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8-6-2003

What sound do you love the most? Dislike the most?

I have a bit of a strange relationship with sound. I'll listen in fascination to all kinds of sounds from bird song to huge construction machines, but I love quietness too. Those mornings when I wake up uncommonly early and there's no one moving in the whole street - that's a beautiful sound. Over all, I'd say I'm a sound addict, I want to
experience (and preferably make music out of) as many different sounds as possible.

What musician, song, book, TV show, movie or play produced in the last year has been most inspiring to you, either personally or professionally?

It might actually be more than a year old now, but the film "Donnie Darko" was the most inspiring creation I remember seeing in the last year. It's got a pleasingly weird story and some very good actors and the use of music is phenomenal. I remember sitting in the cinema with my mouth hanging open, thinking "I wish I could make something like this".

Films, and the way that music and sound are used in them, are a pretty big deal to me. I live about two minutes walk from an independent cinema and about ten from a multiplex, so cinema going has become one of my main pastimes. Sometimes I think that I'd like to write music for movies (especially horror movies), other times I reckon I'd hate having someone else telling me what kind of music to write, or coming back to me and asking me to change a track. Maybe it's better to keep music as a hobby rather than a job.

If you could meet one person dead or alive, who would that be?

Usually when I have the opportunity to meet someone I admire, I let it go because I can't think of anything remotely inteligent to say to them. I do think it's kind of a shame that I'll never be able to say thanks to Bill Hicks - even though he wasn't a musician, he's probably inspired my work more than any other artist I can think of. He had an amazing talent for seeing the weaknesses in conventional thinking, and for expressing the alternatives to those conventions.

Having said that, there's a world full of amazing human beings out there, most of whom I'll never hear of unless I do meet them, so I don't get too hung up about meeting famous folks.

What were your early influences, and what do you listen to today?

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with science fiction - books, comics, tv and movies. So, at 16, I went to this big science fiction convention on the English south coast. One of the events there was a free rock concert, with the band Hawkwind headlining. I'd never heard of them before that weekend, but I went along anyway. I think that evening was when I realised that there was a whole world of music beyond what I heard on "Top of the Pops". My SF obsession was all but replaced by a new obsession with going to gigs and collecting records, which lead me inevitably towards wanting to make my own music. I still every now and then try and make something with a Hawkwind sound to it.

I've been told that certain tracks of mine sound like Can, Aphex Twin and "Brian Eno in a bad mood". Those people have certainly influenced what I do musically, as have Adrian Sherwood, Cardiacs and Tangerine Dream. There's also a stage show called "Stomp"; I don't know where it originated, but I believe that they've toured all over the world. They use a mixture of household and industrial items to make percussion music. It's a very entertaining and energetic show, and it really influenced the way that I think about sound - for days afterwards, every sound seemed like the opening of a musical piece. In fact, everyone I know who's seen it seemed to be inspired by it in some way. I could write a very long list of other musicians, but I'll leave it at that for now.

As to what I listen to now, mostly stuff by other internet geeks, that I find out about through mailing lists or chat rooms. "Letting You Know" by a guy called KDP is one of my favourites right now. Check http://www.killdeadpeople.net/

Is there a fellow musician you would like to work with? If so, in what capacity?

I'd love to do an album of Elvis covers with Henry Rollins providing the vocals. Rollins is a great singer and he taught me, albeit indirectly, a very important lesson. I remember seeing a review of one of his records in a music paper called "Sounds". Next to the review was a picture of this guy with a scowl, a crew cut, loads of tattoos and a neck that was wider than his head. I thought "there's no way that this guy makes music I would ever be interested in". Eventually I realised how wrong I was, and that I definitely shouldn't judge people by the way they look.

If there was one thing you are particularly proud of, what would it be?

My part in organising an event called Northern Green Gathering. It's a five day educational and networking event for people interested in sustainable living, and I think it's one of the most amazing thing's I've ever been involved in. It stresses the hell out of me, but a lot of people seem to regard it as one of the high points of their year, and on those occasions when I manage to stop working and experience the gathering for what it is, I can see why. We're not doing one this year, but we'll be back.

Are there and bands/musicians you're excited about right now?

Mainly my friends, from both the internet and the physical world. There's probably not a lot of point in me naming other musicians from the compilation, but some of the best music I've heard in the last couple of years has been from Tuareg users.

There's lots of musicians living near me. Johnny Sideways has a single out on Dirtbomb that's fast, twisted techno which you really ought to hear. Quip and Suburban Acid Saturation both do excellent live sets, but I don't think either of them have released anything yet. Baba Ganoush do some beautifully spaced out music, somewhere between Ozrics and the Orb. This is another one of those lists that could go on and on.

I'm also excited cos I'm going to a gig tonight. A band called Dalek headlining, who do dark and strange hip-hop. Three support bands including Vibracathedral Orchestra who never sound the same twice, but are always inspiringly brilliant.

How do you feel about the latest changes with the RIAA (new chairperson, more strict copyright lobbying)?

There's a whole bunch of different rants I could go off on here. Basically the record industry is being left behind by more technologically advanced methods of distribution. That's bound to cause concern for an organisation like the RIAA, which is funded by record companies. I'd love to be able to get paid for making music, but more important to me is getting my music heard. If the most efficient channel for getting my music heard is one from which I'll make no money, it's still the channel I'll use, simply because it is most efficient.

If the RIAA and equivalent organisations elsewhere succeed in shutting down the file sharing networks, then at the same time that they're preventing copying of material published by their members, they're also depriving unsigned musicians of a highly cost effective means of global distribution.

Have you heard Hakim Bey's speech about Immediatism? I don't know how well I could paraphrase it, but the gist is that there are many levels of mediation between the artist and the audience. The more we break down those levels, the more art becomes an interaction rather than the delivery of something to be passively experienced. The technologies of sampling and file sharing are still forms of mediation, but ones where the distinction between artist and audience can become blurred and which create an environment in which creative re-interpretation of other people's work is encouraged rather than regarded as some kind of theft.

What inspires you to write songs? Life?

A lot of the time, I don't realise what a track is actually about until it's finished. I mean, it's pretty easy to tell which tracks were written when I was pissed off about something, but some of them relate to much more specific things that were going on in my head, but which I couldn't have expressed verbally.

The way I tend to work is that I'll have an idea about a certain way of processing sound, or a certain sound that I'd like to use. I'll start playing with that and hopefully a tune will emerge. The emotions and ideas that shape that tune I'm probably not aware of at the time. But when I listen to the tune later I might realise that it's to do with an argument I had with someone, or a piece of news I'd had from my family, or just a good or bad day at work.

I used to use a lot of vocal samples in my work, which kind of pinned a more specific meaning on each tune, but I'm moving away from that more and more, trying to express things which are beyond language (or at least beyond my grasp of language).

Oh, and the conflict between the desire for freedom and the desire for security seems to be a recurring theme.

At what point did you realize or were told that you had the talent to be a performer/musician?

Hmm, I started making music for my own entertainment. Then I decided that if I liked my music then other people might like it as well, so I started putting stuff on the web and making CDs for my mates. There was a particular moment when I thought "Yeah, I must be doing something right"...

I was at a party and I saw my friend Mark, who I hadn't seen for some time. We were talking about what we'd both been up to, and I told him about my music. I happened to have a CD with me, so I gave it to him. He looked at the CD and said "Nanosphere Complex? Neil's played me some of this". Wow, someone, of their own free will, was playing my music to other people :)

What is the greatest sacrifice you've had to make for your music?

Since I regard making music as an indulgence, I don't really sacrifice stuff for it. Sometimes, though, I feel a bit regretful when I look out of the window and realise that i've just spent a beautiful day locked indoors with headphones on, staring at a computer screen, and all I have to show for it is a few minutes of sound.