Welcome to Magazine Sixty, Sebastian. Tell us about your first introduction to electronic / dance music, and can you remember any specific records to accompany the experience? Has that formative excitement ever waned?
Hi, before I start thanks to you and Sixty Magazine for the opportunity to
communicate.
I began making music as a drummer, so until Acid House, I wasn’t convinced by music that used drum machines. I was pretty much head in the psychedelic 60’s, funk, jazz, reggae, punk etc. ( I saw no problem in mixing early Peter Gabriel’s Genesis with P-Funk, Lee Scratch Perry, Crass and Throbbing Gristle ).
I was starting to pick up on Hip hop through, Run DMC, Beastie Boys and Public Enemy but it wasn’t till 1988 I wound up in the east end of London (I think Clink St ). I went down the stairs into the warehouse and got hit by some real Chicago Acid House things like Phuture, Farley Jack Master Funk, Marshal Jefferson, Mike Dunn, Sleezy D, Mr Fingers, Tyree Cooper, Mr Lee….. Tracks like “Machines” by Laurent X, “Acid Tracks” Phuture, and Sleezy D “I’m Losing Control” stood out for me.
I realised that drum machines work best when they don’t try to be a drummer but are what they are, an independent instrument that has their own language and character. Seen from this angle I was able to understand their relevance and importance. Acid House was the music that made this clear as it was music born out of the TB-303 and drum machines. (This has changed now with time I love all aspects of soulful electronic music.) The flip from pop songs to a never-ending tribal electronic soundtrack that went on all day and night with no breaks was truly revolutionary for me. That each track was a part of a bigger thing called the mix. This is where my attention was captivated and has forever since been captivated by this approach to electronic music. It was so revolutionary to flip from 80’s pop to this tribal trance that everybody who was part of it was completely blown away. It changed everything about our lives. There are parallels in music by Fela Kuti, James Brown, P-Funk and Miles Davis’s “Bitches Brew” period, Sun Ra……, but this, was the “ice pick in the forehead” as Frank Zappa would put it, at least, for my generation… So yes every time I play, it is the same love and passion that comes through.
This is also because when I play out I improvise on a Liveset. Improvisation means that even if only one person shows up to the gig you are always going to discover what is going on in the moment. No set is pre-thought-out. I go on stage and trust so I always get to listen to something new. This keeps it fresh and real, makes every performance sincere. I think also it was the illegal side of the movement. The fact we went to disused warehouses instead of clubs and venues that made this stand out as real rebel music. Acid House broke all forms and structures and at the same time flourished in clandestine TAZ zones. At the time it made rock etc. seem tame and fake in its rebellious nature.
Your excellent new album, created alongside Kynsie, “(The) Rooted Sky” boasts a wonderful title likewise the music is stunning. Tell us about where the title came from. The music also feels like it’s pointing inwards, making you think outside of a dancefloor scenario. How would you describe its intention?
Kynsie came up with the title from her experiences with Chi Kung and Taoism. When you practice internal martial arts, through moving stillness you can have insights taking shape as “inner landscapes”. “(The) Rooted Sky” is one of them, with the sensation of feeling very grounded and aerial at the same time . The figure of the tree is a symbol very present when we refer to the title. The feet are like roots, connecting to the past and our origins, and the head is linked with the cosmos, allowing you to create and dream. The center of your body is
between the two which represents the present. This complementary yin-yang posture can be applied to everything in life especially in our way of life or the way to see life. This last point is very important: the fact that everything is interconnected.
So in a sense “(The) Rooted Sky” underlines this interconnection within the multi-disciplinary fundamental aspect of this release but above all of Wave Arising: music, movement, video, photography even poetry . . . Here creativity is intertwined and feeds off each other beyond styles and music genres. Today music and dance take a certain direction but tomorrow it can be different! Who knows with improvisation? And that’s what is important for us: the process. We would like to avoid as much as possible being stuck in a box, allowing ourselves and the people taking part in our events to experiments, to go out of our comfort zone, even if it’s difficult, and learn from each other. Rave culture needs more hybrid spaces, we feel we need new ways of raving . . . So “(The) Rooted Sky” is for people who want to open up their dynamic and experience music and movement in all of its forms. At home or on the dance floor.
I was lucky enough to have been one of the creators of a musical genre. We were some of the first to take the Chicago/Detroit sound up to 160bpm and especially one of the first to put a delay on the kick. This created the tribal sound of Hardtec/Tribe. The thing you don’t realise when you become known for a sound is that many people will want you to stay there and never change. You kind of get put in a box. You can’t complain too much though as it becomes your bread and butter. I mean how lucky are you if you can make a living from something you created? The problem though is that this is not freedom. Therein lies the paradox. You started to make music to express freedom then the next thing you know you are in a box. So then comes the balancing act. You have to find a way to build the bridge.
So yes the music is all about seeing through, going in and reaching for the source. I have been lucky to feel the source through improvisation. I can’t and wouldn’t expect anyone to believe that unless they have experienced it, However, feeling this made me also think that we really need to break down the barriers between us all. The times we live in are very testing. We are witnessing a genocide, we’ve all been sold out by the capitalists and technology seems to be taking us towards some kind of 1984-style capitalism. I truly feel that “The Gyre “ has flipped around to a polarity where people are looking for something deeper again. So an album that sticks two fingers up at sectarianism and calls out for openness seems pretty right for the times we are in.
Talk us through the process of creating music. What initiates the original idea? How would you describe the studio you work in and are there any particular pieces of software / Hardware you like to use?
Well, I have a phrase that I use to explain my process in a nutshell “The best surfer in the world can’t do shit without the wave!!”
Seeing as we have time though. The album is a collection of tracks that started somewhere around 2019 and was the process of me returning to tracks after a 7-year period of only doing Liveset Improvisation on stage that began when I became a Dad. I didn’t want to be one of those musician dads who were never there for their kids. I had been in the game for 20 years by that point and decided I could take a step back from track writing. I had developed an
improvisational technique that meant I could just jump on stage and surf the vibe. So I put my family first.
Around 2019 though it felt like things were starting to move again and my experiences in meditation retreats making music had created a space where a much larger dynamic was possible. This led to tracks like “Ronde Cinetique” and “Souls Whisper“
Going back to my initial phrase my process of musical creation comes from the idea that if we live in duality then there must be something that was divided to create this dynamic. A sort of original Oneness. C.J.Jung makes reference to this when he talks of the collective unconscious. I think improvisation is really about tuning into that.
I really try and be as spontaneous as possible. If a track feels it needs arrangement then I try and let the choices come as naturally as possible without getting hung up on it having to be perfect. This can lead into some pretty spectacular crashes but if there wasn’t a risk then it would not be so special when it flows. In Improvised Liveset we learn that a mistake is just like a dissonant note waiting to be resolved. So basically I try and set up a situation for whatever that number one thing is to flow through and inhabit. Basically, I TRUST.
Sometimes a system will suggest itself. A good example of this is on the track “Subconscience“. I got the intuition that doing a track with only one sample was a good thing to set up so, I took a vocal sample from Kynsie and spread the same sample over 14 channels. The sample was then pitched 2 octaves down, then 1 octave down then a 9th down, then a 5th etc. till it went all the way up to 2 octaves above the middle sample. This created what I liked to call a kind of electric kalimba. I could then use the Dub techniques of King Tubby, Scientist, Lee Scratch Perry….. to jam with Filters, Fx, fader vol, and adjust mute buttons to create an improvisation. The result was what you hear on the album. “ Golden Black is the same thing with a different sample.
I used to be a hardware junkie then I realised I had nowhere to live and I wound up on the street with a mountain of equipment. Luckily enough we live in a time where you can have a studio in your backpack. So I realised that it is better to choose an instrument that fits who and what you are. Also playing illegal Parties is way easier if all you have to grab when the police come is your laptop and a couple of controllers. That said though I would never have switched from hardware if I thought it would have compromised my ability to do free improvisation !! So with Ableton Live and NI Machine Mk3 and a bunch of Plug-in Alliance, UAD, and SSL plugs you get the big studio sound in a box. Then all you need is clever controllers so you can manipulate it live (oh yeh and as much CPU power as you can get). This combo is just perfect for someone who is not rich but wants a good quality sound and the ability to jam out and dub shit for literally hours on end.
Given your long-time involvement with club culture. How would you sum up the positives and negatives of where it ended today? Do you still think Dance Music has the power to effect change outside of its own circle?
Before I answer this let me be clear I was from the 1988 UK rave scene and I am in no way speaking for the people who started all of this in Chicago and Detroit. All I can do is give a personal version of what happened on my side.
I was 17 years old in 1988 and rave culture from where I was standing was all about a psychedelic trance state that helped you see through. Its clandestine environment and the uniting effects of ecstasy created an almost ritualistic scenario. We are all individuals and you can’t speak for everyone but just take a look at the videos from that time of how people danced and that says a lot about what was going on.
After the initial few years, a couple of things happened to create the first splits. One was the anti-rave bill of 1989 which sent many of the organisers and musicians into the clubs and pay parties while the free party people picked up the clandestine mantel and fused with the travellers.
The other inevitable thing was the fact that there were two main clave’s (Key Rhythms that everything is built from) in Rave at that time. Clave one was the disco four on the floor beat and clave two was the James Brown funky drummer-style beat (Break Beat). These two claves had been put together in Hip house but by 1992-3 there was a split developing between European techno/ Detroit Techno/Chicago house on one side and breakbeat Drum and Bass on the other. When you add tempo into the equation we start to see division on both sides of the divide. The most obvious being hardcore/gabba and house music which share the same beat but are miles apart because of the way the beat is dressed up and the tempo.
(1993 flyer from Phatmedia)
So bit by bit the united dance floor of the late 80’s gave way to everyone off in their respective scenes and sadly this created rave sectarianism. It’s kind of natural though and I don’t think it should be judged negatively. Rave was a social experiment and the choices were democratic. I mean people followed the sound that spoke deepest to them and on another level in parties if 90% of the people vote ketamine then for better or worse that’s the way it will go. If you’re not happy with a scene you have to vote with your feet when you are in the minority. You see when Rave arrived it was kind of a year zero for youth culture again. It was like a tsunami. We all got caught up in it but as it expanded it became a galaxy of subgenres that all had their place in the dynamic.
I was, in the 1990’s, almost exclusively in the Free illegal scene. It had the best locations and you were free from security etc. Also, it went on for days non-stop. Whatever you want to say about legal parties nothing beats a clandestine warehouse party. The problem in that scene though was it couldn’t look after its creative community. There was no money for artists of any kind. It also created what I would call underground capitalism! The only thing that was truly free was the music, visuals, lighting and sound system. People still brought money to the parties and there was business happening. It would have been lovely to see people donating more freely and generously and more equal sharing of benefits that were being made in the background. So my response to 30 odd years of that is we should make a choice of either everything is free, we just share everything and no money is allowed in the party or, we just pay for everything so everyone can get a living from what they do. We will never be free if some can get rich whilst others stay poor.
I think in its purest form Rave is music and dance. It is a new version of something ancient that has been with us since the start. Using movement and music to see through to the other side. This is why Wave Arising as a project is between a musician and a dancer. We are both aware that if we create a space where people come together with no drugs or alcohol and enter into several days of silence, movement, chi kung, and music, we will be entering into a
kind of ritual that allows communication to manifest. Years ago people were saying “The answer is on the dance floor”. We know this to be true but it is also in how we channel the music or enter into the multitude of methods that present themselves to us when we are truly seeking.
You see, right from the start rave was split between those who used psychedelics, dance, and music as a sort of modern-day ritual and those who just wanted to party using the multitude of good time drugs and good music. “Each one teach one“ as they say and there is no blame we all have to follow our respective paths, We have had a lot of years to experience rave culture though. I think it is pretty healthy to look in the mirror and ask yourself what you really want from all of this.
The future of rave is down to how we make it. I would say though because the majority of our music is instrumental it can be good to set up places where people can talk to each other as a group and face the big issues that present themselves in their respective scenes.
The basic role of rave in my opinion for the bigger community is a place where people come together to re-energise, to evacuate all of the week’s stress and feel good in Babylon at least for one night. In that light, it will always be of use to the community at large. However, if it loses its soul and becomes over commercialised then it becomes shallow instead of deep.
(The) Rooted Sky feels futuristic in a way that a lot of music these days doesn’t. How important is that for you? Does too much nostalgia restrict creativity?
I think maybe one of the strengths is that I come from what I would call ( But it is just an opinion) the Jazz side of rave. The other polarity is stuff like David Guetta that represents the Pop side of rave culture. Maybe it is too simplistic to put it in these terms. I think though it is important to at least try a definition as the motivations behind the respective ways of making music are very different.
Is it futuristic or just personalised? I improvise a lot and change tempo all the time. I am concerned with reflecting and channeling what is there in my perception of things so, naturally it would come out different from people following scenes or established genres.
A lot of things change when you are in the game for over 30 years. When I started there wasn’t even the internet and home studios were only just about affordable. I can’t imagine the pressure on people starting out today. Rave music when I started was completely open for interpretation and pretty much anything would go as long as it was based around one of the two clave’s I mentioned before. Today there are a lot of styles that are well formed and a lot of formulas. Things like sample packs can also be dangerous as unless you rip them apart and personalise everything then you run the risk of everyone using the same sounds or grooves. I make a point of making my own samples, beats, synth lines, and if I do sample something from a CD or something I make damn sure I use it only as a thing to mutate till it is completely different from the original sample.
I think the bottom line here is not a problem coming from nostalgia but how much people are prepared to make their own music rather than just jumping on one of the many well-trodden styles that are kicking around. Not an easy one as the industry is geared towards money, not music. (The simple fact that Euro disco has been passed off as house music and has created a massively popular scene is just beyond me. ) That’s life huh!!
Outside of music which artists, writers, directors etc have inspired you the most?
I am a big fan of David Lynch, Kubrick, Alan Moore, Lao Tse, Mantak Chia, W.B Yeats, I Ching, C.J Jung. Aldos Huxley, George Orwell, Robert Anton Wilson, Evan Wentz, Echer, Dali, Magritte, Berni Wrightson, Moebius, Hans Jenny, Neils Bhor, Fritjof Capra, Ram Das, Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey………..
Could you name a couple of records that would capture the essence of Spiral Tribe?
Kind of impossible as we are so many people with different tastes and if I said one thing there would be around 50 people going no way it was this record or that record. We rose up at time when Acid House was mutating into UK hardcore breakbeat and there were tracks coming over from Underground Resistance, R&S Records, Warp, Moving Shadow, Rising High so all and any of that was the Spiral Tribe Sound Track. …………….
Any plans on writing a book?
We all have different talents unfortunately for me wri/ng isn’t one of mine.
What advice would you give to people who wanted to start their own parties, or become DJs or producers?
The best surfer can’t do shit without the wave. Also, be nice to each other and try and shine something that comes from love.
Buy/stream Wave Arising – (The) Rooted Sky – Ransom Note Here
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