Here's about half of the 'interview' with RDJ. I'm not doing the other
half for four simple reasons:
1. Transcribing stuff is kind of boring.
2. Continually typing Richards favourite phrase "sort of thing" is kind
of boring.
3. Transcribing stuff takes up a lot of time, and to reiterate, is kind
of boring.
4. Continually fast-fowarding and playing a tape breaks your Walkman. >:-(
If someone wants to finish this off feel free - it'd be nice to get the
quote about "cheeky Underground Resistance acid"...
You owe me a new Walkman guys... :)
--
Mixing It : November 7th 1995, Radio 3 with Richard D James
MI: You've seen what we're going to be playing in the program later on -
what do you think of our choices this week? Do you recognise anything or
see anything you like?
RD: Yeah, theres a few sort of uh, familiar names kind of thing. I
don't know the track names but I recognise a few of the people.
[...]
[Plays Stock, Hausen and Walkman track _Ice Worm Cocktail_ - weird shit]
MI: What did you make of that Richard?
RJ: Yeah, it's pretty sorted. Thats uh, crash bang wallop music, thats
what I usually call music like that.
MI: Do you ever try stuff like that?
RJ: Yeah, I did when I was younger with delay pedals and tapes and
stuff.
MI: What about improvisation? I know you play live - do you ever
improvise your stuff?
RJ: Yeah, its split in half at the moment - going into a studio, just
mucking about and not really knowing what I'm going to come out with and
the other half is sort of knowing exactly what I'm going to do sort of
song wise and stuff.
MI: And would your improvised stuff come out anything like that?
RJ: It probably would've done say six years ago or something.
MI: So this is young persons music? [laughs]
RJ: I think so, yeah.
MI: Interesting to hear what the Stocks have to say about that...
[...]
[Weird "electro-acoustic" Yanis Zanarkis(sp?) track played - rushing
metallic bubbling sounds...]
MI: Quite a lot has been made recently of your interest in the modern
classical world - the Music Machine got Stockhausen to listen to some of
your music. Are you actually interested in contempory or classical
music?
RJ: Yeah - and that was really wicked. I really enjoyed that. I'm a sort
of big fan of scraping noises [laughs] especially at the beginning, it
was really good. It must have been a right laugh if they actually used
that for the opening of that building...
MI: Well, actually I think he didn't get it ready in time. I think it
had to be delayed [laughs]. It's quite a long time ago - 77 to 78 to be
coming up with sounds like that I mean, when you listen to sounds like
that, do you put it in a historical perspective?
RJ: Um, yeah but it reminded me of _Forbidden Planet_ a little bit. And
that was done in the uh, fifties and that was better than that for sort of
electronicy type sounds.
MI: What's _Forbidden Planet_?
RJ: A film, and it's you know, it's all electronic total electronic
score. So it's not that good for it's time in a kind of historical type
of way.
[Laughs]
MI: What about the business with Stockhausen recently? What did you make
of all that?
RJ: Well I was going to sort of, I don't know, what the sort of program,
was you know, what they wanted to do kind of thing but you know, I was
into it.
[Richard James? You're under arrest - The Grammar Police]
MI: I suppose the idea was that lots of people like yourself namecheck
people like Stockhausen and contempory classical composers and they
wanted to see what people like Stockhausen thought of it. Do you
actually know what he thought of your work?
RJ: Yeah, I sort of heard a few comments and stuff which were sort of
quite funny but, you know, but it was a bit disappointing 'cos I could
have predicted what he said, kind of thing.
MI: What did he say?
RJ: Um, he just had an arrogant attitude kind of thing. Its just what
I'd thought he'd say.
MI: You boys don't listen to me carefully enough, kind of thing?
RJ: Yeah, but I didn't really, cos I think they were trying to make out
that the world of techno was influenced by Stockhausen but I don't reckon
it has at all, because I don't reckon 99% of techno bods will have heard
of him so...
MI: It seems to me the only similarity is electronic - it seems to end
there.
RJ: Yeah, its sort of like a parallel world now - I don't think it's
anything to do with techno.
MI: The interesting thing now though is that people who listen to your
music now tend to listen to Zanarkis(sp?) and Stockhausen and so I think
thats really the overlap, I think its the interest on the part of the
audience.
RJ: Um. Yeah I mean they're both sonically interesting I suppose so, you
know, thats the common ground for me anyway.
[...]
[Play a track from Oval's _Systemisch_ - nice if intractable]
RJ: Yeah, I'm quite a fan of them actually I think, ever since their
first album because they skipped through loads of tracks off _Ambient
Works 2_ like on a CD player or whatever.
MI: They're skipping through your CD?
RJ: On the first one yeah, its practically the whole of _Selected
Ambient Works 2_ which was, yeah, I really like it. I could never work
out if they were actually giving me a compliment or whether they were
saying this was a load of rubbish, we're going to skip through it.
MI: Did they ever send you a cheque?
RJ: No - I didn't want one. I really enjoyed it - it was really good.
[Track by Jonah Kitt(sp?). Noisy lo-fi guitars but weirdly, it's
produced by Steve Albini. Nice guitar sounds]
MI: Richard, we seem to be playing your music almost every week on this
show and the thing I'm struck by is your extraordinary prolificness, I
mean you seem to be working all the time. Is that right?
RJ: Yeah, every day.
MI: And do you finish a track every single day then?
RJ: Uh, I used to but I take more time with the tracks these days. It
usually takes two or three days currently, I think.
MI: And have you always got a project in mind? Are you writing for an
album or are they things you really want to get out of your system?
RJ: No, I just write um, music and sort of experiment all the time and
then think about making albums and singles later to earn my living.
MI: Have you got your own studio?
RJ: Yeah.
MI: And actually I've read about you making your own instruments. Is
that true?
RJ: Yeah. I keep all that in my parent's house in Wales.
MI: So how often do you record with the instruments you made yourself?
RJ: Um, what I tend to do is sort of take samples and record lots of
little bits that'll last me for the next four months kind of thing and
then come to London and use it all.
MI: So why did you decide in the first place to build your own
equipment? What was wrong with the stuff you bought in shops?
RJ: I didn't have any money to start off with. That was why I started to
make it basically.
MI: Did you also feel that the sounds that shop bought equipment made
weren't so interesting?
RJ: Um, yeah, well that sort of came later really. Once I'd had the
money to buy the shop equipment kind of thing um, I'd already learned
how to build instruments so it was kind of using it to my advantage.
MI: So do you not use any conventional equipment at all?
RJ: Yeah, I use things like computers for sequencing and things like
that.
MI: But you don't use any conventional synthesiers?
RJ: Um... [long pause] yeah, I do, yeah [laughs]
MI: Where did you actually start from in the terms of the style of music
that you wanted to make. I mean, you've been associated recently with
this catch-all term 'ambient' but where did you start off from?
RJ: Um, just from a sort of sonic experimentation sort of point of view.
I was just really interested in sort of piecing sounds together and
making little rhythms and things like that - I think thats the first
angle that got me interested in it.
MI: And was this based on anything else you'd heard by other groups?
RJ: No - I just always like creating stuff, you know, just making stupid
tracks on tapes kind of thing when I was little and I just used to enjoy
it.
MI: Were you surprised by how much your music and sound has taken off?
I mean you remixed one of your tracks with Phillip Glass recently - that
must be something of an accolade for you.
RJ: Yeah, sort of - fifty percent of me was sort of surprised and the
other fifty percent thinks it's normal kind of thing.
MI: How did it work, the thing you did with Phillip Glass?
RJ: I just got in touch with him to see if he was interested in
orchestrating one of my tracks and he sort of sent back a demo which I
thought was rubbish and you know, I said I didn't like it and stuff and
he seemed to be quite offended and sort of went away and did something
else and then I thought it was really good and I ended up going over
there and finishing it off with him.
[Excerpt from _Icct Hedral_ Glass remix...]
|| [CiM]
|| s.walley@uea.ac.uk
||
http://www.sys.uea.ac.uk/~u9323899/