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Okefenokee 2001 |
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Okefenokee 2002 |
Last Updated:
18th May 2002
Text from the EMMA III Program
by Graham GettyOil and water, Charles and Diana, computers and improvisation. They just don't go well together. Until now that is. Chemists and royal marriage councillors they may not be, but Adrian Beasley, John Christian and Pete Ruczynski "very well known as" AirSculpture have found a way of hitting that improvised groove via the humble PC. Graham Getty asks the questions.
GG So, where did It all start?
AB 1992 was the first session I think. It was John and me only at first.
JC Actually, 1 can take you a bit further back that that. 1980... something, when I was sitting in my room on my first day at university. I suddenly heard the sound of Force Majeure coming from the room opposite. I was too scared to qo and talk to whoever it was, so I put on Encore and waited for him to turn up!
AB Yeah. Then I put Schulze on or something....
GG Mutual interests on the music side then. Did any of you have any gear at that time?
AB I think only me. I had a Maplin 3800 synth, and a Moog Opus which I still use. That was about it I think.
JC The VL too?
AB Oh yeah, I used to use the Casio (VL tone) too.
GG So when did the jamming start?
JC Well that didn't happen 'til a lot later. I just bought some gear, and eventually it seemed the obvious thing to do.
GG So you kept in touch on a social level then?
AB Oh yeah. All the time. Then, as John said, after he got his gear it seemed the obvious thing to do. The first session was 1992. I can't believe it now. I dug out the videos the other day, and it was actually a year before we did the second session. GG You videoed them!?
JC We recorded them to hi-fi video, this was before we got OAT.
GG When did Pale join?
AB I think that was the third session,
JC Yes, Hallowe'en. The day before Hallowe'en.
PR The famous Hallowe'en tape.
GG Obvious question time. Main influences?
JC Well, Laurie Anderson of course (laughs).
AB Obviously, To and Schulze I suppose.
GG Are you worried by that?
AB Not really, but it's not an active influence. We don't actively try to play that way. If people say that's what it sounds like, then fine.
JC The influence is more philosophical than musical. It's like taking the same ideas that they abandoned in the late 70's and saying 'Well why not? Carry on with it.'
GG What would your reply be to people who say "it's nothing new is it?,,
JC Well, what is new? I can't work out why it's terrible to be influenced by 19 year old TD, but it's OK to be influenced by 12 year old Mark Shreeve.
PR I think the main thing that really spurred us on was the desire to play live, and do it all improvised.
AB Yes, 'cause there's not much improvised music being produced at the moment. It's all preprogrammed sequencers and DAT. People can listen to us, and if they don't like it - fine. But at least they've got the option,
GG I think we'll steer clear of that debate"! Do you class yourselves as 'pure EM" or would you like to have a foot in the Ambient camp?
PR I think we do a bit of everything really. We don't class ourselves as anything I think.
AB The drifty stuff sometimes works really well. A couple of times we've said "let's do something Ambient". It might go on for about 20 minutes before someone sneaks in a sequence and then it goes on from there. Actually some of those have turned out really good
GG What have you planned for EMMA#3?
AB Nothing. We'll just see what happens!
GG Could you give us a brief overview of your set-up?
JC Well, software wise, although Adrian is still persevering vvith Cubase, we use something called Improvision which is a system I've been developing. It allows real time interaction just like you would vdth a big bank of analogue sequencers. And some stuff that you canl do with a big bank of analogue sequencers.
GG So how long did that take to develop?
JC I've been working on it a couple of years, and I'm still going. Lots of bugs and lots of thing need doing to it. It's a gradual ongoing project. Written in C. It definitely makes life easier when it doesnl crash! GG What about sources?
JC We tend to go for analogue, or digital stuff that feels like analogue. Roland JDBOO is definitely mine and Pete's mainstay.
PR And the 990 tends to be used quite a lot.
JC We've got a lot of stuff which is a bit too heavy to bring. A CS80 for example which I actually managed to get from Sheffield to Runcorn by myself on the train!
AB I've heavily modified the Maplin so it's like a modular, drilled out all over the place, cables everywhere. Unfortunately it doesnl really fit in to my present set up, but maybe one day we'll get all the immovable stuff together and do something.
JC Sound wise you just canl beat the Moog modular stuff the likes of which NODE used. Myself and Pale saw NODE at EMMA#2, and on the way back in the car we wouldn't put any music on because it would have sullied our ears. We just wanted to keep those uences rolling in our heads.
GG is there anything new which you'd like to get your hands on?'
PR Well, I've just got my hands on one, which was the MicroWave
JC ... which was going to be my next purchase, but I'm not sure if it can be now'cause mine and Pete's gear is already quite similar...
AB Yes, my gear is really quite different from Pale and John. In fact only one thing overlaps which is the Caste VZ which John actually uses as a master keyboard. My gear's a TX 81Z, which is brilliant - very flexible. A KI, which is Pretty Poor to be honest. And I've recently got the EMU ESi 32 which 1 specifically wanted because of the mellotron. I've got a mellotron at home and it's just a wonderful instrument. So I can now sample that.
GG I believe when playing live you a mate who contnas sequences, and build them from scratch there and then. How does at ?
JC It's basically whoever gets there first! The problem is when of us get there firstl Most of the time it's a case of looking around to see if anyone else has got the headphones on. If not, get 'em on and produce a sequence while the other two continue.
GG Do you detect different styles of sequences from each of tou?
JC Yes, Pete's are somewhere between Techno and Ashra. Mine are sort of organic gloop, and Adrian's are sort of... pop! (laughter ensues)
AB OK, Yeah, if you listen, any stuff that has drums is mine. That's really why 1 donl use lmprovision at the moment - it doesnl really support the drum patterns, so 1 use Cubase. 1 quite like the combination of a a nonce with the drum patterns, 1 suppose 1 do tend to do that partly because Pale and John... don't.
GG But the drums don't sound too over-the-top,
AB Most of them are fairly basic. It's mostly a case of getting something quick going to give a bit of backing.
GG Tell us about your forthcoming album.
JC It looks like it will be called Impossible Geometries. Three tracks, two longish and one shortish. At this stage we don't know what to call the tracks...
AB Perhaps Floe for track one. We're at a bit of a loss for the others.
JC We'll probably call the second Impossible Geometries so it only leaves us one title to come up with.
GG Are you pleased with it?
JC It's much more rushed than we anticipated, and I'm sure it could have been better. But overall, we're very happy with it.
AB It's certainly been a learning experience, I think the next one will be quite different. Not so much style, just general quality of mixing and recording and perhaps we'll be a bit more critical with the lead lines.
PR Yeah, now when you listen to it you think "oh, I should have done that, and changed that...". if we had more time, we could afford to do that. We're really happy with It though The last track for example...
GG Yes, it seems to sum up in 9 minutes a everything AirSculpture is trying to do.
AB Well, we only had an hour or so of studio time left, and we hadn't even started it. We knew roughly how long it needed to be to finish off the album. We roughed out a few ideas on a bit of paper, an then basically just went for it.
PR It was interesting 'cause John and Adrian have worked like that before whereas it a the first time I'd gone into a piece with any preconceived ideas.
JC At the start we tried to be a lot more planned in general, We prepared our sequences so we could just spin them in when needed. But somehow it didn't really work. Once we gave up on that and just improvised as normal, things went a lot smoother.
AB Yes, actually track 2 of the album was the first track we recorded. Though it's not bad It just sounded a bit safe. Rather than adding overdubs ate we decided just to try another track, and that's the first track on the album which I think is just so much better,
JC Especially the opening which is really not like anything we've ever done before. Just suddenly it was there,
AB That's the thing. It's so instant. If we'd have prepared everything it wouldn't have the same feel...
GG What about the one that got away? I believe there was a piece on which you forgot to start the DAT and caught only the lost 10 seconds.
AB Yes, it's not too far away from the last part of the first track.
GG So where would you like to see yourselves in 5 years time?
AB I don't know. When Dave (Law) got back to us and he was so enthusiastic about the tape we sent him I was really surprised. But for that we'd have been happy to carry on playing it, but Dave was so encouraging. We'll see what happens...