philip sherburne

June Clips

While Berlin goes giddy with sunshine, I'm up to my earlobes in work. So it goes; here's some recent writing I've done, for anyone keeping tabs.

Critical Beats Column, The Wire, July 2010

Print only. Featuring Andy Stott, Soul Center, Joe, The Lady Blacktronika, Missing Linkx, Oriol, Sepalcure, DFA's TBD, Sex Tags Mania's Transilvanian Galaxi, and Wolfgang Voigt/DJ Koze.

Oneohtrix Point Never, Returnal (Editions Mego) | Pitchfork

Easily one of my top albums of the year. (If it were up to me, I would have given it the BNM tag.) I like the contrast this makes with his Zones Without People LP, whose arrival from Discogs I am feverishly awaiting.

Emeralds, Does It Look Like I'm Here (Editions Mego) | Pitchfork

At first I wasn't sure of what I thought of the new, more dulcet Emeralds, but once I really sunk into this, I lost any early doubts. You really have to have this on vinyl; the first time I played it on wax, it sounded almost like a different record, somehow.

Breaking Through: John Talabot | Resident Advisor

Last December in Barcelona, I set out to track down John Talabot, an anonymous producer of woozy, psychedelic house and disco. It turns out I already knew the dude behind the project. A month ago, I interviewed him by phone, and we talked about musical maturation, sampling, and Barcelona's club scene.

LCD Soundsystem, This Is Happening (DFA) | Rhapsody Blog

I'm sure you don't really need to read much more about this album, but here you go, a mid-length review I wish I had extended a lot more. One of those albums that I like a lot more than I'd expect to—and that's even with a healthy proportion of tracks that I don't really care for. Although, oddly enough, even those tracks—like "Drunk Girls"—tend to have at least one moment that somehow redeems them for me. I know that we're not supposed to care about artistic intention, but in Murphy's case, trying to figure out his thought process actually enhances the music for me, for once.

Concentric Pleasures: '90s Electronica Says "UNKLE" | Rhapsody Blog

In which I argue the ways that Mo' Wax begat Lady Gaga. Or something. A thinkpiece on what went wrong with UNKLE.

What's the Write Word? | Popmatters

Jason Gross polls 100 music writers with the question, "If an eager young writer cornered you and asked 'What’s the best advice you could give me?' what would you have to say?" My piece is included on this page.

Triangulation

Feeling: April 2010 Top Ten

Jacob Korn, "Mirrorflip" (Dolly)
This just kills me; there's something about the way the melody and the bass wrap around each other at odd intervals that keeps catching me off guard—a little like when you find yourself tearing up unintentionally at the end of a flick. Emo.

To Rococo Rot, "Forwardness Fridays (Shackleton's West Green Rd Remix)" (Domino)
I love what Shackleton does with the organs here. Prog, baby.

Four Tet, "Sing (Floating Points Remix)" (Domino)
I failed to find the Joy Orbison remix on vinyl. That's what I thought this was, actually, when I snapped it up label un-read at Hardwax. (Did that even come out on wax?) Who cares, I won: this is even better. Like frugging down on a great, spongy expanse of moss.

Miracles Club, "Chango (White Rainbow)" (Ecstasy)
I wrote about this in my last post. Still thrilling me.

Nebraska, A Weekend on My Own EP (Rush Hour)
I wrote about this for The Wire a month or two ago (and still haven't found it on wax, dammit). "Soho Grand," "A Weekend on My Own" and "Time Has Come" remain three of my favorite deep house tracks this year. The first tune's hi-hats, Rhodes and (seemingly) electric bass seem to jump out of the speakers; for being such a chilltrack, it's got amazing heft and presence. And then "Weekend," which is almost certainly made with the raw material from "Soho," goes all jellyfish-like, in Pepe Bradock style, without ever losing its drive. "Time Has Come" seems to use more of the same, but this time it pulls out all the stops, amping up into a vocal-led tune with shades of Kemetic Just, I:Cube and Charles Webster. Can't get enough of this record.

VSQ, "This Is That" (Kalk Pets)
Hanno Leichtmann (Static, Vulva String Quartet) spins a one-bar vocal sample like cotton candy, ballooning it up with thudding piano chords, lovely contrapuntal synth lines, and a spare electro-disco rhythm. (It also has a bassline to die for.) What's amazing is how much mileage he gets out of his barrel of one-bar loops; there's nary a dull moment, as shifting lines wax and wane around the indelible center. The Efdemin remix is something else entirely, wandering a little like Tobias Freund's remixes do, slow but intense.

Basic Soul Unit, "Yellow River" (Crème Organization)
I appreciate the other tracks on this EP more than I really feel them, perhaps, but "Yellow River" is a perfect example of melodic, melancholy techno, so classic it might as well be carved in marble.

KiNK, "Rachel"/"Keys of Life"/"E79" (Ovum?)
Against all possible odds, it never feels textbook.

Recloose, "Cardiology" (Playhouse)
Loved it then, love it now. Have been pulling out quite a bit of old Recloose lately – also "Can't Take It," the Carl Craig mix. 10 years later, overdue for a rewind.

D-Train, Something's On Your Mind (Prelude, 1984)
Flea-market find. I finally get these guys.

Miracles Club

I've been away for a while, I know. So in the hopes of returning to blogging with slightly more regularity, here's the first post in what's meant to be a series highlighting favorite new releases and other sonic infatuations.

Miracles Club, Light of Love EP (iTunes)

When I first heard that Portland, OR's Honey Owens (Valet, Nudge, Jackie O Motherfucker) had a new house-music project, I was intrigued but skeptical. I love Owens' music, but something like this seemed potentially risky, especially given the current vogue for old-school piano house and acid house. Between House of House and Gavin Russom (first with Black Meteoric Star and now, the Crystal Ark), faithful revivalism and respectfully deviant revisionism are, for the moment, pretty well covered. Plus, it's probably unfair of me, but I always tend to be suspicious when musicians coming from the "indie" sphere first engage with dance music; there have been enough weak-ass crossover attempts to confirm that two very different skillsets are required.

Well, clearly my wariness was all for nought. However much the 909s and chiming piano chords may anchor Miracles Club's forthcoming 12" in tradition, there's so much more here than mere pastiche. It's definitely inspired by acid house (even though there's not much 303 to be found, if any), but the duo's own copious ideas easily carry the day. I can hear a lot of familiar inspirations in here—everything from Together's great acid-house remixes of the Durutti Column to a Seefeel-style jones for shoegazing drones. But the way they finesse all the elements together, with ostinato synths bleeding into drum-machine lines and psychedelic guitar, it gels into something way more than the sum of its parts. ("Chango" sounds almost like Emeralds might, if they signed to Rush Hour.) In the two days since I received the files, this has shot towards the top of my favorites so far this year. It's the kind of record I want to construct a setlist around.

Between this and Carlos Giffoni's No Fun Acid, it looks like "outsider" acid house might prove very fruitful in 2010.

Check out Miracles Club's blog (helpfully titled The Ecstasy Blog, just in case you weren't sure where to file the music) for streaming audio, tech geekery and more. They've also got some videos up on their Vimeo channel, but they don't begin to capture the depth of the recordings. It is pretty cool to see some live knob-twiddling, though. On their MySpace, check out "Light of Love."

JACKING HOUSE from Miracles Club on Vimeo.

Ranking 2009: Albums

1. Sunn O))), Monoliths & Dimensions (Southern Lord)
2. The xx, xx (Young Turks)
3. Emeralds, What Happened (No Fun)
4. Black to Comm, Alphabet 1968 (Type)
5. Benzo, The Dust/The Tapes: Mania Remixes (Sex Tags Mania / Laton)
6. Demdike Stare, Symbiosis (Modern Love)
7. Kevin Drumm, Imperial Horizon (Hospital Productions)
8. Lukid, Foma (Werk)
9. Moritz von Oswald Trio, Vertical Ascent (Honest Jon's)
10. Monolake, Silence (ml/I)

11. Pepe Bradock, Confiote de Bits (K7)
12. September Collective, Always Breathing Monster (Mosz)
13. Beak>, Recordings (Invada)
14. Mapstation, The Africa Chamber (~scape)
15. Ben Frost, By the Throat (Bedroom Community)
16. Ethernet, 144 Pulsations of Light (Kranky)
17. Fuck Buttons, Tarot Sport (ATP)
18. Fever Ray, Fever Ray (Rabid)
19. Mocky, Saskamodie (Crammed)
20. DJ Sprinkles, Midtown 120 Blues (Mule)

21. Atom TM, Liedgut (Raster Noton)
22. Vladislav Delay, Tummaa (Huume)
23. Jon Hassell, The Moon Dropped… (ECM)
24. Elm, Nemcatacoa (Digitalis)
25. Lokai, Transition (Mosz)
26. Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest (Warp)
27. Pixel, The Drive (Raster Noton)
28. Redshape, The Dance Paradox (Delsin)
29. Shackleton, Three EPs (Perlon)
30. Ras G, Brotha From Anotha Planet (Brainfeeder)

Honorable mention (aka other albums that could conceivably sit anywhere in the lower half of the above ranking, given my mood at the time of listmaking): Ras G, Brotha from Anotha Planet (Brainfeeder), Untold, Gonna Work Out Fine (Hemlock), Black Jazz Consortium, Structure (Soul People Music), Ben Klock, One (Ostgut), Peverelist, Jarvik Mindstate (Punch Drunk), Atom TM, Muster (Rather Interesting), Lusine, A Certain Distance (Ghostly), Circlesquare, Songs About Dancing and Drugs (K7), Broadcast & Focus Group, Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age (Warp), White Rainbow, New Clouds (Kranky), Emeralds, Emeralds (Wagon/Gneiss Things), Leyland Kirby, Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was (History Always Favours the Winners)

Album title that best summed up 2009, if not the '00s in general: Leyland Kirby, Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was (History Always Favours the Winners)

Discovered too late for listmaking but might well have placed really high if I weren't too lazy to retabulate now: Atlas Sound, Logos (Kranky)

Didn't listen to enough to form a proper opinion, probably to my own detriment: David Sylvian, Manafon (Samadhisound)

2008 albums that would have made my best of '09 had they come out this year, which I initially thought they did: Grouper, Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill (Type)

Just getting around to checking out: Oneohtrix Point Never, Rifts (No Fun)

Best tail-end of '09 discovery: John Talabot and his remixes for Delorean, Zwicker, Aufgang and Al Usher

The hype be damned, some of this "glo-fi" shit is actually pretty promising: Memory Cassette, Neon Indian, A Sunny Day in Glasgow, CFCF, Teengirl Fantasy, Gold Panda

Gear trend of 2009: modular synthesizers

Softsynth of 2010: U-he's A.C.E. (Any Cable Everywhere virtual modular)

Thumbnail Music Redux: Part Seven - Thomas Brinkmann

This interview, originally published on Urbansounds.com in October, 1999, is the final installment in a series of reprints intended as a look back at the rise and fall of minimalism over the past decade. Scroll further on this page for the accompanying interviews with Steve Reich, Richie Hawtin, Carsten Nicolai, Stewart Walker and Taylor Deupree, plus the original introduction and some retrospective thoughts.

Thomas Brinkmann

Köln's Thomas Brinkmann first appeared on techno radar two years ago as the artist behind Variationen, a set of remixes of Wolfgang Voigt's Studio 1 project. Using a double-armed turntable of his own design, Brinkmann extracted hidden rhythms from Voigt's minimal techno in an exercise of fractal dub. Brinkmann used the same technique for his second release, Concept 1 96:VR, based on Richie Hawtin's "Concept" EPs. Lest anyone think him restricted to hi-fi gimmickry, Brinkmann went on to release a flood of original productions through his own Max and Ernst labels, two full-length albums for Suppose, and numerous one-off projects. His style is characterized by blunt, repetitive figures -- a kind of plodding, truncated dub-techno permeated with unexpected side-effects. Where his early releases worked with materials similar to those of his Köln colleagues, Brinkmann increasingly has incorporated unlikely elements of jazz and funk, expanding the tonal vocabulary of minimal techno with every release. I reached Brinkmann by phone, earlier this year, to talk to him about minimalism, repetition, and mimesis.

What is your background? How did you get involved in electronic music?

The most important reason for me was the connection to Mike [Ink]. I got bored with music in the '80s. Then, in the '90s, I heard more classical music, and jazz. And then [Ink's] Studio 1 and [Richie Hawtin's] "Concept" releases. This was a kind of positive culture shock. I was always working, a little, on sounds -- I don't say music, I say sounds. Also around this time, I studied art, so I was involved in other projects, more connected to art.

What media?

Visual art, different media, and also with acoustics, with sound, but more or less traditional surfaces -- 3D work, different kinds of things. The idea of using two tonearms was not really new. I had worked with two or three tonearms on turntables a few years earlier, before doing the work with the Studio 1 records and the "Concept" records. But that was based on other problems; it wasn't this kind of remix technique. I did a tape for Mike with the Studio 1 variations, and I went to his shop [Kompakt] -- I didn't have a strong contact to Mike, I was just a customer -- but I gave him the cassette with the remixes, and later he phoned me and said, "OK, I want to do a record." That was my first release.

When you say you were working on different kinds of problems, what do you mean? What were they?

It's difficult to explain. In the '70s, I was very connected to electronic music. Even then I was working on experimental music; a lot of the things I'm doing now we figured out back then. But there was no compatibility. People were laughing at us. The only possibility to do something [like that] was in theater. We worked with theater groups and we did these kinds of soundscapes. I was always thinking about the problem of making photography with acoustics. Just like other people were taking their snapshots in optical media, I wanted to take snapshots in acoustical media. But we didn't have the techniques; it was much too expensive. There was no digital recording, so if you wanted to record [environmental] sounds, you had to go with a big machine. The whole thing was too difficult to do, and I stopped working in that field.

Also at that time I started to experiment with cutting records with a knife. I would take a regular record, the last loop [the run-out groove], and I would cut formations with a sharp knife. I did a lot of loops at that time, loops that had been made with geometrical forms. You make a cross on the label, and at the end of each point from the cross you make a deep scratch. When you play the record at 33 rpm, you have a beat like a bass drum at 133 bpm. "Boom, boom, boom..." This is what I did on the "8+1" 12-inch [on Suppose]. And if you put, between those four points, four little scratches, you have exactly the grounds for a techno track. "Boom, tic, boom, tic, boom, tic..." So these ideas weren't really new, but there was no context for them then. And for me, the feedback from the Kompakt people, especially from Mike, was a big motivation to start again.

Tell me a little more about snapshots with sound. One of the tracks on "Totes Rennen" is called "Mimesis," which seemed strange to me. I think of minimalism as the opposite of mimesis, as something like pure abstraction, a reduction of musical elements to pure form.

Minimalism is very old. It's not just Steve Reich. I think the first minimal "tracks" were made by church bells in the 14th century, 13th century, maybe earlier. Every ding and dong from a church bell is information -- digital information, really. Bells are very special. They have always informed people. I lived for two years in Italy, in a church, and they had a lot of different codes, just to inform the people if a new child is born, if somebody dies, if it's Christmas, Easter, and so forth. So they have maybe 30 or 40 programs. It's funny, because in this church they had a completely computerized bell system. They could program a whole week, a whole month, a whole year. When a child was born, they would change the program and ring the bells, just to inform the 200 people that lived there that a new child was born. So this is a very early form of information. Mimesis means to copy. I think the idea of a loop is not far from mimesis. The loop is going on, and on, and on, and it's always the same.

It works both ways -- I think of mimesis in terms of copying the external world. In terms of music, I think of Debussy, or something that's trying to create a picture of the external world. So tell me a little more about acoustic snapshots.

In the '70s, Mobile Fidelity Soundlabs released some records. For example, they did a record with trains. One side was trains, and the other side was bad weather or something. Very ambient. I was always thinking of what you hear about people in New York City -- when they go on holidays, they can't sleep, because they miss the noise of the city. So they made recordings for them to take on holidays, of the noises in New York, so they could sleep. And I thought about how places change. For example, if you take a place like Times Square, and you make a kind of "snapshot" of this place, say from 1970 to 1990, the place will change completely. If you take a certain date, like Christmas Eve, and each year you go there and make a recording at a certain time -- 6 p.m., for instance -- it would be very interesting to have, over 30 years, the acoustical changes of the place. Like a series of snapshots. Not using them for anything, not making music from them. Just leaving it like it is.

Are you concerned with the accessibility of your music? The fact that most people won't "get it." For instance, I just got the "x100" record...

That's a very special record, a very special project. It's an art project, absolutely. I didn't care about the music so much. The main idea was the drawing on the record [the image formed by the grooves]. I programmed the sounds just to make the circles. So the first idea was a visual idea. I was always thinking about the connection. I think that you can see with your ears. Your orientation in rooms has to do with your ears, not only with your eyes. There's an interaction between your eyes and your ears and your sense of smell, and for me this border between the senses is very important. When you look at very old music, from Greece, for example, this music is very connected to mathematical problems. Also, the music of Bach. For example, at the time when they invented frets. To figure this out, where you put the metal on the neck of the instrument, you need mathematics. And I think the visual nature of things is very important. For instance, with a record, it's visual -- it's much more visual than a CD. And tactile as well. So the solutions you find with records are completely different from the solutions you find with CDs. And I think with CDs, this whole DJ culture is impossible. So there's always this relation between the material, the surfaces with which you are working, and your work. And this connection, this border, was very important for me in "x100." The visual problem, the rings, the spirals. One is going the left way, the other is going the right way, and then they come together. The spirals are made by the bass drums. Each "boom" makes an interference in the cutting of the record. Where there is a bass drum, the interference is a little stronger, and you can see a line. And if you vary the tempo a little, the lines become curved. If you look at Ernst 1, for example, or Ester Brinkmann "8+1," they are very straight lines, and you can see each bass drum. You can see everything, even the scratch loops. The scratch loops are not as straight as the other sounds, because the turntable was going at a slightly different speed. So there's a little curve for the scratch loops, and you can see that curve on the record. "x100" was the first time I've tried to work consciously with this mathematical/geometrical problem, and I said to myself, "OK, I want to have a very simple, geometrical form on the surface of the record. How is it possible to program the sounds to create this?" So the music was following the visual imperative.

I've been trying to figure out how you did it. Because it sounds -- and looks, if you look at the surface of the record -- as if you began at both ends of the composition and worked backwards, so to speak. How did you program it to get two loops that are so perfectly out of phase that they re-sync? Was it a mathematical problem?

A lot of the work was just thinking about the problem. When I went to Dubplates and Mastering in Berlin and we cut the record, I didn't know if I'd made mistakes, so I wasn't sure if the things I had figured out theoretically would work in the studio. The first time I saw the record, it was surprising. We made a lot of mistakes, just to get the one record. My mathematics were so bad that it wasn't possible to see the patterns. They sounded correct, but they didn't translate into optical information.

You mentioned how your orientation in rooms is guided by your ears. When I brought home "x100" I put it on, turned off all the lights, and just sat there in the dark, listening, over and over. And somehow, it gradually came to define the space of the room.

We did a lot of funny things making this record. A friend of mine and I sat in front of the speakers -- my friend at the left speaker, and me at the right speaker -- and we just noted the beats on paper. For every beat, each of us would make a mark, so we could count the beats. I wanted to know if I'd made a mistake, because the number of beats was very precise. The track had to be exactly 20 minutes long, and in that 20 minutes, each channel had to have a particular number of beats. I don't remember exactly, but one channel had to have two beats more than the other. A very slight difference. It's very interesting to listen to those things, and also at the same time to be making a kind of introspection. It's very hard to figure it out, when you just listen to the sounds, that there will be two circles running [on the surface of the record]. Even if you know about it, it's not possible to see the circles in your mind. It's not possible to figure out the movement that is going on. And it is a movement, in an optical way and in an acoustical way. One is going a little bit slower, the other a little bit faster. The bass drums are moving [in relation to one another], on your screen, if you close your eyes. It's funny, we had some really good moments, working out this very theoretical problem. And yet this record has nothing to do with dancefloors. The dancefloor is also a theoretical problem. People don't want to know this. It's a little bit like Greek architecture: the columns are very strong, they're like a hook line. And on this hook line, there are the other sounds -- these buildings are not profane buildings, they're important buildings, like churches or something, spiritual buildings. And I think techno is a very spiritual thing, but the surface is completely different. You don't need columns anymore, you are doing parties. And the straight bass drum is like a virtual column. And people, when they go there, it's really like they are going to a spiritual place. You see the people, the masses, they're dancing, and they are losing their individuality. You are treating your body -- your corpse -- very rough, and in a way it's a complete negation of the body. I think it's a very, very spiritual thing. The surface is completely different from the surface 2000 years ago, but the structure behind it is very similar.

Let me ask you about series. Given the alphabetical naming of the Max and Ernst records, it looks like there will be 13 of each…

Yeah, probably. But "Q" is very difficult [laughs].

To me they don't stand alone as much as they work in a series. I understand more by listening to them in relation to each other than by themselves. It seems like context is everything. How does the idea of the series inform your work? Are you working through a specific set of problems?

Ernst for me is about learning. There's always a constant element, like a straight bass drum, and I'm trying to do new things with it, to see how far I can go. For example, the new release on Ernst has a big sample from Norman Whitfield's Undisputed Truth. Ernst is really just a fun project for me, I'm trying to do something with very simple equipment. Most of the sounds are made with preset patterns. It's very simple, and I'm just trying to work with this simple technology, and simple sounds, in different ways. The music changes a lot [throughout the series]. For example, the first one is completely different from the third one.

And then you throw in that "pump up the volume" sample!

This is a problem here in Germany. You know, people say, "Ah, you are working with theoretical stuff on Ester Brinkmann. What, do you want to have a theoretical discussion about techno?" So this was my response.

Why did you choose the name Ester Brinkmann?

She's my sister. She's not living, though, she died. Most of the Ester Brinkmann projects are playing with death, with people who are not living anymore, but still living in spirit. They are still powerful today. Like when I used those philosophers' voices [on the "Totes Rennen" 12-inch] -- most of them are dead. On the new Ester Brinkmann release, I use the words from a Romanian who lived in France, who's also dead. There is always the question, who is doing this work? And it's difficult for me to say that I did this work. Because there's a kind of catalytic process, something is going through you, the history behind you. And your family. My sister died when I was three. And my first memories are connected to her. I never had any real contact with her -- in a way she didn't exist for me, but in another way, she has always existed, in a virtual way. For me she is very important. I have another sister, who is still living, but the most important sister for me is the sister I've never known, that I never had the possibility to speak to. She had "glass bones," you know that disease? It's when your bones are always cracking -- when you move around, they crack. So the first sound I remember is the sound of cracking bones. I told this to Rob Young from The Wire, who wrote a very sentimental story about this, but it isn't sentimental at all -- it's only a metaphorical picture. I don't actually remember the sound of cracking bones, but in a way she's part of me. But it's not only she that's a part of me. In a way she's standing for a lot of things. I don't know, I'm always thinking about this. And the name, the way I write it, is wrong. It's written with an "h," Esther. But I write it without: Ester. Ester is also a kind of eteric alcohol: ether. A kind of gas. And she's also like a kind of gas for me, she's not real, she's only a projection surface. I project my movies onto my sister. But I don't know anything about her. She's like the screen of my private cinema.

Thumbnail Music Redux: Part Six - Taylor Deupree

This interview, originally published on Urbansounds.com in October, 1999, is part of a series of reprints I'm publishing here, intended as a look back at the rise and fall of minimalism over the past decade.

Taylor Deupree

Taylor Deupree is a musician, graphic designer, and typographer. He became known in the first half of the '90s for his ambient and experimental techno work under the names Human Mesh Dance, SETI (with Savvas Ysatis), and Prototype 909 (with Dietrich Schoenemann and Jason Szostek). Currently, Deupree runs and records for 12k, a Brooklyn-based label specializing in grainy minimalism and "hyper-synthetic textures." Earlier this year, 12k released .aiff, a compilation packaged in a distinctive laser-cut floppy disk sleeve. A manifesto of sorts, .aiff showcased minimal, "microscopic" tracks from Deupree, Komet, Kim Rapatti, Goem, Shuttle358, *0, and others. Deupree also curated the Microscopic Sound compilation for Caipirinha, featuring a range of tracks from Noto, Ryoji Ikeda, Thomas Brinkmann, Kim Cascone, and others effectively mapping the intersecting axes of repetitive and microscopic minimalism.

The following interview was conducted in October '99. Deupree, who never seems to stray too far from his keyboard, fired back emails about repetition, technology, and the cross-currents between minimalism and ambient music.

What inspired you to put 12k together? Does the label have a particular mission? A particular sound?

I established 12k for two reasons. One, I was unhappy with the state of experimental techno in America. No labels were doing it the way I thought it should be done. And two, I wanted to establish a center, a focus, for my own creations. An identity. 12k grounds me and keeps me focused. I've been extremely happy with the way it's been progressing. I think I'm finally earning respect for doing what I'm doing with 12k, and I believe I'm doing it well. Quality control is the most important thing to the label. People may or may not like the label, but I don't think I can be accused of being half-assed or not passionate about what I do.

The mission is pretty much to further this type of sound that I do. I've been fortunate enough to meet a lot of people around the world doing this kind of music and to establish some kind of extended family with them. It's a bit disappointing that there isn't more of it in America, but on the other hand, I don't mind being one of the only ones. I feel as though I'm in a bit of a privileged position.

You've described the music that you compose as an artist, and that you release through 12k, as "microscopic." Do you see a difference between "microscopic" and "minimalist"? Is microscopic an offshoot, or subcategory, of minimalism?

To me, "microscopic" describes the sound aesthetic and "minimalist" describes the arrangement or compositional aesthetic. Small sounds crafted in minimalist space. I think the two go hand in hand.

What's your relationship with technology? Obviously you're computer influenced, as in the design and title of .aiff, for instance.

That's a tough question to answer, considering my entire life revolves around technology. My music is completely computer-based. My graphic design work is all done on the computer. My photography is digital. I conduct a huge amount of my business over the Internet. I'm surrounded by technology every day, and yes, it definitely rubs off on my music. Some people like to live in the country and write really technological music, or live in the city and write very organic music, to find that balance. I prefer to live in the city, immerse myself in technology, and write technological music. I can escape to nature for an entirely different kind of stimulus and inspiration. I love technology and am completely at ease with it -- it has had nothing but positive effects on my career. I think it also supplies beauty and abstract inspiration.

Some of the tonalities you and your artists use -- I'm thinking especially of *0 -- are almost physical entities, particularly the low, sub-bass tones and the high, grating scree. Is this intended? Could you talk about the physicality or materiality of sound, perhaps as employed by a certain strand of new-minimalist composer?

Extreme-tone music is very physical. Hearing Ryoji Ikeda or Signal live is a very physical experience. Having music sound different from different places within a room is also a very physical phenomenon. To me this is all another layer of what makes the music interesting and makes it a complete art form, from sound to packaging to physical sensation. Of course, there comes a point, mostly with high frequencies, where the sounds can become disturbing and painful. I've got quite a bit of music like that. To me it makes it less listenable, but still interesting. Something maybe best experienced in a performance setting rather than at home chilling out. Obviously, sound has been used throughout history for all sorts of treatments, testing, and so forth; experimentation with how different entities -- animals, plants, people -- respond to different frequencies.

There seems to be an opposition set up on .aiff, and in your label's releases in general. On the one hand, the glitch-ridden minimalism of Komet, *0, and your own pieces; on the other, there's Shuttle358 with an almost "classic" ambient sound, albeit updated with certain DSP-derived textures. What, if anything, separates ambient from minimalism?

As far as 12k goes, it stems simply from my love of both genres. Classic ambient -- in the early Aphex, Fax style -- and new microscopic sounds. Dan Abrams (Shuttle358) contacted me via a demo tape. When I heard it I fell in love with it. It was the first time I heard the combination of the two forms, and so amazingly done, too. I don't think the two genres have to be separate, I just think they're defined differently. To me, "classic ambient" involves the use of lush pad sounds, floating, reverbed washes, and so forth -- nearly the opposite in sound from microscopic, which uses tiny, small, rhythmic sounds with little or no reverb. Classic ambient to me is more relaxing while microscopic is more engaging. I think I'm going to stay in the microscopic vein with 12k for the foreseeable future, but if anyone can blend the two genres as beautifully as Dan has, I'd love to be able to go in that direction as well.

I use very different ears -- or at least exercise different habits -- listening to someone like Bernhard Gunter or *0 than I do listening to pop music. Do you think there are different modes of listening applicable to your releases? Differences, even, between floor-oriented "minimal techno" and headphone-oriented minimalism? Or are these specious comparisons?

Microscopic music requires a listener who appreciates a particular sound and aesthetic. I definitely think it's listening music, and yes, it requires a different set of ears or a different frame of mind than dancefloor techno or pop music. You've got to be the type of person who can sit down and listen to music with the same kind of attention you would watch a movie or read a book. At least with my own music that's how I hope it gets listened to. As a composer, for people to pay attention to my music in that way is a compliment.

Techno wouldn't be techno, of course, without repetition; and the same goes for minimalism. Any comments on repetition, on how it works?

I am a huge fan of repetition. Repetition is hypnotic, which, to me, is very important in music. I like a lot of my music to be hypnotic. It draws the listener in, makes them concentrate. I think repetition in form with subtle changes in tone or timbre is very effective. And yes, more minimal too, when there is less to distract you and more to focus on. It's also a very microscopic concept, because it really allows you to hear each sound for what it is. Every element becomes very important.

Repetition is very difficult to use, I find. Well, not difficult really. But I find that when I'm writing tracks, I come up with loops that I could listen to over and over for hours. And it becomes a confidence thing, where I'm worried that no one else would want to hear one loop repeated for five minutes, or fifteen minutes. Of course, I shouldn't worry so much about what other people will think. But it's hard to avoid.
One of my favorite CDs of all time is Chris Meloche's Recurring Dreams of the Urban Myth on Fax. It's just one chord progression over and over and over for 61 minutes, with subtle changes going on. A lot of people I know don't like that album, find it boring. For me, it's the exact opposite. It's very, very engaging.

I've been playing with the idea that in minimalism, form (repetition) takes precedence over content (the exceptionally sparse musical material, sometimes just a few loops or drum patterns). That, in fact, form eclipses content to the extent that the form itself becomes the content. Have you thought about the form/content opposition? Do you agree?

Being an avid sound designer I would tend to disagree. I think the sounds (content) are equally or even more important than the arrangement (form). You could have beautiful patterns and a totally seductive composition, but if the sounds are crap and don't mesh with the whole, then the piece is going to fail. Form and content should be one and each should complement and fortify the other.

What about emotional affect? In someone like Shuttle358, I hear very poignant, emotional sounds (or at least, sounds receptive to my own emotional preconceptions). But in the starker releases -- again, *0 comes to mind -- the music seems to be more of a blank slate. Where does emotion and expressivity come in for you?

I think it's a matter of taste, and to me, ultimately, what I'm in the mood to hear or experience. I agree, totally, with what you say. Shuttle358 is very emotional and something like *0 or Ryoji Ikeda is very cold and machinic. I think it can pretty much be defined by melody. I think when you have melody you have emotion, or at least emotional states are easier to achieve. I like both types, cold and emotional. I don't think either leads to hypnotic music more than the other. I do think that most of this microscopic music lacks emotion, yes. It probably turns a lot of people off, but it doesn't bother me. I'm listening to it for different reasons. If I want to cry or have fond memories of times past, I've got music for that, too.

Thumbnail Music Redux: Part Five - Stewart Walker

This interview, originally published on Urbansounds.com in October, 1999, is part of a series of reprints I'm publishing here, intended as a look back at the rise and fall of minimalism over the past decade.

Stewart Walker

Stewart Walker is probably the "dark horse" among those featured here. He has only been releasing music since late 1997, but he's quickly earned a reputation for his textured, nuanced techno, with releases for Belief Systems, Tektite, Tresor, and Force Inc., among others. Sparse if not necessarily minimalist, Walker's music is exemplary of the extent to which minimalist techniques have filtered into the work of artists exploring other concerns. His latest album, Stabiles, was inspired by Alexander Calder's sculptures. It's a collection of tracks that hover like mobiles, shifting internally but never changing position in absolute space. I caught up with Walker earlier this year, just after his move from Wisconsin to Boston, and before departing for his first German tour.

Do you consider yourself a minimalist?

I do. But it wasn't my original goal to make minimal music. I just found that my production style gravitated toward minimalism as the years went by. The confusing part of me calling my music minimal is that I don't know what the opposite of minimalism is. You never hear an artist called "maximal," although I would suggest that the "we-sound-like-Autechre" faction fits that description by placing hundreds of samples and fills into a single track. For me, it's an issue of control, and musicality. I hear music with many changes and it just interrupts the all-important "flow," which is what I personally am aiming for.

Were you inspired by any of the "original minimalists," such as Reich, Glass, Conrad, and so forth?

I have enjoyed certain pieces from Glass and Reich. I realize Philip Glass is considered a minimal composer but too often his repeating melodies make me seasick. It's only the pieces where he exercises some control over dynamics that his music works for me. Specifically, I like the Brief History of Time and Thin Blue Line soundtracks that he wrote for Errol Morris. Also, some of the classics like Einstein on the Beach are good. I have less exposure to Reich, though I have a copy of Music for 18 Musicians, which is fantastic, though not a minimal work in my mind. It recycles similar phrases throughout, of course, but the orchestration builds up to create a very dense soundscape. I don't believe I was actively influenced by these works, but I have appreciated them occasionally in the past. I can draw an unconscious comparison between the rhythmic mystery of 18 Musicians or Drumming and my own Stabiles record, but I hardly ever listen to neo-classical works by any composer.

How do you approach repetition?

Repetition is the source of all of my recordings thus far. I will work on a particular one-measure loop for hours or days until I think it cannot be improved. As I'm perfecting it, I set aside parts that can be modified or re-inserted to keep the composition interesting. Also, by leaving the structure -- or sequencing -- alone, I can focus more closely on timbral modulations. For any piece of music I'm working on I know hundreds of ways to modify the sound, but only three or four fit the context of the mood I'm trying to achieve.

So is a track for you primarily about mood? Are you trying out certain *formal* experiments? One thing that struck me about Stabiles is the way the four-to-the-floor was subverted, almost, by a kind of doubling up, where the downbeat and the beat on three overlap. So what would have been "regular" 4/4 techno becomes a kind of relentless rhythm machine.

A track is all about mood for me, about ambiance or setting. When you ask if I have done formal experiments, I imagine sitting in front of my computer screen with a notepad and a stopwatch and no I don't do that. Occasionally, I do have "what if" thoughts and break out the calculator when I'm away from the studio. And I have been known to mix time signatures (most often 3/4 and 4/4), and I really like the way that comes out. I'm also on the prowl for a formula to smoothly shift tempo in a track by mixing half-speed and 3/4-speed breaks with the standard 4/4 kick-drum pattern. To speak about that standard four-on-the-floor feel: I really love it and this came only after the realization that, with a dancefloor sound system, you don't "hear" the bass pattern as much as you feel it. On a home stereo it is a little obvious though, so I work around it by trying to weave macro-rhythms and phrases on top of the kick. So, I imagine that the kick is clear in the beginning of the track, but as I progress and add more elements the kick is obscured and becomes only one voice vying in the mix. I like your phrase "relentless rhythm machine," and I take it as a high compliment. But I wonder how I can apply this rhythmic indecision to dance-oriented tracks. I'm going to address that question on my Tresor full-length (once I begin working on it after my German and U.S. tours).

How does technology affect your methods?

The technology of the '90s enables me to make music period. If this were 1989, I'd probably be saving to afford a reel-to-reel recorder, or one of the early DAT machines. But composition-wise, I think the ability to listen to a loop playing forever really affects my decisions when I'm writing music. If I was writing each note out by hand I would be less likely to repeat phrases so often. But when using software, you can leave one repeating phrase alone for a time while focusing on other parts that you want to alter.

What are you using to make music, by the way? Is it all software-based? You don't need to tell me all your gear secrets, I'm just curious about your methods.

I don't have gear secrets. I wish I could lie like Richard James and say everything I use is custom-built, but I'm a musician, not a technician, so it's my job to excise my sounds out of off-the-shelf equipment. So, briefly, I use an Akai MPC-2000, a Waldorf Microwave XT, and a Macintosh running Logic Audio with a small collection of VST plug-ins. Most of the bits and pieces come from outside the computer, whether it's a rhythm or an individual sound. Then it goes into Logic for sequencing, re-effecting and then, occasionally, dismissal.

The tracks on Stabiles, as you state in the liner notes, are fashioned after Alexander Calder's sculptures, and you expressly refer to them as "home listening" tracks. Have you composed for installations, or done any site-specific work? How do you reconcile the opposition between the home and the dancefloor in your music?

I have never created music for art installations. If my music were to play a secondary role to a visual component, I would prefer to have it heard in movies. I just think of art exhibits as bright white rooms with people talking in them. Movies are a completely immersive experience, and if my music were incorporated into a soundtrack it would add subconsciously to the environment. I would love it if my music were used in a heavy talking movie like Metropolitan or Two Girls and a Guy. You know, the characters walking around on hardwood floors discussing the appropriate metaphysical topics. But then, that would just be a reconstruction of my own life.

Ideally, music written for the home would be equally useful on the dancefloor, but I think the majority of DJs prefer music that makes no concession to subtlety and instead drives the dancers forward with clichés like 16-measure percussionless interludes and snare rolls. It's trite for me to complain about these methods but artists still use them to this day. That makes me think that dance music genres have petrified and no new methods are possible, but then you've got DJ's like Jeff Mills, Misjah, and Surgeon who can precisely control their textures and progression by using three turntables and a capable mixer. Furthermore, they accomplish this without resorting to the obvious DJ tricks.

I've been playing with the idea that in minimalism, form (or repetition) takes precedence over content (the severely limited musical material -- sometimes just a few loops or drum patterns). Have you thought about the form/content opposition? Are you consciously making tracks that do more with less?

To be brutally honest, I don't have a million ideas when I sit down to write a piece of music. Instead of pre-planning what's going to happen, I start making sounds and sequences until a greater pattern emerges. I compare my process of writing a track to painting myself into a corner. When a sound occurs, it is because that's the only event that can occur at that moment and still fit the theme I'm trying to create. It's not as precise as mathematics, because I'm still the judge of the aesthetic beauty of what I record. Also, what I'm describing is more theoretical than what actually occurs when I'm in the studio.

Are you interested in expression, in emotional content? Some of your track titles would certainly seem to indicate that.

Yes. Well, I am interested in emotional content, but I don't love describing my goals as emotional. Pop music aims to purify emotions into very, very happy or very, very sad. What I'd really like to accomplish in the next few years is to really control the mood of tracks so that more than one emotion is expressed. Also, there are location descriptions like dark, eerie, and cold, which could apply to human moods or exist without humans at all. These ambiguities of first-person vs. no-person and then the hoped-for mixing of moods will serve to make my music more interesting. When I first began releasing records, I wanted actively to shun emotional content (thus titles like "Stoic EP"). But I've made the decision recently that the old techno metaphors such as "the future" and "space" are really dried up and boring. This is why "new" electro that is designed to sound like "old" electro, which was trying to sound like the future, ends up being self-contradictory and ridiculous.

Somehow, listening to your music and reading your track titles, I get an impression of austerity and cold. I think I read an interview where you mentioned Glenn Gould and the Solitude Trilogy. Is this a factor in your work?

I got the Solitude Trilogy for Christmas last year, and after listening to "North" a couple of times, I realized it did not give me the feeling I wanted. But I was still fascinated with northern features such as snow, wind-chill, white-outs, and the effect these non-Earth-like conditions had on Earth-dwelling humans. Most of my neighbors just wiped the snow off their cars and drove to work not taking into account how bizarre it was to live easily in such a harsh climate. Many of the song titles were derived from my experiences in Wisconsin. Walking across a frozen lake with a friend, or staring after the horizon on a snowy day but not finding it because everything was white, quiet, and hazy. I felt extreme isolation from the outside world during these experiences. And as you point out, austerity. Another cool thing about the snow that I should mention is that it too minimalizes the landscape, drowning out color and depth of field.

Do you think your music requires different listening habits than other forms? I tend to think of minimalism in terms of its effect -- extreme reduction and repetition has certain effects on the listener. What is it that your music does?

I hope that my music is easy to listen to. I think it's well-suited for both micro and macro listening, one being attentive concentration and the other being as background music. I created it in part because I felt there was a shortage of quality home-listening music available to me at the time, and I really wanted to create music that I could listen to often without getting annoyed with it.

I think that minimal and repetitive music has the ability to hypnotize and soothe the listener. So it's great to sleep to, or smoke weed to, or otherwise relax to. I don't think you should listen to it while driving at night, though. It might be too lulling.

Mnml Rdx: Another Perspective

Gabriel Stargardter's Anglo Colombine blog chimes in with a discussion of the (ma)lingering mnml strains of the late '00s. I'm not going out enough to hear much of it in action, but I've definitely noticed a rising tide of Italian mnml in the promosphere, the Beatport charts, etc. The first name that stuck out to me was the Minicoolboyz, a name so goofy I figured it had to be a joke, but no: these Minus worshippers seem to be serious about what they do, and their name pretty much sums up the M.O.: "Mini" as in minimal, "cool" as in scenesterish, "boyz" as in young. (From their bio: "Born in 1984, Mike and Raphael discovered electronic music in 2000.") I have to think that Väth's Cocoon parties in Amnesia have to be partly responsible for the rise of Italian mnml, given the army of young Italians shielded by enormous designer sunglasses that one sees descending upon the island every summer. Another outpost for the post-progressive school of mnml seems to be Argentina (source of a recent compilation on Minus, in fact), for whatever reason -- striking if only because of Argentina's strong Italian heritage. I can't say, per Gabriel, whether any of this makes mnml "important" again, but I'm intrigued by the sociological aspects of it.

(It's news to me to hear that Berlin's Golden Gate club is ground zero for nu-mnml! I played there a few weeks back, with A Guy Called Gerald, Tyree Cooper and Laboratory Instinct's Ryo Yamazaki, and it seemed to be a heavily (refreshingly?) German crowd...)

Thumbnail Music Redux: Part Four - Richie Hawtin

This interview, originally published on Urbansounds.com in October, 1999, is part of a series of reprints I'm publishing here, intended as a look back at the rise and fall of minimalism over the past decade.

Richie Hawtin

Windsor, Ontario's Richie Hawtin is one of North America's premiere minimal techno producers. On his early albums under the name Plastikman, Sheet One and Musik, he turned acid into a pointillist exercise, opening up worlds of space in and around relentless, staccato percussion. Banned from the U.S. in 1996 for lacking a work visa, Hawtin turned his music inward with the "Concept" releases, a series of a dozen 12-inches that were minute variations on a rhythmic theme. Though he's known for refusing to allow others to remix his work, in 1998 Hawtin released Thomas Brinkmann's variations on his "Concept" series, in which Brinkmann used his home-made double-armed turntable to extract hidden rhythms and repetitions from the records. Hawtin's Consumed full-length, also released in 1998, presented his darkest, most stripped-down vision yet. His current project is called Decks, EFX & 909, a tour and mix CD featuring Hawtin's extended DJ work.

The following interview was conducted earlier this year following Hawtin's return from a European tour.

Your work on Consumed and in the "Concept" series has been widely discussed as a new foray into minimalism. But even your older work -- Musik, for instance -- seems just as minimal, just as stripped-down. What's new, then, with these two releases?

People are finally looking at it that way. But to me, most of my work has been in that vein. Not in the very beginning, maybe, like in 1989, 1990, when I started to record. I was just learning the technology, and I was learning about myself, what I wanted to do. There was a bit more going on in my tracks then. But I don't think I've ever worked on anything that was too "full" since then.

Especially around Sheet One and Musik, going back to those albums, they were stripped-down. They were supposed to be stripped to bare essentials, to give a feeling, an emotion, without giving people too much information. Listening now, in comparison to Consumed, they don't sound that stripped-down. But in context, if you compare them to other things that were being produced at the time, they do.

A lot of people think minimalism, using less information, is the easiest way to record. But it's actually the hardest; to know when there's the right balance, to know when there's enough information to keep people there, not to make them feel overcrowded. I don't think I've gotten more minimal, just more efficient in my use of sound.

How much of those albums were influenced by the techno that was current at the time?

Those two albums weren't really working with what was going on then. A lot of my projects are really kind of reactionary. I stopped doing acid tracks with F.U.S.E. because everyone started doing the same thing, copying or extrapolating that style. When that happened, I took some time off, and at a point where producers were bombarding people with noisy, aggressive 303s, I came back with something stripped-down, subtle, sexy. That's why Sheet One and Musik were created. I don't think they sound like anything that had come before.

What do you think accounts for minimalism's current vogue, especially the minimal techno of Jeff Mills and others? Where do you position yourself with respect to this tendency?

For electronic music, because it's been around for the last 10 years, it's been very prevalent in many people's lives. So not only are producers becoming more at ease, more refined, listeners have become more attuned to the subtleties of what producers are trying to do. The easiest thing to do with electronic music is to add more and more. It's easier even than in rock music, logistically. With electronic music, there's no one to tell you when to stop, that enough is enough, so you just keep adding. I think as listeners have matured, there's been a program to get rid of that excess baggage. Techno producers are hung up with the future. It's tied to technology -- all these high-tech companies are making things smaller and more compact. The '90s have really been about miniaturization and minimalism. Across the board, this scaling back and providing smaller things for a wider purpose. And musically, that's what we're doing, scaling back, giving people less musical information, but a broader journey.

How do you know when enough is enough?

That's a hard question, something you can't really explain. I can't answer that question. It's a feeling, it's a learned behavior, or maybe it's hereditary. When it's done, it's done.

If I sit with my tracks for more than a day or two, they've lost the initial impression. In terms of the actual recording process, the faster the better. I'm trying to capture a specific point in history. That's another thing, my take on technology is to use it to help you, not to let it control you, not to get too methodical, to sit and stare at the screen for days and days. It's not about perfection, but the right balance between perfection and imperfection.

I read somewhere that Consumed was your response to an experience in the north of Canada. Is this true? Of course, I think immediately of Glenn Gould and his Solitude Trilogy, and the "idea of north."

Everyone has had experiences in life that are more inspirational than others. We did a party up north, for a birthday. When you're living in a city it's very hard to get away from sounds, people, even light. Up north we were able to do all of those things. I remember walking out through the forest with a friend. When everyone was quiet, it was really silent. And the blackest night I've ever seen. The idea of that blackness, that kind of void, where you don't know exactly where you are, what's around you. If there are 10 meters in front of you, or 10 miles; if you're at the edge of a cliff, or at the beginning of a pasture. Consumed is a sonic representation of that experience. Or at least that experience enabled me to see what was in my head, sonically. It's this idea of a multi-layered environment.

There is a certain sense of isolation in Canada. It's why I continue to live here, why I'll keep a place here. I like the isolation of Canada -- it's not a destination. Detroit, too, it's not a destination. It's very isolated, from the rest of the world and from itself. I think that's reflected in my work.

How does technology influence your work? How does it affect your methodologies and the form of your music?

I'm definitely a product of technology. I'm looking for technologies which enable people to represent what's inside them, but still keeping a sense that it isn't a battle between them and technology, where technology has the upper hand. I'm interested in technologies that give people the opportunity to approach things from a different angle. Not to repeat things that have already been done.

I'm not really working in a different way now than I was on Musik. Even though I use technology so much, I'm not particularly concerned with brand-new technologies in my studio. I filter through things, I'm aware of what is happening and what's new, but I'm not out to use every technology just because it's the newest or supposedly the best. I think we're seeing a heightened use of technology in the presentation of music, whether it's Internet-related or in terms of installations -- technology can create new environments, it can help present the music, but we're still controlling what the technology delivers.

Are you preoccupied with form? I often think of music like minimal techno as being essentially a theme and variations, a kind of asymptotic approach toward an ideal type. Would this -- the idea of theme and variations -- describe your work, even on Musik?

I guess there's a certain form to what I'm doing. That is, there's a set of variables I'm working with, changing the order of those around and coming up with new things, not adding new things. If anything, in progressing, I'm getting rid of variables. If I add something, it's something I haven't tried before. Overall there's a sense of elimination in what I'm doing.

Could you talk about repetition as it figures in your work?

If you're trying to do something that sounds different than the listener is used to -- to get a reaction from someone, to get them to understand the nuances -- you really need to bring them into your realm of thinking. And that's done by repetition, bringing people into a realm of similar events, a balance between interesting and nearly boring. Allowing the listener time to become comfortable with something before you make a change. For them to understand what you're doing, they need to feel comfortable. The music needs time to develop, and the listener needs time to acclimate.

I've been reading a biography of Brian Eno, and he's really into this generative music, always into new patterns. It always relates to the piece before, but it has less to do with the beginning than with each movement forward. It's a case of intelligent, generative repetition. Maybe technology is only getting to the point now where it can provide that kind of music. Maybe what we're doing as musicians is providing the groundwork for people to understand what will come next. For people to understand a never-ending, non-repeating cycle of events, they'll have to understand a simple cycle. That has to happen before they can understand music regenerating each time, but still relating to what came before. Maybe we're training our ears for the next form of minimalism and technology-based music.

What did you set out to do on the "Concept" releases?

The "Concepts" were a reaction against everything I'd done, against myself, musically, what I stood for. It was also a reaction against that situation, the period of exile when I wasn't allowed in the States, and I really felt that it was a time I needed to get back into the studio and progress with my ideas. It was a time of everyone wanting to release a record, not caring what was on it, what it looked like. I wanted to represent something bigger -- about the process, the time it took getting it mastered, the artwork and packaging that contained the record. And musically, over that year, how things progressed from release to release, at the end of it you were left with something a lot bigger than the sum of its parts. It was so many things. I don't necessarily need to make money off my projects, but it was sad to see so many people not taking this art form seriously. I wanted to show what it meant to me. That there was more to it than just beats on a 12-inch.

How did the Brinkmann remixes come about?

The only reason that saw the light of day is that it was an unexpected event. He called me, he was in Windsor -- he'd done Mike Ink's Variationen, so I was aware of that. And it was funny because there was this continuity between Mike and myself -- we'd both done acid, and then the Studio 1 and "Concept" series. So Thomas was in Windsor, and he played me the music and at the same time he explained how he'd done it. And it was that combination that made it interesting to me. It wasn't just about the music, but about the process. Here was someone giving me sonically interesting ideas, variations of "Concept," but also a very interesting concept in itself, due to the process -- playing back the records with the double-armed turntable. Through placement and ingenuity, he'd created something completely different. I'd never wanted anyone to remix my work, and I still don't. But he didn't remix my work. He allowed everyone out there, and myself, to listen to the music I'd created -- differently.

The amazing thing about what Thomas did is to highlight elements that pre-exist the listener. Not everyone understands all the subtleties in the "Concept" releases. Thomas allowed people to listen to it in a whole new way, without changing anything. It's not a remix -- Thomas didn't change one thing about the record. The only thing he did was pick up the listener by the head, move them slightly to the left or to the right, and allow them to listen with different ears. An intervention.