la revolution digitale
band interview
// Trax magazine (French), Jan 2008
:: english translation by Valerie Airieau @ atEase
____________________
— When and why did you decide to release In Rainbows in such an original way?
Ed: In April of this year.
Thom: we had been talking about it for ages because every fucking albums we released these previous years ended up on the Net before their release, in one way or another, because of someone who broke into the studio, or of the record company, or whatever. We first considered a leak date. Then we thought : «We might as well leak it ourselves, instead of letting others do it!»
— How did you decide then to let people pay it or not, and choose the price they wanted?
Ed: The idea came from our management, who’s been working with us since 1991. They had a lot of time to think about it, because we don’t work very fast. It was the keystone of their plan. They came to visit at the studio, when the recording was about 60-70% done. At first, they wanted the album to be available only on download, in a dematerialized way, without any CD or discbox. Then, they had this idea to pay whatever you wanted to download the disc. We’re aware that a lot of people never pay what they download, and that raises the idea about the value of music nowadays. In England, the music market has slumped. But how do you judge the music you hear? what value do you attribute to music? As an artist, if you release yourself your own music, how do you value it? There’s a restaurant in New York, Manhattan, where customers pay what they judge to be the right price after having eaten. This restaurant is a success because, of course, customers can look the waiter right in the eyes when they pay.
— In Paris, there used to be parties where people gave what they wanted at the admission.
Ed: Club parties?
Thom: really?
— Yes. It depended of what you could afford.
Ed: What was the atmosphere like at those parties?
— Good. But it was mostly a way to make people face their responsabilities by reminding them that artists get money from what you pay at the admisssion. Which was, more or less, the consequence of what you did, wasn’t it?
Ed: It makes people feel more involved and it respects them at the same time, without considering them a priori as thieves.
Thom: It’s one of the big problems to this crisis. The big record companies point the finger at the consumers who download the music freely, and at the same time they go on flooding magazines and superstores. They yell at people on the Net that they’re the ones who devalue music, while they themselves keep fooling the artists. It’s silly.
— Did you think about the consequences of your action for the listeners? Do you think you’re standing for a precise idea about the way music should be distributed and sold in general?
Thom: We were totally aware that our situation was unusual. We knew that a lot of people would be interested, whatever we would do. Half of them already knew most of the new songs, with youtube, etc. We, of course, suspected that what we did could by no means be a model for any artist. Besides, it’s not. We’ve got a history, an audience (fans) that follows us, we’re very lucky. At the same time, the most important for us was to point the finger at the record companies. If we’ve succeeded in conveying at least this idea, then we’ve reached our goal. Because we never got anything from what we’ve sold on iTunes.
Ed: Well, we have only one track for sale on iTunes …
Thom: Good point! (laugh)
— Do you see your action in political term? Will there be a 'before' and 'after'?
Thom: If it makes things change, then maybe… Last time we went on tour, we talked with a lot of other bands that urge us on doing it. You must fuck up things a bit when you have an opportunity. But mostly we did it because we feel it was the most obvious thing to do : release our stuff as quickly as possible, as we knew that so many people were eager to listen to it. If we raise the good question at the same time, that’s also very good. There’s so many business _in big letters_ in the music industry, and this business is like a drift boat. There’s no reason for artists not to go away when it’s still time. Why shoud we answer to the shareholders? Why would we answer to investment funds speculators?
— About that sensitive subject, the musical business has just started waking up in France. And it doesn’t seem to go well.
Ed: They should have started talking about all that eight years ago!
Thom (mocking) : Too late, guys!
Ed: It's in the very constitution of the music industry : the bigger it is, the more time it needs to adapt. Small companies are more versatile. You can't criminalize fifteen-year-old kids who have download music without paying, you have to accept that everything has changed. "The times they are changin'" … (from a Bob Dylan song )
Thom: When you've worked on a album so hard, you want to release it as quickly as possible. During all these years we spent without official website, we saw how fast things circulate despite us.
— Do you know how many people paid nothing for the album? I know you, Thom, have downloaded it without paying anything.
Thom: Yes, I didn't pay, it caused me trouble. Actually, I was at my mother's place, she wanted to hear it and I didn't have any copy with me.It would have been silly to pay, take the money from one pocket and put it back in the other pocket, especially when both pockets are on the same coat (laugh ).
— The minute In Rainbows was available, it was also on illegal websites, as if this way of doing things bothered those who are used to downloading music illegally.
Thom: We knew it would happen. It’s a bit absurd.
Ed: There were also all these technical problems, our server was too slow!
Thom: It was a nightmare.
Ed: Ebay and Amazon offered us to take over from us with their super-powerful servers. And our management answered that it was part of the fun, that it was a good thing that the website looked like a makeshift job.
Thom: to be honest, it didn't really convince me. It annoyed us a lot that the server was too slow to meet the demand, but to let Ebay take over was sort of the opposite to the initial idea.
Ed: The first day, the number of people that registered was twice as much what we expected.
Thom: The second day, we had to buy a second server, go to London by car, and plug it ourselves. Weird!
— It must have been exciting, after all these years without having to worry about hazards of massive distribution thanks to your recording company that was taking charge of everything.
Thom: It was very exciting! The whole operation was done with, literally, ten persons sitting in a little room. That’s all. We finished mixing, we sent a master to the United States for mastering, they sent it back to us, we uploaded it on the server and there we go! It was incredible. And the day after, media from all over the world went crazy. We were stunned. It doesn’t happen that often, it was great. I didn’t think all the music industry would be with us. So far, the only negative comment we had has come from Lily Allen, on her wonderful blog (he sniggers). I was very pleased (imitating is voice) «It’s irresponsible!»
— Why releasing a physical CD after that?
Thom (ironic): err…
Ed: At first, our manager wanted to release the album only on the Net and on a limited edition discbox. Actually we weren’t comfortable with this idea. The internet is a microcosm and of all the people who are listening to music, not everybody has access to it.
Thom: It’s a splitted way to share music. It has nothing to do with spending some time in a record shop.
— Do you think it limits the distribution to rich countries, for instance?
Ed: Of course!
Thom: That’s the core of the problem! And there’s also the limitation caused by the MP3 format. We work with all our heart on our music, on its quality, we want the sound to be great and when you compress all this, when you clip certain frequencies, the outcome is disappointing, reduced, whatever you say. And there’s also the physical object, to be able to hold it …
— Will the jacket be different?
Thom: You’ll see … certain things have changed. A little. But the music is exactly the same.
Ed: But the object changes things a bit.
Thom: I hope so …
— Do you still enjoy the old way of discovering and buying music, by lingering on in record shop, rummaging in the shelves, discussing with shop assistants?
Thom: There’s only one independant record shop left in Oxford. It’s on the wrong side of the town, it’s far away from my place, I never go there. It’s far easier, for me, to go to websites like Boomkat ot Bleep. But … to buy music only like that? To be guided by links, «people who bought this also bought that»… it’s not the same thing. I like to have cold-sweat when I go to the bookshop. All this stress when you arrive with a pile of CD to listen to in front of everybody.
Ed: It opens a lot of doors to buy music at the record shop. You talk with the guy behind the counter, he tells you about what he likes. It can be intimidating when you’re younger…
Thom: I’m always stressed out when I go to the record shop. It’s very intimidating! And you have to pretend to be cool …
— Several years ago, record shop owners used to scare a lot of people!
Ed: It has changed a lot. When I go to Rough Trade in London, everybody is nice. I made the usual mistake, I wanted to buy the new BURIAL, and I couldn’t find it …
Thom: What? They must have been piled at the entrance hall!
Ed: Of course they were! I asked the shop assistant, who looked a bit embarassed, and she grabbed one without moving at all, and gave it to me.
Thom: You silly guy.
Ed: it was a rough day.
Thom: That’s what’s the worse with peer-to-peer: it kills small record shop. It’s sad.
— Will there be vinyl record copies of In Rainbows?
Ed: Yes. A good old vinyl record, with an A-side and a B-side. They will even be released one week before the CD, precisely to help record shops. Like an act of peace, because we don’t want to be in war with them.
Thom: I’m not sure I want to do an act of peace towards Virgin or HMV.
Ed: Superstores won’t sell any vinyl records, but independant record shop will!
— Is it also for DJs?
Thom: Yes, it is. But I would be surprised that DJs play that record as it is. Maybe they’ll do some tricks with it.
— How do you explain that electronic music fans like your music?
Thom: I love electronic music and it makes me pleased when producers from electronic music say that they like our music, even though I wonder why.
Ed: I think it‘s the sound of our records, the way they’re produced, we have to thank Nigel for that, it has to do a lot with that.
Thom: Maybe it’s also a matter of structure.
— Precisely, a lot of songs on In Rainbows begin with beats.
Thom: We wanted to find the good pounding for each track. Instrumentation was less important.
Ed: We spent a lot of time on the beats, that’s true.
Thom: We voluntarily spent a lot of time cutting up beats, editing them, mixing different beats from different versions. Some songs are completely live, like '15 Steps', on which there’s no overdub, and Jonny activates the additionnal beat loops [NB: Probably wrong but no idea how to translate that ] with his foot. Others are completely edited. So, it’s mostly acoustic sounds but digitally adulterated. I think it’s the best way to emphasize live energy. A bit like what Kieran Hebden, from FOUR TET, does. He uses only sounds that he recorded, then he cut them up on his computer.
— The sound of In Rainbows isn’t as openly electronic as Kid A, but its processing is far more electronic. It’s even more electronic than the first acid house discs, which were raw capturing of music played with machines.
Thom: Videotape, the last song of the album, begins with piano. But Nigel recorded it in a way that it sounds almost otherworldly. He loves Trevor Horn for instance, even though we try not to tell people too much about this (laugh). But Trevor Horn used to work like that. He used to exaggerate every sound until they sound like synthesizers. It’s a bit like that on In Rainbows. Colin spends hours fiddling with machines, he branches off boxes, he plays with them, he turns buttons, but he never records anything. You go to see him, you listen to his incredible beats and you ask if he’s recorded them and he always answers: «oh, no, I forgot!». Anyway. We’ve got a room full of synthesizers, we bring them to the studio, we plug them and we try to make them work. We tried a lot of things for In Rainbows, but it didn’t work too well, we were much more excited to use acoustic sounds.
— Did you ever think about making a 100% dance music album?
Thom: oh, come on …
— A good one!
Thom: I’ll think about it. Actually, I don’t dare to talk about it anymore. Each time we finish an album, I have to open my mouth to say « next album will be a dance music one, it’ll be great ». Then, finally, it’s not. We could make one, I’m sure. But it would have to be really original. Sort of recorded live, with samples and machines, but without editing afterwards. And if you screw up something, you do it all again. We love Hank Shocklee and the Bomb Squad, PUBLIC ENEMY’s producers. The way they install a set-up in order to be able to play completely live…
Ed: Or Saturday Night Fever and disco music, where producers lengthened tracks during drumming breaks. I’d like to see Nigel do something like that.
— Do you know people dance on Idioteque?
Thom: Really? The thing with this track is that the sound of the beat is very soft, while in club they’re enormous and enhanced.
— Modeselektor must have been influenced by this beat.
Thom: I don’t know, but I’ve always loved them, from the very first listen. I think we should work with them but I’m not alone in the band. They’re a bit crazy. Did you see the jacket of their last album? I love the way they work on big portion of sound, they edit roughly, it’s amazing. Idioteque is a bit like that, a large piece of beat that Jonny programmed and with which he played. And everything in the track is there. I also envy BURIAL a lot, because he’s made himself his own universe. Which is very rare nowadays. I’m fascinated by the way he proceeds. He doesn’t sequence, he piles up sounds like layers, environmental sounds. He takes his recorder Edirol, he goes for a walk, he captures things. And the way he transforms and cut up voices. I’ve always been fascinated by the way some producers process voices, like a mere sound as if the singer was not part of it. Modeselektor cut up syllabes and don’t care for how the outcome does justice to the initial take or the lyrics. They love fragments, sounds they produce, and that’s all. I wish I would be treated more like that.
— Although that’s what happened to your voice on Kid A.
Thom: We tried. But we are a band, with five people. We have to find a way to play together in the same room. The work of programming on a computer is a problem. MODSELECTOR , between the two of them, manage to be like one, but five people, plus Nigel, it’s a nightmare! We experimented a lot for In Rainbows but in the end you can’t feel it on the album because it wasn’t good for the songs. On the contrary, they were becoming too long and fragmented. But isolated, this sessions are incredible. Burial is amazing because he works with a very limited range of sounds. A sound, a kick, a bass line, and the whole album is there, and for a mysterious reason, it works.
— You haven’t done much remixes…
Thom: I’d rather make remote collaborations. You start a track, you give what you’ve done to someone else who gives you back something, you keep what you like…
— Burial doesn’t do any interviews. Would you like to do the same?
Thom: He did an interview for The Wire but it doesn’t count I suppose! (mocking) It doesn’t bother me that much to do interview as long as it’s to talk about what we’re doing at the time. But I don’t like to have to account for bullshit written about the band ten years ago. When everything bursted out after OK Computer, it was crazy, horrible.
Ed: At the Kid A era you didn’t even talk to the media.
Thom: When you’re a singer, you’re on the stage, at the front, with the mic, you can’t hide anything. It’s not like Autechre, behind their bright apples and their sunglasses.
— Did you use to go to rave parties when you were younger?
Thom: I went sometimes, yes. There was one, around Plymouth, but it wasn’t very welcoming… pretty bad, actually. I especially remember all those Volkswagens, on Fridays night, in Oxford. It was funny.
Ed: Were you waiting the phonecall with the infoline ?
Thom: Eventually, everybody would disappear. But it was already the end of it. Some people, already, were filling their pockets out of that.
Ed: I went to a few rave parties, and everything would make sense when you were under the influence. Before that, the music was horrible, people were horrible. After that, it was great. But it was already the end of it at the time I used to go to parties. All the good people, the ones from the Amnesia at Ibiza, Alfredo then Oakenfold, all those DJs who were playing the Woodentops were already elsewhere.
Thom: I never identified with rave parties. I was working in a shop at the time, and on monday morning, everybody would arrive without having slept at all. They were playing their music in the shop, but I didn't like that to much. Eventually, I discovered the first stuff from Warp, Per Clonk from Sweet Exorcist, etc...Then it made sense, it was my thing. Warp CDs were always the ones with the best sound. Then LFO appeared, and I play the first 45 I bought so many times that I screwed it up. On the Tresor label, at the time, I also discovered the first SUGREON. A genuine revelation. It opened me up to repetition. That's where machines are useful.
— When did think to yourself that you may bring something to this kind of music?
Thom: I was so intimidated. I was in, what... 1991, and it seemed to me completely out of reach. We were a rock band! Then, during the break after Ok Computer, I started buying material and I tried to jump on the bandwagon. You know how equipment can determine the music you play. You buy a machine, you learn how to use it and it fits with a particular era of your musical life. It's so exciting to learn new things... Aphex Twin works like that, everything depends on the machine he's just bought. As on Drukqs, he's just bought... a piano! (laugh)
— Do you think you've brought something to electronic music?
Thom: A lot of people would say we haven't brought anything at all. I'd tend to agree with them. Some artists from electronic music, repetition, sounds have a big influence on me. Far less on some other members of the band. That's part of the interaction of the band.
— Thom, do you bring CDs to the others to make them discover new stuff?
Thom: Yes, all the time, actually...
Ed: He gave me the first Burial, the one released before Untrue. It was the first electronic album that I've loved for ages.
Thom: Colin also listens to a lot of electronic music.
— A lot of people say that your most electronic album is Kid A. Do you agree?
Thom: Is it the one with all those synthesizers? (laugh) In terms of processing, In Rainbows is much, far much more electronic.
— Your sense of detail and experimentation for the production of your albums has certainly taken part, like the ones from THE BEATLES, MY BLOODY VALENTINE, Phil Spector or TIMBALAND, in the evolution of pop music.
Thom: The most important, to make things progress, is to be played on the radio. I've always considered our music as pop music. People come to see us and say: 'this track is so weird, so experimental' and I don't really understand. For me, our music is very direct and obvious. We never tried to look intelligent or weird or to make things change. Everything we tried came naturally. We make songs and we sing on them. But it's sweet to think like that : sort of the ultimate compliment.
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