Interview with Angus Maiden

Angus Maiden is a blogger, label representative, and first of all, very prolific musician (Peach Tree) from Melbourne, Australia

How would you describe the meaning of music for yourself? What exactly does it mean for you?

I am not religious, I am spiritual, and Music is my deity, forever serenading my soul. It is my reason for living and the reason I'm alive. I can't imagine a world without music and for the 1 or 2 people who say "I don't like music" when I meet them, I am absolutely flabbergasted.

Music is complex vibrations in air particles that are translated in our brain into electrical signals. The vibrations are normally created by a piece of cardboard in a cone shape moving backwards and forwards to pulses of voltage it then transfers to the air.

When these signals hit our brain, a variety of effects can spill forth. It can make our hair stand on end, it can bring people together, it can make us cry, it can evoke memories, it can spark rage and fury.

So… for pieces of cardboard moving backwards and forwards to be able to do this, I see no other answer than: Music is something way, way bigger than we give it credit for. I know not where it comes from, or what it's doing here, but the way it moves me, both when I listen and when I create, brings me closer to some kind of Higher Spirit.

There's another point here: I have only met 1 or 2 people who don't like music. It is a global phenomenon. It is something that we all share in, and has shaped human culture and expression for countless years. Music is All.


You have issued approximately a dozen of albums in a timespun of 4 years. By any means it seems to be quite much. Wherefrom do you get inspiration to be active this way?

I actually answer this question in the description of my latest album, "A Scrapbook For Glue Junkies", which I will quote here:

"People often ask me how I'm so prolific (as I release my 18th album).

It is because I rarely screen my own material. I learned very early not to second-guess what comes out in the creative process. It forms from the subconscious for a reason, and if the artist desires to share his or her work with the world, then there is no point censoring, altering or deleting tracks that "might not work" - that's pandering to trends and sociology.

After all, art is about expression. Even if something doesn't quite fit an album I will still release it, just because it was made. As simple as that."

So yea, I've actually released 13 LPs and 5 EPs, and my first release was in 2005. And, as quoted above, a lot of it was just released "For the fuck of it", meaning some albums are quite weak and likely to make people cringe with poor vocals etc. However, I feel it is extremely important to vent everything you feel into your art.

The wavering in my voice expresses a certain honesty that I believe my music has, and I have enough skill with music theory and instruments to compel people to actually listen. I am not a professional, because I release everything for free, but neither am I an amateur or "experimental artist" - when I release something it is because my whole heart and skill has gone into it. Sure I could have done another 20 takes on the vocals for track X, but in the end I kept the take that made the final cut because I felt it conveyed something important.


Let`s speak some words about your creating process. Do you follow the flow of unconsciousness or is it somehow determined by your side?

This ties into the above question about inspiration. When creating I just make sure that whatever idea pops into my head immediately flows through my fingers to my guitar or piano, and lyrics into a notepad. You have to capture the essence of creativity at its source, even if the bulk of the work is done later. As long as you have something to start with, everything else flows if you're open enough about it. So, I simply live my life and when creativity pokes it head… I sever that head, shrink it, and put it on the shelf to be scrutinised later.


What sort of equipment do you exploit to conjure up your oeuvre?

Ooo… all sorts of stuff. See? I got really excited about answering this one. The bulk of my work is done with the aid of software. My main Digital Audio Workstation is ProTools, the industry standard. I did a sound engineering course that made a lot of use of Tools so I can work very quickly and efficiently with it. It's connected to a 003 Rack, which has 8 inputs with their own pre-mics, so I can record voice and guitar and piano all at once, and work on them separately.

The 003 just sits on my desk, with my MacBook Pro on top. When I bought the laptop I thought I might be doing some field recording stuff but to be honest it's never moved from this spot. I am writing on it right now, and its power cord is permanently plugged in. It's where I surf the net from, write from, search porn on, etc.

Surrounding this core DAW are some mid-range speakers (not everything can be industry standard on my sort of budget), two Shure SM58s (they are traditionally live mics but I use them for recording because the sound is sublime, I actually prefer the dynamic range and presence of them better than super expensive condensers and such), and my synth. Her name is Synthia.

When it comes to software I have a plethora of ProTools plugins and instruments that I use, but for drums and most of the electronic sounds you hear in my recordings they're made with Propellerhead Reason - by far the best electronic audio station around. I love it. I also use Ableton Live occasionally.

As for guitars, I mainly use a Fender Stratocaster for electric, and my most beloved - my Cort acoustic - it was the first guitar I bought and although I should probably change the strings more often it has this beautiful lush, warm sound that has never faded in all these years. Apart from that there are hmm… 7 other guitars in the house including a Gibson SG which I sometimes use and this beautiful nylon-string that was bought for $40 in an op-shop (Probably worth about 500!)

I also spin vinyl decks occasionally so I have two Stanton T-60s and a DJ mixer, as well as shitloads of vinyl. They haven't worked their way into recordings because I prefer original sounds over sampling. It's funny, DJ-ing is sort of a mediator between listening and making, so when I feel like doing both I'll DJ.

Included in the "equipment" of my home studio would be my cat, Tigerlilly, who seems to enjoy curling up and listening to me play a loop over and over to get that perfect sound.


You are running the label (Tribal Dancing Kid) either. What additional duties has it put on you shoulder?

Not as many duties as running a record label should!

I've really let TDK go for the last year or so. It will always be there, but I'm not very good at promoting so I don't scout for talent, and rarely offer people contracts even if I love their stuff and they're unsigned. I just don't want to disappoint people with a promise of a record contract and then not delivering much on the promotion front.

I was stoked to be able to release Nezumi's CD, "The Principle of relative constancy in metamorphoses", which took a bit of a chunk out of my wallet that I never saw back. But it felt great to be able to send Nezumi his own printed CDs to proudly give or sell to his friends.

I don't think TDK will ever be in a position to make a profit but I'm fine with that. I'm a bit anti-label so it's kind of a conundrum. I kind of deliberately put off work on the label in case people flock to it expecting something I can't offer. I'm just a guy.

As I said it will always be there, and people seem to like the idea of "Bizarre Music Produced By Strange Minds" and my whole "Because Who Wants To Be Normal Anyway?" approach, so a time will come I'm sure when TDK becomes a much bigger part of everything I do and thus a bigger part of the music scene in general. Until then I'm happy to have released such interesting artist as Titee and Nezumi through the label.


In which way have you found the artists represented in the roster of TDK?

I am very connected on the net to a lot of other artists and artist groups. The ones that have found shelter under the wings of TDK simply naturally found their way to me through this networking. I still see everyday about a dozen "Click here to listen to Blah" posts on various forums such as Facebook, Twitter and LastFM, and I listen to as much as I can or feel like listening to at the time, and sometimes it will be amazing music, and sometimes they'll be looking for a label… but as I said, I'm not really pushing Tribal Dancing Kid too much right now so for those artists I just offer praise and wish them well.

In the future, should I wish to sign more artists, I don't think it would be hard given the amount of DIY musicians that are releasing stuff out there.


How would you describe the music environment around you in Melbourne? What is important for you there?

Oh, man… Melbourne is the most amazing place for live music. Any night of the week you can find a multitude of live gigs. We seem to be in a rock/punk-revival mode at the moment so that's the sort of stuff I go to, but especially on weekends you can find a rave if you just spend a bit of time surfing.

Most genuine music venues are just that: places to listen to music. The other clubs that play 50 Cent and stuff so that Jack and Jill can dance dirty with each other and go home together are, and have always been secondary to the real music pubs. If you're at a music venue, you're surrounded my musos too… who are always interesting to talk to.

What I believe is most important in the music scene here is that the listeners have a good time. I don't like "We're on the stage, fuck all of you who aren't" attitudes - they're rarely seen, but they clear rooms out when you do see them. People want to get their rock on or their rave out: and most DJs and bands cater to that very well.


Could you name your favorite artists and on the other side some of them regarding strictly the 10s?

Ok… Let's see here. Cradle of Filth, Radiohead, System of a Down, The Beatles, The Beatles, The Beatles, Tool. I have about 160 Gb of music so I listen to a lot of stuff, I have daily favourites, weekly favourites, monthly favourites, etc. But I really like the above mentioned artists and listen to them a lot. This question is the one musos hate answering, so I'll leave it at that…

In regards to the 10s? Between the Buried and Me are a band I've just gotten into that are still going strong, as always are Trent Reznor and Radiohead - looking forward to the next 10s albums from those two. I dunno… St. Vincent, Noisia… a lot of dubstep which is past it for UK'ers but only really reached Australian shores in the 10s. Hmmm… that should give you a really vague picture, fill in the gaps yourself. As I said it's such a hard question to answer. So, nuff said.


What could the listeners expect in the future by your side?

A graceful fall into the depths of insanity meticulously documented by a whirlwind of guitar riffs, inane poetry and unintelligible noises.


However, you could convey some messages over to your sympathisers?

Here's the deal… I spend a lot of time on my music, and I release it all FOR FREE… all I ask in return is that you listen. Know that I cannot be pigeonholed, I make a variety of different styles, everything from death-metal to psytrance. If you're listening to one of my albums and don't like the first track, don't be a douche and just stop listening to the album… it will grow, it will morph, and by the power of The Flying Spaghetti Monster it will amaze you by the end! So listen, this is music for The Now, made by a human, distributed by 1s and 0s… Share, and be merry!

You can find my latest and remastered albums at

http://thepeachtree.bandcamp.com

ENTIRE CATALOGUE (And where I built my fanbase):

http://www.last.fm/music/the+peach+tree

VIDEOS:

http://www.youtube.com/thepeachtree

Thanks to Kert of Borealiscape for the chance to do this interview.

May Music be with You!

-Angus Maiden
(The Peach Tree / @gamoneterik)

Interview with Oax (Joxfield ProjeX)

This interview is with Oax, a half of the Swedish avant-garde/experimental rock combo Joxfield ProjeX, who with Yan embarked on making with music in 60`s already, though, their first releases came into the light 40 years later. Moreover, still ashamedly underrated, they have combined the elements of krautrock, space rock, progressive music, psychedelia, ambient techno and much more into an impressive world view, by the way, being co-operated by such luminaries like Pat Mastoletto, Geoff Leigh, and Kenji Siratori as well.


Hi, Oax! I wanted to ask you some questions about Joxfield ProjeX. In fact, what are you doing at the moment? Are there any new musical projects in progress waiting for to be finished off?

In autumn 2009 we did finish of a lot of music we’ve done over the last years. This music was the five Clinical Archives (CA) releases that year. During the same time the main project since 2007 had been Numbers & Letters, the 3 disc set that was released autumn 2010, also at CA. We also took the opportunity to celebrate the five years of Joxfield ProjeX with Smorgasbord also at CA, of course), a collection of tracks „without home“ + some remixes and other oddities. In later autumn 2009 we also felt it was a long time since we had our traditional, annual weeklong recording session, just the two of us. As well as we wanted to enter into some new territories. So, we met for a week, recorded something between 3 – 4 hours of basic material. About half of it is very harsh, noisy and evil, some kind of space rock from hell (whatever THAT is?). Unpolished, raw and rough, mostly very long tracks. This music will be two volumes of „21st Century Psychedelic Music“ and I guess they will be released in one way or another during 2011. Three of these tracks is right now on the myspace player. During this recording week we also did some intentional vocals based music, for the first time since 2005, but what will happen to this I yet don’t know. Joxfield has never been a pop group and every time we sing we think „Pop!“. But it isn’t, I guess.

When did you started with Joxfield ProjeX? By the way, what kind of references does have the title of the group?

To make the history short: In 1965, as very young guys, we started making some kind of music together. Already from the beginning we were very creative and productive. In 1969 we started to record the music on our reel-to-reel tape recorders. Until 1975, when me took a break, we recorded something between 50 – 100 hours of music. Mostly we organised the music into „albums“, made copies to each other, still on reel-to-reel, but the music was never properly released in any way. Despite the bad sound quality I think at least some of the music had some attraction. A lot of it was terrible. Mostly it was just Yan and me playing, but sometimes there was other guys involved. As a duo we called ourself Andersson & Ek, as a trio we were The Age. About half of the tapes, or so, is in a couple of plastic bags in the cellar. About four hours of the music is saved on cassette tapes and is playable. The rest I don’t know. The reel-to-reel tapes haven’t been played for more than 20 years (when the tape recorders broke down) and as it was very cheap tapes I don’t know if there’s any music left on them. It’s an achival project to check if any of that old music has survived, and – if so – try to digitalize it on the computer. Maybe 1 – 2 % of it could be of interest to anyone else, but Yan and me to listen to. The Joxfield connection.

The name? In 2005, after our 30 years break, when we were about to re-start our activites, we weren’t interested at all to go back to old stuff. We wanted to do new music and also with an all new name. In 1968 I wrote a real crappy, instrumental song called Uncle Joxfield’s Started Number and in 2005, when looking for a new name Yan told me that when he during our long break sometimes made some music of his own he used to label it as Joxfield ProjeX. I was pleased and a bit honored by it and we both thought it would be a great and original name. And so it was.

Your music has always been spectacular, diverse and sometimes even difficult to catch into the clearest view with only a few listen times, reminiscent of metaphysical structures, rather than pop music approach. More concretely, what does mean music for you, in principle?

I don’t think that we ever have tried to make music that sound like this or that intentional. Of course, as always being interested in music and also been listening to a lot of other artist’s music over the years, it’s unavoidable not being inspired by others. Since 2005 there has been some very basic principles though: The music must be interesting for both of us. If not we reject it or re-do it. This also means we are very critical to what we do, a bit dis-respectful to each other, all for the best of the music. We do very quick get bored and re-make stuff. Yan once said the wise words: „If we don’t like the music we do, who else would? If we like to listen to it at least we do have two listeners“. When we play and record music we just do what we want for the moment, just follows our hearts. This means that during our recording sessions we could record a beat-less noise improvisation followed by an ambient tune or a strict composed song-based thing. Just what we want there and then. I think both of our minds are vivid and whimsically and that’s why the music is so diverse. I think we demand as much from our listeners than we demands from ourself. Maybe that’s why we do have so few listeners. Maybe, if we really worked on it, we could make a couple of high potential hit songs. But, we would also probably hate them and never want to listen to them. Then better to make some odd music we at least like ourself.

You mentioned once an interesting fact that you and Yan are living apart from each other approximately 500 km. Can you describe your way of working process?

Yeah, Yan lives in Stockholm on the east coast and I live in Gothenburg on the west coast. 500 kms. All, but our first, weeklong recording sessions has been situated in a very, very small village, Kolpebo, about 200 kms from Stockholm. It’s a very well kept summer house owned by a friend to Yan’s wife and we have borrowed it for our sessions. It’s by a lake and with no close neighbours. Just Yan and me, our gear, some booze and beer. About 10 kms from there there’s a very small city and that’s where we buy our daily food.

A week-long session does mean about 2 – 4 hours of basic music, depending of how finished we want it to be. For every time the music gets less and less finished. Then, afterwards, we treat, edit and add whatever we want to it at each and everyone’s home. Numbers & Letters was treated extremely much, the forthcoming two volumes of 21st Century Psychedelic Music almost none. It varies depending on what want with the music. We do send files to and for to each other a lot. The music changes constantly. I guess it’s like with some paintings, it’s not about when it’s finished, because it will never be, it’s more about a decission that NOW it’s finished and the songs are the final ones and if we do anything more with them it’s a re-mix or something. But, when a tune is decided to be finished it’s very seldom we come back to it. Some of the music we’ve made comes from non-basic recording weeks, it’s the result of ideas from one of us and the other one contributes to the music. In these situations one of us can dominate very much, but it’s never a solo project, it’s always with the Joxfield ProjeX’ mind.

I can only suppose that the end of 60`s were great time as lots of important and influential rock-oriented experimental groups (CAN, Silver Apples, Faust, King Crimson, Gong etc) surfaced then. Concerning on this list - how much inspiration have you dug out of them?

Even though we’re two different persons I think a lot of our music references/inspirations are about the same, especially in the 60’s and 70’s. I think there is a huge difference between what inspires you and what you – as a music maker – tries to sound like. I think one of our first, biggest and major influences are The Beatles, but, there’s not one single Joxfield tune that even try to sound like them. But, the openmindness of, let’s say, The White Album, you find all over us. The mix of high and low, simplicity and difficulties on the same album. Etc. It’s a brave album. Stones` late 60’s did of course mean a lot, not to mention the early 70’s Hawkwind, Iggy’s Fun House and Raw Power, the amazing electric 1968-1975 Miles Davis, King Crimson, Fripp, Eno and – more than many – Soft Machine as well as everything that connects Robert Wyatt. One of the most inspiring persons I guess is Daevid Allen (and, of course, Gong), who, as an artist, always has walked his own way, always has followed his heart, always been opened for new stuff, etc, etc. He specifically has shown that you can combine artistic integrity, lust, variety and quality without ever selling out. At 73 he’s still aiming for new peaks. Me and Yan met him in Amsterdam 2006, during the Gong Unconvent, had a chat for half an hour, exchanged music. A great moment. Bands like CAN at least I heard very little during the days. About five or ten years ago I really went into a lot of krautish music and especially when hearing them today I realise how much of our own music that have connections with their, unintentional. And when I read about their instant composing I also realised that’s what we’re also doing most of the time. One of our main inspiration the last years has been Acid Mothers Temple and even though they tour a lot – we not at all – I also by reading an interview with Kawabata Makoto on their web realised that their ways of making studio albums was really connected with ours. Basic tracks – then add, edit, treat.

Thanks a lot, Oax.

Interview with Dave Keifer/Cagey House

I sent some questions over to the United States, to David Keifer aka Cagey House, a webaudio legend whose year of 2010 was dedicated to constructing lots of crafty issues apparently looked upon very purpose to be improved on his cut and paste/sound collage/plunderphonics/sampledelic/hauntology approach.


The year 2010 is coming soon to its very closure having been very profilic for you. More concretely, are you satisfied with your goals and those realizations in principle?

In general, I was pretty happy with what I came up with this year. There was a kind of density on the tracks I made in 2010 that hadn't been there previously. That's especially true of Flapper with Tuba and some of the tracks on Ratty Boo. The only thing I was kind of disappointed with was the spoken word parts on Stupid Grin. I had thought that coming up with texts would be really easy, but it's not. So if I'm going to continue in that direction, I'll have to work a lot harder than I thought I would. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Indeed, regarding your dense, alchemist-alike, even obviously tiresome way to explore the tracks, could you step backwards and analyze what were the basic differences and features of the issues?

Looking back, this year was about achieving a higher level of density - a kind of multi-voice critical mass. Up until around November of 2009, my main technique had been a kind of sequential collage. I'd make different tracks, then cut them up and string certain parts of them together, one after another. The Major Monk tracks and the B for Breakfast tracks are good examples of that. But then when I was finishing up Camping with Jimmie, which was one of the last things I made for Do the Magnet, I got to the point where I actually had two different tracks running at the same time - one in the left channel and one in the right. And it was a really cool effect. Then, without really thinking about it much, I just kind of threw myself into that kind of "everything at once" style of writing. Flapper with Tuba is really just an extended experiment in that. Each of those numbers started out as a little scrap of melody which I would keep dubbing back over itself - after some tinkering with voicings, and pitch and tempo. The cool thing is that, to me at least, they had a lot of emotional impact - they really took on a life of their own, and didn't sound just like experiments in technique. Through the rest of the year, I kept trying to expand that technique. And I started dubbing larger structures over themselves and over each other. For instance, instead of staring out with just a little bit of melody, I'd start out with more elaborated things, things that already had multiple parts to see how they would sound when played simultaneously with themselves, or some other multi-part thing. Most of the time the results were horrible, and I had to abandon them, but every now and then things got really interesting, and wild.

What could the melomans expect for the next year by you? What are your further doings to be planned out?

I have an album called June through the Window coming out on Weird and Wired in January. That one has lots of the really dense stuff on it. There's also lots more of that on an as-yet un-named album that I hope will be out on Just Not Normal later in the spring. That one also has some much simpler music on it as well. After that, I really don't know. My wife bought an ipod touch, and there's tons of music app for that. It would be fun to explore that - to be able to write away from a PC - to be able to write on the sofa, or even outdoors, that would be great! In any event, I'd like to really hone the emotional impact of what I do. A lot of the time I get hung up on method - I'd like to really start focusing on the buzz the music gives off.

Thanks a lot, David!

Interview with Thierry Massard

My interview is with Thierry Massard, an experimental sound creator/noisenik/netmusic activist/blogger from France, who shot his first albums at the outset of noise and industrial music history. Indeed, he do not appreciate anyhow he would be described as the musician, and I think I can actually understand him well as this realm of sonority is rather a matter of perception where usual understandings about music have no effect for. At the moment he has new stuff on preparation, such as the upcoming album: inconnu ("unknown" in French) for the suRRism phoenetics label which obviously will be released on the coming weeks; and had just released his very first "remix" for a tribute to the contemporary multimedia artist, Joël Hubaut for Dock(s) - an art revue.


When you started recording your first album?

Sübe Version was recorded during the summer 1979, in my parents garage (if you listen to it closely you can here some buses or trucks passing by in the street).

What kind of equipment did you exploit for the album to be recorded?

The equipment was more than rudimentary - a cheap electric guitar, a chamber of echo (an antiquity) some uncontrollable and strange pedals - some recordings of films sequences (mainly a film noir, but I do not remember the title … a b-movie) there was also an organ for children and a small radio (as amplifier for the guitar, voice, pedals).

Sübe Version was recorded directly on a monophonic cassette tape recorder I had paid 30 euros … and to do a kind of mix of all the sound sources - I just placed the tape recorder on the ground, in the middle of the garage and drawn some circles around, then I just placed the different sources to some relative distances to the microphone. Quite rough, isn't it?

The release as a 50 examples limited edition in the cassette format was done in autumn 1979 - these cassettes were not sold but just offered and sent to some people such as Cosey Fanny Tutti of Throbbing Gristle. This was also often used by the multimedia performer artist Joël Hubaut, in his performances. This first experience had partly some residual follows, a few tracks done between 1979 and 1982, then I stopped producing for over 25 years. This release may probably remained "secret" if I had talk about to my friends Fred Debief and Max Marlow who decided to release it, in 2008, on their netlabel Metropublik (now defunct) - following this reissue he also produced a Hands on Thierry Massard remixes version for Kreislauf, including 25 remixes by some of the major musicians of the netscene and I must say that I was really touched and fully honoured, imagine this forgotten thing - much than reworked by all these fabulous people (I really admire the work of many of the musicians present on it).

What groups were your most important influences at the time?

I must say that I'm not a "musician", before doing these first steps, I had just some experiences in early local punk bands, but at the time I was mainly fascinated by the early industrial scene, Throbbing Gristle of course, Chrome, the first singles of The Human League, Robert Rental, The Normal, or The Residents, Pere Ubu, Kraftwerk, early Devo things, Faust, Neu! and more generally the Krautrock and all the early punk scene.

Might it be possible looking for some philosophy behind your music?

This is difficult to talk about a philosophy behind my sounds, this was (is) more a kind of general attitude regarding our social environment, I always described myself as a "combative pessimistic".

In my personal case I can not talk of an evolution or "changes" for all over the years, because I stayed silentful during all this time listening to music as a regular music fan - my absolute passion for music became more "active" through my experience with the netaudio scene on coordinating two blogs from 2006 until 2009 - this deep interest for writing about music (as you) gave me a taste of "doing things" which grew and became some recent releases.

Let`s deliver us some description about your sophomore album?

Staircase & Corridors is precisely that kind of release which really comes and goes through some time strata - some of the primal stuff treated there come, yes, from analogic recordings of 1982 (and you can here me talking with my mother) some of these original recordings were filtred through an antic Wem chamber of echo, but always recorded with a low cost recorder easily & often satured - the sources come also from radio waves, and for the recent stuff (digital) from EvP (electronic voice phenomenas like for what what", and what² (a kind of remix) I'm also often working on very microscopic samples from here and there that I use to cook or mix like.

I really love the mild and lush timbre of your latest issues (jeudi 16 septembre...;...vendredi 4 juin 2010). Am I being right supposing for you are using computers and potent interfaces nowadays?

I'm only using audacity on my oldish PC as this is precisely the only program I understand and my computer is blowing out of breath as an ox - I'm also considering that I'm not concerned by the standards of music production - I like that rough way of my sounds - cut ups sometimes - noisy on several ways - as you can see I'm a sort of homing device person, looking after things and others, and mostly, I can not imagine and accept to be considered as a musician.

Thank you, Thierry.