St Plomb - 15 November 2010 - Photo credit : Christoph Köstlin
Do you set yourself rules for your productions/mixes? What are they?
Studio rules.
1) the fastest done, the better. I almost never achieve complying to it.
2) Never take all your sounds from the same source. Be it a microphone, an old sampler, drum machines, synth, or obviously plug-ins. The more various the sources, the richer the sound.
3) Less is more is nice but less must be effin' good. Or else I usually end up piling up shit.
4) Don't try doing, do. No, seriously.
5) When it actually starts sounding like house music, don't fret. Just mess it up a bit.
Now, I don't really have to think of those rules, they've built up as a natural framework through the years I guess.
What track would you like to play and never or rarely dare to?
Ahah, story of my life... these days it would be "Hooked on Your Love" by Aleem, a fantastic disco track from 1979, because it's a great tune, but not so much a dancefloor killer in these day and age. I should run a radio show.
When I once heard Moodymann play Ronnie Laws' "Always There" at peak time, I definetely knew that he was my hero.
What kind of sound would you make without machines?
Voices, obviously, to begin with.
I was a drummer before. Now I've lost my skills because I don't practise, but everytime I have an opportunity, I play and record drums and percussions sounds and rhythms with which I would then compose beats.
In almost all of my tracks there are actual percussion recorded.
Now I've just started learning guitar, so I suck big time, but unless you consider it a machine (which kills fascists *wink wink nudge nudge*), I do use mine to record funky or abstract sounds...
In "Precious Soul" (my last release on Perspectiv), my main percussive sound simply was a piece of lumber randomly bouncing on the floor...
Bonus / you are on a lost island with only one 60 min tape/100 mb player. What would you choose?
I would bring a mix of stuff that never stopped moving me, thus never will, stuff that still make my eyes wet and/or my heart jump, again and again.
Oldies but goldies, I'm so corny.
- Herbie Hancock "Crossings"
- Marvin Gaye " Save The Children"
- Gil Scott-heron " Winter in America"
- A Tribe Called Quest " Luck Of Lucien"
- Earth, Wind & Fire " Reasons"
- Sly Stone "Just Like A Baby"
- The Temptations "Zoom"
- The Upsetters "Bird In Hand"
- Faze Action "In The Trees"
- Aaron Carl "Crucify"
- G.Q. "Disco Nights (Rock Freak)"
- Notorious Big "The Warning" ... of which the end would be missing, like on the old tapes...
Now that's when the flood is moving up fast, because it's all on top of my head. Once on the island, I would start to wail my second thoughts.
Anyway, if they're is a rec button on the player, I'll end up using the tape to record my own stuff eventually...
