Through the album we can hear
some primitive electronic drum
sounds. With various shades of
filtered noise creating snares and
other percussion. Is that a specific
effort to lean towards early
electronic music or just the product
of playing with certain gear?
I was definitely inspired by early
electronic music and I was definitely
trying to be a little more experimental
in my choice of drum sounds this
time round. I used a mixture of plugins
like a really nice, free Reaktor
ensemble by Boscomac called
Retrobeat; which not only has
samples of vintage drum machines
but also some nice, quite cheesy
preset rhythms. So, I’d take say just
the hi-hat from that andcombine it with a kick or snare from the modular and build up the
rhythms bit by bit.
The guitars on ‘A Humdrum Life’ blend into the synths we hear on tracks before and after. Do you have a specific process for blending acoustic and synthetic instruments?
Ha-ha yes! I use my Juno 106 - that sits under everything! Being serious though, that particular synth proved very useful on this album whenever I needed some sort of pad sound to just fill out the track - it’s not the most versatile of synths, in fact I’d say there’s only about 6 sounds in there before you get into variations, but there’s something about it’s pulse width modulation and just riding that filter cutoff setting, that makes for a really organic, playable synth.... as for blending guitars and synths, I grew up in the 80s, so I tend to like my guitars with a lot of chorus and reverb on them and my synths too for that matter, so the problem tends to be making sure that they don’t cancel each other out, rather than figuring out how to blend them...
Several tracks have quiet a cinematic feel that would lend themselves to picture. Do you set out to create that vibe or does the compositional or sound design / production side tend to drive where that goes as you’re working on the pieces?
It’s generally 50/50. I spent many years as sound designer and composer for theatre and tv, so it’s hard to escape thinking of some kind of visual counterpoint to the music you make when you have that sort of background.