Recording - June 2021 - 22

How long did you keep touring with your
original Prophet 5?
I used it on tour with Porcupine Tree right until the last date.

What computer interface are you using to
record with?
I have a MOTU UltraLite, which gives me eight channels.

When you're composing, where do you start?
Is it with a melody, a sound you've created,
a drum rhythm?

I usually start with some initial underlying concept. In this
case, this album turned into something that I didn't expect. I
was going to make an album in various studios around Europe,
work with a lot of musicians, and record a lot of improvisations. The pandemic closed all those channels, and I realized I
would make a very different album.
The underlying atmosphere of Under A Spell is what was going on in my head with these very vivid dreams I was having. It
was that strong imagery combined with the weird atmosphere
outside. Because we were in lockdown, it was almost like living
in a post-apocalyptic science fiction film.

So how did you turn those feelings and
concepts into music?

I tend to try to work in a way where I detach myself from the
compositional process. I'll try to explain. Rather than sit at a keyboard and have my whole personality, my thoughts and logic,
inform what I'm playing, I prefer to get four or five instruments
going with loopers and sequences, like drones and things running
altogether. Then I step back from that and wait for something to
happen. There'll be a lovely harmony or a melody, or an interesting sound combination, that I'll focus on and then start building
from there. I need to be recording the whole time this is happening. It's a case of taking myself out of it, letting things happen and
approaching it as if I'm a producer or an arranger. I think when
artists let these kinds of random accidents happen, that's when we
get these amazing combinations and moments in music.

It's like you're improvising with yourself.
Yeah.

there in the studio with them. That, for me, is the most enjoyable
part of being a musician, and I love that kind of interplay.
Even though I'm not a virtuoso musician, and I don't really understand music theory, I can articulate well enough what I want
and what's working and what isn't. If I've got a violin player, a
trumpet player, or a saxophone player, I'll give them a rough
outline of what I want. Sometimes I'll play them a quick reference
from another record just to get a flavor of what's going on. Then
I'll take that away, and they can't listen to it anymore. [laughs]
But when we start recording, subconsciously, it's in their head,
and they've got the kind of overall feeling I'm after.
The other side is where I steal their performances from other recordings they've done with me. I twist them or mangle them. I might
put them through grain table samplers and change the pitch and
direction of the performance. Sometimes I use the performance in
its natural form, but just place it somewhere different. It's a bit like
sampling, kind of like what Portishead and Massive Attack were
doing in the 90s. Or what Eno and Byrne did on My Life in the
Bush of Ghosts. The way they took radio broadcasts and voices
and incorporated them into the music was very influential for me.

Let's talk about the drums and percussion on
the album. It's a great blend of simplicity-
parts that sound like a static old-school
Roland CR-78 pattern-but then you get
layers of drum and percussion grooves that
I was surprised to find out were primarily
programmed and not a real drummer at all.
How do you come up with your drum rhythms?
It's something I really, really enjoy doing, and actually, you're the
first person to focus on that, which is nice because I really put a lot
of work into it. When you're working with machines, you don't have
to worry about what's physically possible or what a drummer really
could do. I'm treating the drums like synths in a very sound-design
way, finding the right beats and combinations and fitting them in the
right places. I tend to use a lot of abstract samples as percussion.
There's a virtual 64-step drum machine in Reason called Redrum,
and each channel has a section where you can import samples. I'll
put four or five disparate sound sources in there. It might be a couple
of voices, plucked cello, a Kyoto, and maybe some machinery, and
just like I do with synth loops and sequences, I'll start running these
different rhythms. When a nice combination emerges, I continue to
work on each sound individually until it comes together as something
interesting, unique and not quite normal. Programming rhythms is the
most enjoyable part of the recording process for me.

How do the other performers on the album
factor in? I assume they recorded remotely
and sent you files.

Let's talk about your table of pedals.

Some of them are remote contemporary performances like
Klas Assarsson on the vibraphone or Percy Jones' bass parts,
but I also took a lot of performances from previous recording
sessions I had done with most of these musicians, and I used
them out of context within this new material.

There's one pedal by Red Panda called Tensor that's pretty
far out. It does so many things, and I still haven't gotten to the
bottom of it. It's a pitch shifter, and it has a tape effect where
you can change the speed of things as if you were listening to
an old reel-to-reel. It can make glitchy loops. You can reverse it.
If you're a keyboard player, I highly recommend it, as it really
adds something otherworldly to the sound.

How did you direct the musicians in this
context?

Do you chop and warp things in the computer
as well?

I'm fortunate to have the trust of these musicians to re-imagine
their performances, if you will. Obviously, it's different if you're
22 RECORDING June 2021

I do. I have two different processes when I work. One is the
recording, which is improvised- I control the pedals and synths

Recording - June 2021

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