There’s only two written pieces. To me the highlight of the zine is Derek Walmsley’s piece on the early ’90s Amiga hacker scene.

Will there be more issues of it next year?
Hopefully. If we do color again, it is kind of pricey, but black and white should be a no brainer.

Shifting to Replica, I feel like your records have always been more influenced by outside sources (films, art, books, etc.) than music itself. Can you tell me a little bit about some of the non-musical things that have inspired your work in the past year?
Mostly just following through with a semiotics based approach to musical sound. Playing with super-structural cliche and mainstream aesthetics and building sewer systems for alternative realities with it. Being playful and open and aware of society and things that make me feel insane and channeling that through musical sound.

On a similar note, you’ve said in the past that you soak culture up like a sponge. What are some cultural artifacts that informed your new album greatly?
Canned emotion or stock emotion or quick emotions, I guess. The specific dramatic force used to hit a nerve in commercials as meat tenderizer. Something that heightens/softens otherwise grizzled, dead content.

As for the music side of things, one of the things I really love about this record is how a lot of it revolves around your piano playing. What’s your earliest memory of playing the piano?
I can’t remember. I have pretty vague memories of my mom fixing my hand posture.

When did you give up playing it and why? Was it because of the usual—being young and thinking it wasn’t as cool as playing guitar or synths?
I couldn’t focus long enough to do it well. [I was] unfocused and somewhat lazy.

What inspired you to start playing piano again? Was part of it working on the Antony-backed version of “Returnal?”
No, I love playing little ditties on the piano. There’s piano on “Grief & Repetition” (off of Russian Mind). It’s more like, I don’t always have access to recording piano, so when I do I take it.

Did some of the songs on Replica start as spare piano pieces?
No, they were all improvised.

How much of the sampling on the record is sourced from YouTube videos? Did you naturally gravitate towards using YouTube more after working on your Sunsetcorp stuff and echo jams for a while?
I used Youtube videos because I didn’t want to do keyword searches based on ideas of what types of content I wanted to do, and the sound quality is really bad.

Is there a philosophical reason for using YouTube material—the fact that it often sparks distant memories and associations for people—or is it simply an aesthetic decision?
I used audio from TV commercials compiled by videomercials.com because I wanted a huge body of audio to sample from, and one that generated a lot of variety in short spurts, so what is better than the 30-second commercial?

How has having access to the Software/Mexican Summer studio impacted your recent work?
It’s made me more appreciative of everything that goes into making things sound hi-fi and awesome.

Do you feel like you’re becoming more and more comfortable with the idea of being a producer for outside artists?
We have a team (Joel, Al and I) and we all contribute in different ways, but I’m mostly busy with the label and curatorial type stuff. I have good ears/suggestions but I’m not a natural producer. What I do is pretty specific/vibe-oriented.

How do you envision Software developing in both the short and long term, and what was your initial reaction to being offered your own label in the first place? (I know you’ve released stuff on your own before, but being given Mexican Summer’s support must have been freeing in a lot of ways.)
I’m not sure yet.

Shifting back to your new record, it’s a really immersive listen, seemingly existing in some genre-less gray area between the past and the future. Was that a goal with this album—to not create music that’s overtly nostalgic in ways that people vaguely familiar with 0PN might have expected?
Returnal was the last in a line of records where I was refining a sound or approach so I didn’t want to become redundant, and I have had other ideas that need attention now so it was time to start fresh.

The way you treated vocal samples on this record makes it feel like we’re hearing intercepted radio broadcasts and ghost-like recordings. Was that part of the concept with the record? Are there any other overt themes a listener should be looking out for with it?
The incidental lyrics are the most exciting part of the record for me and something that I think will make this record endure, I just hope people notice that or get something out of it the way I do.

The Juno 60 has always been a major part of your music—an extension of your very self, really. How has your relationship to that instrument in particular changed over the past year?
It’s just something I’m so intimate with and its helped me express things musically that I can’t do on other machines. A blessing.

Is the idea of “noise without borders” still a guiding principle of your work?
NWB yeah! I think I made that point though now I don’t need to get on a soap box about it, but at the time I was really passionate about it and made friends with so many people who were making music that way, its just a sensible way to approach “difficult music” I think.

Anything else you’d like to add beyond your thoughts on the basketball strike this year?
My position on that is, shame on the all those greedy douchebags. Makes it hard to care even if they do have a season. Probably better of just playing NBA 2K12.

Five albums in, Elbow still finds itself in a weird place. The British band is neither overtly arty like Radiohead, nor as sappy and saccharine as Coldplay. Instead, frontman Guy Garvey and his band of brothers are somewhere in the middle of it all—hopeless romantics, men out of time with the goal of evoking genuine emotion from the masses.

Garvey and bassist Pete Turner chatted with us over a few pints about their lot in life as members of a band that is unabashedly romantic. And after the exceptionally evocative record Build a Rocket Boys! was released a few months back, Elbow has even further secured itself as sentimentalists. In fact, during our interview, when we tell the two representatives of the group that the new album is “idealistic, nostalgic, and sweeping,” Garvey thanks us profusely. As if these were the three exact words he had wanted to hear. No, they’re definitely not like other bands, those sappy Brits, but according to Garvey, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

self-titled: How long have you been doing this for?
Guy: Twenty years already. I started doing this when I was 17 years old.

Initially, you played covers. What songs did you pick?
Guy: Chuck Berry songs. Things like that. But we were shite. Then we were a jazz-funk thing. Honestly. We were called Mr. Soft.

Aren’t you glad that 20 years on, you’re not called Mr. Soft?
Guy: I think we’ve got an equally shit name.

Why do you feel that way about your own band name?
Guy: The way we arrived at that name…it was on a list of many names.
Pete: Do you remember the other names?
Guy: Nah..I told everyone to come to a band meeting with a list of band suggestions and I was the only one who showed up with a list. Everyone else showed up with squat. I put my finger on a list and it was Elbow.

Your last record, The Seldom Seen Kid, was a potent record about a friend that you had lost during the recording of the album. Was it awkward discussing a close friend’s suicide in interviews promoting the record? Did it cheapen it?
Guy: I knew that he would much rather be talked about that be forgotten.
Pete: I liked talking about him. It made me feel like he had still been here.
Guy: Everything around the time of his passing was very hard on us as a band. We had some things we had to resolve on the business side of things as well. It was a tough time to get through. Talking about it was rather cathartic…whoever wanted to listen.

Elbow, it would seem, is properly a career band.
Guy: Before Seldom Seen Kid, we were happy as a band. We were living off the music already. And when we work on a new record, we want to make something for the fans but we also want to satisfy ourselves. Now we feel we have more freedom to make things, like the new record, that some wouldn’t consider accessible.

Well, let’s talk about the connection you have with the audience. Elbow has always had an organic link with the arena. Fans always sing along.
Guy: It’s still a wonderful feeling. It doesn’t ever subside.
Pete: Looking out at these people, we know some of these songs are very meaningful to them. Like “Mirrorball,” I know people find it quite emotional. But then we’ll have a laugh in-between songs. Guy likes to banter. And I’m sure it’s weird to them, being in the moment and all.

My favorite song is “Not A Job” from Cast of Thousands. To me, it’s about the minutiae of the every day and being a working man and the depressing repetition of it. Did I get that right?
Guy: Yes. It’s about that. But it’s also about whatever it is you’re doing. Even being a rock star…[Laughs] I mean, there are times when I think about what I’m doing in this band and wonder why I’m not doing something more meaningful. Sometimes I wonder why I’m not working in the Red Cross. Wouldn’t that be more meaningful than being a singer?

NME called you the laureate of the everyday. Where does this ability to connect to the every man come from?
Guy: Hmm…well in the example of “Not A Job,” I resented the very idea of getting a job. So fucking cruel subjecting half-baked kids to committing to a job for life straight out of school. It just seemed so unfair. I think “Not A Job” is a flat declaration about the myth about only enjoying the weekend, and not the other five days of the week. I can’t believe that that’s our lives and that’s what we’ve chosen for ourselves. The line in that song that resonates with me the most is “leave me and the plants die, a panic smile across your face.”
Pete: I remember when we recorded that song, we didn’t necessarily know that this band would be our lives. It was our second album and it wasn’t a definite after one album that this would be our career.

“The Birds” and “The Birds (Reprise)” from the new album is so old school in a prog-rock way—the way the song comes back at the end of the album.
Guy: I created a romantic image of the birds carrying all the kisses from that day; that they were the witnesses of all the romance they’d flown by. No one else was around to see all that love except for them. And then the middle section—the chorus—needed a darker theme, so I came up with the narrative of an old man being [mocked] while he was reminiscing about love. They’re telling him to come in from the outside. “What are we going to do with you now?” they say. They tell him, “Looking back is for the birds.”

And so when we did the “Reprise,” we thought we should have an old man singing it. We went through a casting agency and interviewed old men to sing the song. They didn’t know what they were coming in for. We just saw them and asked them to audition. This one fellow that came in named John and he was a sweet door mouse of a man. We were so impressed with him. He recorded the track for us…it came out exceptionally. So I got an email a few months ago through my radio show on the BBC6 from a guy named Daniel who, it turned out, was John’s grandson. He told us that the one thing we didn’t know about John is that he was in the MI6 during the Cold War. This door mouse of a man could have snapped our necks with a finger.

I read somewhere you had a lot of older sisters.
Guy: Five older sisters.

Which would explain why you’re so sensitive. And it’s also been an influence on you.
Guy: Oh, yes. The understanding that I have. The insight to the opposite sex and the range of emotions that they go through.

Having talked about Peter Gabriel being an influence on the band, I’m wondering what it was like to have him cover your song “Mirrorball?”
Guy: It was ridiculous. Blew my mind. We didn’t even know it was happening until a few days before it was released. Honestly. And he did such a remarkable job with the song. The arrangement was so unusual. And speaking of sisters, my sister Becky was responsible for turning me on to Peter Gabriel. Such an exceptional individual. I would say that as far as career highlights go, hearing him sing an Elbow song….it’s up there.

Elbow is currently on a North American tour. The band plays Terminal 5 this Sunday, September 25. Tickets are still available here.

Words by Mitch Strashnov

Things have certainly changed for Kieran Hebden (a.k.a. Four Tet) since his last album release in 2010; he’s made a transatlantic shift to Brooklyn, taken his sweet time with releasing his own music and collaborated with such iconic figures as Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and his schoolmate Burial. Along with that, he took on a task that was long overdue—tackling the creative obstacle course that is constructing a FABRICLIVE mix. Hebden set out to make it mix not your standard club night fare, as he took Fabric’s historical significance into account along with cues to the city it calls home, London.

self-titled met up with Hebden at a local coffee shop in Park Slope, eager on both ends to discuss his mix for Fabric (which is streamed alongside a track-by-track commentary below) as well as his current artistic and label-centric activity…

self-titled: First off, you moved to New York recently. What brought upon the change in setting and how’s it been treating you?
I just came over for family—stuff like that. It’s been much more relaxing; a mellow sort of place to be living, and a nice change in setting. The music scene is sort of subdued. People are passionate about it here, but things are quiet compared to what’s going on Europe. I’ve been working on my laptop mostly, occasionally making trips to a studio in Greenpoint just to do some mixing.

The last few releases on your Text label have been all over the place in terms of timing. Any particular reason as to why?
I’ve been doing things at my own pace, really. With Text, some of the things I’ve done this year get made pretty quickly and within two weeks it’ll be put out. I don’t really feel the need to make a plan, especially with no new album plans for now. Then the opportunity for the Fabric mix came up and I thought it’d be a nice outlet to put out some new music.

When did the FABRICLIVE process start for you and were you ready to go from the beginning?
They came to me at a good time, when it was kind of slow in terms of my musical output. You got to remember that these guys put one out every single month, so scheduling is pretty precise. They give you a load of available dates and deadlines to be wary about from start to finish, so I just worked out a time and sent them a timeline, and the rest was history.

The mix is very fluid, as if it embodies the sound between rooms during an actual night out. Was that your original intention?
My idea was not to do a proper DJ mix—what you would hear me do on this mix would never go down like that in a club. It was more like a contribution to a series I admire; to do it my own way and to go with this idea that was more like a soundtrack for something conceptual about the actual Fabric club and its location, the history of the space and to make something devoted to everything goes around there.

How has Text been going so far? I know you’ve been pretty laid-back about putting out stuff, yet it seems to always be sold-out whenever there’s a release floating around.
Well, you said it right there—laid-back.People for some reason think Text is a new thing I’ve been doing, whereas it’s actually been going on for years now. I went through the whole process of running it, to go through all the steps properly. Considering it’s physical-only at the moment, it’s more of a steady-work task; contacting the stores and knowing where to ship the records off to. The output has been all over the place since its inception but recently, I’ve been putting out more dance-oriented 12-inches, exploring a definitive club context that doesn’t employ anybody.

What’s with you pressing such a limited amount of records each time? There’s always calamity when it comes to releases, especially ones featuring people like Burial and Thom Yorke.
To be honest, it’s all bullshit. The press will say “limited edition,” but it’s just because they don’t have the full information. When it comes to releases that don’t get pre-sold to shops, they just get a phone call that there’s a release coming and there’s no promo. So that can create some self-appointed chaos, especially to the record stores that want to bring in a lot of people at once, but then it gets crazy in the press. The Guardian was told that the Burial/Thom Yorke collaboration was only pressed for 300 copies, but there were thousands pressed!

What’s your preference with touring these days? Do you prefer playing in proper venues, clubs, or at festivals with indie bands and fellow electronic-minded folk?
I want to play everywhere—a rock club one day, some techno-oriented place in Berlin, or even a wonderful madhouse like MoMA PS1 here in New York. If I can somehow keep managing to play good soundsystems, I’ll be happy. In terms of live performance versus DJing, the best thing for me is doing half and half. I like doing both a lot but you can’t do one thing all the time. Otherwise things get stale. DJing is sort of a rarity when I’m in America, so when I do play records here, something good has to be going on. However, the live stuff really does attract interesting and open-minded crowds of people, so there are great benefits to each way of performing. In the end, I’m still playing good music, which hopefully people can appreciate in the end.

1. Intro

2. Michel Redolfi – Immersion Partielle [INA-GRM]
I’m really into a lot of pioneering synthesizer music and the music that’s been housed on this label. I think this track was done with speakers immersed in water; it’s a beautiful record and I would listen to it a lot and play it out. It’s totally techno in my mind but not clubby at all; not much different to Plastikman if you think about it, at least in my perspective.

3. Crazy Bald Heads – First Born [On-Tick]
This tune has a ’90s [UK] garage vibe. Still brilliant to this day. If a tune like this came out on a label like Hessle Audio, people would go absolutely crazy for it. The remix I did was an accompaniment to an already brilliant track. I just pieced on a couple of bits to add to making the track even better.

4. Persian – Feel Da Vibe [Same People]
It’s from the same era as the last track, but veering more towards speed-garage. I only recently discovered Persian. He put out loads of good stuff. I think he doesn’t get recognized enough. I found this track of YouTube, and couldn’t find it in stores, so I asked Persian and he couldn’t find it either! No one could find a master of the track, and I went on Discogs and found someone who could send me the track without much issue.

5. KH – 101112 [unreleased]
KH is my initials. I made this track specifically for the mix. This tune goes really well with the influx of garage surrounding it. As you can hear, it’s taking the previous tune and moving along to the next track, which is a bit different.

6. Youngstar (Musical Mob) – Pulse X [Inspired Sounds]
A real grime classic. There was this record dealer who was helping me find records for the mix and he started pulling out some grime instrumentals for me, and this tune blew me away. I bought three copies and the first copy I had was in such bad condition, it wouldn’t play through entirely. The copy on the mix was a bit crackly, but it was the best I could find. When it comes to recording a mix with half records and half digital files, it sounds a bit weird. This part of the mix is specifically about Fabric and London—I saw the evolution of jungle go to garage and grime and so on, so I really wanted to capture the shift in sounds during this part of the journey.

7. Crazy Bald Heads – First Born (Four Tet Remix) [unreleased]
(see Track #3)

8. Floating Points – Sais (Dub) [Eglo]
He’s one of my favorite producers at the moment. I honestly could’ve used any of his tracks, but “Sais” was the most recent one to come out during the creation of the mix. In addition to that, the tempo and the rhythm worked perfect with everything involving the mix at this point. To have a record like “Pulse X” go into Floating Points was a nice contrast that I felt needed to be explored.

9. Apple – Mr Bean [Appsolute]
He was hard to track down. We were given four different E-mail addresses and to finally find him was a tricky task, but this one fit nicely into the funky/house vibe. Still to this day, the tune is a beast to whoever drops it, yet nobody really knows who he is!

10. Manitoba (Caribou) – Webers [Leaf]
He’s a really good friend of mine, I wanted to put this track out because of the garage meld. People have been saying he’s just been making more club-oriented tunes, but actually he’s been doing clubby records for years now, and this came out earlier in the decade, and sounds pretty fresh to this day.

11. Big Bird – Flav (Urban Myths Remix) [Nice n Ripe]
Just a wicked old garage record. To me, these tracks sound really good, but not massive anthems; yet they really have their place in the history of London. The tracks have stood the test of time, you know? On proper systems, this gets a drop and there’s no stopping the dance.

12. Genius – Waiting [Kronik]
That vocal hook is something else, man. It works so well with sort of closing out this chapter in the mix. Also: “Waiting” works with the next tune because you do have to wait for a little bit in order for the mix to continue. But nonetheless, a fantastic sort of techno-garage track.

13. Four Tet – Fabric [unreleased]
This is more of the sounds of the club. There’s a little bit about moving between the rooms of the club; you can hear the bleed of music between the background. It’s not a flat recording. It’s like six or seven recordings inside the club.

14. David Borden – The Continuing Story Of Counterpoint, Part Nine [David Borden]
This is a late-’70s piece. Borden was in a band called Mother Mallard’s Portable Masterpiece Company, and I met him a couple of weeks after I licensed the song. It’s kind of Steve Reich-processed type of music, done with Mini-Moogs. Again, it sounds like techno to me, but comes from a different world and time.

15. STL – Dark Energy [Something]
They put out a lot of good stuff; almost too much to digest! I could’ve picked so many tunes, but this is one of the recent ones. I wanted this mix to start up fast and this is the point where things would become deeper and bit slower.

16. Percussions – Percussions One [unreleased]
This i something I did in the late ’90s that I never put out. I experimented with the thought of putting this in the mix, thinking it would work and in the end, it did.

17. C++ – Angie’s Fucked [Music For Freaks]
Trevor Jackson played this tune at Love in NYC. I never had to go up to the DJ booth as much as with Trevor. I wanted to put this track in as a nod to one of my favorite DJs. He’s the first DJ I went to see out of sheer excitement and when I’d come ’round, he’d be playing Public Image Ltd. with house and hip-hop. I learned so much from him. It’s really invaluable.

18. Burial – Street Halo [Hyperdub]
One of my favorite records in 2011. I mean, it’s such an obvious thing to put in there, but at the end of the day it’s got to be played. The day it came out, I played it three times at Plastic People and played it at three times. Just from start to finish, it was so crazy. He’s a friend of mine and it made so much sense to me to add this to the mix, because it’s a pure expression of his tastes and interests in music. For me, it’s one of the most Burial-esque Burial tracks in existence.

19. KMA – Cape Fear [KMA]
Classic. I only bought a copy recently. You see, half of the tracks on the mix stem from a timeline, and half are tunes that I just caught onto. When I did this mix, I need to go back and check out what I missed out on. I go on YouTube and see 500,000 people listen.

20. WK7 – Higher Power [Power House]
I saw this around and I knew it would fit. Even if it’s current, it still has a timeless factor and totally works with the rest of the mix.

21. Ricardo Villalobos – Sieso [Cadenza]
He’s one of my favorite producers; so many nice tracks and his mix for Fabric is an absolute classic. I was keen to put a track of his in, one that had nothing to do with minimal techno. I’ve seen him DJ a load of times and he stands out by miles, with a completely different attitude and agenda.

22. Four Tet – Pyramid [Text]
I made that purely for this to go into the mix. It’s way more direct and clubby than anything I’ve ever done.

23. Red Rack’em – How I Program [Bergerac]
Another recent 12” that I really liked from [the record store] Phonica. It seemed to cover all these influences. It’s super-short, but it works.

24. Active Minds – Hobson’s Choice (Tune For Da Man Dem) [white]
This 12” has a girl/boy version. This is the darker version. This is a point of the mix that I wanted to get back to the beginning of the mix, when I started to get info to clear the track, white-label only. This dude Jess Jackson (who produces Tyga at the moment) produced it, who moved to LA from the UK, was hard to find but in the end it was sorted.

25. Armando Gallop & Steve Poindexter – Blackholes [Muzique]
I love this record. I wanted to have one old American original rooted classic in this mix. It fits so nicely with “Hobson’s Choice.”

26. Outro

27. Four Tet – Locked [Text]
I made that track around the same time I was putting together in the mix and I wanted it to stand alone, so I put it at the end; kind of like a conclusion to the night. Very summery in some ways.

(King Midas Sound, L to R: Kiki Hitomi, George Robinson, Kevin Martin)

Words by Andrew Parks

If self-titled had to make a short list of our favorite living producers, Kevin Martin would rank right up near the top, in the spot most people reserve for the Kanye Wests and Aphex Twins of the world. Whether we’re talking about his early post-apocalyptic projects with Justin Broadrick (Techno Animal, Ice, GOD) or the Dick-ish—as in Philip K.—dub of the Bug, Martin has proved to be one of the bravest beat makers in the business.

This is especially true of his current trio King Midas Sound, an ever-evolving entity that’s gone from the dread-chased cuts of Waiting For You to the road-seasoned reinterpretations/remixes of this fall’s Without You collection, which includes contributions from Gang Gang Dance, Mala, Hype Williams and many more. Check out an exclusive video premiere from the eagerly awaited record below, along with an extensive, exclusive talk with Martin about everything from his undying love of Jamaican music to the chances of us hearing another record from his brain trust with Broadrick…

So I’m going to start with an obvious question: why did you decide to make the next King Midas Sound record a collection of remixes/reinterpretations from Waiting For You as opposed to a whole new album?
I think Roger, Kiki and I felt we wanted time to develop our live show and work on new material for the next studio album, and that is going to take time, particularly as we have been playing live so much in the last year and I am very late in delivering my Bug follow up to London Zoo. So we all felt that there was much scope for re-invention with Waiting For You; particularly as we are all reggae/dub casualties, and feel songs can and should be infinite, not just finite product.

I also think it has taken us time to fully digest our debut album, and the deep emotional/musical range it covers. Having toured a lot and been surprised by meeting so many kindred spirits along the way—who have given us amazing feedback for the record—we felt it would be appropriate to reformat Waiting For You in a fresh way, and invite these new, close allies to reinterpret some of the material.

In a way, is the new King Midas Sound record a bit like Massive Attack’s No Protection album, only in this case you have numerous artists/producers reinventing your songs more than one specific act?
To be honest, I don’t see any connection. The connection is to reggae, dub and versions. They asked Mad Professor to put his stamp on that album, whereas we have chosen collaborators who we feel are very much on our wavelength as either singers or producers, like Green Gartside, dBridge, Joel Ford and Cooly G. And we linked up with people like Mala, Ras G, Nite Jewel, Echospace, Hype WIlliams and Jamie Vex’d, as we feel a kinship with these artists who exist beyond the borders and formulas. We like exploring the freak zones where originality is the key. The forthcoming revisioned/reversioned album Without You is about collaboration and mutation; it’s not just another hire-the-big-names marketing product. We worked with people we know and/or respect.

Can you tell us about a couple specific tracks on the record—how they generally sound in comparison to the original versions?
I guess the album is split between vocal reinterpretations—where we invited vocalists to write lyrics to the original unchanged rhythms from Waiting For You—and producers revamping songs from the album. It’s been fascinating to hear the process in action. On one hand, hearing someone like dBridge sing with a voice of an angel is a major thrill, as you view the original track (“Blue”) in a totally different light after hearing him re-voice it. It’s literally magical. And likewise, hearing Mala or Jamie turn “Earth a Kill Ya” or “Goodbye Girl” respectively inside out and upside down is sheer genius, as it makes me rethink how I work and reassess my approach to sound/music in general.

How would you describe the direction King Midas Sound is headed next? I get the sense that things are getting heavier, noisier, and more dynamic in general—coming full circle with your early projects like Ice, GOD, etc.
It’s always so difficult to have an overview on your own sound, but our approach to the live shows has definitely inspired a major change in sound/direction. I remember we played a festival at Mutek, and a guy from a really great blog called Passion of the Weiss reviewed the show, saying we sounded like My Bloody Valentine in dub. [That's] extremely flattering but it was initially a confusing and unexpected reaction. The idea of huge sound waves of bass and fuzz alternating between near silence and crescendo is definitely what we are working towards. I basically began by being at war with the vocals in the live arena, as I tried to find the right approach for KMS live. And as the first shows didn’t work as we wanted them, I decided I would re-arrange songs and the sonic impact to accomadate Roger and Kiki’s beautiful voices—hopefully playing to their strenghs and mine.

I wouldn’t say it’s a return to my noise-fest past at all, but there are elements of sonic avalanche in there. [Laughs] I’ve just begun to overcome my fear of melody and distrust of structure. Guess I’m a slow learner, but I’ve realized sonic sickness hits heavier when surrounded by the sweetest hooks. I had an aversion to songs and mistrust of formulas for many years and sought musical year zero, but now I want the fresh challenge of writing stupidly intense songs.

Has your work in King Midas Sound bled into your solo productions as the Bug? I assume so since the song “Catch a Fire” on your recent Infected EP could pass as a KMS tune.
I wanted to rewrite “Skeng” to see if I could make something beautiful out of a tune so ugly and heavy. “Catch A Fire” was an attempt to see if it was possible. Having Kiki sing on it would obviously encourage parallels to KMS, but that doesn’t bother me. I like being a catalyst for confusion and chaos sometimes. [Laughs] I love the fact that Jamaican music would re-route old rhythms, revoice classics and torch their own rule book at the drop of a hat, in the quest for even better versions of each song or rhythm. It’s not always gonna work, but when it does, the results can be sublime.

Rules and formula just encourages conservatism in music, so why not buck the trends and attack the middle mass? I play a major part in both projects, so I don’t see any need to create artificial divisions between them. If there’s overlap, so be it; it’s no stress for me, just annoying for the industry.

Speaking of “Catch a Fire,” that song features some guitar work from your old buddy Justin Broadrick. While the two of you haven’t worked on a project in quite some time, your careers have maintained a similar spirit of experimentation with every record you release. Any chance we’ll hear a full album from the two of you anytime soon?
Justin’s like a soul brother to me. I would always hope to keep working with him. I massively respect his bravery and vision musically, asides from his obvious talents as a musician/vocalist. Without him, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing today, cause he had so much patience and taught me so much in the early days of GOD and Techno Animal regarding the studio. We are already doing some more collaborations, and hopefully if we have a strong enough idea further down the line, there will be some form of major project.

Going back to the beginning of your Bug project, is it true that you played your earliest Bug material near the end of a Techno Animal set, and that the experience helped you realize how the Bug could work in ways GOD/Ice/Techno Animal couldn’t—music that’s more danceable and inviting?
Yeah, true. We played a show in Switzerland with Techno Animal, and had time to spare at the end of the set, so I dropped some fledgling Bug demos and the response was instant and hilarious, as all the black clad dudes looked lost and surprised, and their girls started heavily gyrating. [Laughs Me and Justin laughed afterwards about how there there seemed to be some crazy magnetism to the early Bug rhythms...After playing to the hordes of black clad miserable bastard males for years, it was a nice surprise; particularly considering those Bug rhythms were no less noisy than Techno Animal's.

Since you'd spent so many years working with other musicians, were you anxious about performing/recording on your own at first?
Very much so—particular working without Justin, as we had been working together for over 10 years at that point. Of course it seems like a huge jump into the unknown without a safety net, with no one to blame but yourself. [Laughs] But it was also incredibly liberating and challenging, so adrenaline was released in both cases. It was very exiting. And yet, now being heavily involved in KMS, I am finding it being great being back in the band format again.

Six years separated your first record under the Bug name (1997’s Tapping the Conversation) and its proper follow-up, Pressure. Did you scrap a lot of material during that time?
No, not really. I was still heavily involved with making the Ice album (1998’s Bad Blood), and Techno Animal recordings.

It took you another five years to finish London Zoo. I’ve read that you were frustrated with the final product at first because you’re such a perfectionist. Did you feel the same way about Waiting For You, or did you feel more comfortable with the King Midas Sound sessions right away?
I basically feel it is impossible to be 100-percent happy with any recording, as it’s almost an impossible dream. London Zoo was a long, heavy trip to complete, and Waiting For You ended up taking a similar length of time. The pressure once you have completed a record you are even vaguely happy with is always daunting. But the plan to find a zonal sound for Waiting For You was perhaps a little less arduous to achieve than the complex sound world I wanted to outline with London Zoo.

When you try and finish an original album, it is also impossible to tell if you have been successful as there is little to compare it to, but I guess that is the thrill or challenge. I just know with Waiting For You that Kiki definitely sealed it sweetly by being the final part of the puzzle, and i felt we cam close to achieving the overall mood of seduction and melancholy that we had set out to address.

Now that dubstep is part of the pop music landscape in London, do you find it a tad ironic that you were doing the same thing way back in the early ’00s, utterly confusing most audiences who didn’t know what to make of that music?
You know, I’m totally happy for all those involved. I have met some really great people like Kode9, Loefah, Mala, etc/ in that scene, and I think there has been some incredible music released via dubstep. Any scene that can loosely include Shackleton, Burial, James Blake or Vex’d has got to have a good thing going. It’s funny to have been in the middle of an exploding scene like dubstep, but not actually feel part of it intrinsically.

People like Skream are incredibly talented. I would rather they taste success than the Simon Cowell hit factory. Being there “first” means nothing to me. I am more interested in what I make next. For sure, Techno Animal or Scorn or Wordsound were deep into creating intense, deviant bass culture before many others, but so what. [Laughs] It was tough then, particularly trying to get people to grasp a fresh sound, but I enjoyed the struggle too. Now it just makes it harder to know where to go next that will still sound original; that’s always the challenge.

Do you find yourself listening to any music that’d fall under that umbrella anymore, or do you tend to listen to old records more than new ones? (Judging by the contributors on your new record, I’d assume your tastes are as varied as ever.)
At the moment, I am listening to new stuff by Panda Bear, Mika Vainio, Little Dragon, Hype Williams, Clouds, Emptyset, Raekwon, etc. so, yeah, I still fish far and wide for music with fire in its belly or deviance in its brain. I need new music; I need to be inspired and take it as a challenge in the best sense.

Going off on a bit of a tangent, I was wondering when you were first exposed to dub/Jamaican music. Did it split your head open like the first time you heard extreme music like punk, metal and industrial?
Yeah definitely. The sense of experimentation, and the alien sounds, lyrics and references were so extreme for me at a very early age. Rather than settling for avant-wank, there is a deep soulfulness, acute political awareness and carnal thrust to so much of the music that emerges from Jamaica which is really appealing. Reggae is the only music I can listen to all day and all night without getting bored, as there’s so much diversity within its own subdivisions.

And I guess having grown up with Discharge, PiL, Killing Joke, Throbbing Gristle, etc., there was a “rebel” stance and anti-system/structural attack which I loved so much about reggae. It was largely John Peel that turned me onto reggae in the first place; him and older punks who played me King Tubby or deep Prince Far I tunes. Post punk and reggae were inseparable in the UK, and I feel it’s remained intrinsic to what I do…It’s still my love of the friction caused by culture clashes which fuels the energy in the music I make today. And basically all the music I cherished most from hip-hop to reggae to post-punk had a fierce anti-social drive and fuck you attitude which I still look for in music…

Do you feel like you’re still striving to write a 21st century form of dub with everything you do because straight-up revisiting Jamaican music wouldn’t feel as genuine?
You know, it’s not so precise, and I wouldn’t frame it in that way…But I definitely have the curse of always wanting to move forward and surprise myself. And yeah, I definitely didn’t wanna recreate Jamaican music—what’s the point? Obviously influences have also come from every direction, not just the Caribbean. To be honest, Jamaican music has become much more mongrel, and influenced by music from everywhere else, too. I think the world has become so small and the ‘net has shrunk it to insane proportions, where all music is impure and hybrid. Both a good and bad thing perhaps, but irresistible nonetheless.

One of the great things about Waiting For You is how natural your collaborations sound with Roger and Kiki. I know you started working with the former about a decade ago, but when did you first meet the two of them, and how would you describe their roles in King Midas Sound today?
We all have totally equal say in King Midas, and despite [her] appearance, Kiki is probably the most hardcore of the three of us. [Laughs] I first heard her voice in Japan, when she sang on a track by her crazy breakcore dub band Dokkebi Q, and coincidentally saw them play the day I got back to London from that Asian trip. I sensed instantly she had TNT in her belly and a voice to kill for. I’ve always loved heavy music with deceptively sweet elements or voices placed on top.

I’ve been inspired by Roger since first bumping into him via a mutual friend over 10 years ago. I had already heard him before that chance meeting and was hypnotized by his tone and words. He truly had wordsoundpower. I was so impressed by his messages and delivery that I invited Roger to appear live and on record with Techno Animal. Basically, I would be happy listening to Roger just recite the alphabet, as he has such an extraordinary presence and aura, let alone incredible literary skills. And you know this isn’t just ass-licking, I actually feel very lucky to be working with them both. They push me and we are trying to do something really fresh and idiosyncratically different.

You played the sax and contributed vocals to GOD early on in your career. Do you ever miss doing either?
No, not really, as i was an average vocalist, and the sax was pure sound generation, not played in any way traditionally. Although maybe in hindsight, I liked the physicality both demand, and enjoyed the sheer blast of loud emotional outburst which I was prone to. [Laughs]

You were also a journalist for many years. What did you learn from that experience overall, and what do you think about the direction journalism has gone in, where it’s been democratized by blogs and generally become much more negative than ‘music criticism’ ever was?
What I love about the best music journalists (like Kodwo Eshwun) is the intensity and sheer volume of incredible ideas and concepts. Music writing is actually so difficult to get right, as it’s almost impossible to pin music down to words, and maybe at worst takes away the magic from the music, which more often than not is the sheer what-the-fuck factor or the mysterious unknown elements which links musician to audience. I respect anyone that tries to find a new vocabulary or is capable of explosive cerebral brain blasts when writing about music like Lester Bangs did. I dig a lot of blogs, as it frees the writing up from editorial interference, but that can obviously lead to rubbish too.

I look for good writing to turn me onto good music, the same as I have always done…The best music writing can nearly equal the inspirational qualities of music. It’s an art form just like music making. But the danger of the worst music writing is not to succumb to the hype, and fall for music because of the blurb around it. [Laughs] I personally feel my connection to music is more often or not instinctive, and what I want from the best writing is hard info and electrifying concepts..

One of the things I love about your music is how unpredictable it’s always been; how it’s very much fueled by extremes, whether that means actual literal noise or something that’s very ‘heavy’ in a different way. (Like how Waiting For You evokes dread and paranoia so perfectly). Do you feel like that’s the one thread that connects all of your work—the pursuit of extremes?
I think you’re right, yeah. I seem to have a thirst for the seductively beautiful or extremely fuckin’ ugly in music. [Laughs] I’m not really a fan of the middle mass. I guess I feel you have one life only, and I want to experience the most of it i can. And so much music is boring in the middle ground; mostly being made for money and/or fame. I love the mavericks and outcasts who don’t fit into that product-led equation. I see the best music as being an affirmation of life.

What can we expect from you next? Albums from Black Chow (Martin’s duo with Kiki) or Ladybug (The Bug working solely with female vocalists)? What about that dub record with Adrian Sherwood? Do you consider Adrian one of the foremost inspirations behind the Bug?
Adrian and his On-U-Sound label was a crucial influence on me early on. African Headcharge and Creation Rebel in particular blew my head off with their heaviness and psychedelia. It seemed to simultaneously saturate mind and body.

The dub album with Adrian isn’t going to happen unfortunately. I just decided I preferred to work on a new phase of Bug music and KMS…Black Chow material is being worked on on a non-regular basis without industry pressure, which is totally important for it to thrive. And we have developed a deep, bittersweet sound, which we are working on at the moment. It’s very promising. Ladybug [has] zero plans at present. My main problem is how to clone myself or find a way to divide myself into many parts, as there never seems to be enough hours in the day, and I’m a particularly slow, meticulous worker.

Anything else you’d like to add? Can we expect you in the U.S. again anytime soon?
I am actually very hungry to come to the States again, and would dearly love to play in Central/South America too. Kid Kameleon set up an amazing tour of the U.S. a couple years ago for me, which was an amazing experience, and when me and Warrior Queen supported Nine Inch Nails at Trent Reznor’s request throughout the Midwest, that was a crazy eye-opening tour, too. I dig the sheer scale and rich experiences that America offers every time.

So yes, please book me yesterday! [Laughs] I will be interested to see what America makes of King Midas Sound live, as we definitely polarized Mutek, where half the crowd seemed ecstatic, and the other half fuckin’ hated it. [Laughs] Also: since gettin’ hooked on modular synths, there are so many great developers in America I would love to link with…

Photos by Shawn Brackbill

Words by Andrew Parks

Madonna. P.M. Dawn. Seal.

Not exactly the names you’d expect Ernest Greene to drop now that he’s finally finished Washed Out’s long-awaited debut LP. And yet those reference points ring true as Within and Without’s singular vision develops like a stack of double-exposed photos.

Don’t worry, though. Greene didn’t lift his loops from “Like a Virgin” or “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss.” He started from scratch instead and simply added certain production techniques—repetitive drum rolls, digital textures that are alien and inviting—to an ever-expanding manifesto of what it means to make a Washed Out record these days.

“I struggled with the direction at first,” admits Greene, “because I wasn’t exactly sure what a ‘Washed Out song’ was. Most of the stuff I tried at first was too psychedelic or too dance-inspired, but I was eventually able to strip away all of the unnecessary bits and figure out the core of [my music]: very simple, but hopefully emotionally-moving songs.

“It wasn’t until the album was starting to really take shape that I started to notice a few similarities to other things that I wanted to explore more,” he continues, “like a few elements of early ’90s pop music. On the flip side, there are a few songs on the record that are a little slower and more spacious that reminded me of Mazzy Star, so we tried to bring that out a bit—the melancholy/ambivalence that I’ve always loved in music.”

The following interview was conducted over E-mail as Greene rehearsed for his current tour back home in Georgia. It’s been edited for style and clarity.

self-titled: You said you struggled with the direction of this record. General speaking, how much time did you spend working on it?
I demoed some material in June and July of last year, but I spent most of my time researching production techniques and equipment. I wrote all of the music in August/September; finalized the arrangements and lyrics in October/November; and recorded/mixed over the course of 11 days at Maze Studios in Atlanta last December.

What were some breakthrough moments where you started to feel like you had a general idea of where things need to go creatively?

The intro of “Eyes Be Closed” was written in January 2010, but didn’t fully take shape until August, when I wrote the bridge and chorus. Around the same time, I wrote “Amor Fati,” which came very quickly and painlessly. In my experience, the best songs happen like that. If I have to work really hard on a song, it’s usually not very good. The frustrating part is waiting for an ‘easy’ song to come along.

What are a couple examples of how songs changed over time? Which ones changed drastically?
I had an almost finished version of “Before” as far back as December 2009, but it was very much in the style of my older material. (And thus didn’t feel right for the record.) [Producer] Ben [Allen] and I took a couple of days break for New Years and I re-recorded a version of “Before” at home that felt more in line with the record.

Coming into recording with Ben, I made a list of references; a lot of which were early ’90s pop songs, like downtempo-leaning ones from Madonna, Seal or P.M. Dawn. I wanted to move away from the heavy analog synth sounds that are all the rage these days in favor of more digital-sounding textures, and also feature very repetitive drum breaks, which were very popular in the ’90s. That being said, we were very careful not to take these influences too far, so I hope it’s not too obvious from first listen.

When you say some were too psychedelic or dance-inspired at first, what do you mean exactly? Were some sounding like straight-up techno and some sounding too experimental?
I wanted the songs to be pop songs first; never experimental for the sake of being experimental. It’s the same thought with balancing genres—when a beat is too heavy or a certain instrumental part is too obviously weird/psychedelic it can quickly overwhelm the song. And then it becomes ‘beat-driven’ or ‘avant garde’, which I consider bad words in the Washed Out world. I want those elements present, but balanced in way that feels very natural and listenable.

I think “Soft” is a good example of this. I absolutely love soundscape-y music, so I tried to take a piece of that and squeeze it into a pop format. If I had included a five-minute soundscape instrumental without a beat, the album would have come across very differently. I guess in the end I never want to bore the listener. I want to entertain.

It sounds like you over-thought the record for a while, then decided simpler is better. Is that a fair assessment?
The biggest struggle with this record was that I had learned so much more about the technical side of recording; the idea of “the more you know, the more you know what you don’t know” sort of thing. I got to be way too critical about the the way things sounded instead of thinking about the songwriting. It certainly helped having Ben on board at the end of the process. It was nice having someone to bounce ideas off of.

When you said some of your older songs sounded too retro, which ones are you referring to?
I think “Belong” stands out. It was the last song I recorded from the Life of Leisure/High Times-era. By the time I got back to writing again, that sound felt completely played-out. I don’t think the retro thing defines a Washed Out song like it might with some of the other chillwave stuff.

Your tour with Small Black must have helped you learn what is and isn’t working with the ever-evolving sound of Washed Out. Can you tell me a couple things you took away from it?
Things happened so fast during the first half of 2010 that there was little time to reflect on or change anything. I realized a number of technical things that I needed to change and so I started researching how to go about changing them as soon as I got home in June. So a big part of the summer was spent schooling myself on recording/music theory. I definitely needed that time to get in the right head space to even start writing.

How would you describe how this record ended up for someone who isn’t familiar with your music yet?
Washed Out is very personal, and the songs have always served as little glimpses into my personal life. Anyone who is a casual fan probably knows my background—where I came from,
how I was discovered. That is a view from the outside; this record is meant to be an internal view. Now, I look back at each song like I’m reading a diary. I tried to account for all the different emotions I was dealing with making the record, everything from overwhelming joy and happiness to deep fear and anxiety. So when you combine the internal and the external—what’s happening both within and without—you get the full picture.

I don’t want to be defined by any one genre because I think the Washed Out stuff sits at a weird place at the intersection of a number of styles. So I made an effort not to fall too far in any direction. That was why I chose to use more acoustic instruments to balance things out with the electronic elements. There is a lot of bass guitar, a lot of live drums, even cello, piano, and brass instruments. I also wanted the album to be more dynamic than my previous work. As soon as I wrote the climax section of “Eyes Be Closed” I knew that I needed some production help to really make it huge. And the same is true for a few others. So most of the aesthetic decisions were about serving the songs.

In our first interview, I remember you telling me how much hip hop and things like DJ Shadow inspired you in the beginning. What were some touchstones for this record in terms of your production techniques and general direction?
I’ve always been a really big music fan, and I’ve always prided myself on keeping up with what’s new and fresh and interesting in music. But one of the more depressing things about working on this record was a point I reached early on where I felt like everything I listened to could potentially affect my own music in a negative way. I felt like in order to stay focused I needed to keep outside influences out. In retrospect, it’s probably not the healthiest thing to do—you start to experience the musical equivalent of cabin fever.