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Tetro Grammaton. Tetro.
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Earlier you said that you have worked with Schubert's music.
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Can you play me a sample of something from Schubert and then show me how you reworked it into what it became? >> Okay.
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So, um I guess the the the most obvious one I guess is an infra.
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It was made around the attacks in London of 77 bombings underground and buses. And this was a ballet.
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Um, and when I started thinking about the ballet, I was thinking about travelers um people traveling commuting, you know, cuz it was in the morning commute.
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So then I thought about um traveling music and one of the big pieces of traveling music is Schubat's Vintiser.
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So, and it has this lovely tune, you know, and it has this this, you know, it's got this kind of movement sort of walking.
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Uh, so I thought, okay, so I'm going to so I I just sort of wo that into into some of the like the string writing.
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Um, but then it came for I wanted to make a piano piece in there.
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So then I was thinking about other Schubert materials, the impromptu.
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So there's the G flat impromptu. Yeah.
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So that's a that's a gorgeous bit of Schubert.
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And uh I thought, okay, so what I'm going to do is because this piece is this piece has a kind of a darkness about it.
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So instead of it being G flat major, so I made this piece in for three.
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So it basically it takes like like Schubert's atoms and kind of just turns the lights down on it.
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This melody that he has in his piece.
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That's um he gets that from Beethoven.
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Gets that from Beethoven 7. Yeah.
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So that's But that piece is about the dance, right?
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So, I'm like trying to sort of lift it past the darkness by like referring to the the Beethoven as well.
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>> When you play them in a row, I could see how it becomes unrecognizable because the mood is so different. >> Yeah.
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Cuz the infra's got a kind of it's like it's sort of searching.
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It's like cuz um you know that's sort of somber whereas you know is shet right that's his I mean that's just pure gold for me I mean I just love that so much but so yeah so yeah that's that's a kind of obvious example clear one yeah earlier you also spoke book about having a tiny object. >> Yeah.
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I mean, I guess maybe one example is um the way the melody works in um on the nature of daylight actually, which is just um it's that two notes and then this fifth, this rocking fifth.
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So, it's it's like the simplest thing.
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And what I like to try and do is I like to try and dig material out or kind of find properties in it by just turning it around.
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Like I was saying before, it's like walking around a sculpture, you know?
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So, so, uh, when you when the piece plays, so it's it's in a way it's like super simple and it's like a piece of geometry almost, you know, but I'm trying to discover properties in that which maybe I hadn't seen at the beginning or maybe we as like as listeners, you know, listening, we haven't maybe found or or expected.
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So, it's like a mining operation into the material.
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>> Will it typically be the right hand that's playing the tiny object and then the left hand is moving around it?
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And >> yeah, it's like context, isn't it?
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I think that's partly to do with how music is how we perceive music.
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Um, you know, in the physical world, large objects move slowly.
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And to me, that that maps onto kind of register in music, you know, so the bass of course can move fast, but it's less likely to, you know.
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Um so a piece like Vladimir Blues um the bass is moving very slowly and again Vladimir's blues is just one little it's just it's kind of one little idea which it it for me it tells it tells a story and Um, so that that piece is about it's like a tiny moment in the Blue Notebooks and the Blue Notebooks has got some, you know, it's got some somber material in it, but that piece is quite bright, I think.
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Um, so this again, you know, borrowing.
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So this figure comes from uh it's show basically it does that all the time.
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The reason I I sort of used it is because so um I love butterflies and there's a pianist called Giza King from the beginning of the 20th century German pianist who loved butterflies and he was an expert on all kinds of mountain butterflies including the blues which is a family of butterflies.
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Um and he has one named after him actually but also Vladimir Nabokov was an expert on butterflies and he also was an expert on blues. So, Vladimir's blues.
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Um, and I like this idea that this little figure is like wings beating, you know, it's like it's like flapping of a butterflies, you know.
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I I really like when when a piece of music can kind of as well as telling a story that it can actually sort of in its structure, in its DNA, can actually reflect what the subject is.
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It implies movement, >> right? >> Something flapping.
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I first when you started playing it I first felt rain. >> Right. Okay. Yeah. Heat. Heat.
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You think if Bach was alive today, he would use electronics? >> I do.
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I think I feel like composers have always been looking for new ways to tell stories like new colors for the pallet.
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So all through the 18th and 19th centuries, you know, the orchestra gets bigger cuz they invent new instruments, the brass section gets bigger, the winds get bigger, more strings.
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Um the piano keyboard gets longer the longer Beethoven lives, you know, he wants like more.
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Um so I think it's natural.
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Um, Bath was, I mean, a pioneer of so many things.
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And I mean, if you look at his organ music, his organ music is all about like new colors and enlarging like the emotional potential of the instrument.
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Um, it's also like heavy metal, right?
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Like every Bach organ piece, doesn't matter what key it's in, has got a bottom C in it, cuz that's like the biggest sound in the organ.
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Um, and you can feel it in the writing.
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You know, it's a lot about sensation actually, kind of physical sensation.
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Um, obviously it's amazingly put together and the counterpoint's incredible and everything, but it's also about like physical impact.
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>> How different was organ music prebach? >> A bit different.
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I mean you've got sort of booksto and people like that and the sort of slightly earlier but I think what's what's amazing about Bach is that he sort of puts it all together you know he sorts out all the tuning systems he so we can play like all 12 keys properly he organizes all of these disperate kind of materials which are around kind of before him.
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>> Did you always approach music with an open pallet? Yeah.
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I mean for me, yeah, you know, I mean, I think we we become musicians cuz we fall in love with music, right? That's why.
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And you don't fall in love with like one thing, you fall in love with like the whole the whole thing.
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So for me, I always felt like, you know, the differentiation between like pop music and classical music or electronic music, classical, I just felt like they were really that those those separations were not real.
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They were just imaginary constructs.
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You know, we because people aren't like that.
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People aren't in boxes, you know. We're a spectrum.
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We're a sort of continuity across our affections, our enthusiasms, things we love, things we don't love.
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I kind of always thought, yeah, this this seems weird to me, you know, this idea that, you know, thou shalt not use, you know, whatever that instrument.
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Um, and so, you know, when I was a kid, I was interested, you know, in classical music.
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You know, that was in a way going back to when I was three, you know, I fell in love.
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I had a kind of a you know a lightning bolt moment.
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Um but at the same time I was always listening to what was going on in in pop music as well and that seemed to me kind of in a way obvious.
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>> But classical music has been a thread from the beginning for you. >> Yes.
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I have a few memories from when we still lived in Germany.
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So that was before I was well probably I was in my third year.
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And one of those memories is having this my parents were musicians but they had a few records you know and uh hearing this record of the Bach double Valington and that kind of fused with the sensation of sunlight sort of falling in through the window and hearing this amazing melodies and having this intuition that the melodies were amazing but there was like a governing principle.
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There was like a grammar which was making them affect me the way they did.
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And I became like passionately interested in discovering what that was.
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You know, what is that secret code that makes these sounds add up to something more?
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Yeah, that was it for me really. >> What is it?
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You can play two simple phrases and one if you never heard it again, you wouldn't think twice >> and another one sticks in your head and >> creates some sense of emotion in the body. >> Yeah. How does that work?
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>> Well, it's a mystery, right?
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I mean, it's funny, you know, because at various points, you know, especially like when you're younger, you think, I understand this music thing, you know, I've got it.
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I know what I know what's going on.
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But actually, it the, you know, I've been doing this for decades now, and it becomes more mysterious all the time.
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You know, I know how how I'm encounter work. I know how things work.
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But there's something really magical and spontaneous in uh the way a piece of music can affect you.
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Something will speak to you one day in a way which it hasn't before. Right.
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>> Are there any uh unbreakable rules in music? >> No, I don't think so. I don't think so. >> You're free. >> Yeah.
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I think music is I mean it is a boundless space, right?
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And it's it's a space where you know every sort of human thing can be talked about and expressed.
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I think Patty Smith says this, doesn't she? It's a music disposal.
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You can proceed with abandon.
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You know, you can just, you know, follow it.
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often the sensation I have when I'm working on something that there is this sort of it opens up its own space as it develops, you know, and you sort of discover this whole other thing, this kind of territory.
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>> So, you might have a starting point and then be surprised by what happens next. >> Yeah.
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I think it's like novelists say this, don't they, of their characters, you know, they'll be writing a a story with a certain bunch of characters and they think they know what those characters are going to do, but they actually start doing something else and it's like, okay. Are you always writing? >> Yeah.
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>> Is there always a purpose to the writing or is it just I'm writing music?
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You know I do a lot of things where there's a if you like a commission you know like a ballet or a orchestral piece or a movie you know these are things where somebody's asked you something and then you engage in a in a kind of a process and a dialogue with them and and that yeah that's sort of directed towards something.
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Um there's the other thing I do which is making my own records which are just wide open.
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You discover it as you go, right?
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You discover what it what it wants to be.
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And and there's a lot of there's like this whole other bit of writing, I guess, where I've started something and I've intended something and it sort of turned into something else and it's like, okay, so that's not for this.
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But then it goes on to this sort of compost heap of ideas which >> you collect >> which I Yeah.
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which are like, oh, what's that?
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You know, and those are kind of interesting to re-encounter.
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>> Have you ever re-engaged with an older piece and found a new a new way to go into it >> all the time? >> Yeah. All the time.
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I think they're they're great because you come at them with a kind of objectivity cuz a lot of the time I can't, you know, I pick something up from years ago and it's like I well, I don't even know what that is.
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But it's like, oh, there's something in, you know, there's something I could sort of dig into here.
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Is there ever a time where you'll pick up something from the past and not know what it is, but that's not a bad thing.
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It's actually a good thing.
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>> Oh, it's a good thing. Yes.
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I think that's great because it gives you a kind of editorial like it gives you a little bit of objectivity which cuz you know, we love what we make, right?
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So, it's like, oh, you know, I love this thing.
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Even though it's not working, I still love it.
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But actually, it's quite it's good to sort of have a bit of distance.
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>> Typically, how will it will something start for you?
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I mean if it's a commission then it's a commission you know please write me this movie score for whatever with other projects you know if it's a suggestion that I write you know say an orchestral piece then it I just have to ask myself the questions about whether that you know whether I've got the idea for that right now or um is it is it a space I'm excited by and then there are often ideas from from literature. I read a lot.
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Reading is my other thing really, poetry, literature.
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And you know, two or three words might just kind of jump out at you uh from something and then you think, "Oh, okay. So, this is an idea.
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This is a feeling I' I'd love to, you know, investigate, spend time with, that kind of thing."
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>> What type of reading do you do you >> I read a lot of fiction. I read a lot of poetry.
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Do you ever have an idea for something beautiful that really changes the thing that you were given?
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>> Yeah, that happens a lot.
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At that point, you have to in a way have a kind of a open dialogue with, you know, whoever's supposed to be playing it or conducting it.
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And is this part of this piece or is okay or is this actually something else?
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You know, I really think nothing is ever wasted.
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They all everything is just, you know, it's got its little >> waiting for the right moment. >> Exactly. Yeah.
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>> When you're working with electronics, does it always start with electronics or might you take an analog instrument and subvert it with electronics in some way?
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>> It's both of those things.
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I mean, when I first started making my own work, it it came out of in a sense me viewing like traditional instrumentation and electronics and the studio as like one thing.
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I tried to to sort of make that argument to, you know, orchestras, record labels, blah blah blah.
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And basically, no one bought that idea.
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I made Memory House, which is 2002 or something.
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It was really a sort of well, no one's going to play this or commission it or believe in it, so I have to just do this.
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Um, and that had, you know, it treats the orchestra and and the electronics in the orchestra and the studio as like one instrument.
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At the time, there were these, you know, it had to be either this or this or this.
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But it feels like it birthed a whole new type of music.
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You're not the only person who does this now, >> right? This is true.
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Even though Memory House was like on commercial terms, I mean, it was a disaster area, you know?
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I mean, we didn't even get to play it live for 10 years. >> Wow. >> Right.
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There was no context for that record to exist.
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And obviously, basically, hardly anyone bought it except other musics, right?
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Cuz everyone's always listening to everyone's doing.
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And I feel like it maybe, you know, that one and perhaps even more the Blue Notebooks, it kind of gave permission for people to go, "Oh, hang on.
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There is this other space which is maybe more a bit more omnivorous and a bit more inclusive."
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Um, and yeah, I mean, I guess it started something.
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>> How important is melody for you?
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>> Melody is super important.
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I mean, that's not to say every piece has to be focused on melody, but I think that we imprint on a piece of music.
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And I think we be the melody feels like a protagonist.
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It feels like the us in the music.
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>> That's interesting, >> right?
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And I think we're like we're like, you know, like a duckling will imprint on any old thing and you just follow it around.
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And I think we do that with melody. It's really fundamental.
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And I think even with like pieces which are maybe like ambient say so you maybe think oh well it's not really melodic but if I think of you know say discree music the brineino that's full of amazing melody and I sing those melodies
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when I you know it's like oh this one you know here comes this one and they're like characters right and I think there's something very basic about melody for us it connects to song it connects to the human voice you know folk music lis Nice. >> How do you choose to use voices when you
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>> How do you choose to use voices when you do as opposed to say strings?
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>> I choose voices for I guess a lot of reasons.
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I mean the pure color of them is is amazing.
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Um it's so flexible, so expressive, so I mean it's the most direct way to communicate a feeling, right? It's so clear.
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There's also something about putting people in a piece of music.
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You know, if you have voices, you have like if you imagine the how the piece looks when you're hearing it, there's suddenly there's people there, you know.
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Whereas with instrumental music, sometimes it can feel like it's just the sounds.
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It's just the instruments.
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Especially with electronic music, obviously it it and I mean that's special in its own way, but there's something about having the human voice involved.
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It just tells stories in a very special direct way.
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I mean that's why like the vocal is so kind of central in pop music, right?
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I mean it's like all about that character telling the story.
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>> Tell me about um where rhythm fits into your work.
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>> Well, I guess rhythm for me comes from ways of making time pass.
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One of my sort of uh like aha moments was discovering the music of the minimalists, the New York minimalists, the early stuff of of Philip Glass and Steve Wright and Terry Riley and the way that they used pulsation as a way to make time pass at different speeds and the use of repetition.
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Like repetition is incredible because it allows you to reexperience the same moment and like walk around a sculpture and it holds still for you while you walk around it.
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That's what that kind of rhythmic repetition and pulsation does for me.
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I discovered this stuff actually via this is a mad story.
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I discovered this via the milkman who delivered the milk to our house when I was a kid.
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He would hear me practicing my piano when I was, you know, 14, 13.
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And he started delivering records with the milk, including like really experimental stuff.
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Um, like the early Philip class things, early telling Riley stuff. >> So cool. >> Isn't that cool? >> So cool.
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>> Absolutely amazing, guys.
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>> That sounds like a seinal event in your life. >> 100%.
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>> Cuz that clearly is a story that I don't know anyone else who's had that experience. >> That's right. Yeah.
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I mean, I think everything sort of fits together, doesn't it?
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I mean, I think the first thing for me really was just falling in love with music. Like, absolutely. Um, just sort of 100%.
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>> Did your parents love music as well?
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>> They were not musicians.
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My father was an engineer, mechanical engineer.
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My mother loved music, played the piano as an amateur, but she I think I got from her this feeling that and she was, you know, for her music was essentially divine.
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It was like a portal, right?
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She felt that completely.
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And so I think I got a sort of sense of reverence for music as a thing from her. >> Lucky. >> Yeah, I agree.
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Um, so it's always felt like it had this kind of special kind of numinous kind of quality for me.
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>> Do you hear music in your head and then bring it to life?
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>> I do have music playing in my head all the time.
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You know, writing on paper, which is what I do if I'm writing instrumental music because you're pre-imagining it.
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It is it's a different process to sitting at the piano and going, "Oh, yeah."
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you know, or that or or sitting at the computer and going, "Let's try that. Oh, no. Let's change it. Let's try that."
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You know, so it's it's kind of a different process, a different uh and I think sometimes you can get sort of deeper into an idea almost without, you know, hearing it, without playing it, without working.
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You can sort of get to the to the the core of the thing just on a piece of paper.
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And is that an ordinary practice for you to sit down with a pad and think music and write it without humming, without playing anything? >> Yeah.
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I mean, you're you're hearing it, you know, in your head. >> Yeah.
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>> What might it sound like?
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>> That's I've asked myself that it doesn't really sound like any.
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It just >> I just sort of hear it.
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>> Would hearing it be the right word or would it be a different word? >> I don't know.
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You'd have to wire my brain up and see if I am actually hearing it.
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But I I mean I think this is it it it's part of in a way the traditional training for a composer.
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You know I I was I feel kind of lucky in that I studied at the time when a composer's training was basically the same as it had been 200 years previously.
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There are real benefits to that.
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You know just being able to sort of handle structures and grammar and materials mentally.
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Uh, and then you, yeah, you can try them on the piano and stuff, but you know, it's basically going on inside you.
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And I think it makes it it allows you to kind of distill stuff down.
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That was just how we were taught really within that culture.
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There was also maybe, you know, there was a lot of rules like stuff you're not allowed to do. >> Yeah.
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>> And I really had didn't have a problem with that. >> Yeah.
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How many of the pieces that I've heard which is all of your all of your recorded music >> would have come without playing just thinking and how much would come sitting at a piano or some other instrument?
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>> I don't know maybe a third or something.
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There's no point me sitting down and going oh I know that you know that Moog is going to do this cuz cuz you're then you're responding to the color and the what the instrument's doing.
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And also a lot of times things will change.
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You know, one of the nice things is the journey the piece makes, you know, from your desk to the musicians and what they bring to it.
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And then it's like, oh, well, let's it could go like this, you know, and then then it's discovery.
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Um, and that's wonderful.
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>> Have you heard your pieces played by different orchestras?
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>> Yeah, it's >> How do you describe the differences?
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>> It's so much about intentions and attitude, you know.
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Um, you know, we've had some amazing experiences with, you know, I guess mostly younger orchestras who bring a kind of a freshness and enthusiasm and passion and energy and it's just like it's just so moving >> to see, you know, people, you know, like bringing themselves to a piece and that's magic.
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I've had experiences with like older like maybe more like established and senior orchestras where you just think, why are we here?
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You know, it's just like no one here gives a So, they're phoning it in. >> Why? Why are we here?
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You know, >> interesting.
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>> And it and it it's so much about the people and it's so much about the kind of culture and why, >> you know.
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So, yeah, >> in popular music, it seems the things that we like best are made by the younger versions of themselves. >> Yeah, that's right. >> For most. >> Yeah.
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>> Is that true in classical music as well? I don't know.
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I mean, I think I think what's interesting about young artists is you get the kind of, you know, like the first album is like all the things they've been thinking about for their entire life up to that moment, which is why the second album is so hard, right?
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Cuz it's like, oh well, I've spent, you know, 18 years thinking about this music for the first album and now 18 months later I'm supposed to deliver another one.
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You know, it's tough I think with classical music because it's composer performers are not so much the norm.
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You know, it's more about just making the piece and and then the piece in a way lives its own life actually.
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It goes out and it just sort of finds its way and it's not so connected to the person, I think. Yeah.
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It's just more about what that piece is doing.
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I hope I'm getting better. Yeah.
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>> I feel like I'm getting closer to music.
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become sort of deeper in it, you know. I But I don't know.
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>> The more you know, the more mysterious it becomes. >> Yeah. >> Not less. >> Exactly. Totally. Yeah. >> Yeah.
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>> How do you know when a piece is done?
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>> Like having a piece which is not done is like having an itch you can't scratch, you know?
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It just keeps coming back into your mind.
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It's just like we're not you.
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You might think, oh, you know, you've done a big a pass on something and you've like in a way solved the problem of the piece.
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You've answered the question of the piece, but it doesn't kind of you just don't you can't sleep properly on it, you know, and it's just hasn't arrived.
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>> Would you say it haunts you? >> It kind of does. Yeah, it kind of does.
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It's just like this thing in the back of your, you know, sometimes it's like, oh, we're done.
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But more often it's it's about sort of incremental, you know, just polishing the tile a little more, you know, all the time.
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>> Do you tend to write short things that get longer?
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>> I usually start with some little tiny object which fascinates me and then just kind of organically follow it.
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But at a certain point, it'll be mostly about taking away.
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I'm trying to sort of do the maximum with a minimum. >> Yeah.
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I don't want to kind of clutter the world up.
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There's a lot of music in the world, right?
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>> So, I want to try and tell the story with the minimum amount of materials.
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>> Anything extra, even if it's beautiful, is a distraction from the thing. >> Mhm. >> I agree. Yes. Yeah.
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>> What percentage of the music you've written have you released?
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>> Probably less than half.
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I mean, there'll be a lot. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot. >> Yeah. Yeah.
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And does it become obvious when it's time for something to to be finished and come out or not always?
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>> Sometimes pieces it just doesn't for you know whatever reason it might be an artistic thought or it might be to do with not being able to present it properly in the world at that moment or whatever it might be.
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You know, there are pieces now which I was like, I wish, you know, we could just release that, you know, but if I released everything I wrote, then I would be releasing an album every month.
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That doesn't really make any sense.
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>> How many iterations would you say each piece goes through?
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>> Some pieces just kind of pop out.
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>> You write them and it's done, you know, other things it takes some time, you know, and I and I actually enjoy that process.
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I enjoy the process of searching, right, of not knowing. That's what I like.
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That's what's so interesting about the creative process, you know, because you sort of discover stuff you weren't expecting and you discover things about your own mind and process.
32:13
>> When you have something you like on paper, do you always know how you want it to translate to instruments?
32:21
Yeah, I'll be usually I'll be thinking of like, oh, this is going to be what strings or something, you know, because then you're writing also for the way the instruments like to, you know, what they like to do.
32:30
I do want the experience of playing a piece to kind of make sense to the musician.
32:39
I know this is incredibly hard, but it does have to go this way.
32:45
In On the Nature of Daylight, there's a second violin part which is ridiculously hard just because of it does the thing which violinists hate doing which is play fifths.
32:56
It's just so hard and it's a difficult key and it's very slow and you know it's all like it's all the worst things and yet it does have to go that way.
33:04
So >> yeah, cuz that's how it goes.
33:06
>> Cuz that's how it goes.
33:06
So, you know, but I'm trying to I'm trying to sort of make the piece feel like it's a there's an element of sort of conversation and collaboration with the performers themselves.
33:18
I was talking with a friend of mine about this the other day and and he was saying, well, actually, this is like in a classical music context, audiences in a way they quite like seeing someone like overcome a great, you know, climb a mountain, right?
33:34
There's something there's something special about that.
33:37
>> There's something in pop music when a singer is hitting notes that they can just barely hit, >> right?
33:43
>> That seem to have more emotion in them. >> Yeah.
33:46
>> And we read it as emotion when it really is the struggle of just being able to sing it. >> Exactly.
33:50
>> But we read it as that the words are so emotional. >> Right. Exactly. Yeah. >> Mhm.
33:56
>> Would you say there's a thread that runs through all of your work?
33:58
It's probably to do with a kind of a perspective on how is it to be a person in the world.
34:03
A lot of things I've done are very they come out of a kind of a quite a personal emotionality.
34:09
Maybe the blue notebooks is like that in a way.
34:12
They're also about the world we live in, you know, society.
34:15
Again, that record is, you know, comes out of the Iraq conflict or peace like voices which is, you know, the universal declaration.
34:23
So it's a it's it's that sort of dialogue between like an interior if you like journey or asking questions about you know meaning but also about how we connect how we connect in the world and what culture what creativity can do in society because I believe in music.
34:43
I do >> right I do believe in it in its ability to kind of just elevate us.
34:48
>> That for me is >> even sad music >> sure >> brings us together. Absolutely. >> Yeah.
34:53
And even, you know, in a tiny way, you know, if I'm I get up in the morning, I'm making my coffee or whatever, I turn on the radio, there's some piece of music I love, my day is a tiny bit better. It's like 1%. >> Some days more.
35:05
>> Some days more, but you know, even that little that tiny thing, I just feel like it's a very valuable thing.
35:11
>> Tell me about the people who come to see you perform live.
35:12
if it's a real mix because I've done a lot of movies and I've done I've made records and I you know so I think there are like different audiences but and they sort of meet in the gigs so it's a whole mix but I guess what's nice is that it is mostly like younger people you know classical music audience average age is like in the 60s or 70s >> and the average age at you know at my gigs is like 28 >> amazing So I you know for me that's amazing.
35:44
It's a beautiful thing and um I do feel sort of you know very lucky about that actually because >> it's an audience which is very kind of open eared.
35:53
You know they're sort of just >> I've not seen you live.
35:55
How do you present your material live?
35:59
>> We play the records as records.
35:59
So we've just been touring a program which is the blue note books and in a landscape which is the most recent thing that just the two records for me.
36:08
The record is the record the individual tracks.
36:10
Yes, they are what they are, but they they they only exist the way they do because of the context that's around them.
36:15
You know, for me, it makes sense to just, you know, play the whole thing.
36:22
>> So, that's that's what we do.
36:23
>> And then is there a visual aspect as well?
36:26
>> There is it's a very minimal thing.
36:26
Uh we've been working with a friend of mine, Es Develin, who's a wonderful I love her. >> She's great, right?
36:33
She designed a very beautiful kind of lighting installation that we play in.
36:39
And we basically the gigs are mostly in surround. So when we possibly can.
36:44
>> Do you typically play in classical venues?
36:47
>> Mostly it's in the symphony halls.
36:49
>> Is there a difference between what it feels like playing in a symphony hall versus a blackbox?
36:55
>> I mean the big thing is the acoustics.
36:57
Um >> better in the symphony hall >> different because we it's amplified, right?
37:02
So we're playing amplified.
37:02
That can be problematic if the room itself is very live, you know, because orchestral rooms tend to be pretty live because they want that orchestra to really, you know, so sometimes you're in a dialogue with the acoustic.
37:14
A blackbox you complete control.
37:16
So, you know, it's easy in a way.
37:18
I mean, every room is has its own character, right?
37:20
You're in a dialogue with that space.
37:24
>> Over the course of your life, who've been the biggest musical inspirations?
37:28
on the classical side in a way it's like the ones that everyone loves you know like Bach obviously that's a starting point for me uh Pel I love uh Schubert Mara Stravinsky um so many you know uh and then in pop music in electronic music big moment for me was hearing Octaban when I was a kid
37:52
that was huge um cuz I didn't >> that was an aggressive record wasn't it >> I I mean, it's it's so mad, you know, and starts with those car sounds and things and but that baseline, you know, when that baseline starts, I was just like, what is this, you know, cuz I was 13. I didn't know electronic music.
38:09
I didn't know electronic music.
38:13
And um I went on this kind of almost like a quest to discover it.
38:16
So, cuz I'd heard this thing on a BBC documentary and I wrote a letter to the BBC and said, "What is this music, please?"
38:24
you know, put a stamp on it, took it to a post box, waited 6 weeks, got a letter back, it's CWE ultraband.
38:29
So I was like, so saved up my pocket money, got on the bus, went to the record store, bought Alterburn, came back, dropped the needle on the thing, and I was just like transfixed.
38:42
It's like, what are these sounds?
38:42
So then the next thing is I pested my parents and uh like synthesizer synthesizer and they're like, well, it costs as much as a house. So, so that's a no.
38:54
But there are these kits.
38:54
So, you could literally build a synth from a kit.
39:00
I got one of these things and just spent weeks and weeks with the soldering and build this thing in my bedroom.
39:05
Started to just be able to listen to those sounds and work with those sounds.
39:09
>> Do you think the fact that you built the synthesizer versus buying one had some effect on you?
39:15
>> It exhausted me cuz it's really hard and I didn't know what I was doing.
39:20
Fortunately, my, you know, I had my dad around who wasn't, you know, an engineer, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer.
39:26
He was like, "That's a live wire.
39:28
You're going to die if you, you know, that sort of thing." >> Hilarious.
39:34
But anyway, I got the thing working.
39:36
>> Did it make a good sound? >> Yeah. I mean, it's fun.
39:37
Um, it's a synth actually.
39:40
It's a thing called a transcendent 2000, which is designed by a guy called Tim O, who designed the Oscar and some other quite eminent synths, you know.
39:48
Um, so yeah, and weirdly it was um there's a few people who built this kit like Thomas Dolby >> built one.
39:59
The guy from New Order, the producer of New Order, forgotten his name.
40:03
He also built one and actually a lot of like Blue Mondays like Transcendent 2000 cuz no one had any money, right?
40:09
So it was like >> let's all build the kit.
40:11
So weirdly all around the place of people building this thing.
40:15
>> Would you record yourself like a on a cassette recorder? >> Yeah.
40:18
Was recording always important to you or did you just like playing the instrument?
40:23
>> It was a question of money.
40:23
You know, if I'd had any funds, I would have like bought everything and you know, I'd have got into recording way sooner, but it was really exp Well, everything was so expensive at that time.
40:34
You know, there were major hurdles to entry.
40:38
>> Is there any one composer that you've been most influenced by? >> There's been a few.
40:42
I mean, I love Mara so much and I love Schubert so much.
40:47
They're just extraordinary.
40:49
>> Do you see them in your work or No, >> I see Schubert in my work.
40:51
I think there's a lot, you know.
40:54
I mean, I like in a way Cage wasn't he's more like an inventor, but I love his whole of openness and perspective on things.
41:06
Brian Nino had a big influence on me.
41:08
You know, as a kid, you know, discreet music, music for airports, those were foundational, you know, I really was like, uh, okay.
41:14
You know, a different way of hearing, a different way of being. >> Absolutely.
41:18
Lori Anderson, >> Meredith Monk.
41:21
>> Yeah, I love Meredith.
41:23
>> Oh, a genius, you know, incredible.
41:25
>> Describe the place that you make music in.
41:27
I work in my studio, which is a studio uh my partner Julia and I built in the woods outside Oxford.
41:34
It was a tractor shed, a big old barn, and we put a bunch of studios in there.
41:40
And Julia is a she works in visual art, so she has a studio, we have a cafe, and we have like production rooms and and then a recording room and my studio and a mix room and stuff.
41:55
So it's a kind of laboratory in the countryside.
41:57
It's very much about the forest and us.
41:59
You know, it's like very light open spaces kind of soften that binary between, you know, the technology and the natural world and just try and keep those kind of interchange. >> It's interesting.
42:15
So many recording studios are just sealed boxes. >> Oh man. >> And soul stealing. >> Yeah. Yeah.
42:22
I mean, our live room, one wall is completely a window out onto the forest and then there are skylights and you know, it's this it's as kind of organic feeling as it can be. You're right.
42:33
You know, traditional recording studios are kind of they're hostile to organic life, aren't they? They really are.
42:39
You know, it's a black box.
42:39
The acoustic is like oppressive.
42:41
You know, you're in this dry black box.
42:43
And um yeah, it's just a downer. >> Yeah.
42:48
The only thing that gives them life is knowing the things that have been recorded there before.
42:52
You go to Abby Road and it's it's a box. >> Yeah.
42:57
>> But >> but it's a lot a lot of things happened in that box. >> Yeah, it's true. Yeah.
43:01
Do >> you have any rituals around writing?
43:04
>> I keep pretty regular hours, you know.
43:04
I think that's important.
43:07
You kind of get into a rhythm then, you know.
43:09
So I'm I'm in there around like 9 in the morning, half 9.
43:17
You know, we're up early.
43:17
We're up at like six and doing all that.
43:22
>> What do you do between 6:00 and 9?
43:24
>> Oh, you know, meditate, you know, exercise, drink cups of tea quietly, that kind of thing.
43:32
>> What's your meditation practice?
43:34
>> So, I have a a Zen practice.
43:34
Um I I studied with an a wonderful teacher technan in um I connected with him in about 8 in the end of the 80s. Yeah.
43:52
>> So how old were you at the time? >> Mid20s.
43:56
Um it's a sort of classic moment when you sort of you're you're searching you know wondering how to make sense of things.
44:02
>> How would you say that impacted your life >> in in every possible way? >> Yeah.
44:07
Uh I mean I think it it gives it's a sort of uh context and a framework and a way to a way to approach the dayto-day, you know, in a way.
44:18
I mean, it's underlies kind of everything I do.
44:24
>> I didn't know that about you, but I can hear the zen in your work now that you say it. Tell me about beauty.
45:02
beauty is worth striving for and worth celebrating and worth exploring.
45:11
And in a sense, I think within Western culture, we do have a bit of a hang-up about beautiful artworks.
45:17
Within classical music criticism, there's a kind of suspiciousness about things which are like overtly beautiful.
45:28
They're considered like maybe insubstantial or not serious or but I I just don't believe it. I don't believe it.
45:38
>> It seems like most of the great music up until modern music was all beautiful. >> Exactly.
45:44
>> So if you adopt that, >> you erase everything that came before and that seems >> ridiculous.
45:50
>> Yeah, it is ridiculous.
45:50
>> Yeah, it is ridiculous. But you know that is literally what you know like Boule has said you know he wanted to erase music history burn down the opera houses and start over you know with this kind of music which was post second
46:03
world war all about you know conflicts and all kinds of other things to me I I I see like the role of creativity in the world as as a way to understand one another as a way to celebrate human experience and to tell stories and those things are I don't think those are like ugly things. If I have like affection
46:27
If I have like affection for a piece of music that's great news, you know. >> Yes. Yes.
46:32
And and even if it's even if the music is dealing with a serious or difficult subject matter. >> Yeah. I agree. I 100% agree.
46:41
And I think it's interesting because actually uh her hang-up you know I would I would say it comes from sort of the western cannon.
46:51
You know this isn't universal in human cultures.
46:53
I mean you know in many um sort of nonwestern cultures you know creativity is all about beauty.
46:59
You know it's all about celebrating those things.
47:03
So it's an interesting one.
47:03
I think um >> tell me about the role of devotion in music historically.
47:08
The original art music comes from pretty much out of lurggical uh chant.
47:18
So you had elaborations of like you had original plain chants and then you slowly you get start to get elaborations of the plain chant and that leads to kind of art music in the renaissance.
47:30
In parallel with that, you have a kind of um a tradition of like courtly love songs and other kinds of materials of that sort which are almost like they're the sort of worldly music of in a way.
47:47
Um and lots of composers wrote both you know I mean someone like Gom Dasho incredible uh visionary composer of the 14th century he writes you know he writes the mess of NRAAM but he also writes incredible sort of almost folky songs beautifully made but you know very direct love songs all kinds of things like that stories the devotional sort of
48:09
attitude persists in in western classical music in a big way all the way to Bach and then slowly I guess as the sort of 17th the 18th centuries move on, the enlightenment comes, other things start to replace it, and you get you get romanticism, which is a pantheistic thing, a sort of a nature, you know, uh, Wdsworth on the lake, you know, all this kind of stuff. Um, I guess you'd say
48:32
Um, I guess you'd say Schubert, Schuman, all of these people that and and then it, you know, in the 20th century everything evaporates and it becomes a completely different even in the 19th century really, end of the 19th century, it all kind of >> How does folk music work its way into classical over time?
48:51
>> Folk music is is always there.
48:51
Um, just at certain points, art music, classical music, composers start to kind of go, "Hey, hang on a minute."
49:00
you know, and they sort of engage with it.
49:01
So, um, you get it quite a bit in like 19th century, mid late 19th century music.
49:09
Um, for example, like in Russia and later on you get it in like the Baltics in like Selius, you know, it becomes so like the music becomes like a project of like nation building in a way.
49:22
Um and then in the 20th century you have people like you know folk song collectors.
49:29
Um so recording folk songs and then they get used like in England you get Vaughn Williams and Das and those kind of people.
49:38
Um in Hungary Btok famously you know use uses folk songs.
49:42
So they become like a resource a general kind of a resource.
49:48
If you hear a French composer versus a Hungarian composer, do they have a different language that they use? >> They do. They do.
49:56
How would you can you give me an example of the different regions as best you can? >> Oh, it's really hard.
50:02
>> Oh, it's really hard. I mean the thing about French music is has always been I mean not always but it's you know it's got this had this I guess probably through the 19th century it has this emphasis on like beautiful colors >> and you get
50:21
>> like deucey like for like revel all of these and it has this kind of sensuous color you know it's about that um like going, you know, going back to like Bartok um Hungarian music, you know, Hungarian music is a lot of it is derived from like folk rhythms. So, it's
50:42
So, it's kind of got a spikier texture, you know, asymmetrical rhythms, fives and sevens and these kinds of things, you know.
50:49
So, um yeah, and English music is it just feels English, right?
50:56
It's just got this kind of what is it?
50:59
Can you describe what makes English music sound like that?
51:04
>> There is some folk song influence.
51:04
There is also influence from the Protestant hymn book, Renaissance music, you know, like coral polyhonic writing, part songs, those things are big in English music culture. Um, yeah.
51:22
I mean, it's I don't know what it is, you know?
51:25
It's just got this it's got this thing.
51:27
If you were to take a piece of um Renaissance music from Italy >> and play it in an English style, would you know what to do?
51:37
What's funny is that that even at that time, even in the Renaissance, you know, it was it was fashionable to be like Italian.
51:44
So, Italian music had this kind of, you know, slight freedom and wildness and it was very like in a way it was kind of hip.
51:56
Um, so that English music was maybe had a more formality about it, possibly.
52:03
And actually >> some of the hypnosis. >> Yeah. In a way.
52:05
But what's funny is that English composers used to go to Italy, study in Italy, and then pretend they were Italian and go back to England and get a gig. >> Wow.
52:15
>> There was a guy called Joseph Cooper who came back to England after studying in Italy, and he called himself Copraario. >> He's not Italian. >> Amazing.
52:23
But you know so it was always it always had this kind of draw you know the magical self you know all the >> and do you think it was the English love of Italy or was it more the exotic nature of someone who comes from somewhere else?
52:35
>> You know the Italian Renaissance holds held an incredible sort of magnetic pull over like English arts and letters music all through the sort of 18th 19th centuries. I mean it was just huge.
52:46
What happens to organ music when you play it on the piano?
52:51
Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it?
52:54
Um, I mean there are some amazing arrangements of of organ music.
52:59
Um, there's beautiful arrangement of um um a bath corral couple of baral preludes which are just stunning and uh um people have been playing them over the last few years.
53:11
Vicking plays a bunch of them.
53:13
Um, so I mean you have to make compromises because you haven't got the infinite sustain.
53:18
Um, and you've only got two hands, not you know, you can't use your feet.
53:23
So you it's a bit of a, you know, it's a bit of a process.
53:28
>> How does a piece of music change for you over time?
53:30
Can you think of something that you played when you were a child?
53:35
>> Yeah, I think it's it's an interesting one, isn't it?
53:37
I think you hear it in in two different ways.
53:40
you hear it kind of or or maybe you play it as you used to but you you hear it as you are now kind of thing.
53:49
It's almost it's quite odd actually.
53:51
I guess there's a version of yourself sitting inside that way of playing but also there's you who've you know you've changed and learned things over time and have a different you know >> what was the first time you ever played in front of people?
54:08
Uh well I mean I played a un university you know little university gigs um I was cripplingly nervous so nervous um the first orchestral piece that anyone ever played of mine which was at university I actually couldn't even go I just kind of sat in the pub next door and just waited for it all to be over cuz I was like so rehearsal >> yeah I went to rehearsal yeah but I I for the premier I was just too much too describe what you think was going on.
54:40
>> It was just a kind of a whole blind panic of of is it any good?
54:45
It's definitely not any good. Will people know?
54:48
They will definitely know.
54:50
Is the performance going to be okay? No.
54:52
It's going to be a disaster.
54:54
You know, all that stuff. >> All that stuff.
54:58
>> Do you think it has to do with the intimacy of music when you've made it? It's so personal to you. >> Yeah.
55:05
that it's like marching out on stage naked. >> It kind of is. It kind of is.
55:09
I mean, it's it is it's a paral paradox, isn't it?
55:15
Because, you know, we make these things, but they and then we put them out in the world, but they are really private as well. >> Yes.
55:22
In a in a sense, you know.
55:22
So, yeah, I guess I was just I was completely freaked out at that time.
55:27
I mean now uh I I really I love playing live, you know, because it's it's there's so many nice things about it, you know.
55:40
It's a realtime experience with people in a room.
55:43
We've all agreed to come here together.
55:46
There's a kind of audience community.
55:48
There's a community of the performers.
55:49
There's going on the journey together. It's so special. It really is.
55:55
And there was a point in time when that was the only way to experience music.
55:58
It feels like now it has more value now than ever before because music is available in so many other ways. >> Yeah.
56:07
>> That we miss that communal experience.
56:09
>> It's the campfire, isn't it?
56:09
It's that it's that sort of very basic human connection just being together listening. Yeah.
56:15
It's um it's very deep in our culture, I think.
56:20
>> Does a piece of music exist before you write it? interesting.
56:25
Um, I mean, I think you sometimes have a feeling that, you know, sometimes it'll just land so fast, you know, you're just literally just writing it out.
56:35
Doesn't happen that often, but it sometimes you feel like, well, that was really quick, you know, and it's just there.
56:43
Do you dream about music? >> Um, I have done.
56:48
I don't dream about music very much, but I have I have. Yeah. From time to time. It's not that common. Yeah.
56:56
>> In your meditation practice, does music ever come up? >> Um, it's it does.
57:02
Um, but um it's probably in a funny kind of way, it's probably my little holiday from music because I I have got music playing in my head like all the time. >> Yeah.
57:18
So it's actually it's actually a slightly different thing.
57:22
>> Is the music that's playing all the time familiar or not?
57:26
>> It's just little bits and pieces that I might be working on that I might be thinking about that you know this some piece I've been you know I've just sort of it's like it's like you know when a when um when a little dog gets a bone and they just can't stop.
57:39
It's like that, you know, if I if I'm working on a piece and it's like, how am I going to, you know, part of your brain is like always working on it, always.
57:49
And from beginning, from the first idea to the end of the piece, months later, part of your brain is always working on it. It just is.
58:00
And are all the little pieces of music in your head familiar to you, or are there any that maybe are not things that you're working on or hadn't thought about before?
58:10
Yeah, stuff just pops up totally.
58:12
It's just some little fragment, you know.
58:15
>> And might you write that down if you >> sometimes if they're, you know, if they're like interesting.
58:21
>> Do you ever hum things out loud or never?
58:24
>> Yeah, I'm always Well, I'm not a Hummer, but I'm a whistler.
58:25
I whistle all the I I like a whistle.
58:31
>> Tell me about collaboration.
58:31
You know, a lot of my work over the years has been just me sitting in a room, you know, just like piece of paper, piano, just doing this, you know, for hours and days.
58:40
And of course, you know, that goes then to the musicians and the studio and we, you know, figure it out.
58:47
We work it and we find the thing in the room in the day and that's cool, but it is, you know, I I did kind of start thinking, you know, this is a bit it's just me in a room.
58:58
Um, and there, you know, therefore I really like, you know, for example, going movies or working on a ballet or when you've got other people, there's a dialogue, there's kind of conversations going on. I really enjoy that.
59:11
Um, I like the puzzle solving aspect of movies as well.
59:18
The kind of, you know, what if, how about this, you know, I like that.
59:23
It's it's very >> like other types of puzzles outside of music.
59:27
Um I yeah quite I'm I wouldn't say I'm a good chess player but I quite like a game of chess. Yeah.
59:37
>> Do you actively research for a project?
59:41
>> I try to understand the kind of the world of the piece as much as I can.
59:44
Um like with with this uh you know like with the Matt Adam the recent ballet you know that's so it's three big novels.
59:52
So Margaret, you know, wrote this amazing stuff.
59:56
So the first thing is to just read the novels and live in the world of the novels and then try to pull materials out of the text, you know.
1:00:02
Um I mean there are characters in the novels who are these kind of transhuman um creatures which have been engineered not to be violent.
1:00:12
Um and they have amazing voices.
1:00:15
They have these glassy crystalline voices.
1:00:16
And Margaret writes a lot about their voices.
1:00:18
and I was like that's my there's my you know that's the spine of the music right so I've got these voices >> so those kinds of things you know I >> can you play an example of that >> um let's see I mean they okay so the the kind of main spine of of Madam is based around this this Fine.
1:00:54
Just carries on like that.
1:00:54
So, it's a falling thing.
1:00:57
It also feels like code because it's a sort of it's got a kind of a pattern, you know, and it in a way expresses the idea that these characters are are like they're engineered, you know, they're they're and there's a lot of other kind of code in the books.
1:01:15
But so, um, they sing a lot this material.
1:02:01
So, it's um there's a lot of music of this sort in that becomes a kind of a spine through the piece.
1:02:06
And um the crers, they're called crers, these little characters, and they sing, it's it's kind of pre-echoed in act one and act two of the ballet.
1:02:17
And then in the third act, they get to sing this this melody. Um yeah, so beautiful. >> Thank you.
1:02:26
>> If you didn't make music, what do you think you would do with your time? >> I love poetry. I love literature.
1:02:30
I would be in some way, not to say I could write um because that's a whole other thing, but you know, I I might be something around writing.
1:02:41
Um I remember when I was at at school, I there was like a careers thing, you know, you what what were you going to be?
1:02:49
Fill out this questionnaire, you know.
1:02:50
So I filled out my questionnaire and and and um it came up um poet or gardener. >> Yeah.
1:03:02
That's what was >> And you're both turned out you're both. >> That's right.
1:03:04
I'm both of those things.
1:03:06
>> You you're you're a poet and a gardener at the piano. >> Exactly.
1:03:09
I garden I garden at the piano every day. Yeah.
1:03:12
>> Tell me about your uh relationship to the Beatles music. >> Okay.
1:03:17
So, the Beatles were really uh influential on me as a kid.
1:03:24
Um, I was a probably about 10 when I first heard Abby Road because my parents had it and it was considered like in a way like too strong a medicine for a young kid.
1:03:36
You know, they wouldn't they wouldn't play me Abby Road.
1:03:37
They they would hear it but it was like, "Oh, no, no, that's far too, you know."
1:03:40
But they did buy me, you know, um the red and the blue compilations.
1:03:45
So, I just hoovered those up.
1:03:48
I absolutely hoovered them up.
1:03:50
I was sitting in that chair after school, the headphones on every day, all day, just one up, just absolutely.
1:03:55
And um they taught me so much about, you know, you know, almost by accident, you know, you learn about how harmony works and song structure and drama and, you know, architecture and Yeah. I mean, amazing. >> Amazing. >> Absolutely amazing. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
1:04:16
>> Tell me the different ways you've recorded.
1:04:17
As far as the records are concerned, it's always on tape.
1:04:20
It's always analog uh analog uh 2-in uh and analog mix um and on good, you know, on good days analog masters or then, you know, we mix and then goes to ProTools.
1:04:34
Um but I'm very interested and I I really appreciate the kind of tactile qualities of analog recording.
1:04:43
I I think it's a little bit like the difference between being told a story or presented with some measurements about something.
1:04:51
It's a little different, you know.
1:04:54
I mean, the difference is now not so wide, but certainly it was like night and day for a long time.
1:05:03
>> So, you know, the studio we have, we have all the, you know, completely analog signal chain, which is it's wonderful.
1:05:10
Um but then you know there are other things other it's it just depends you know I mean there are things like there are piano recordings I made on a um you know a little cassette portable cassette thing um there's a piece called uh Lullabi for the West Coast Sleepers which I recorded in a beautiful place up on the west coast of Scotland career which is like this art center and they got a fantastic piano and um we were having dinner.
1:05:41
We were there staying there with the kids cuz um we had um her friends who knew the owners and you know this is a long time ago and um I was just like I just love to just go and play that piano, you know, but the kids are sleeping so I just put the tape recorder like basically on the piano and just just played this little piece which I just basically made up on the spot but it because the kids were sleeping and I didn't want to wake them.
1:06:05
It was like I played it so quietly.
1:06:07
But yeah, that's just that was just a little homebrew recording and it's it's on the record.
1:06:14
You know, >> if you were to play the same piece at a medium volume or at a very very quiet volume, what would be the different effect of those things?
1:06:24
>> The quieter you play, the more people lean in.
1:06:26
They lean forward, >> you know?
1:06:28
Um it's like um you know it's like what happened with singers you know they figured out you know go back to the 19th century everyone's making a huge noise but they figured out that if you go really close to the microphone and you you crune into it very quietly you know it's like got this really special intimacy and people lean lean in don't they?
1:06:49
So I think it's yeah it's that whispering in your ear thing.
1:06:54
You know somebody whispers in your ear that you sort of yeah you lean forward.
1:06:59
>> Do you experiment with how loud to play things when you're recording?
1:07:04
>> I don't really I probably I just sort of try to play it as I imagine it you know.
1:07:11
Um sometimes you think oh no that's that's just a miscalculation. You have to do it again.
1:07:16
Um, I mean, one thing that's we've got actually at the studios which has been really interesting is we have this Spirio piano which is uh, you know, this recording piano that can play itself that Steiner made.
1:07:28
Um, and that's actually pretty amazing because it's not so you can do a take and then go next door and have a listen how the microphones heard it, you know, rather than how you were thinking, you know, when you're hearing you're also busy, you know, so you you know, you don't hear in quite the same way. >> Yeah.
1:07:49
>> Um, and that that's been really interesting.
1:07:52
>> So the piano can replay what you just played. Yeah.
1:07:55
>> And you could change the sound in the >> Exactly. Or I could say, "Oh, no.
1:07:57
I need to play a quiet choir or a louder or a different, you know. >> That's beautiful.
1:08:01
>> Yeah, it's an amazing amazing instrument.
1:08:03
>> Do you tend to do a lot of takes? Not really.
1:08:08
>> And do you mainly listen to vinyl? >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:08:10
At home I I um It's interesting cuz the studio obviously, you know, we've got like I mean it's a it's an atmos room with like big ATC's everywhere, you know.
1:08:23
It's it's very very like you know, it sounds super accurate.
1:08:28
Um, at home I've got like a, you know, quite dark sounding valve amp, big old tan noise, a vinyl cuz I that's it's a different thing, you know.
1:08:39
I just want at home I want vibes.
1:08:41
I don't want like accuracy.
1:08:45
I just want like good vibes, which that does.
1:08:49
What was the first music that was your music, not the music that you heard that your parents played where you felt like this is mine?
1:08:58
>> Probably some of the early electronic music, some of the early like psychedelic music, some of the early Pink Floyd things.
1:09:05
Um the Beatles actually in a way some of it you know like you know there like the white album was definitely my mom and they were not into that you know the white album was too out of um and then yeah some of the like cuff track stuff those kinds of things and then also punk cuz punk came along when I was you know 11 12 that kind of age perfect um thank you um so yeah so we all got into that um And that was fun. Yeah.
1:09:38
What was the first concert you ever went to?
1:09:41
>> I don't know which was first.
1:09:41
I went to Craft at Hammersmith when they did the Computer World Tours. That was 1980 I guess.
1:09:50
And I also saw actually it would have been 81 I saw Queen at Wembley and that was the day after John Lennon was shot.
1:10:00
So that dates the gig because they played Imagine.
1:10:02
Um, and then uh there was the Clash and Stiff Little Fingers and those kinds of bands.
1:10:11
Probably a bit earlier actually, probably a bit before that, but they were like terrifying, sweaty little gigs.
1:10:27
>> What would you say you listen to mostly?
1:10:29
I listen to a lot of jazz, quite a lot of electronic and pop music, and I listen to a lot of songwriting of all different kinds, a lot of classical music, you know.
1:10:40
Um, it's funny cuz, you know, we have kids, so at a certain point, your listening is taken away from you and it becomes they they're like they're in charge, you know.
1:10:50
>> Um, so I've listened to a lot of, you know, what my kids are listening to.
1:10:53
>> How old are your kids?
1:10:54
>> I mean, they would be shocked that I call them kids. uh 27, 26, and 18.
1:10:59
>> And where do their tastes lie?
1:11:01
>> They are all very eclectic and interested in the sort of nooks and crannies of kind of popular music.
1:11:11
>> Maybe because they grew up in your house. >> Could be. >> Could be.
1:11:15
>> If you're on a flight, would you be more likely to watch a movie, read a book, or listen to music with headphones?
1:11:21
I find listening to music on flights, it's just even with noise cancelling headphones, it's just too annoying.
1:11:27
I don't particularly like noise cancelling headphones.
1:11:31
They kind of make me feel weird. >> Yeah, me too.
1:11:34
>> Um, so I use them like in an emergency, but basically I try to avoid them.
1:11:39
There's something about the pressure. I don't know what it is. It's weird.
1:11:41
Does something with your inner ear. Don't like it.
1:11:44
In flights, I tend to I basically try and sleep.
1:11:46
I sleepers, you know, when I'm basically I'm a really good sleeper. I love sleeping. Let's talk about sleep.
1:11:54
>> How did your sleep project come to be? >> Yeah.
1:11:57
So, this comes out of a conversation uh Julia and I were having at the time. This is about 2011 2012.
1:12:04
It's when people started live streaming gigs.
1:12:06
>> So, you would live stream your gigs.
1:12:07
>> So, yeah, some venue or other had just streamed the show when it was going out and it was in some crazy time zone.
1:12:11
So, Julie was we were living in Berlin at the time. So, it was like 4:00 a. m.
1:12:15
or something and she was hearing this gig and sort of floating in and out of sleep and she was like, "This is incredibly I'm hearing this in a different way. It's very powerful. It's very impactful.
1:12:26
This is something, you know, here's an idea."
1:12:28
And then, yeah, I sort of decided to try and engage with this from a musical perspective to write a piece which was specifically about that environment, that space, that that borderland territory.
1:12:43
um and to look at some of the neuroscience around sleep and incorporate those things into the into the structure of the piece.
1:12:49
You know, what is sleep in our culture now in society?
1:12:53
Being asleep is, you know, it's an as it were unproductive.
1:12:57
You're not a productive economic unit while you're sleeping.
1:13:01
So, sleep is an act of resistance really.
1:13:03
Um it's sort of it's a pause, right?
1:13:06
Um so, can we make a piece which supports that pause?
1:13:10
Um, so these are the kind of ideas that were floating around.
1:13:15
>> When was it clear to you to make it long?
1:13:18
>> That happened pretty much straight away.
1:13:20
That was like, okay, so the piece is overnight.
1:13:22
The piece is um it it's a a landscape that you inhabit while you're sleeping.
1:13:30
>> Do you only ever perform it at night?
1:13:32
>> Yeah, we we start at we time it so that the last 40 minutes happen with dawn. >> Wow.
1:13:37
>> Wow. So we start 11 or 12 or 10 or whenever it happens to be in that place at that time of year you know >> um yeah and we play straight through you know the audience are in beds so there's like few hundred people we did it in Berlin in the um in the power station
1:13:53
you know which is amazing when you go on the concert stage you you you're projecting this material right normally you're like we've got to tell this story to these people right so you sort of it's like this but when we started playing sleep we're like, "Oh, no, no, no, no. This is that's not it at all.
1:14:08
This is that's not it at all.
1:14:10
What we're doing is we're accompanying something that's going on in that room.
1:14:14
And what's going on in that room is a community is forming.
1:14:16
So all those strangers have decided to trust one another and just kind of do this, right?
1:14:24
And that's really special.
1:14:24
So actually even though we play sleep at concert volume, I mean it's very it's strong, you know, and like the subs in sleep, you know, you really it's like a massage, right?
1:14:40
>> Um but and it but it allows people to just kind of connect.
1:14:43
So like the last part of sleep, you know, people are mostly awake because it gets quite loud.
1:14:50
And also I what I do is I the spectrum of the of the piece for most of its duration um sort of mimics the spectrum that the unborn child hears in the womb.
1:15:03
So it's dark and then so I just open up the spectrum towards the end because that wakes you up right so so people are awake and they sort of huddle together.
1:15:14
It's the sweetest the most beautiful thing you know. >> Beautiful. >> Really lovely.
1:15:17
>> How many times have you performed it? We've done 28. >> A lot.
1:15:22
It's a lot overnight piece. >> Yeah. I mean, it's >> Yeah. It's a big deal.
1:15:27
Putting it on is a big deal. >> Yeah.
1:15:29
Is it difficult to set up with beds and >> the whole thing?
1:15:33
You basically always need somebody who's fine to lose tons of money. >> Yeah.
1:15:40
>> You just need someone who's like, "We're doing it." >> Yeah.
1:15:42
Because you can't have that many people there. >> No. Right.
1:15:45
I mean, we did one at Alexander Palace.
1:15:47
We did three three nights or two nights there last year and that venue is normally 10,000 and we did a,000 and then we're asking them to keep it open overnight for 3 days.
1:16:01
So their costs are insane. >> But yeah.
1:16:06
>> Have you ever done it outdoors?
1:16:08
>> Yeah, we did one in Grand Park in LA. >> How was that?
1:16:10
>> That was lovely actually.
1:16:10
We did two nights there in the summertime. It's lovely.
1:16:16
We had I think they cuz they sort of you know there's like there's like two stages of that park, aren't there?
1:16:22
There's like there's a path and then it goes down.
1:16:24
We did um I think they sold like the first bid I don't know 2 3,000 or something but then you know people just came. It was really lovely. >> That sounds great. >> It was great. Yeah.
1:16:39
>> Do you think of your music as spiritual?
1:16:42
I think it really depends what you mean by that word.
1:16:44
what you mean by that word. I mean I would say that music is it clearly has kind of magical properties because otherwise why would we all love it so much you know and equally why you know if you hear a piece of music which you really don't like why would it affect
1:17:00
you so powerfully you know you know some tune just drives you crazy why does it drive you crazy >> same notes right it's just air bouncing around right >> how could it be >> so it's special in some way yeah definitely >> what's the most beautiful place you've ever performed mind. >> I really love the Herodian theater at
1:17:17
>> I really love the Herodian theater at the Acropolis in Athens.
1:17:20
We've played a couple of times there. That's amazing. What is it? 2,000 years old. >> Yeah.
1:17:29
How much does your mathematical understanding of music impact what you write?
1:17:36
>> I think the two go together, all of that academic stuff, it's not a conscious thing, you know, it becomes just kind of part of your toolkit and it kind of sits behind the toolkit.
1:17:44
And if I look at uh some of the things on say in the landscape, they break all the rules.
1:17:51
Totally break the rules all the time.
1:17:51
I was in a gig the other day and I was we were playing at one of the string pieces on that record and and it's got you know like in Bath's time you weren't allowed to write parallel fifths, right?
1:18:01
You couldn't because that was just bad counterpoint and I was just I was playing it.
1:18:05
I was like there's a parallel fifth there.
1:18:06
And I was like yeah but it's good you know it's kind of it makes sense, right?
1:18:10
So and also it doesn't matter.
1:18:12
It's like it's a different thing, but it just kind of I guess it just kind of sits behind things for me.
1:18:18
It's more about it's always more about trying to find the most direct expressive way to kind of tell the story.
1:18:29
That for me is like that's the that's all I care about and I'll use any tools to get there.
1:18:37
>> Tell me about the different musical keys.
1:18:39
There are keys that you that I will just go to like on the piano if I'm looking for a particular feeling.
1:18:46
You know, people have maybe personal responses, you know, like, you know, famously all the Mozart D minor is like his kind of super sad key and, you know, D.
1:18:58
There's composers have different ideas.
1:19:00
Like for me, D minor is like, no, it's fine.
1:19:04
You know, it's like medium sad.
1:19:06
Whereas, you know, the the more sort of black note keys for me are are kind of they feel richer.
1:19:10
String players have like a different feeling about this because because the instrument resonates differently, you know, because they've got their open strings which are, you know, whatever they might be just tuned in fifths and those are, you know, white note keys.
1:19:26
Uh, so those keys just feel the instrument rings more.
1:19:31
But like a piece like On the Nature of Daylight, which is pretty much all black nodes, the instrument doesn't resonate in the same way.
1:19:40
So it has a special color because of that, you know, cuz the open strings are not helping.
1:19:46
>> So it's only the notes.
1:19:47
>> If you're writing using an instrument, what would it typically be?
1:19:52
>> Piano or I mean if it's electronics and I'm on a keyboard. Yeah.
1:19:55
>> How is an acoustic piano different than a digital piano? >> It's 100% different.
1:20:02
I think a a piano is because you hear it with your whole body.
1:20:05
I mean, even just from a technical standpoint, you know, MIDI is 128 velocities, and even if you sample them all, it's still contextual, you know, because like an E on the piano played with a C sounds different than if it's played with a B, you know, it's it's because they they interm modulate.
1:20:24
They talk to one another.
1:20:24
So, you can't mimic that digitally.
1:20:29
You know, it's a like that piano is a big sonorous object, kind of a sculpture as well.
1:20:34
You know, you play it and your whole body feels what it's doing.
1:20:38
So, yeah, it's a totally different thing.
1:20:43
>> When you work in the studio, do you work with speakers or headphones? >> Speakers always.
1:20:47
I don't I don't really like headphones.
1:20:50
>> How loud do you listen in the studio?
1:20:52
>> Try to keep it vaguely sane.
1:20:56
>> But you you prefer it loud. >> I do like it loud.
1:20:57
Um, but I'm aware that it's unwise to play long term >> longterm too loud.
1:21:05
>> You know, there are some things with dynamics which really don't you make mistakes if you're not playing at the right level.
1:21:13
You can misjudge architecture.
1:21:15
You can go, "Oh, no, that why is that so small?
1:21:17
It should be, you know, why is that so big? It should be small."
1:21:20
You know, this kind of thing.
1:21:22
And and so, you know, for things that are going to be played loud, like say a big movie score, you know, you have to mix it kind of somewhere near where you're going to be because otherwise you'll just miscalculate.
1:21:34
If you wear the writer hat, the performer hat, and the producer hat, are you thinking about all of them all the time?
1:21:44
Like even in the writing stage, are you thinking about the producer part?
1:21:47
>> For me, it's a continuity.
1:21:47
you know, I don't really see them as separate activities, you know, it's just making music.
1:21:56
>> So, the the the writer aspect of you cares about the reverb, for example. >> Oh, yeah. Completely. Yeah.
1:22:01
And and I I see the studio as an instrument.
1:22:05
You know, it is it's a sculptural tool.
1:22:07
It's a way to to first of all investigate what you made and and then present it in the you know in the best way.
1:22:20
>> Tell me about the bass. >> I love bass.
1:22:23
Um I mean subsonics and you know low low end is is huge for me.
1:22:27
It's a big part of my work.
1:22:29
Um I think there's something special about those frequencies.
1:22:33
In sleep, you have a lot of um repeated low base pulses.
1:22:42
>> Usually with a lot of space between them, though. >> Yeah.
1:22:44
When the bass comes in, you're usually shocked. >> Yeah.
1:22:47
You're like, "Yeah, exactly."
1:22:47
that comes from the kind of neuroscience thing in that you can use those to to kind of um correlate or bring into alignment the audience's brain waves basically.
1:23:04
So slowwave sleep can be which is where we do our memory consolidation and learning.
1:23:08
It can be kind of extended that slowwave period by having repeated low frequency tones.
1:23:14
Uh, and when I I discovered this, I was like, "Thank you."
1:23:18
Cuz that that is what I want to be doing.
1:23:21
Cuz I'd been working with this material.
1:23:22
I really had I was like, "Thank you, science." You know?
1:23:27
>> Um, so I was able to write the music I kind of wanted to write, which it had this kind of this this pulse, this low frequency pulse.
1:23:34
It's funny with that piece cuz like the BPM of that piece is 40.
1:23:38
And when you I it's always like this.
1:23:41
So, I go on the stage and I get a little click in, you know, and after the first click I'm like, oh, is it broken?
1:23:47
Like, where is the second click?
1:23:47
And then it's like, oh no, it's really slow.
1:23:53
>> Um, but then what's weird is that by the end of the show 40, it's like, yeah, >> of course it is.
1:24:00
>> It's like it's just moving along, you know?
1:24:02
>> So, how would you say the Sleep Project changed your life?
1:24:05
It's changed in that a lot of people who you know were unfamiliar with my work came to it from another space.
1:24:15
You know the space that sleep opened up which is to do with rest and a different kind of focus and different engagement with music.
1:24:21
Music with utility as well.
1:24:23
I see sleep as a kind of a tool.
1:24:25
You know it's a piece with a function.
1:24:28
>> You feel like your music pre and post sleep are different or no?
1:24:32
>> Yeah they probably are a bit different.
1:24:34
Um I think with sleep I pushed further into a space which I which was kind of there before like blue notebooks and memory house and there are like pre-echoes of the language of sleep. >> Yeah.
1:24:50
>> But they aren't fully expressed and they're not foregrounded. >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:24:54
>> But they were kind of always there hovering around in the wings.
1:24:58
>> Um and I think with sleep it allowed me to just really push into that territory.
1:25:03
And I think since then, you know, voices um has kind of a similar, it's got some of that materiality in it, I think.
1:25:15
>> Um and I I recently did a piece at in Paris for which is a lovely such a nice project which is not released yet, but so this was uh commissioned by the Fondest Louis Vuitton for their Rosco big Rosco show. Beautiful.
1:25:28
And we distributed the orchestra throughout the building.
1:25:33
And there's some electronic music and vocal music and and that I think that piece is the kind of the kind of next step in in the kind of sleep language for me.
1:25:43
But yeah, it's not out yet.
1:25:45
>> How does the music change when you're looking at Rothkco's paintings?
1:25:49
>> Well, I I mean I love Rosco.
1:25:49
Um I've always loved him.
1:25:52
Um in fact, the f our first date with Julio, my partner, was to the Rosco room in the Tate in London.
1:26:00
that he's been part of our lives for a long time.
1:26:02
It was amazing being able to walk around a gallery, you know, hear the material and the paintings are very generous.
1:26:09
They hold your attention, but they're also they're kind of not lecturing you, you know, it's >> non narrative.
1:26:17
>> They are extraordinary. >> Yeah.
1:26:19
>> Um and we had some, you know, great days where because they closed the gallery for a day or something when we were doing our, you know, soundcheck.
1:26:27
So, you know, we'd play the piece and there'd be no one in the building and you could just walk around seeing it's absolutely incredible. >> Wow. >> Yeah. It was really special.
1:26:37
>> You explained different floors would have different pieces playing. >> Yeah.
1:26:40
So, the pieces kind of are mobile.
1:26:43
So, you've got nine galleries all from bottom to top in this building.
1:26:46
Six of the galleries had had musical ensembles who would sometimes be there and sometimes not.
1:26:54
>> And if they weren't there, you'd have a recording or not?
1:26:55
There is well there's electronic music as well. >> I see.
1:26:59
>> So there's a load of mini moog material and then there is one ensemble of six cellos, one ensemble of six vocalists, one of six violins >> and those would be added to what's already playing >> and it's all locked together.
1:27:13
>> That's a beautiful idea.
1:27:14
>> It it's a lovely lovely experience and I had such fun making that >> piece idea also of modular pieces where they can live in one way but if you want to add these extra pieces you can.
1:27:23
Yeah, >> it's a nice idea to think about in general.
1:27:28
>> Yeah, it's like a mosaic, you know, with just little or a web.
1:27:30
It's like a web of materials.
1:27:34
>> You feel like the people who are walking through the space are more likely to speak louder to talk over it or not speak to respect the energy there.
1:27:44
>> It actually makes people hush.
1:27:44
They they talk quietly to one another. >> Beautiful. >> It's actually lovely. Yeah. >> Beautiful. >> It's a good sign.
1:27:53
>> It's not background noise. >> Right. Exactly. >> Mhm.
1:27:56
>> If you're writing using an instrument, how much would the particular instrument impact what you do? >> Yeah. A lot. A lot.
1:28:03
>> You sat at a different piano. >> Oh, yeah.
1:28:05
No, they all have different personalities, don't they? And different uh colors.
1:28:08
I mean, the piano, we were living in Berlin in our apartment.
1:28:11
In the evenings, I would be like just playing bits and bobs of sleep.
1:28:16
And I think that that piano has a lot to do with that piece.
1:28:21
And it was a just a it's a secondhand upright we got from a music school in Korea.
1:28:26
Um but it had a very nice dark sound because you're responding to the instrument, right?
1:28:31
So you're making decisions according to the instrument.
1:28:36
>> Yeah, it makes a big difference.
1:28:38
>> Is that true of location as well? Places.
1:28:40
If you're in a different place, might you write something different?
1:28:43
>> Yeah, I mean I think landscape is is really important.
1:28:46
Um, it's funny because before before we uh we built the studio, we were living in a rented place um just cuz we'd moved back from Berlin and you know um we were just kind of landed in the UK.
1:29:04
So we just sort of rented this place and my studio was a 7 foot by 7 foot cube you know like crammed I mean I was basically I could touch the sides and I was sort of worked away in there.
1:29:16
I made like did a load of movies, did like load of albums, you know, I was in there for about 5 years and I thought to myself, well, it doesn't really matter because I'm just, you know, it's about what's going on here.
1:29:25
But then actually it does matter because we are organic creatures and being in the new space we've been in there for 5 years uh 6 years something like that it it makes a huge difference because I have you know air and daylight and it sounds good um you know it's so special.
1:29:50
>> Have you experimented with all these new synthesizers that are coming out all the time? >> There are so many. Yeah, >> I know.
1:29:56
It's >> It's like a wave. >> I know.
1:29:58
It's like It's gone mad, hasn't it?
1:30:00
First came like the Euro Rack wave, which I decided I wasn't going to do because I knew that if I started, I would just my whole, you know, cuz it's just just one more module, you know?
1:30:10
It's like they call it Euro crack, don't they?
1:30:13
It's just it's just one more. Just one more. I need another filter. I need another filter. >> So, there's that.
1:30:20
So, I decided I was going to not do that.
1:30:22
Um, but then all these kinds of people like building synths at their kitchen table started happening and yeah, there's just a lot of interesting stuff out there. >> Yeah. >> So cool. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
1:30:34
I'm I'm wary to get involved.
1:30:34
It's like it's feels like uh >> it will never end. >> Yeah.
1:30:41
It's like a very deep hole to to fall into. >> It really is. It really is. Yeah. Yeah.
1:30:46
>> What have been the biggest changes to music over the course of your lifetime?
1:30:50
I guess the first thing is the kind of effects of technology on the creative process like the undo button which just means people making stuff all the time undo undo undo >> and ProTools and the the grid the grid starts to kind of you know everything's on the grid the click tracks all of that
1:31:10
stuff huge difference autotune huge difference then you get the rise of streaming the economics of that the impacts on, you know, artists ability to do what they can do from an economic standpoint and and now we've got the wonderful world of AI looming looming over us. So, So, it's a lot. >> Yeah.
1:31:33
Have you experimented with AI at all?
1:31:35
>> I mean, I've had sort of dialogue with various people in that space.
1:31:37
It's funny because they bring an industrial mindset to it.
1:31:43
You know, it's about the output. It's about the product.
1:31:45
But that is while the product is important, it's it's not the most important.
1:31:50
The most important thing is the the kind of journey to that thing you're making >> and how it comes from your biography and how it comes from all the people you've met and all the music you've heard and the unus how you see the world.
1:32:06
>> How you see the world and that's I think that's that's what's so special about music is is it allows you to have a little glimpse into how someone else feels to be a person, you know?
1:32:15
That's what's so special about it.
1:32:17
And obviously an AI system can kind of simulate a version of that.
1:32:23
>> You can make things but no point of view.
1:32:25
It's just following instructions.
1:32:26
>> No intentionality, no point of view. No. You know, it's funny.
1:32:29
Um had this conversation with one of these these guys and they were saying, "Well, well, Max, how about this?
1:32:36
You know, you've got an idea, right?
1:32:37
You you've had this idea for the beginning of your piece and and then you kind of get stuck, right?"
1:32:44
Um, and they're like, "Well, that's where we come in.
1:32:46
You just we'll do that bit for you.
1:32:48
Just like plug it in and there'll be the" And I'm like, "Well, that's that the bit where I get stuck. That's what I'm after.
1:32:54
I want to experience, you know, the the struggle of like trying to figure it out.
1:32:59
That's the that's the, >> you know, there are so many different solutions to that question >> and settling for the one that a machine picks is an odd choice, >> right?
1:33:11
You might as well just like why are you even bothering? It's nothing. Yeah, it's just Yeah.
1:33:16
Anyway, >> it feels like streaming has been good to you.
1:33:21
>> It probably has in a way.
1:33:21
I mean like sleep for example is a piece which is people listen to a lot.
1:33:26
You know there are downsides to streaming from the economic standpoint definitely.
1:33:30
Um and I think especially for emerging artists it's very difficult you know to kind of cut through.
1:33:36
There is so much material out there.
1:33:38
Again a lot of it now uploaded from AI systems.
1:33:40
I think artists sort of maybe outside of the mainstream, you know, people discover things, right? Because there's no risk. They just click through.
1:33:48
They follow their enthusiasm and their things that they love and their affection.
1:33:52
They're like, "Oh, I love this."
1:33:53
You know, doesn't matter where it came from or it could be 40 years old, but they still love it and suddenly there it is, you know? >> Yeah.
1:33:59
I don't know if in the days of vinyl or CDs that your music could be as ubiquitous as it is. >> Probably not. I don't know. It's interest.
1:34:09
never thought about it before, but it's an interesting point >> because I I feel like your music really has captured >> the culture >> in a way. It's it's a funny thing.
1:34:19
>> in a way. It's it's a funny thing. Um, as a kid, you know, you go into a record shop and you've got your5 pounds in your hand, you know, and you're going to buy an album and you you maybe have heard about an album or you look at the cover
1:34:32
and like you I would love to buy that album, but I'm just not going to risk it cuz it's £5, you know, and it's like so then you buy the one that you kind of know, you know, the band that you love already and you just want to get another of their albums. So, it's there isn't
1:34:44
So, it's there isn't that risk to discovery.
1:34:46
And I I see it in, you know, the listening of my kids, you know.
1:34:51
I mean, their playlists are like all over the place, you know.
1:34:53
It's just really interesting sort of eclectic things you'd never even have heard of half the time.
1:34:59
>> I wonder also if there's a aspect of the music you make that lends itself to streaming.
1:35:04
When I think of a rock and roll 45, >> yeah, >> I don't think that's better streaming, >> right?
1:35:11
>> It's probably worse >> in a way. Yeah.
1:35:14
>> But for sleep, >> maybe streaming's good. >> Yeah.
1:35:17
You know, if people use it overnight, it works.
1:35:18
Then I think with sleep, a lot of people have found other spaces for it in their lives.
1:35:23
Like, you know, people will use it as a work day.
1:35:27
Basically, they they sit down, press play, when the record's finished, they're done.
1:35:32
You know, that's like a work day. >> I love it.
1:35:34
And I've never slept to it.
1:35:34
I listen to it in the day. >> Okay, nice.
1:35:39
>> But maybe after this conversation, I may try sleeping with it.
1:35:42
>> When did you know you wanted to make music professionally?
1:35:44
I would have been in my teens, I guess.
1:35:46
But I also felt like I wasn't really going to be able to do anything else.
1:35:50
Maybe obsession is too strong a word, but I was absolutely >> the most important thing in your life. >> Yeah, I think so. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
1:36:00
I mean, I think for a lot of artists, it becomes the anchor to your whole identity and your way of moving through the world, right? Yeah.
1:36:09
>> Tell me the difference between an orchestra and electronic orchestration.
1:36:15
Is there ever an argument for the electronic orchestration or do you ever use them together?
1:36:19
>> If I've written orchestral music, I will always record an orchestra.
1:36:21
It's just so much better.
1:36:24
They say that, you know, the demo sounds like an orchestra until you hear the orchestra.
1:36:29
It's like not even close.
1:36:32
>> Do you typically make a demo that is electronic?
1:36:34
>> Well, I have to for movies.
1:36:36
>> Tell me about making music for for movies. What's the process like?
1:36:39
>> I prefer to read it and make material from the page.
1:36:42
It's kind of an open space.
1:36:45
>> Um, but I think it also helps the filmmakers because it it gives them what atmosphere music could bring to it, you know, and they'll maybe they'll use it, they play it on the set or they use it in the early edits and, you know, this kind of thing.
1:36:58
And it just starts to become part of the texture of the world. So, I I like that.
1:37:02
That isn't always possible, especially on bigger movies which have more of like an industrial workflow.
1:37:10
It's it's like, you know, here's the temp, take out the temp, now you do this, and you, you know, six weeks later, we'll see you at the mix.
1:37:18
It's a bit less satisfying creatively. It can work. I mean, it can work.
1:37:20
People are, you know, people make amazing music under those conditions, but it's more challenging.
1:37:25
I think I prefer something a bit more organic, a bit more onetoone, you know, like with with um I've just done last year, I did Hamnut with with Chloe Xiao, and that was just a, you know, one-to-one conversations.
1:37:37
Um and uh really it just felt like a very you know it's truly collaborative thing.
1:37:46
>> How early were you involved in that one?
1:37:48
>> Again right at the beginning um I read it.
1:37:50
Uh we had lunch and we just talked through a bunch of stuff and and then I I just said I'm going to just write you some material off the page and I made about I don't know about 40 minutes of things.
1:38:04
Would it be these are things that suit this story or this is what goes in this scene?
1:38:12
>> This is how I see this world kind of how how I see it sound of the overall piece. >> Yeah.
1:38:18
>> Not this is the sound of the scene. >> Yeah. Completely. >> Any shows coming up?
1:38:22
>> I'm actually playing in Mumbai. >> Wow.
1:38:25
>> But in the fall in November.
1:38:27
>> Have you been there before? >> No. >> Oh, that'll be fun.
1:38:29
>> I'm really looking forward to it. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. It'll be fun.
1:38:31
>> How different is the reception in different parts of the world when you play?
1:38:34
It's funny like we we really see it like very explicitly with the sleep shows, you know, like in the UK all the beds are like very quite far apart.
1:38:44
Everything regimented and like in Berlin everyone climbed up on top of the subs and in the subs and they were sleeping in the subs.
1:38:53
>> Madrid, you know, it's just a big yoga mat with everyone just on a big yoga mat. in China.
1:38:57
We did one at the Great Wall and that was um there were I mean it's a rural area so there were music people but they were like farmers. >> Yeah.
1:39:08
>> And they brought their kids and they pushed the beds together and they were all just sleeping. It's >> amazing. >> That sounds great.
1:39:14
>> That show was crazy actually because um it happened to coincide with some kind of important state anniversary.
1:39:19
So the security was insane around the venue, like armed guards, you know, and um so anyway, we start playing the show and after I get I get two breaks in sleep, one around about 2 and 1 half hours and one five or six hours, something like that.
1:39:38
Anyway, so after my first break, I I walk off stage and I see all the all the armed guards just sleeping and just lying on the ground with their guns. >> It worked sleeping. >> So amazing. That's amazing. >> Really beautiful. >> Really beautiful.
1:39:54
>> Have you experimented with ancient instruments at all?
1:39:58
>> I'm quite interested in like medieval music, but it's a big kind of love of mine.
1:40:01
So, obviously there's all kinds of strange instruments which kind of hardly work at all, but are kind of incredible, full of character.
1:40:09
>> Do you ever use them in pieces?
1:40:11
>> I have used them in movies.
1:40:11
I haven't used them in other things so far.
1:40:16
>> Would you say more as a sound effect or more as a actual musical element?
1:40:17
Yeah, as music, I mean, I I did a movie um Mary, Queen of Scots, so we used a lot of like Elizabeth and materials and stuff in there. It's good fun.
1:40:28
>> You've done things where you incorporate ambient sounds of the spaces.
1:40:30
It's not always intentional.
1:40:33
>> No, I mean, it's it's there from the beginning of my work really.
1:40:35
It's I mean, Memory House is full of that kind of stuff.
1:40:39
Um and for me, you know, the music is sound and it's part of the continuum of sound. >> Yeah.
1:40:46
And Cage influences, >> right?
1:40:48
Paige actually gets a little walk-on on memory house.
1:40:49
I quote a bit of his him reading one of his texts, but we were just commenting just now about the extraordinary acoustic of this space, you know.
1:40:58
So, you've got the the little bugs singing, but what's amazing is there's no rumble.
1:41:05
Like the low end is completely wide open. It's amazing. Yeah.
1:41:10
Tell me about your experience at the Royal Academy.
1:41:14
>> There was like an orthodoxy, right?
1:41:15
there was a thing a way that you were supposed to write music if you're a serious serious composer.
1:41:18
Um, and that was post Boule's kind of a tonal serial based kind of music.
1:41:27
Very complex, not approachable for the non-speist, you know.
1:41:35
It was like music as kind of a technical manifesto. It was just the alter.
1:41:42
It was just what you were supposed to do, right? >> That's odd.
1:41:44
That seems more like the alternative, not the thing you would be taught in school.
1:41:48
No, it was really was it was like you have to you know if you write tonal music then you're kind of an idiot basically, right? That was the deal. >> Strange. >> It was it was harsh.
1:41:58
So anyway, so I was kind of doing that, you know, um because that's what I was supposed to do.
1:42:05
But I, you know, I kind of increasingly just came to doubt the whole thing.
1:42:13
And it was the time of, so we're talking about the end of the 80s, you know, all kinds of new tonal music was starting to happen.
1:42:20
Um, I mean, I'd had my like teenage experience with Philip Glass and Terry Riley, which is tonal music in a different way, but is.
1:42:29
Um, and then what was happening was that the music from the Baltics was starting to come over on ECM.
1:42:36
So, Ava Peter especially.
1:42:36
ECM. So, Ava Peter especially. Um and I remember going to like the first um performance of the Pacio which is this incredible it's 90 minutes of it's all feels almost medieval you know in it in its construction and I remember just sitting there and going h you know I've
1:42:57
got this all wrong you know this this there's something going on here you know rather than digging more and more into like complexity you know I was looking for something else something more direct more plain speaking, you know, just as a way to tell stories like in a direct way. >> I just kind of decoupled, I guess, from
1:43:14
>> I just kind of decoupled, I guess, from the academy at that point.
1:43:19
>> I went um I went to Florence actually for a year after that and I studied with Bario who was an amazing composer I really admired.
1:43:28
He was part of that modernist thing >> but his music was much more omnivorous.
1:43:36
You know, he did folk song music. key.
1:43:39
He worked with like Schubert and old materials and, you know, the Beatles and D all kinds of different stuff and and it had this kind of plurality and it was also about society, you know, it was about the world and I thought, you know, he was very inspiring for me.
1:43:52
He just kind of made fun of all my very complicated music that I was presenting to him and he he was just a very, you know, I mean, he's incredible genius.
1:44:00
I mean really visionary artist and and he could sort of it was like he was reading my mind, you know, I would, you know, turn up with my thick score of like black ink everywhere and he and he would just look be looking through it and and he could and he would crazy things like impossible things like he he'd be like, "Oh no, that that should be a C, not this."
1:44:22
And I'd be like, "How does he know that?"
1:44:23
You know, he's like he's like in walking around inside my head. It was incredible.
1:44:27
But he basically just said, "Look, just this is forget about this.
1:44:32
What is it you actually want to do?
1:44:34
Why why are you even here? Why are you doing this?"
1:44:36
And going back down to the fundamentals, you know?
1:44:38
So that was, I guess, the the sort of ultimately the thing that made me go, "Yes, I'm going to take away all of this complexity and all of this stuff."
1:44:52
>> It's a tragic story for all the kids in school who went to music school because they love music and >> Right.
1:44:58
Yeah, >> kind of anti music. >> It was Well, yeah.
1:45:00
I mean, Boules, you know, who was the kind of godhead of that way of being was >> if there's one who does that, it's interesting.
1:45:08
You don't copy that, >> right? Yeah. No, I agree. I agree.
1:45:13
Anyway, so so that was, you know, there were two or three things that sort of made me just kind of go in a different direction.
1:45:21
>> How did you end up with Barryio?
1:45:23
>> He actually had taught at the academy.
1:45:25
He'd come for a couple of weeks and just done some master classes and stuff and I I loved his music anyway.
1:45:28
So I I kind of pestered his agent and wrote him a letter and he just wrote me a letter saying, "Come on out, you know." Great. >> That's incredible.
1:45:36
And did he have a school? >> He did.
1:45:38
He had um he had an institute called Temporal, which is in Florence in the city um uh above a fashion school.
1:45:46
So it's all these guys like doing fashion and then on the top floor there'd be this this institute.
1:45:50
Tell me about what would a day in that class be like for first of all it was very very few and far between cuz he was like a global superstar composer so he was not around very much >> but when I saw him he basically would just he would look at whatever I'd been writing he would poke fun at it you know >> in a in a friendly way >> in a friendly way you know I like I remember sending bringing in one of this this piano piece that I'd written.
1:46:22
And there's a thing with student composers that especially pianists that they write the incredibly hard piano piece.
1:46:29
They do it just is what happened.
1:46:32
So I I wrote my version of this incredibly hard piano piece and he was looking at this piece and he was just like this and and after a while he says he just looks up and he goes, "Max, your piano piece."
1:46:44
And he did this, he made this gesture, this brilliant Italian gesture which is just like it's all just just stop it now. Stop it already. You know, so funny.
1:46:53
I was just like, >> but did you on some level find it inspiring? >> I mean, it's Burio. >> Yeah.
1:47:04
So, I guess that's the big thing I got from him because, you know, I couldn't really argue with him because he he had such an extraordinary like insight and vision and obviously, you know, an amazing composer himself.
1:47:17
So, it wasn't like I was going to say, "No, you're wrong." Because he wasn't wrong.
1:47:25
>> Would you say deadlines help you or undermine you?
1:47:30
>> If I'm making my own record, then there is no deadline. then I'm just working.
1:47:35
But if I'm if I somebody's commissioned me to write a ballet or something and they need it at a certain time, then it's probably the only way it's going to get done because I am actually I sort of quite like doing nothing. >> Yeah.
1:47:52
>> So, so if it if it weren't for the deadline, I probably would not get round to it in a way.
1:47:58
But yeah, >> that you'd get less done, do you think?
1:48:02
If you even >> Yeah, definitely.
1:48:05
>> Has there ever been a deadline that was a problem?
1:48:09
>> They always feel like problems, >> but by the time you're done, you feel good.
1:48:13
>> Yeah, it's there's usually a kind of a it's impossible and then slowly you find a way to make it possible.
1:48:20
Tell me the first time you heard the piece from Shudder Island where your instrumental had vocals added to it.
1:48:29
>> It was a sync request essentially came in by my publisher.
1:48:31
My publisher was at that time was an amazing man called Andrew King who was um who ran Mute Mute Song which is the publishing arm of Mute Records.
1:48:45
He was a he's a wonderful guy.
1:48:48
He's a sort of English music business legend.
1:48:50
You know, he'd managed Pink Floyd at the beginning and all of these kinds of things. He's a real character.
1:48:56
So, he's um he's like, "Mere, so I'm going to send you something."
1:49:00
He sends me this thing with Dina Washington on the uh on the on natural.
1:49:06
And I was just like, >> "Do I tell you in advance what you just listen to it?" >> Yeah.
1:49:12
And I was I was just like, "I don't really What's happening what's happening here?"
1:49:15
you know, it's cuz it's so in a way cuz I knew the the Dina Washington song.
1:49:20
So it I just couldn't quite believe that it fit together so well because this was a long time ago.
1:49:27
they couldn't like, you know, just pitch shift everything and, you know, and I I thought it was kind of amazing and I called him up and said, "I think it's kind of amazing."
1:49:36
And he and he said, "Mate, I think it is, you know, very just a lot of enthusiasm."
1:49:41
And I mean, also have it having come via Robbie Robertson, who, you know, I love the band. I love Dylan.
1:49:50
So, I mean, all of that was that was like for me it's like this is it's this is great.
1:49:55
That's the first time I heard that piece of music was that version.
1:50:01
>> And I remember thinking, I had no idea how it was made.
1:50:05
>> And I didn't know the D Washington song.
1:50:08
>> And I was thinking, this singer is picking notes that no singer I know would pick to sing over these chords. >> Exactly.
1:50:17
It's kind of weird, >> but in a great way.
1:50:19
Like Like it's like it made it better, not worse. >> Exactly.
1:50:23
>> Cuz it was It sounded so original.
1:50:23
cuz it worked, but it didn't work in any ordinary way. >> Exactly. >> Yeah.
1:50:30
It really took my breath away and then I had to try to find it and it wasn't easy to find because it wasn't clear what it even was. >> Right.
1:50:38
>> Took a lot of a lot of uh effort. >> Yeah.
1:50:41
>> We actually we've never done that live.
1:50:43
We did it live once last year with Celeste doing the vocal. That was lovely.
1:50:48
>> Tell me something you believe now that you didn't believe when you were young.
1:50:52
I have a sort of a a faith in creativity as a thing, as a force in the world, as a force in society.
1:50:59
Had that in a way when I was younger, but I was sort of doing music maybe in spite of the fact that I was doubtful about its potential.
1:51:11
It's quite hard to explain it.
1:51:11
I feel more settled in music and music as a thing in the world now than I did when I was younger.
1:51:19
Even though I was always like passionately obsessed with it. Tetro gravity. Tiff.