[ image sonic1 type=center ]
Spacemen 3 were always a band hovering around the perimeters of my musical awareness. I routinely read about them in articles and as an influence on music that I liked. I even played a few tracks from Sonic Boom's first album on a radio show I used to do. But, I never gave him or Spacemen 3 much more thought — until I heard his former bandmates in Spiritualized.
I think it was 1998 when I discovered the aural delights of Lazer Guided Melodies. At the time I was a member of the Seattle band Sky Cries Mary and we were beginning to record a series of demos in our basement Pro Tools-based studio. My ears were wide open for new sounds to apply to the recordings, some of which eventually surfaced on our EP, Seeds. Spacemen 3 was a name frequently mentioned during that time, so I decided to dig deeper into their music. That led to the discovery of S3 cofounder, Pete Kember, aka Sonic Boom, and his musical projects: Spectrum and EAR. (Experimental Audio Research). Sonic Boom's music has always struck me as "what if" music — as in, "What if we plugged this into that?" Fusing his garage rock leanings with the experimentation of electronic music pioneers Karlheinz Stockhausen or the more obscure Delia Derbyshire (she composed the original theme music for Dr. Who), Sonic has often utilized the studio as an instrument.
A few months back I decided to shoot Sonic an email to see if he might be interested in being interviewed for Tape Op. His reply came in the form of an equipment list and a quick, "Yes." Luckily, a short while later he was in town performing as EAR and I had the chance to hang out and chat with him.
One thing I've noticed that's a common thread in many of your recordings is that you use the studio as an instrument. How did this develop?
I'm not sure, really. I guess it develops from conceptual ideas for pieces best achieved in a studio. For example, a desk set up whereby you might have various effects processors routed to their own channels, with the aux sends on each channel corresponding to the effects already decided upon. With this setup it is easy to set up organic matrices of feedback by sending different effects units to each other, but with some feedback paths — like if a reverb and echo were patched up on channels with aux one and two on each of those channels being assigned to the inputs of the aforementioned effects — then by sending the reverb to the echo and the echo to reverb a feedback path is established. Of course, normally the routing is more involved via several effects before feeding back to itself. In this way a very controllable and interesting instrument can be formed often not even needing any original sound input to trigger events through this "Chinese-whispered" series of routings. This sorta thing is really best approached in a studio. In fact, if you assembled the necessary gear to create and record it to its potential, you are creating, in effect, a studio. I consider anything capable of sound creation as a possible instrument, acoustic or electronic.
As an engineer and producer who influences you?
I'm very influenced by a number of "producers": Delia Derbyshire, realizer of the 1962 Dr. Who theme music and one of the great unsung heroines of electronic music. As the little-known brains behind the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop, she was an originator of ambient music (pre-dating that genre by 30 years), an edge cutter in sampling — again 20 years ahead of her time. I also have the utmost respect for her "sampling" techniques. Basically what they used to call [musique] concrete techniques — the manipulation of recordings of original recordings, not wholesale robbing of riffs, sounds, songs, etc. I really don't see it as especially clever to put two pieces of someone else's recordings together and consider it on the same level as a wholly original creation. I'm not denying that it can have pleasing results, but this is really at the very most base end of what I call musical composition or songwriting. Delia was master of the edit block, often cutting attacks off of one sound and attaching it to sustains from another. Reversing, speed changing, analyzing and re-synthesizing through overdubs, magical sounds. Samplers are very useful in the way [they] allow you to access concrete techniques for manipulation of recorded waveforms to achieve wholly original results, capable of exceeding previously recorded sounds/pieces. That's really it. I think you need to have the possibility of exceeding, not just matching and mixing. Delia was responsible for much of the reputation the BBC achieved from the Radiophonic Workshop, but the inability to let her or her fellows get credit for their individual work was to be her eventual undoing.
And who else?
Another big influence would be Joe Meek [Tape Op #100]. He is again a little unsung, except for the borrowing of his name for copies of his admittedly great compressors. He invented a lot of studio techniques including allegedly close-mic'ing — putting mics in bass drums, etc. He was also a genius of the overdub in that pre- multitrack era, and was no slouch with concrete "sampling" techniques himself. Meek was very much a parallel to Norman Petty, who I also really admire. They were both in their countries, the first independent producers, engineers and songwriters. Both had a real ear for a great sound — regardless of source — something I especially appreciate. Next I'd have to credit Peter Zinovieff, founder of EMS — the company responsible for the first portable synthesizer, the first fixed configuration monosynth, the first guitar multi-effects unit, the first digital sequencer for music, etc. [He was the] owner of the uniquely advanced London MUSYS computer music and synthesis studio — [they] pioneered much in analogue and digital synthesis and digital sampling. This custom-built studio was based around two computers from '66 and grew to encompass digital oscillator banks and much of the research that lead to such products as the Akai sampler range.
David Cockerell, designer of Zinovieff's Digital Oscillator Bank, the VCS 3 and a host of other EMS equipment, was responsible for much of Akai's sampler design. Zinovieff is a great eccentric. He was looking for finance in '75 to produce a game identical to "Tetris" on mini hand-held units, was producing D to A and A to D converters from '67, and was the father of what is usually considered one of the best vocoders ever designed in the 5000, plus the legendary VCS 3 and Synthi A suitcase synths made famous by everyone from Stockhausen to Townsend, Floyd to Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Eno to Stereolab. Zinovieff's whole style is non-linear and innovative. Plus he was one of the first people really developing a seriously useful language for computers to interact with musicians. This is all circa '68 to '77. Fucking brilliant. For sound and production I'd also have to give a heads up to Dave Hassinger, one of the only producers Spacemen 3 ever sought. We wanted him to do Perfect Prescription for us. We couldn't find him... He was the L.A. engineer of all the mid-'60s Stones stuff. I really liked his sound. His work with semi-protegé The Electric Prunes on Underground and I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) LPs is astonishing. The production captures that point in '66/'67 where they were really having fun with the stereo placement. Not panning, but diverse static placement in the sound field. Plus the sound of those big 'ol echo chambers. If I ever made a heap of bread I'd build a staircase in a tall square tower to get that beautiful reverb only found in high, hard, enclosed staircases. Maybe I'd have a moveable "stopper/muffler" to change the total height. [laughs]
I think that would sound incredible. One can only dream!
Yeah, right. [laughs]
Tell me about your studio. Where is it located and what projects you are working on now?
My setup, New Atlantis studio, is in Rugby, England. I've recently been working on a Merzbow remix for a U.S. label, a Stylus (Welsh band) remix for Ochre records, a remix for Longstone and experiments remixing the OMD track "Joan of Arc" — the mellow version — there are two songs, both hits, called "Joan of Arc". This one is the ambient, electro-Beach Boys, not the Celtic battle anthem... Otherwise I have been working consistently on my own stuff for E.A.R., using a couple of bits of software I like. Both free. One is SMS [Spectral Modeling Synthesis] tools from Xavier Serra at Barcelona University, and a program called Bitmap Player, which performs Fourier synthesis based on pixel info as the name suggests. Unfortunately, the versions I use are non-real time, though an SMS real time version exists. The Bitmap Player also only will scan the info over about ten seconds of sound. I was investigating a real time version with Delia Derbyshire for a feedback piece involving sound to animation programs, allied with real time picture to sound software. Thus creating a self- perpetuating sonic/audio interplay, effected by extra involvement (in sound or movement) of ringmasters. I like process pieces that work elegantly, any sound system that elegantly generates soundscapes is very appealing to me. Simple, elegant operations.
What were the studios like where you did the early Spacemen 3 recordings?
Mainly small 16- or 24-track studios in Rugby, Northamptonshire, Cornwall and Birmingham. They were owned and run by one guy, normally not even an assistant. We couldn't really find anyone we wanted to produce us, so we decided to learn ourselves through experience. I worked with Spectrum in a studio in Handsworth, Birmingham with this cool guy called Spears. He was from the Jamaican population and was big into dub, etc. He totally didn't get my music, but he was always game for trying to accommodate my tastes.
How did you go about producing those recordings?
Early on, with live takes of the band, with perhaps vocals or lead guitar added or redone plus overdubs of effects. Much of my role in Spacemen was as sound- vibe-meister, which is similar in role played by the tamboura or shruti box in Indian music. My main thing was texture, drones plus texture, and sound alchemy. Strange mood-bearing sounds, whether from guitar or organ. I liked heavy use of fuzztone and tremolo. From the second LP on [Perfect Prescription], 70 to 95 percent [of the guitar] would be recorded DI'd to the desk. Instead of finding a great amp sound, mic'ing it only to hear a usually unfavorable translation, I would go thru multiple distortion/boosters/fuzzes to get the sound I wanted in a way they could be recorded with minimum loss. I would even sing in the control room sometimes, without headphones. Sometimes it really works. You know with sensible monitoring levels and mic placement the spill can be very minimal.
You seem to have some distinct philosophies on recording...
I guess you could say I don't believe in demos, for all the obvious reasons. Best to approach everything with enough care to be a valid take, but enough relaxation and depressurization to get the best performance. As a producer I like to get as many takes of people when they don't think they are being recorded penultimately, as the first impressions and experiments can never be brought back. The tension of red light syndrome is easy to create time after time. Of course, it is a mixture of the two that are the strongest, but that initial "stolen" warm-up is often very fruitful. I also believe in horses for courses and it really depends on the project. But in relation to my own work and most others' this applies.
