Switched On: Early Electronic Oddities

EARLY ELECTRONIC ODDITIES is an exploration of the strange and subliminal sounds of early electronic musical instruments from 1860 to 1970, and many now almost obsolete daring and experimental creations like the Mixtur-Trautonium, the Ondes-Martenot, the Rhythmicon, the Ondioline, the RCA synthesizer, electro-theremin and the inventions of the Italian Futurists and Raymond Scott. Live discussions, field recordings and amazingly unearthed rare recordings presented by two theremin players, Miss Hypnotique and Bruce Woolley. Features recorded contributions by Bob Moog and Jean-Jacques Perrey.
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Download MP3's of the archived broadcast:

[Early Electronic Oddities Pt. 1 (33 MB)] // [Early Electronic Oddities Pt. 2 (30 MB)]

(*Originally broadcast 10/29/04 on London's Resonance 104.4fm.)

Playlist:

Part 1:
1. Radio Nottingham - the Radiophonic Workshop
2. Chorale - Antonio Russolo
3. Celestial Nocturne - Samuel Hoffman (theremin)
4. Concerto for Ondes-Martenot - Andre Jolivet featuring Jeanette Martenot
5. Various soundtracks - Paul Tanner plays Electro-theremin
6. Now in heaven you can hear the latest Fall album - Hypnotique (Rhythmicon)
7. Jean-Jacques talk about the Ondioline
8. Demonstration from Fantasy for Mixtur-Trautonium - Oscar Sala
9. Telstar - The Tornadoes (Clavioline)

Part 2:
10: Bob Moog - talks about the RCA Synthesizer (background music: the Man from Uranus)
11: Nola - Felix Arndt (RCA synthesizer)
12. Return of the Elohim Pt 1- Zorch (VSC3)
13. CoilANS - Coil (ANS synthesizer)
14. Silver apples of the moon - Morton Subotnik (Buchla Modular)
15: Bob Moog talks about Raymond Scott (music from 'Manhattan Space Research')
16: Zwi Zwi oo oo oo - Delia Derbyshire (Wobbulator)
17: Modified clarinet - Reed Ghazal (Circuit Bent instrument)
18: In a Delian Mode - Delia Derbyshire (Radiophonic Workshop)
19. Return of the Elohim Pt 2 - Zorch (VSC3)
20: Futurama (Raymond Scott advert)

Written resources:

Early Sound Experiments

Even before the invention of electricity, man has experimented with mechanics to produce sound, from ancient Tibetan prayers wheels and the Greek's Aeolian Harp's which were played by the wind, through to the first wind up barrel organ in the sixteenth century, and in the eighteenth century, mechanical birds and the glass harmonica which anticipated the sound of electronics.

In 1752, the world became, quite literally Switched On, when Benjamin Franklin performed his famous experiment with a kite, drawing down electricity from the clouds and first stimulating the fusion of science and nature which is electricity. One of the founding fathers of electricity, Thomas Edison, illuminated the world with his demonstration of the light bulb in 1879, two years after inventing the phonograph. Telegraphs and telephony began to connect people, and in 1910 the first radio broadcast took place in New York. The world became connected by the power of electricity, and sound produced through electricity and electronic sound reproduction was set to take over the 20th century.

The story of early electronic instruments is the story of pioneers, dreamers, schemers and losers. It's a story of bold ideas and bad debts, bizarre lives and forgotten deaths, and events of "synchronicity" - actions which extend beyond mere coincidence. The relationship between sounds found in our environment and music has become closer, classical instruments and the old masters have become increasingly redundant, as new sonic possibilities have been unleashed to challenge the warring world.

The Futurists

Before electronic instruments became commonplace in the 1910s and 1920s, the Italian avant-garde Futurists called for an exploration into the possibilities of new sound worlds in their manifestos, like Busoni's exploration of Microtonal Harmony and the breaking of classical timbres in Russolo's Art of Noises. The futurists experimented with homemade 'sound boxes' to produce original and novel sounds. Edgar Varese, composer of percussive-sonic piece Ionisation saw the scope for 'sound producing machines' that would ultimately lead to the 'liberation of sound'.

The first electronic instruments

Towards the end of the 19th century, a number of instruments that can be considered electronic were invented by scientists and academics. Helmholtz's 1860 'Helmholtz Resonanator' used electro-magnetic vibrating glass and metal sphere to create different sensations of tone.

Although Elisha Gray was piped by Alexander Graham Bell to the patent of the telephone by just a few hours, he didn't miss a beat when he invented the Musical Telegraph in 1876 which amplified sounds from an electronic oscillator - the world's first electronic keyboard.

The greatest of the early electronic beasts, the Telharmonium, was drawn to live like Frankenstein's monster by Thomas Cahill in 1906. The 200 tonne 60 foot long sand, water and cement constructed keyboard instrument used dynamos to produce alternating current over various audio frequencies. Controlled by many keyboards, gears and wires and amplified by giant acoustic horns, the idea was to hook up the machine to a phone network to pipe music into restaurants, stores and theatres - a forerunner to Musak. So vast was the machine, during concerts it broke the stage, and the machine interfered with the phone network, so consequently it died a death before the first world war. Cahill was ahead of his time; it was to be another 50 years before electronic keyboard instruments finally caught on, as the principle of the Telharmonium formed the basis of one of the most successful electronic instruments of all time - the Hammond organ.

Vacuum tube technology

De Forest was a prolific inventor with 300 patents to his name. Shortly after a failed collaboration with Thomas "Telharmonium" Cahill, De Forest discovered a method of combining two inaudible high-frequency sound waves to produce an audible low-frequency wave, a technique called heterodyning, or beat frequency oscillation. In 1915, De Forest created the first vacuum tube instrument - a small monophonic keyboard called the Audion Piano (nicknamed by De Forest the "Squak-a-Phone"), but once more, it quacked an early death. However, vacuum tube technology was to take over the next era of electronic instruments from the 1920s onwards.

The theremin

The theremin, invented by Russian Lev Termen (also known as Leon Theremin), in 1920 remains the world's only true space control instrument - and one which has proved enigmatic, mysterious and popular for the last 85 years. Originally marketed by the RCA radio corporation as an instrument that "anyone who can hum, sing, or whistle" could play, it's unusually design of a cabinet with two aerials and nothing short of unconventional playing technique of the hands moving in the ether creating part of the electromagnetic circuit, one hand for pitch, the other for value - is visually hypnotic, but near impossible to master - which caused an untimely death, before it was revived in film soundtracks in the 1950s. The giant theremin, the Terpsitone, which the musician had to 'dance' the melody in a huge playing field was an even more challenging and bizarre incarnation which no longers exists. Only a handful of players over the years have truly mastered it, namely: 1930s Russian virtuoso Clara Rockmore, whose Art of the Theremin CD remains the classic theremin recording; Dr Samuel Hoffman, a chiropodist by day and thereminist by night who played on the soundtrack for spooky sci-fi and horror films like The Day the Earth Stood Still and Spellbound.

Nowadays, everyone who is anyone plays the theremin to standards good, bad and indifferent- from Comedians like John Otway and Bill Bailey to more serious contenders like Leon Theremin's grand-niece Lydia Kavina - considered the world's greatest living thereminist. Slide, glide, shape, gyrate, imitate, modulate or create - although just a simple pure electronic tone, the theremin remains the ultimate electronic oddity. Its scope extends far beyond the spooky sounds of sci-fi popularised in the movies, it delves into the deepest realms of the sonic imagination.

More information:
http://www.thereminworld.com/
http://www.theremin.info/
http://www.hypnotique.net/theremin/index.htm

Ondes-Martenot

Another instruments using the principle of heterodyning oscillators actually caught on a little. In 1928, French telegraphist and cellist Maurice Martenot conceived and constructed the Ondes-Martenot. Much like the theremin, Martenot's instrument was intended to be integrated into the traditional orchestra and it is still featured in orchestras across the world, principally in Olivier Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony.

Some argue that the reason for the Ondes Martenot's success was that, unlike the theremin, it used a traditional keyboard layout, with a separate finger control for glissando and vibrato as well as keys to adjust the timbre. Martenot wowed the French academia to love and admire his instrument, even at the curse of more commercial electronic instruments like the Ondioline, and to an extent Martenot had a stranglehold over other electronic instruments being used in serious contemporary music, thanks to the support of French composers like Varese and Messiaen. The Ondes-Martenot also found its way into the sounds of Hollywood with Franz Waxman's 1936 score for The Bride of Frankenstein and the three Ondes-Martenot's score for Hitchcock's film Rebecca. Today the instrument is still manufactured and ever-popular, even Johnny Greenwood from Radiohead plays one on their albums Kid A and Amnesiac.

Electro-theremin

This instrument really does give off Good Vibrations, as it was used on THAT Beach Boys track. The electro-theremin is not actually a theremin as it isn't played in space, but uses an oscillator with a guiding keyboard base to allow for better pitch accuracy - a sort of cross between an Ondes Martenot and a Hawaiian slide guitar. The sound is closer to that of the Ondes than the theremin as it is less rich, using only a sine wave and no vibrato, sounding more 'other worldly' than the vocalistic theremin sound. The electro-theremin was created by actor and electronics wizard, Bob Whitsell in 1958, and it was made famous by former Glen Miller Trombonist Paul Tanner on the album Music from Heavenly Bodies, numerous TV and film soundtracks, and recordings with the Beach Boys. Tanner sold his electrotheremin in the late 1960s to a hospital to use for checking hearing when he felt keyboard synthesizers were taking over.

More information:
http://www.electrotheremin.com/

Rhythmicon

The brainchild of American avant-garde composer Henry Cowell in 1916, the Rhythmicon was the first prototype of a drum machine and sequencer. Cowell commissioned Russian inventor Leon Theremin to build him a machine capable of transforming harmonic data into rhythmic data and vice versa, which used broken up light playing on a photo-electric cell. Cowell wrote only two piece on the instrument before losing interest. The Rhythmicon featured in some movies in the 1950s and 60s including Dr Strangelove and the Tangerine Dream album Rubicon. No working instruments exist today, but you can use a four part digital simulation on the internet on The Online Rhythmicon website, and record your 'hit' to their internet database.

More information:
The online rhythmicon

Ondioline

A rival instrument to the institutionally powerful Ondes-Martenot, the Ondioline achieved a little popularity in cabaret and popular music - and it was possibly the first instrument capable of imitating the sound of other instruments. Few working Ondiolines exist today, but one who has championed its cause is composer Jean-Jacques Perrey on his early albums with Gershon Kingsley like Kalaeidoscopic Vibrations and The In Sound From Way Out.

The Clavioline and Joe Meek

M Constant made the Clavioline in 1947, a monophonic, portable keyboard which can control octave, timble, attack, and vibrato. It recreated sounds of brass and string in a natural way, and was widely manufactured as a dance-hall organ, marketed as being suitable for "twist, trad and rock". The Clavioline was made popular by pop musicians like The Beatles, Sun Ra, and Joe Meek with the Tornadoes hit Telstar, inspired by the 1962 first satellite transmission. Meek added the sound of the Clavioline to create an otherworldly sound, and he also supposedly added the sound of a flushed toilet played backwards. The weird space-age single rocketed straight to No. 1 and became a worldwide smash hit. Symbolically, when the Telstar satellite became damaged, Meek's life became more and more shattered as his career failed and demons took him over. He killed his landlady in Holloway Road in London before taking his own life in 1967, aged just 37. Meek was a true sonic pioneer and his "Meeksville sound" of compression and close-micing influenced a generation of music producers.

More information:
http://www.clavioline.com/

Trautonium

In 1930, Dr. Friedrich Trautwein invented the Trautonium, the only instrument in the world capable of producing subharmonics, which are the mirror opposite of harmonics, or 'ghost' note like playing a string on a violin only half held down. Oscar Sala, a young student of Trautwein's, pioneered the development of the instrument and made the Mixtur-Trautonium, an improved polyphonic instrument which was used in the soundtrack of Alfred Hitchcock's film The Birds, as the instrument sounded more ominous than the sound of real birds. The Trautonium has advantages over a synthesizer giving freedom of intonation like a fretless string instrument to play microtones and continuous, unrestricted variations of pitch, tone and volume. The player makes contact with a wire stretched over a metal strip to create a circuit. It was a forerunner to the modular synthesizers of the 1960s. Nearly all knowledge of the performance and workings of the Trautonium has died with Oscar Sala in 2002, but the album My Fascinating Instrument, which is available today, is testament to Sala's musical genius.

The evolution of the synthesizer

By the end of the 20th century, synthesizers had take over the world's aural landscape. To synthesize means to take many parts and make it whole, which is basically what a synthesizer does. It is a purely electronic instrument, in other words, it won't make a sound until you amplify it. The early synthesizers were analogue and huge - a whole room full of equipment - but 1970s transistor technology allowed for more portable instruments - and thus classic analogue synths like Bob Moog's Mini Moog, which is still being manufactured today, the ARP Odyssey and the WASP are still revered by techno and electronic musicians today for their "phat" and squelchy sounds. Electronic music took over the world - the highly conservative Musician's Union condemned synthesizers as non-musical, worried that they would replace the need for real, acoustic trained musicians - which indeed they have, as virtually every popular music track now uses synthesized, sampled and sequenced parts. The Japanese 1980s electronics boom made a cheap keyboard possible in every home - with Casio, Yahama and Roland models now available from only a few pounds.

RCA synthesizer

The synthesizer revolution started in 1956 when RCA unveiled its Electronic Music Synthesizer. Originally invented in the 1940s by engineers Harry Olson and Herbert Belar, they produced a machine based on random probability, which would be capable of creating melodies based on the folk songs of Stephen Foster . It used Sixteen Function Binary Selection and pitch sequencing, but the device failed miserably in its intention, as the machine was incapable of determining characteristics that only a human ear can - idiosyncrasies of form, structure and melody. Olson and Belar intended this prototype synthesizer not to explore new sonic worlds yearned for by the avant-garde, but to reproduce the conventional. The result was a series of seemingly random notes and bleeps. Their prototype synthesizer was eagerly seized by the intellectual music academia of Princeton University and the avant-garde composer Milton Babbit, and premiered in 1956 as the RCA MK 1. It featured vacuum tube oscillators and a punch paper interface that allowed the user to program and control a wide range of sound parameters, a little like a 19th century pianola. The output was fed to disk recording machines, which stored the results on lacquer-coated disks.

More information:
- Peter Forrest's The A-Z of Analogue Synthesizers, RCA synth
- Mike Schutz's RCA synthesizer page

Synthesizers, their technologies and inventors have come and gone like the winds from world fairs to car boot sales in a flash. Here are a few of the more esoteric and innovative synthesizers:

EMS Synth

The EMS studios, founded in 1969 by English engineers and composer Peter Zinnovieff, created some of the more important synthesizers of their era, including the forerunner to software synthesis. The VCS3 was their classic synth which is still made today - operated with a joystick and a pinboard (instead of bulky patch leads) - making it also perfect for a game of battleships. The amazing sounds of the VCS 3 are unmatchable and great for ethereal sound effects. Zorch were Britain's first all synthesizer band who headlined the first Stonehenge Festival, their psychedelic "head" music was matched with a mind blowing lightshow. Their first album "Ouroboros" is the only album ever recorded at Peter Zinovieff's EMS studio in 1975, featuring the classic VCS3 Synthi 100.

More information:
- Zorch's official website
- EMS Studios Homepage

ANS glass synthesizer

The ANS is a photo-electronic instrument from Russia, made in 1958. Based on the photo-optic sound recording used in cinematography to create a visible image of a sound wave, the machine has a rotating glass disk with 144 optic phonograms of pure tones, or sound tracks, from high in the centre to low at the rim; the player selects a tone from a "score" made from a glass disk. The ANS is capable of producing 720 pure tones of everything from microtones to white noise.
You can hear the mysterious and somewhat "glassy" sounds in the new album COILANS by Coil members Jhon Balance, Peter Christopherson and Thighpaulsandra who recorded the album during a few days at the Moscow State University.

More information:
www.martin.homepage.ru/ans.htm

Buchla Modular

Don Buchla has been making world class modular synths since 1963, his latest invention the Piano Bar - a way of converting sounds from an acoustic piano to a midi (computerized) map - is now manufactured and produced by his old competitor, Bob Moog. With Serialist composer Morton Subotnik, they produced the seminal work, Silver Apples On The Moon (1967), the first work to be commissioned for record rather than live performance. A 'studio art' work, they believed it could be played, via a phonograph, by anybody, in intimate surrounds - a kind of 20th century chamber music style. Subotnik believed that using both programmed and random parameters allowed him complete artistic control, and "…the flexibility to score some sections of the piece in the traditional sense; and to mould other like a piece of sculpture". The Buchla allowed for evolving timbres during a single note duration, making possible "sustained yet transforming streams of sound".

More information:
www.buchla.com/

Inventors & pioneers

The evolution of electronic music, until the corporate 1980s, was driven by inspired individuals - inventors, scientists, musicians who were more often than not part-genius and part-lunatic. Many created equipment and instruments to create new sounds for their own recordings, purely out of a desire to produce something new more than for commercial gain. Here are a few of Switched On's favourite electronic pioneers:

Raymond Scott

In the early 40s, Raymond Scott, the young leader of the CBS radio house band found fame composing quirky jazz-influenced scores for Warner Brothers' "Merrie Melodies" and "Loony Toons" cartoons. Despite his success with his quintet, Scott preferred working in the studio with machines rather than the musicians who could never quite match his exacting standards. Jazz singer Anita O'Day believed that Scott "reduced musicians to something like wind-up toys."

In 1946 Scott founded Manhattan Research, Inc., "Designers and Manufacturers of Electronic Music and Musique Concrete Devices and Systems," where he focused his efforts on creating the machines that could meet his requirements. In 1949, Scott remarked:
"Perhaps within the next hundred years, science will perfect a process of thought transference from composer to listener. The composer will sit alone on the concert stage and merely THINK his idealized conception of his music. Instead of recordings of actual music sound, recordings will carry the brainwaves of the composer directly to the mind of the listener".

He created a sound effects machine called the Karloff, and his most commercially successful instrument, the Clavivox, like a theremin played with a keyboard. To realize his notion of "thought transference" composition, Scott spent twenty years working on the Electronium, an "instantaneous composition-performance machine". It had no keyboard, only switches and settings, and was a pitch and rhythm sequencer that controlled a bank of oscillators, a modified Hammond organ, an Ondes-Martenot and a few Clavivoxes. In 1960 on the Electronium he produced his three-volume work of minimalist synthesized lullabies, Soothing Sounds for Baby.

Despite his success, Scott was very protective, perhaps even paranoid, of people stealing his ideas, thus Manhattan Research remained purely research. In 1955 a young theremin maker, 20 year old Robert Moog, called at his studio on Long Island, and he was given a job assembling the Clavivox. Raymond Scott's work was to directly influence the next generation of electronic instrument designers who went on to realise his dream of what he called the "artistic collaboration between man and machine."

BBC Radiophonic Workshop & the Wobbulator

In 1957, a group of BBC producers used radiophonic technique to create music for dramas, modifying natural sounds using tape loops, tape modulations and splicing, similar to Pierre Schaeffer's academic technique of music concrete. In the 1960s, the Radiophonic workshop became a household name with their pioneering recordings on the BBC science fiction show Dr Who. Stars of the workshop including Delia Derbyshire and its founder Daphne Oram, who created the technique of Oramics - drawing onto strips of 35mm film read by photo-electric cells which controlled the sound characteristics - a technique developed from the RCA synthesizer. Daphne later left the BBC to pursue her career of creating serious art music. Early on, the Workshop acquired a wobbulator, originally designed as a test tone generator, it created a tone varied by a second oscillator which providing sweeping waves of sound. Delia Derbyshire's Ziwzih Ziwzih OO-OO-OO, composed for a sci-fi play based on an Isaac Asimov story, uses backwards voices and the tones of the Wobbulator.

More information:
Radiophonic workshop: an engineering persective

Reed Ghazalas Circuit bending

Reed Ghazalas is know as 'the father of circuit bending' - he's been doing it since the 1960s. The circuit-bent instrument, often a re-wired audio toy or game, creates a new instrument and a new musical vocabulary, which is part of Reed Ghazalas' 'anti theory' of opening up electronic to all audio frontiers, creating chance music and unpredictable audio events. You don't need to be have money, expensive instruments, or knowledge of electronics - just a speak-and-spell machine and a few parts from a radio store! Body contact is encouraged for the electricity to flow through the player's flesh and blood. Don't try this one at home, kids!

More infomation:
www.anti-theory.com

As electronic hardware is increasingly replaced with electronic software, perhaps the era of electronic oddities, bizarre boxes with sliders to fade, knobs to twiddle, and keys to hammer, is drawing to a close. Yet in the 1990s, musicians brought their old synthesizers, machines and theremins our of the bargain bin and began to recognize again the magical sounds which had so nearly become lost. So why not invent your own electronic oddity? It could prove to be the sounds of the future.

Factrix Reviews- "California Babylon", "Live at Target" [archive]

[Archive]
Factrix | Album Reviews
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Review by "Freedom from Reviews":

FACTRIX / CAZAZZA - 'California Babylon' (LP) / Subterranean Records / 1981

This record is the document of the ecstatic performative collision of the
entities Monte Cazazza (a long time industrial guy- an American soul mate
of Throbbing Gristle) and Factrix (a California outfit fond of unconventional
and modified instruments, wierded-out drum machines and searing guitar
feedback, compatriots of Nervous Gender et al.). According to the record
sleeve “All songs recorded live at Ed Mock Dance Studio, SF 6-6-81”
Except for two songs recorded live at Berkeley Square 12-12-80. And from
the looks of the video stills on the front and back of the record it was one
hell of a show.

Just so you have an Idea of what we’re dealing with, here is a list of the
instruments involved: “gitarre”, tapes, treatments, “radiogitarre”, vocals,
“amputated bass”, “monochord”, electric violin, “chemicals”, flutes,
“glaxobass”, and “found percussion”. I don’t know what the fuck a
glaxobass is, but I can tell you that whatever it is it sounds awesome.
And I don’t mean “awesome” in that California slang kind of way
(like, dude, “awesome glasses!”) but rather in the traditional sense of the
word (Awe: An overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear etc.,
produced by that which is grand, sublime, extremely powerful, or the like).
A logic exists to the songs, that is to say, a structure, deconstructed and
improvised to be sure, but recognizable. Maybe if you played The Ex’s
Aural Guerrilla through the mouth of one of those machines that crushes
cars at the junkyard this is what it would sound like.

This recording has a crushing urgency fettered to its shredding, tear-assing
feedback, and seesaw bass lines. The vocals have that disheveled sort of
half-caring diction to them, like the singer is too filled up with the moment
to concentrate on phrasing or delivery, it makes the shouted, barely
discernable lyrics all that more raw, almost unintentional, like yells form
nightmare taunted sleeper. This record sounds, NOW, the moment has
arrived, it sounds like the end of the century, like what everyone imagined
would happen when y2k finally arrived and citizens started looting off-line
banks and cutting down telephone poles for firewood, except this was
1980, and things were already pretty fierce. Think about expanding your
current dictionary of sounds out beyond, and into the infinite range. There
are vibrations of that kind of infinity here, of possibilities being explored,
new sounds getting kisses full of broken teeth and bloody lips. Is someone
smacking the microphone against the stage repeatedly? Because that’s what
that "thump-thump-thump" sounds like.

I wish I was there.

- LH
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FACTRIX, NERVOUS GENDER, UNS, FLIPPER:
'LIVE AT TARGET' (LP) Subterranean Records, 1980

SLASH Magazine, (REVIEW)

"..FACTRIX delivers the two best cuts on the album right off-- 'Night to Forget' is, if you have to draw comparisons, Black Sabbath-meets-PiL. Wonderful dirge guitar that isn't the familiar experimental jerk-off groans through a blasted mental nocturne. Likewise 'Subterfuge'..."

Description of equipment used on stage by Throbbing Gristle

Text: Peter 'Sleazy' Christopherson (of Throbbing Gristle)
Originally printed in Flowmotion 1, January 1981
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Description of equipment used on stage:

• One rack containing 3 Clarion Auto-reverse car cassette machines customised so that all of the four tracks from each tape head are available. All or the 12 resulting channels are routed to a keyboard which selects the output combination.

• One Apple II computer fitted with Mountain Hardware's Supertalker and Symtec's SSG synthesiser boards. This provides extensive facilities not available from other equipment. For example sound can be stored digitally in memory and then played back in a non-linear manner or be manipulated mathematically prior to recall. Also the computer offers virtually unlimited sequencing facilities and can enter and display any musical piece as standard musical notation; that is, one can type in the tune from the score and then type "play" and the computer will play it. All data, stored sound or lines can be stored on floppy-disc and recalled as and when needed.
  

• One Cornet (made in Taiwan).
  

• One Larry Adler professional harmonica.

All the above are routed to a Roland Jazz Chorus Combo, via Memory Man analog delay line and a Roland Waa-Waa. (As are any vocals I might do).

Sources or Sound fragments used:

These vary considerably. As far as possible I try to stay within the law both in terms of copyright and the respect of peoples privacy. However in general the use or any specific fragment is so short that these considerations are not too important and if a piece of sound seems right I will normally use it. Without wishing to be too specific (for obvious reasons, sources of sound have included: recordings of legal and illegal radio and T.V. broadcasts (mostly not in this country), interviews with people (usually interesting people who have only come to light when they were indiscreet), tapes made without peoples knowledge (methods used in this case have to remain unspecified - suffice to say I see no reason why technology used by politicians in covert Watergate-type situations should not be used in a more enlightening and hopefully enjoyable context), lastly I also used a certain amount of purely 'atmospheric' sound (cars, rain, dogs barking at night, people crying etc) most of which is recorded in situ as it happens and most of which is recorded binaurally. (The binaural system, which, we now always use to record gigs, is one in which the two stereo mics are separated in a similar way to human ears. On playback the minute phase differences that result between the signals give a considerably enhanced spatial effect when listening with headphones.)

Regarding the formation of T.G. material:

Usually T.G. Songs are formed for the first time live on stage (We very rarely rehearse other than to check the equipment) Each person working on ingredients separately - a title, a lyric, a rhythm (why can I never spell that word?), an idea for a sound etc. etc. And all these somehow come together on stage to form the song, which invariably alters in each performance until we do a definitive version on record. (After which we don't usually repeat it.)

Regarding what we are 'doing':

I don't really see what we do in terms of the conventional 'rock & roll' thing at all, although the format of a group making records is one which is immediately acceptable to many people (much more so than virtually any other, apart from film/T.V.) I don't think we are a "group" in the normal sense of the word. We are just trying to express ideas and feelings in a way that seems appropriate to times in which we live. What we decide to do at any point is as far as possible based only on instinct - what "feels right". So I have no idea what we (or I) will be doing in the future but it will be certainly be something I find interesting because there's no point doing anything boring, ever.

~Flowmotion 1, January 1981

HATERS (aka GX Jupitter-Larsen) Discography

h a t e r s : d i s c o g r a p h y

COMPACT DISCS

THE TOTIMORPHOUS (V2 Archief, 1992)
Featuring a series of 16 noise collages. Each individual piece made from the sounds of things falling apart; some being partly or completely silent. Some of the gaps between the pieces are silent, while others are of noise. So while some pieces of silence are interrupted by gaps of noise and some pieces of noise are interrupted by gaps of silence, other pieces of noise are followed by gaps of more noise and other pieces of silence are followed by gaps of more silence. The theme being the role that uncertainty plays in knowledge.

BLANK BANNER (We Never Sleep, 1993)
"Noise as the Blank Banner of an Untitled Ideology", "The Facts On Polywave", "Strength Through Emptiness".

WIND LICKED DIRT (Self-released, 1993)
Blank CD and sample of dirt packaged together with instructions stating that one plays the disc by rubbing dirt on it. Bypasses any need for a stereo.

URBAN SENSITIVITY (Commercial Failure, 1994)
"The Stuff Twitching", "Touch Upon Inappropriateness", "Accidental Similarity", "Slipping Between Slight".

ORDINARILY NOWHERE (RRRecords, 1995)
Released as part of the PURE Series by RRRecords. Includes the following tracks "Smack", "Fireback", "Mangle Whack", "Make A Fire And Be Happy".

MIND THE GAP CD (Vinyl Communication, 1996)
"Mind The Gap #6", "Mind The Gap #8", and "Things Can Only Get Hater". All three tracks were produced from stapling records together with an amplified staple-gun.

DRUNK ON DECAY(Release, 1997)
"Drunk On Decay 3", "Drunk On Decay 4", and "Drunk On Decay 5". All three tracks were produced from an amplified funnel eroding on rotating sandpaper.

HEARING MUD DRY (V2 Archief, 1997)
3 inch mini CD release featuring the track "Hearing Mud Dry".

CULTIVATING CALAMITY (Vinyl Communication, 1997)

HATERS' VOICE OF VICTORY (Self Abuse, 1998)
The clici-clic, smash-up, and auto-crash versions of "Haters' Voice of Victory", "Mind The Gap #11" and "Mind The Gap #12".

VINYL-

THE HATERS (Self-released, 1983)
Silent EP which comes with instructions informing the holder that one must first complete the record by scratching it before listening to it on one's own stereo.

IN THE SHADE OF FIRE (Silent Records, 1986)
LP of 10 noise compositions made from the sounds of things falling apart.

WIND LICKED DIRT (RRRecords, 1988)
Blank LP and sample of dirt packaged in a transparent bag with instructions stating that one plays the record by rubbing dirt on it. Bypasses any need for a stereo.

FUCHAIT (vis'a'vis, 1988)
A flexi disc, featuring the track "Fuchait".

TRACTOR (Alamut Records, 1988)
LP of 3 recordings taken from live performances. Grooves on one side run from edge to centre, while the grooves on the other side run centre to edge.

FIRE (Silent Records, 1990)
EP featuring the fire soundtracks "Fire 20" and "Fire 21". Pressed on translucent flame-coloured vinyl. Packaged in a clear transparent sleeve marked with black fire motif.

A BASIC INTRODUCTION TO THE T.N.U. (Alamut Records, 1990)
Enclosed in this special third printing is an EP featuring four tracks of Jupitter-Larsen reading from said text. Record has standard grooves on one side, and random grooves on the other. Booklet printed on grey card; record pressed on grey vinyl.

DISSOLVING METAL ZEROS (Banned, 1993)
7 inch single featuring two collaborations by Jupitter-Larsen and David Jackman. Both individual pieces are titled "Dissolving Metal Zeros".

K2 & THE HATERS (K.M.I/Banned, 1994)
EP featuring two collaborations by Jupitter-Larsen and Kimihide Kusafuka. Tracks are "Smell of Shovel" and "Will for Junk Foods". Jointly released by K.M.I. and Banned.

POLYWELLE TYKIT (Syntactic, 1994)
Single-sided 7 inch EP with the track "Polywelle Tykit" on both sides. Features hand-made sleeves by Jupitter-Larsen.

TRUNCATED FORMICA (Self Abuse Records, 1995)
An EP containing the smash and clici-clic versions of "Truncated Formica".

SWEET AUSTERITY (Commercial Failure, 1995)
10 inch mini LP containting "Kaboom", "Kapow", "Random Cross Sections", and "Brisk Blaze". On each side the outside track plays inwards while the inside track plays outwards. Both end at a silent lack groove in the middle of the record.

PREDETERMINED BY ACCIDENT (Vinyl Communication, 1995)
12 inch EP: "Predetermined By Accident 8" and "Predetermined By Accident 12".

ROT (Apraxia, 1995)
7 inch EP: "Rubbish Often Tears" and "Reflections Off Trash". Pressed on white vinyl.

BREAKTHROUGH (Banned, 1995)
7 inch single featuring two recordings of the sound of breaking glass. Pressed on clear vinyl. Produced and engineered by David Jackman.

DROPS ASCENDING (Vinyl Communication, 1995)
Double 7 inch EP: "Drop Ascending One", "Drop Ascending Two", "Drop Ascending Three", and "Drop Ascending Four". First 200 pressed on translucent green vinyl.

NIRGENDS (Syntactic, 1995)
7 inch picture disc EP: "Nirgends 2" and "Nirgends 3".

A FURTHERED PAUSE (Robot Records, 1996)
7 inch EP: "A Furthered Pause 2" and "A Furthered Pause 3".

NIKUMU (kubitsuri Tapes, 1996)
7 inch single: "Nikumu Ni" and "Nikumu San". Half were pressed on translucent red vinyl, while the other half were pressed on clear vinyl.

BLOTCH (Behemoth Records, 1996)
7 inch single: "Stain" and "Smear". Produced by Mark The 3 Kord Scissor King, sounds of destruction were sampled, edited, and processed beyond all recognition.

AUTOFICIAL (Noisopoly, 1996)
7 inch compilation EP ompiled by Jupitter-Larsen, and featuring "Rectal Mucus Popsicle" by Smell & Quim, "Flint" by Chop Shop, "Calldown" by Com-Dom, and "Rough" by The Haters.

HELLO HATER (Pinch A Loaf, 1997)
7 inch single: "Disconnected Number" and "Unlisted Number". Pressed on greenish-copper coloured vinyl.

CULTIVATING CALAMITY (Vinyl Communication, 1997)
Mini LP: "Cultivating Calamities" and "Cultivating Calamities Again".

LITTLE FYODOR AND THE HATERS (Noisopoly, 1998)
7 inch single.

CONCEPTUAL-

OXYGEN IS FLAMMABLE (Self-released, 1990)
A broken piece of plastic packaged in a small box. Enclosed are instructions which state that the broken plastic is a record. And that it¹s played by pouring water over it. The instructions also call attention to possible similarities between the sounds of water falling and fire rising.

SHEAR (Self-released, 1991)
Ball of cotton batting packaged in a small box. Rapped around the contents are instructions on three thin strips of paper. Instructions which informs the holder that the cotton batting is a recording. And that this record is played by being squeezed. The sound this record gives being a "sharp fluffy slightness" and a "thin fluffy pressed".

CASSETTES-

THE WHIPPING (We Never Sleep, 1987)
C60 featuring a noise collage in two parts. A sound-poem made from the shrieks and cackle of a young girl being whipped by her lover.

CLICI-CLIC (S.P.H., 1992)
C60 containing a two-part collage of clici-clicing.

BUILDING EMPTY HOLES (Old Europa Cafe, 1993)
C60 featuring a two-part collage of clici-clicing.

SILENT SHOVELS SMASHING SUT (Noise, 1994)
C30 containing a two-part collage made from the sounds of things falling apart. Included is a 12 page booklet, published in Chinese, containing text about The Haters by the editors of the Taiwanese magazine Noise.

THE SUBSEQUENT RIP (Banned, 1995)
C02 featuring clici-clicing on one side and over-modulated paper-tearing on the other.

COMPILATIONS-

At last count, there were 309 CD, vinyl, cassette and 8-track cartridge compilations featuring The Haters.

Chris & Cosey Interview (1994)

SUSPERIUMzine

Feb. 1994, San Francisco

"A GLIMPSE INSIDE CHRIS & COSEY"...

Q: What is your present relationship like with the other members of TG?

A: We have a very good relationship with Sleazy, keep in touch, and we've worked together on "Core". Since Mute took over the TG catalogue, we've all three of us tried to keep things clear of TG misconceptions via the re-releases. We've overseen all the artworks and text that's submitted etc. There's been a lot of shit and lies printed about TG and what we all did or didn't do etc over the years and we all thought this time we can make sure it's all correct. All three of us over the years have become utterly sick of the 'unofficial' releases that keep surfacing, and we're not the type of people that waste energy on the negative actions of other people. All that does is feed negativity into your life and drag you down. So we made a conscious decision to work on the positive and negate the bad energy at the source, by terminating its existence within our own conscience. So the fourth member of TG has ceased to exist as the person we had any empathy with.

Though its been stated that TG existed as four equal members injecting creativity, you would guess by the interviews and material published that Genesis was the major figure/influence. Was he domineering or overbearing in the situation? If so, did this ever cause problems?
CHRIS: Yes. (to the last part of the question)
COSEY: It's clearer looking back on the situation now. It's not as cut and dry as people would have it. TG wasn't just music, but graphics, philosophy, and ideals. Gen had a lot of all those things, we all did. But had he been with any other group of people he would have totally dictated the state of play. We just wouldn't have it. We compromised sometimes by giving in and letting him sing, like on "Adrenalin". I can remember that very clearly because all three of us didn't want vocals on it at all. That was nearing the end of TG anyway, and the relationship Gen and I had too. It was difficult to get him into the bloody studio long enough to get anything on tape. Chris would do a lot of preparation for recording sessions by working out rhythms and noises at home. Sleazy would work on his samples too at home. Gen was very much a 'live' person, and someone who needed an arena. The rest of us got more subtle satisfaction from our various activities and fetishes. A lot of the actual composition of the 'music' was down to Sleazy and Chris, and getting the technical details right, etc. Creating a new sound generator or my stick guitar etc. Sleazy was the one who made the sleeve artworks a reality and supplied the knowledge behind printing techniques and the photographic skill for promo shots etc. TG wasn't Genesis' band. He became the front man if you like, and he was good at it sometimes. He embellished events somewhat, and took credit where it really wasn't due. He was a sad person really, who turned bitter. Endeth home truths (edited version.)

What/Who would you say has been influential on you and your work? Much of the material published on TG went on about the Beat Scene and Burroughs, etc but was this really an equal influence on all of you?
No it wasn't. That's why the TG work didn't deal solely with that influential source and it didn't just merely do homage to it either. It was because all four of us had our own ideas, sources of inspiration, and ideal, that TG created such a volatile concoction. We took energy and knowledge, and mixed it all together, reinterpreting it in our own style and for our own ends. That's what we encouraged others to do too. We then became the source of some information to people, and they utilized it for their projects. That's what life's about. We learn, we experience, we express ourselves, and then we grow in strength and knowledge.

I know Burroughs was a great inspiration to Gen. Gen's literary skills were born from the Beat scene, Kerouac, etc. Sleazy was into Burroughs, but for additional reasons too. Chris had read his work before he met us, and absorbed it much the same as he had other great works. I hadn't, and wasn't into it. I think that's where Chris and I are similar, we both never took anything like that and blatantly tried to be or relive it in our own lives. I was always too busy 'doing' to worry about getting the references right. I suppose Gen worried about those details more than I did. I tend to read up on things after an experience has brought it to my attention, rather than looking for something to make new experiences from. I like to have some empathy with the material I am dealing with. It's somewhat hypocritical to mouth off on subjects that you've only read about and know nothing about first hand. Techniques etc are different. Books of reference are there for that very reason, and there to be used. A lot of the material on TG was based on interviews with Gen, so his views were uppermost, but not necessarily the strongest held within TG itself. He was usually the most available because Chris, Sleazy, and myself were working. Chris doesn't like doing interviews much anyway.

What were the early days of the Chris & Cosey romance like?
Clandestine meetings, magickal kisses in the middle of the night. We stole odd evenings together when Gen went off with his 'girlfriend' for a night or two. The beginning of our 'romance' was towards the end of my relationship with Gen. It was extremely difficult for all of us, there was so much happening, I can't begin to give the whole picture. It would read like "The Story of O". All three of us had two or three relationships going on at the same time anyway, and then experimented on top of that, so it was a recipe for some kind of break-away. Gen and I had been together for nearly ten years, so I guess we had the most to lose, especially as I knew TG would end also. Then how can you acclaim honesty and freedom and live a lie. So I left Gen and got years of shit and denial. Such is a man scorned. So you see the words read all romantic 'the early days of romance', but in reality it was a struggle against great odds. I know we're the stronger for it.

Do subliminals still feature in your work? You've been quoted as saying your subliminals weren't harmful in any way. What about the past warnings on albums, just intrigue?
We've always thought there was confusion over the definition of subliminals in our music. Definitions became blurred as the techniques we used for placing sounds on tape or within the pieces of sound changed. It's all very technical really, but simple as well. Another contradiction for you. To most people the word subliminal means some kind of coercion into the doing, feeling, wanting of something you would not otherwise entertain. To us, within our work it means a way by which we can create the same sensations people get from emotions triggered by certain sounds. At first we used subliminals in their crudest form, and when recording we utilized the accepted techniques of the time. Anyway subliminals are usually thought to be an attempt to subvert via the spoken word, and instruction. Now it's mutated. We mix sound in a subliminal way (which is not necessarily 'a sublimnal' as per the definition.) We may have a sound effects loop along with something else which together create a certain atmosphere, which in turn directs the mood of the listener where we want it for that particular piece of music. It's a gamble that the listener will pick up the subliminal anyway, so it is in effect a hidden added bonus to the track, but one we feel drawn to continue using. It has become a part of our standard studio technique now.

Way back when we did our bulk of sound experiments, we felt it was interesting to let people know that science was involved here with this album. It was no 'normal' dance music or punk etc. We wanted people to enquire and learn as well as consume. We got feedback, and both parties benefited from the exchange, that's what its all about. We're not in the music 'business' so much as communication and sharing of information and opinions etc. We've never subscribed to spoon-feeding 'an audience', what's the point? TV does that very well, as do mainstream 'bands'. That kind of stuff is for moments of escapism at best, at worst a way of life for some people. We really want to touch the people who for some reason they don't understand, can't accept that lifestyle comfortably. The people who think 'they' are strange for not accepting their lot in life as being a work, feed, sit and only take what is on offer, don't ask questions or seek new horizons kind of person. It's got to that point again, but in a way it's far worse because people now take instruction from corporations and not the family unit. I think even the family as strong (and sometimes just as destructive) as it is, is losing against the hype of the media now. People are failing to communicate on a truly one to one level. Escapism is easier and much less painful to them. I think it has always been like that to some degree, but it is compounded now by the technological advances that have really gone into overdrive in the last 15 years. So, yeah I think when we actually state there are subliminals within our music, we are giving out an underlying message, another subliminal by disclosing that fact. As for our subliminals being harmful, they are not. We don't preach any doctrine or instruct people to buy products, like this, hate that. What's the point? That would be destructive when we are attempting to encourage free thought and expression in a positive, productive way.

How far into the mainstream would you be willing to let your music take you? Do you feel it's headed that way at all?
Whenever we get asked that question, and we get asked it a lot, it's always like a kind of accusation. Like we've done something wrong by appealing to more mainstream listeners. We're not as calculated as that when we sit down in the studio and write our music. We never 'decide' to do a track that will be more acceptable so we can direct it into a more commercial market. We're happy to do re-mixes, as we did with Erasure, but even with that our hands were tied (in more than two directions actually) as to what we could do that would be approved. Free reign on the project with guaranteed release would have been great. But control is what its all about there. We had a great time remixing, it's like going to the fairground trying everything out and it doesn't matter because at the end of the day it's your treat. So as far as mainstream is concerned, we're happy if what we do coincides with what people like, but we couldn't work to a tested pattern of what's happening now and infiltrate. I'd feel really creepy doing that. Quite happy to be the hidden force behind projects though, that appeals to us a lot. All those "Man From Uncle" spy programs from our youth. Tongue-in-cheek kind of attitude prevails, and knowing something no one else even suspects is kind of appealing too. I like a twist in the tale, it makes for a more interesting, fun life. I think what happened with us, is that the sound we came up with from "Exotika" onwards happened to coincide a little with what was more acceptable in the mainstream/fringe. I still can't work it out, being objective and analyzing the 'whys' and 'what ifs' regarding our work seems to me a waste of time. A bit like what would you do if you won a million dollars? Mind you we do go through that once every year, driving along deciding what we'd buy first etc. Pie in the sky.


What music do YOU listen to?
It is such a variety. From 'chart' stuff to film soundtracks, and our contemporaries. We get hits from the 60's - "Kung Fu Fighting", "Yummy Yummy Yummy" etc. They're so kitsch. Nick loves them too. Then we got the "Akira" soundtrack and Sound FX CDs. Anything but Country & Western!!
I HATE IT. Slash your wrists music I call it.

Tell us about Nick. Does he have opinions on his parent's work yet? How aware is he of his parent's sometimes controversial past work?
It's a weird thing when you have to somehow explain to your child why you did the things you did. Especially my background, how do I describe my actions and reasons behind them to my son in a way that won't affect his attitude to women and his mother? I'm still working that one out as I go along. He knows a lot anyway just by the fact that nothing is hidden away. There's framed pictures of me in Penthouse etc in the house, and he accepts them for what they are. Now he's getting to his teens, he'll see them in a different light maybe, but I tell him everything he needs to know when he asks. He has to have a healthy attitude to life if his life is going to be enjoyable and fruitful, so I am very careful how I present things to him and how much detail he can assimilate at his age too. People's attitude to themselves and others are very important, and I want him to be tolerant but selective with his energy.

He's got to hit the mayhem of his teens and twenties yet, and no doubt I'll be worried sick for him, like all mothers. Until you are a parent you can't begin to understand the responsibility. Maybe it's me, but getting the balance right between love, freedom, discipline, and control, is a full time job. An emotional rollercoaster at times. As for the music, he likes more of it than I thought he would. He has rather good taste for his age and era. I hope it continues. He likes, selectively, some of the chart stuff (like Chris and I) but he also loves 30's music, film score, blues, jazz, and some classical. So that's pretty varied for a 12 year old. Now when he hears some chart stuff, he asks if something is a cover from when we were young! He seems to appreciate originality and genuine talent.

Do you travel much for fun? Favorite places?
You give me the money and we'll travel for fun. We never have the money or the time. Or if we have time we don't have money, and vice versa. In the summer when Nick has his long school holidays, we take him all over, exploring Britain. He's really into history, so it's fun for all of us. Then we go mad at some theme park on the way home, hit the beach and other such novelties. He came around the USA on tour with us a couple of times, and to Canada and Belgium too. We'd all travel more given the chance, but preferably as a pleasure trip, and not on business.

As for favorite places, we both actually love San Francisco, and talked of moving there a few times. Then we had a passion for Berlin before the wall came down. It's a tragic situation that gave it a very special aura. Although the wall coming down was a momentous time, it destroyed Berlin as people had come to love it. The people changed. As the people and how they are, make up the atmosphere in any given place, it's that which would be the deciding factor of where I chose to live. I can say this world is getting pretty short of 'humanitarian' communities.

What new and upcoming releases can you tell us about? Describe Library of Sound.
We decided to release some of our work through our own label, Conspiracy International, and continue the CTI projects with The Library of Sound. There didn't seem any obvious avenue for the more soundscape side of our work, and we had a whole list of ideas we wanted to get working on. The Library of Sound is a series of CD releases that deal with specific concepts to do with the use and experimentation of sound as a source of enjoyment and experience. So it can be very diverse from one edition to another. Volume I "Metaphysical" speaks for itself by its own definition. It's multifunctional listening, you can go as deep into it as your mood dictates. Volume II "Chronomanic" is a totally different concept. We chose various dates throughout the year timing our actions with empathetic dates in time. So each track we have recorded is a celebration or recognition of that moment. It all began when we recorded "Pagan Tango" and the track "Balfigore...Before the Feast". We wrote and recorded the track on that very night.

We're set to start working on a new C&C album as well later in the year, we've set aside material and sounds ready for that already. Then we promised ourselves that we would get a live album out and a video of live work too. So our 1994 is going to be busy for us. There's also been compilations we've contributed to which will surface this year.

I started doing collage work and painting again and that's taken up a lot of my time. An area I had almost stopped altogether has been rekindled now, and I'm being torn between that and music at the moment. But that's okay, I can choose according to my mood and ideas of course. Painting is just so totally different, and it was quite difficult for me to get into the spontaneity of it all after so long. Now it's hard for me to keep up with the ideas, I make endless notes so I won't forget. I also started writing a book too. A fiction cum faction. That was fun to do and I've got to go back to it, as I was rudely interrupted halfway. As far as writing is concerned, I am always at it in one form or another. Some days I get a real buzz out of it and the words seem to just stream our right, other days it's like literary constipation, and I just do something else. I think with most forms of expression, you need to keep your hand in, you get rusty if you rest too long.

Tell us about the TGT project.
We just wanted to release something under a totally different name to see what would happen. Also there were the would be TG clones springing up, so we did a spoof on them really, right down to the promo photos. It was a fun project.

Still no plans for any more concerts? Can you elaborate on the reasons behind your decision to stop touring?
There's so many reasons really. Too knackering, not interesting enough anymore, the venues and set ups are not really suitable, and we have to play the gig circuit. We hate that. It's mainly the logistics behind the tours which really put us off. All the preparation, setting up, soundchecks, breaking down the studio. Getting the equipment trashed by the airlines is another. We can't afford to replace a lot of it, so it's become a survival thing too. We did an ambient festival in Amsterdam just to see if we really felt so strongly about not playing live. It proved to us that we wouldn't play live again. Everything went very well, no hitches or anything like that. We don't get a buzz out of it anymore either. Chris never did enjoy playing live anyway, even as TG, so it was always a relief when it was over. The only bit we enjoyed in the end and the bit we'll miss, is meeting everyone. That's not meant to sound like a cliche, but when we met our 'audience' it made our work tangible. It made it a reality, and all those hours in the studio meant something to other people as well as ourselves.


Favorite Movies, Books?
Chris: Chinatown, Blue Velvet, Brazil, Taxi Driver, Wild at Heart, Clockwork Orange, Alien, The Devils, Nikkita, Blow-Up Performance, English 60's comedies, etc.
Cosey: Blade Runner, Apocalypse Now, The Elephant Man, Maitresse, China Blue (Crimes of Passion); B/W Ealing films from the 50's, Ai No Corrida (In the Realm of the Senses)

This is a random selection of our most favorite, but there's loads and loads.

As for books.....
Cosey: Killing for Company, real life murder books, esoteric reference books; Stephen King, Clive Barker for easy reading.
Chris: Colin Wilson, Wilhelm Reich, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, reference books on Sexual Deviancy, TV Guide (for what not to watch!), Tolkien.

This is the latest reading material really. All the Crowley, Kenneth Grant, Austin Osman Spare, and research material goes without saying. We both read every day now, like some kind of addiction really.

What is your private/home life like aside from your work?
The obvious answer to that is 'private'. I'd say it's much the same as anyone else, but from experience I don't think it is. On all levels we seem to differ from the norm. We have never become a 'man and wife', 'him and her'. Opposing camps within a relationship is a weird way to spend your life, don't you think? So when I'm in any situation, like school open evenings, when other parents talk with me, I'm in an alien world, but I have to emit some form of normality to get the most out of the system for Nick. So far two hours is my limit of endurance, then I have to get away. It's like watching a play and you're in it. I have to remember my lines and visual expressions and yet make sure I get what I want for Nick. It's very difficult, Chris and I have trouble maintaining an aura of normality amongst some people. We've tried just saying what we want, but they look at us as if we're mad, so we put it into their language and go by stages now. Very odd. I suppose if we hadn't have had Nick, we would've been in our own little world all the time, maybe we benefit some way by having to confront the reality of society as it is today. Other than that we do what we want when we want on all levels. We have the luxury of time because we work at home for ourselves, and therefore 'work' as such or outside influence don't dictate to us very often. We watch TV, videos. Listen to music, read, play computer games, etc. I suppose the difference there is that we tend to sample from the entertainment source and bring it further into our lives, then we use news items, images, etc as lyrics, paintings, etc. We consume and utilize, recycle.

Having said all that, when we did have jobs we still lived the same way, so its a state of mind and strength of will. We can all choose to some degree how we want to live and who we ultimately become. It's no good blaming someone else.

Are you spiritual people? Is there any way you can describe such feelings or beliefs here, and how they may have affected or influenced your work, if at all?
I think that is the essence of our work altogether. Without it, it would never have been, and I think it's the very reason we have never managed to record a 'banal commercial' track. We always work on the premise of 'it feels right' or not. It never sounds right when you try and explain 'spiritual' feelings, so I tend not to attempt it. It's very personal anyway.

1920s NOISE MACHINES - Italian Futurist's - Russolo

'Ancient life was all silence. In the nineteenth century, with the invention of the machine, Noise was born. Today, Noise triumphs and reigns supreme over the sensibility of men.' -- Luigi Russolo

Luigi Russolo was a painter determined to open our ears to the noise of the modern age. His musical vision embraced 'the coming and going of pistons, the howl of mechanical saws, the jilting of a tram on its rails' – the symphonic blending of sounds that defined life in the urban metropolis of the early 1900s.

Russolo wrote his manifesto in 1913 entitled 'The Art of Noise,' a bold treatise declaiming the end of conventional Western music, and the dawning of a new music based on the grinding, exploding, crackling and buzzing of mechanical instruments.

'Every manifestation of life is accompanied by noise. Noise is therefore familiar to our ears and has the power to remind us immediately of life itself. Musical sound, a thing extraneous to life and independent of it... has become to our ears what a too familiar face is to our eyes' – Luigi Russolo

Luigi Russolo and his assistant Ugo Piatti built one of the first mechanical orchestras, the 'intonarumori' (noise machines), 27 different types of inters, each producing a unique sound in several folloies or 'families' of instruments, including 'howlers,' 'exploders,' 'crumplers,' 'hissers,' and 'scrapers.' In the 1920s, Russolo performed numerous concerts with these outrageous instruments emitting their startling sounds.

The 'Intonarumori' ('Noise Machines'),
built by Italian Futurist Luigi Russolo circa 1920s

----------------------------------------------------
~ Lifted from www.zakros.com & reprinted here without permission ~

HELIOS CREED: Interview, Convulsion 1993

HELIOS CREED
(by Stuart Barr)

Helios Creed has a face that expresses more experience than I can capably tell you about. As he sits sucking on the pacifying nipple of a very well used hash pipe, he looks like a post apocalyptic Lemmy, and makes pronouncements that fall somewhere between Timothy Leary and The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. He perfectly fits the image of the freaked out war veteran played by Christopher Loyd in Taxi; his eyes seem to look straight through you, and focus somewhere beyond the wall of the room we're sitting. A genuine thousand yard stare. Helios' music is a weird brew, kinda' like Hawkwind meeting the Buttholes in at schizophrenics convention and drinking far too much coffee. Helios used to be in a New York (?) band called Chrome, who where a minor legend in their day, and whose pioneering use of tape-loops, mutated guitars, disfigured vocals, and weird lyrics about spacemen, have been a significant influence on the likes of the aforementioned Butthole Surfers. In fact if the Buttholes' latest was a bit too straightforward for you then you go do worse than check out Helios' excellent Hit to the brain LP.

Helios decides to initiate our interview by severely challenging our notions of cool: 'I've been hearing a lot of Jethro Tull cover versions lately,' he says while examining the ceiling intimately. 'You know when a band is so out, they're in again. They're just about to do that.'

'Er, so is that a big influence?' We meekly enquire. 'Was a big influence, when I was a kid. Tull, Hendrix, this was when I was very young.' Which brings us to:


HELIOS CREED: The early years.

Helios spent his formative years in Hawaii, where by his own account he was your average teenage stoner, worshipping Led Zeppelin, and Jimi Hendrix. Helios started playing guitar in Hawaii... "trying to be like my heroes. I just wanted to play somewhere so I could be like them; you see I didn't see them in little rinky dink clubs, I'd go see them in big places, and they had big amps with big power. We were doing hard LSD, and it was really impressive, as a young kid, to go out and see this. That was better than school. I'd go to the beaches and I'd go to these concerts, that was life, and it still is life."


CHROME: Living with punk.

So far, so ordinary, when did the vertical hold slip, making things get weird?
"Damon and I developed weird and fucked up. Because Punk came into view. We sorta' wanted to be a punk band, but it was too late. The Sex Pistols were big, there were the Dead Kennedys, Negative Trend, Crime, there were already a bunch of punk bands in the city. We wanted to be one but it was too late. So we decided to be an acid punk band, which didn't exist. If we were gonna' do anything it would have to be not happening to do it. So we took a chance, and it was what we wanted to do anyway. We already had this punk set, and Damon played me these weird tapes he'd made, I go, `man, I like that better than our set, why don't we do something like that.' Then we talked about it for hours, all of a sudden we cut up our set with this weird shit next thing you know we made Alien Soundtracks.

"Damon was really into modern day co-chrome art work, that's where the name comes from. I was into weird guitar and effects. We were both into effects, the more effects the better really, next to a really stark garage punk sound.

"When [Alien Soundtracks] finally came out, I went `man this record, no-ones going to like it, it's too trashy sounding'. Nobody was doing anything that fucked up, that raw. I was really surprised when people started liking it a lot. Punks weren't liking it, it was too psychedelic for them. Intellectuals who were into punk, but were into other things as well, they started buying the record like crazy. People that couldn't get enough of Jimi Hendrix they started buying it. There was a whole psychedelic scene getting ignored, and we sort of fulfilled some of their wants. Then a couple of years later punk started getting into it, started doing acid, then we started selling records".


THE PSYCHEDELIC METHOD.

Helios pauses for a moment to take a sage-like puff from his pipe, before launching into a monologue on all things psychedelic:

"Psychedelia is ancient, hippies don't have any claim on psychedelia, just because the hippy thing exploited it so big. Indians, tribes, psychedelics have been around as long as man. We've been doing it and using music; only now we have all this technology. "To me psychedelic is something that sounds good under the influence of psychedelics, to your head, to your mind. Anybody could call anything psychedelic; they call Acid House psychedelic, they call the Happy Mondays psychedelic. If I listened to that on acid I think I'd have a bum trip, y'know what I mean? "We never said that we were psychedelic, we said we were New Wave, or Acid Punk; because as soon as people say the word psychedelic automatically a lot of people will flashback `oh, psychedelic; hippy; peace; bell bottoms; phoney attitudes;' you know. So they made this list of bands and called it `Acid Punk'. There was Devo, Pere Ubu, Chrome, and some other bands I never heard off. There was about ten of them, the top ten of Acid Punk, they didn't want to call it psychedelia, it was New Wave psychedelia. "Punk changed music, changed music for me, changed it in a psychedelic way. I thought it was a good ingredient for psychedelia".


ALIEN SOUNDTRACKS: Calling occupants of interplanetary craft

Helios' lyrics often (on those rare occasions when they're comprehensible) seems fascinated with Alien life forms; what's the attraction?

"Just the mere possibility, and doing psychedelics; thinking about people from other planets, thinking we're connected more than we can see, and that we're connected musically. As a matter of fact I want to be the first band to have interplanetary distribution.

"I think a lot of people are contacted by aliens and don't even know it. It could be in a different dimension, or in another space, and we don't even know it. But I couldn't prove it.

"That's what I'm into, the strangest phenomena, alien phenomena, unexplained phenomena, natural phenomena, and musical weirdness. I'm into all that. And music seems really close even though it's not connected. It's sort of connected in a psychic way to me, and I think it hasn't been explored fully by humans. To us music is just somebody playing an instrument, there's a lot of things that are connected with your psyche, and the crowd (that we don't even know) that we could explore."


THE PSYCHEDELIC METHOD IN PRACTICE: Drugs and the musical conciousness.

"I think psychedelics help some people, the consciousness of music needs to be raised on some level to make it work. A lot of times you just can't drink a few beers and get into it. The consciousness needs to be a lot higher than just being drunk". So do you use psychedelics when your writing material? "Oh yeah, I've written songs tripping, I've written songs on mushrooms, not as much any more. Sometimes in the studio I might take a little acid to keep awake, because I don't drink coffee, but I won't do speed.

"So yeah, I have done acid and written songs, it can work, but you had better make sure they sound good straight. I like to make something as cool as I can straight and then listen to it on acid. I think psychedelics should be more accepted than pot. I don't think acid should be a Class A drug. Sure someone could take acid and jump out a window, but it doesn't happen very often. You can get drunk and have a car accident easier than you can take acid and jump out a window. They should quit restricting us to bad drugs, and help us learn about the possibilities. That's what the song `XL-35` is about, they're keeping us from exploring our own minds, by keeping us with the lame drugs.

"I think a lot of artists feel the need to use psychedelics, it's an intelligent universe, and they want to reach out into it with their minds and bring back some sort of high statement, to experience it themselves, and to have other people experience it, and sometimes they feel the need to use drugs to do that."radient for psychedelia".


ASSORTED TRIVIAL MATTERS

As well as doing his own album, Helios found time to put down some guitar on the new Butthole Surfers record. So here comes the inevitable John Paul Jones story: "He told us this story about the Live Aid concert Led Zeppelin reformed for, he goes: (cue appalling accent) `Yeah we were at Live Aid, and Dave Gilmore, he had his guitars set up, didn't want anybody near them. He had all these pedals, all around. Anybody gets near them he gets all uptight. So he sits in the corner so he can watch his stuff, he's all concerned. He turns his back for a second to have a drink or talk to somebody . All of a sudden there's all this racket (JPJ said it sounded a lot like me). So he looks over and Roger Daltrey is jumping up and down on his stuff playing the guitar, jumping up and down on the pedals, turning it all up. And Dave's freaking out, ha, ha.

"It was really neat meeting JPJ. I was honoured. When I was a kid I worshipped bands like Led Zeppelin. But you know I never told him I thought their live show sucked. I don't know what was wrong. The only time I thought they were any good they were too drunk to play."

Current rumours have it that Helios has quit the music business entirely, perhaps he's off touring the horsehead nebula at this very moment, going where no aging stoner has gone before!

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