New AFX Interview (September 2011)

heh, i don't have this problem cause i didn't bother trying to translate the interview.

 

I'm sure that Indicator or someone will get to it eventually though, so maybe i'll read it then. Right now i'm happy reading your debates over the poorly translated quotes.

 

drlol ;-]

  Quote

Bartek Chaciński

September 7, 2011

 

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Interview with Aphex Twin

I like to have control

Pop him tired, resigns from synthesizers, but about composing for orchestra always dreamed of. Aphex Twin, the musical symbol of modernity, in an interview for "Polityka" turns out to be surprisingly traditional.

PowiększAphex Twin is the loudest representative generation, which in the bedroom, using simple devices created music as that of the professional studiówAphex Twin is the loudest representative generation, which in the bedroom, using simple devices created music as that of professional studios

PowiększAphex Twin on one of koncertówAphex Twin on one of the concerts

Enlarge "The easier something is, the more shitty end result. The more you try, the better the outcome "- Aphex Twin says," The easier something is, the more shitty end result. The more you try, the better the outcome "- says Aphex Twin

Read also

 

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Towards a more complex rhythms and sounds a bit more dramatic.

Music from the media

 

For today's young audience is electronic music DJs, laptops, synthesizers. But this ...

 

Bartek Chaciński: - Krakow, who we see outside the window, is far from the stereotype of industrial cities where techno music grew. Why are you coming back?

 

Aphex Twin - invited me.

 

Invite you not only here.

 

But here they must think like me. Besides, I liked before. In 2009 the festival played two concerts Sacrum Profanum. A lot of recently performed as a DJ and I'm going from the rest, a lot depends on how I would go to the implemented for you [the European Congress of Culture - editor. ed] a project devoted to Penderecki. Because I think about preparing for the future installation of sound, or some classic designs.

 

Are you bored?

 

Something like that. Repeating the same is boring.

 

Many years have passed since your last album. Shoot?

 

All the time, still working in the studio - actually in college. I have four of them for different purposes. I left for it to work on a laptop, on airplanes, on the run.

 

Once you seemed fascinated by the laptop as a work tool.

 

Yes it was. Using a portable machine for music was like a dream. When I started to use a portable computer, in 1994-95, there was a choice of software - this situation was growing old challenges. Indeed, the laptop frees you from working in one place, but in the end you realize that you lack good listening, but you lack the studio.

 

As the music changes the fact that the tools you need - a laptop and simple software - can now have almost everyone?

 

This annoying phenomenon, because everything becomes easy. And the easier something is, the more shitty end result. The more you try, the better the result. I know that generalization, but he struggled in the past with hardware problems. Had it not nagrałbym probably a lot more music. To the detriment of quality.

 

And it's not including the initiation, which was needed to create electronic music before, and now vanished?

 

- Why? This is a good side. Today, developers sometimes create a tool inspired by what he did, I happened to already have several. Feedback. It is strange, but nice.

 

These new studies provide you quality?

 

It's exciting for me, that sounds good listening room, because I had always worked in just under what conditions. Now I have a great console, studio piano, which is connected with another one - this fills a big drum kit. Playing on the robot, which he built for me, Godfried-Willem Raes of the Logos Foundation, a renowned designer of such devices. I can therefore emit sound in a natural way, by hitting on any subjects, but the earlier computer program. The whole thing is coupled with the piano.

 

This sounds like a continuation of ideas from "Drukqs" your piano CD 10 years ago.

 

There, I had a computer-controlled piano, and now has two instruments are operating on a similar principle. Recent works by doing just that - no electronic sound sources. No synthesizers.

 

And now I ask you, if you change the electronic instrumentation for acoustic ...

 

I do not know if anyone will believe me, but from the beginning, when as a young boy began to record electronic music, I thought that one day someone will want it to perform on traditional instruments. I just waited. I knew that in this way will be better than played with the use of synthetic sounds.

 

You were one of the first creators of techno grywanym by orchestras London Sinfonietta and Alarm Will Sound. What do you think of these versions?

 

Some are successful. In Poland I worked with the orchestra, so I am convinced that the end result will be satisfactory, but they often had no previous direct influence. It was interesting with the London Sinfonietta, respectively when they tried to craft the piano to bring out the sound they could hear in my recording. And the musician tried to do this in my eyes - in a really complicated way, using screws, he worked in the sweat of his brow, and he managed to get the right color until the day of the concert. Meanwhile, in the recording I did it right - putting the chain on the piano strings.

 

Podpowiedziałeś not him?

 

But of course. I said: "There was a chain." But I did not want to listen to me, behaved strangely.

 

More at http://www.polityka....rozmowy/1519138, 1, call-of-Aphex-twinem.read # ixzz1XQo19yXB

 

interview is the bomb. wish i spoke polish.

well, its hard to read in polish for me, lol, left the country 28 years ago, but I ll try an accurate translation later today, I do not promise thou.

Many years have passed since your last album. Shoot?

holy shit this is a remarkable interview, and as a fanboy and watmmer it is my duty to transplate it, hold on my dear friends, oil up your dicks and get in position....it will arrive.

  Quote

hold on my dear friends, oil up your dicks and get in position....it will arrive.

 

ha!

what's 'e sayin about Rustie??

  On 9/9/2011 at 5:08 PM, sirch said:

what's 'e sayin about Rustie??

Rusties fine, thou he got jail baited recently, he's afaid of droping the soap so he's asking you for cigarettes, if they could ever save him. Always been kinda naive, good ol rustie.

  On 9/9/2011 at 2:22 PM, schlucharski said:

holy shit this is a remarkable interview, and as a fanboy and watmmer it is my duty to transplate it, hold on my dear friends, oil up your dicks and get in position....it will arrive.

WOOT

  On 9/9/2011 at 5:39 PM, schlucharski said:

  On 9/9/2011 at 5:08 PM, sirch said:

what's 'e sayin about Rustie??

Rusties fine, thou he got jail baited recently, he's afaid of droping the soap so he's asking you for cigarettes, if they could ever save him. Always been kinda naive, good ol rustie.

 

hahaha. Rustie's not old enough to be put in prison yet is he?

silly man, that James...

  On 9/9/2011 at 8:15 PM, acid1 said:

  On 9/9/2011 at 2:22 PM, schlucharski said:

holy shit this is a remarkable interview, and as a fanboy and watmmer it is my duty to transplate it, hold on my dear friends, oil up your dicks and get in position....it will arrive.

WOOT

 

also woot ..

 

 

and an hoot ... for good measure.

 

ok so decided to post it piece by piece for those who can't wait.

 

I hardly can read polish, thou I understand everything, but have to reach for polish to german to english translator from time to time.

Page 2 and 3 on Sa and Su,

after that I will make it available to download in one piece, ?

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PAGE 1

 

Krakow, which we see behind the window, is far away from being an industrial metropole,

in which the techno sound develops.

why did you come back here?

 

they invited me

 

Not just here!

 

But here they seem to like me. Besides that, I liked it the last time I was here.

In 2009 I played two concerts at the Sacrum Profanum festival.

I toured a lot recently as a DJ and I'm planing to take a rest, but it depends on how well

my project goes for you [European Culture Congress]..dedicated to Penderecki.

Because I think about preparations for future sound installations or some projects with classical

music.

 

You got bored?

 

Kind of, repetition is boring.

 

Many years passed since your last record.

Are you recording now?

 

All the time, I continuously work in the studio, actually in the studios.

I have 4 of them for different purposes.

On the other hand, I stopped working on a laptop, on planes, on the run in general.

 

But you seemed fascinated with laptops as working tools.

 

True. Using a portable machine for music purposes seemed to be like a dream.

When I started using portable computers in 1994-95, there wasn't much choice

for software - that kind of situation was challenging.

Sure a laptop frees you from work in one certain place, but in the end you realize,

that you lack good monitoring, that you lack a studio.

 

 

How does the fact change music, that you need tools - laptop and simple applications -

being available for nearly everybody ?

 

This is an irritating phenomenon, because everything became easy.

The easier something is, the shittier the end result.

The more pains a musician is taking the better the result will be.

I know I'm generalizing but, I've been struggling in the past with gear problems.

If this hadn't been the case I would have recorded much more music, but for the price of

quality loss.

 

But wasn't this all about being in the secret, obligatory to create electronic music back then,

and today this all disappeared ?

 

Why ? It has good sides. Today's programmers create tools inspired by what

I used to do. It happened that I used some of them, say back coupling. thats strange but nice.

 

Your new studios ensures quality?

 

For me its essential, the acoustics of the room, because until now, I used to work

in regardless circumstances. Now I have a big console, a piano studio which is

connected to another one which contains a large set of percussion instruments, controlled by

a robot, which was build by Godfried Willem-Raes from Logos Foundation,

a well known engineer for such devices.

Due to this I can prise sounds out with genuine methods by hitting

objects as its been programmed beforehand. The hole thing is coupled with a piano [prob. keyboard]

 

 

Sounds like the continuation of the ideas on drukqs.

 

Back then I had a computer controlled piano. Now I have two instruments that function

in a similar way. My latest pieces where done this way - there are no

electronic sound sources. No synthesized sound.

 

I was just about asking you if you replaced electronic instruments with acoustic.

 

Don't know if anyone believes me, but in the beginning, as a boy, recording electronic

music, I was thinking that someone, one day would want to perform it with traditional instruments.

I simply was waiting. This way it becomes better than just played syntheticly.

 

You were one of the first techno creators which music was played by an orchestra.

London Symphony or Alarm Will Sound. What do you think about those interpretations?

 

Some of them turned out well. In Poland I will work with an orchestra and I'm convinced

that the result will be satisfying. But on the previous ones often I had no direct influence.

The interesting thing with London Sinphony was, when they tried to prepare the piano

accordingly to sound like on the record. That guy tried to do it in front of my eyes,

in a complicated way, with the help of screws, while sweating, and he succeeded in creating the

proper tone color on the day of the concert.

Back then I did it the easy way: I put a chain on the piano strings.

 

You didn't tell him ?

 

Of course I did, I said: "it was a chain". He wasn't listening and was acting strange.

---

thanks schlucharski

  On 9/10/2011 at 2:16 AM, yikes said:

thanks schlucharski

I want to hear his new acoustic recordings.

This interview is encouraging. He's still totally into making music.

yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

 

i cant wait to hear this stuff its gonna be friggin amazing

i love drukqs and i love the piano stuff on there this is going to fuckin be the best thing ever

sorry for swearing but im just really excited im serious

so this robot is basically about doing drill n bass in real way not by copping up sampels

 

awesome

  On 9/10/2011 at 12:54 AM, delet... said:

  On 9/9/2011 at 8:15 PM, acid1 said:

  On 9/9/2011 at 2:22 PM, schlucharski said:

holy shit this is a remarkable interview, and as a fanboy and watmmer it is my duty to transplate it, hold on my dear friends, oil up your dicks and get in position....it will arrive.

WOOT

 

also woot ..

 

 

and an hoot ... for good measure.

 

 

Page 2:

 

 

 

 

Will there be any concerts of that kind in future?

 

I will come back to poland next year for another project, probably.

For years now I had ideas for sound installations.

I separate them, in those that are just absurd and impossible and in those that are realizable.

Turns out half to half. Some of them are quite simple. but all of them require some kind of

requirements. Maybe I implement them, maybe I just make those ideas public and just wait until someone

prepares them.

 

What keeps you away from it?

 

In the world of arts, its not just about good ideas, you have to know and convince ppl.

This is what I can't do. Once I had an idea for setting up the turbine hall in

Tate Modern. I was trying to convince to local curator. He told me, that its a

good idea, but for sponsoring only ICI would qualify. [implying that it would cost a shitload]

 

Do you protect your indepentance?

 

Simply spoken, if something becomes too complicated, I give up on it.

I like simple solutions.

 

So is reworking Pendereckies work from 40 years ago in Wroclaw a simple solution?

Or more "natural" from the point of view of rhythmical techno music,

its Steve Reich you will play at Sacrum Profanum ?

 

Probably, but more interesting were the reactions of my friends when they heard that I

got my hands on "Polimorfie". "Wow Penderecki!" - they said. "Great". Had no clue that so many

of my acquaintances love this creations. More because of the fact, that they remember Kubrick's

Shinning. But thats something.

 

Maybe todays electronic music set their minds for Pendy-Music. You said that ppl started

to get into non harmonic sounds.

 

True. Ppl listen to more strange pieces and to music, what was considered avanguardism 10-15

years ago, today is a common thing.

 

Don't you have the impression, that even pop music is undergoing [that] evolution.

With Lady Gaga for example, sounds are contained that would have been considered as

non comforting.

 

I don't listen too much to pop music. I try to avoid it, because every time I hear it, here

and there, I start recomposing it in my head. So by avoiding it, it doesn't go on my nerves.

 

 

Whats your opinion on sound [aesthetics] in this music ?

 

Its quite extreme. Strongly compressed to maximize the volume.

Recently I've been looking through a pile a sounds from some chart music, and it

seems that its incredibly loud music. Louder than many of "trade-off less" noise

recordings. And I use those same audio processing applications myself and I know how to set them

up, how to makeup to average loudness in the same manner as the audio producers of advertising industry do it,

but the problem with this is: it destroys the transitions of the broadcasted sound character.

And the dynamic drops to zero. Everything is on the same level. Honestly

speaking: it fascinates me that this is popular music and ppl want to listen to it.

 

 

Maybe they got used to it, and they won't be able to listen music recorded back than?

 

If we compare my strongest (in the sense of volume) recording from the 90ies to todays

pop music it will be 10 times quieter, but has so much dynamics in itself that if you turn

the knob on your amplifier it will sound better. Its nothing contemporary producers aim at.

They try to make people not to regulate their amp knobs so they get max volume right away.

Thats the case with radio and television broadcasting.

 

Do chart producers still call you up with colab proposals?

Used to be many: madonna, bjoerk.

 

Yes, I get proposals all the time for remixes or other stuff. But I say no on purpose.

Used to have a good excuse: I was building my studio for 3 years.

 

Why didn't you try, just once?

 

Well actually one time I agreed. Worked with a south african group called "Die Antwoord".

They came with a mission in my studio - becoming the worlds biggest band.

Maybe they succeed. They came on the beginning of the year and said: by june we will have

a finished album. I asked: with me ? They: sure, I: well maybe one song. Because sure I could do

a selling hit, but I would need a couple of months for this. But they wanted everything

right now, they tried some motivation methods on me, but in the end I said goodbye.

I don't want to be controlled in any way.

 

What do you think about the new electronic "wave", that seems to connect to what you did

in the 90ies. Like Flying Lotus, Rustie ?

 

Theres lots of interesting music at the moment, but I don't like the aesthetics [sound] in the end.

You can tell, that its been done on labtops, and in any case, without moving away from the computer.

I am excited about the ideas but can't stand that sound itself.

If they would pass it through a descent mixer at least,

that would make it up for 30 % [not sure about how to interpret this]

 

Do you have some favorites among your offspring

 

My favorites is everything I play in my DJ sets. Besides that I don't remember names, but you can find

certain tracklists on the internet.

 

What do thing about the dubstep scene? Do their creators, reflect your type of attitude ?

 

I like what they do, so I'm not complaining. Interesting thing is, that in the beginning of the 90ies,

there weren't many genres within electronic music. No deep cuts.

There was house, hip hop, acid, thats it. No garage, no drum 'n' bass. Now diversification has gone so far,

that even if you go in a certain club, you listen to Djs whose sets are similar so each other and therefor monotonous.

Because they just play one genre. But in the 90ies different ppl [fans of different genres] were mixing in one club.

So ppl must be bored by playing the same music. Dubstep was boring in the beginning. Don't know if today I can call it

by the same word, but it became more interesting.

 

Do you know some young producers personally ?

 

I stay in touch with those who are connected to rephlex, my label. Slowly I also develop contacts to ppl, trying to get

some material for my DJ sets. I very much like drum 'n' bass music from Paradox, we got in touch recently.

Ppl sent music to me - before I never used my name to make ppl share what they do. Problem with this is also, that

I'm trying to get the best quality possible. And in my sets I still use a turntable. I have excellent gear. excellent amp, sometimes

I spent many hours recording from the turntable into the computer. Then I need to clean up, using special applications.

Kinda got into it.

 

 

Vinyl - yes, mp3 - no?

 

I collect music in all possible formats - very often in a folder on a computer. But if I like something then I buy the vinyl on

ebay, even if I overpay, and then bounce it to the computer, because running through my gear it will sound better.

In the beginning when ppl used mp3, they where exited about how collections can be organized, but from that moment on

you have 100k pieces you don't listen to, it stop being so comfy. Good thing in relation to this format is that you can exchange your favorite tunes with your friends. Back then a Dj didn't want ppl to spot what he is playing on stage. Today we have the

certainty that one shares good music, he will be rewarded with something equally interesting.

 

 

I bet you share your recordings with friends, informally you released your new tunes.

 

Of course. Besides that I do the same when I play vinyls - I close up recordings no one heard before.

Ppl notice, then those unnamed pieces spread either way.

A lot of his artisits reach his age and I presume just get lazy or run out of ideas but by the sound of this interview he's still totaly switched on and more into it than ever.

 

Good news for us.

Nice interview so far, thanks for translating bro

further @ schlucharski