MAKING MUSIC

Rip It Up, Issue 240, 1 August 1997, Page 33

MAKING MUSIC

mall of his endeavours, Paul Casserly XI considers himself primarily a “collaborator”. Phase one of the electronic dance-pop act Strawpeople was the collaborative effort of Casserly and Mark Tierney (along with various guest vocalists), that lasted 10 years. The current Strawpeople line-up has him teamed with Fiona MacDonald; and additionally, he has a production company, Battersea Productions, where he works alongside Greg Johnson. Creative interaction also characterises the latest Strawpeople release, 100 Street Transistors, a remix album of tracks largely from Broadcast and Vicarious (Strawpeople’s last studio album), reconstructed by some eminent local producers and DJs including Unitone HiFi, Zane Lowe, and ex-Headless Chicken, Michael Lawry. Casserly explains there is some confusion over a remix album is perceived by the public: “99 percent of people seem to think that it’s a greatest hits compilation.” So, what is your take on the concept of “the remix ”? “It acknowledges that the process of making electronic music is just as important as the song itself. In the remix context, the song is just a vehicle, really. It’s sort of like a cover version, but it’s also like a director’s cut, getting someone else’s spin on a particular song. Often mixes take a song from one genre to another, like the Moby remix of Soundgarden, it’s just a plane from one aesthetic to another. “In a sense, it’s the natural progression of the evolution of sampling — as sampling is about . stealing bits of other pieces of music to build a new piece and a remix is acknowledging that by basically sampling a whole song and then fucking with it. It’s born out of that as much as anything. There’s really no need for a concept as long as it sounds good.” .. .7; Why do a remix album? 7 \ -7 ‘“Why not?’ is the answer to that. It’s easier than doing a brand new album for a start, because you don’t have to write a whole lot of new songs. You get to tap into a whole pool of talent of producers, engineers and mixers that if you were hiring to work on an album you . ■ couldn’t afford. If we were doing a new album and I hired those people to produce, it would be a different bail-game, because they would be like contractors or labourers. But because it’s a remix, and they have some authorship over it, that’s an incentive to make it good —7 and to make it their own. So doing a remix album is a way of getting some excellent talent on your record, on the , ; \ cheap.” What remix technology are we looking at here? Big studios or bedroom? •_;••• 7 7. “I think the only one that could be considered a big studio remix was the one done in Germany, by Schallbau. The way things have changed with electronic music, as long as you’ve got a few nice pieces of equipment you can do it in your

bedroom. A few were done in my bedroom; some in very small studios around town. Most were done in a project studio environment: a small desk, sampler, sequencer, a few boxes with sound modules and effects, and that’s basically it. The Short Fuse remix of ‘Vicarious’ was done entirely on a Mackintosh, but you’re looking at some reasonably expensive software like Pro-Tools there. “It’s really all about the people. You can have the flashest studio in town and make the crappest record — people do all the time. There’s a level of technical know-how, and knowing what the basics are in terms of having enough bass or whatever, but no rules really.” With changes in technology, has it become quicker — and therefore cheaper — to record now? “Yeah, essentially you don’t need a lot of money in terms of the technical side of things, especially if you avoid using a lot of live instruments. But what costs is your time — taking time out from working to write, that’s the real cost.” Is familiarity with the song on the part of the remixer a help or hindrance? “It can be either. It can help, but sometimes it’s fun to ignore the hook and bring some other part of the song to the forefront, and that will become the highlight of your remix — you actually change what the hook is. The great thing about electronic music is that there are essentially no rules.”. Do you think there’s a danger in exposing your material to a current but perhaps fleeting trend — like a mix that may already be last week’s style by the time it comes out? “With the people we gave the stuff to, there weren’t any major directions as such. But pop music isn’t separate to the latest trend or breaking sound — punk became pop, and drum ‘n’ bass also becomes pop. It’s interesting there are elements of drum ‘n’ bass in lots of the mixes, it’s obviously equally affected everyone and can’t be ignored. There is always a risk, especially when you are consciously doing a remix album that is tapping into new directions in electronic music, to go overboard, change what you do and become a chameleon. That obviously doesn’t work, but if you hear something exciting and think you can use that to make what you do better, you’ve got to be open to it. There is a fine, line — how far do you get on the bandwagon?” Did anybody ‘s mixes miss the point completely? “There were a couple that were commissioned that we decided not to go with. A lot of it had to do with that when the album came together as a whole, it had a flavour, and those two tracks — one that I did myself — just didn’t fit in with the soup we’d come up with.” Anything particularly come alive? “I have favourites that change every now and then, like if I hear one of the tracks when I’m