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Startled InsectsArticle from Music Technology, June 1987 |
Take three musicians who like to remain anonymous, four film-makers and a stunning live show, and you've got one of the most original - if unsung - bands in Britain today.
Few bands comprise more film-makers than musicians, and fewer still create novel sounds by experimenting relentlessly with new technology. Startled Insects are one such band - though their identity remains a mystery.
"Analogue synths retain a performance element in that you can change the sound of them while you're playing... That's why we keep things like Minimoogs."
Bill joined the two others shortly afterwards, and the three of them started working on the music that was to become the mini-album Startled Insects (released on the Bristol-based independent Antenna label).
"Initially it was never our intention to release anything of what we were doing", says Bill. "We were just making music for music's sake, largely on borrowed equipment, in the 16-track studio which was here at the time."
Once the collective's ideas about doing a multi-media show started to surface, they sought contact with local Bristol film-makers. Their first live performance — costumes and films and all - coincided with the release of the mini-album in 1984. The name Startled Insects was taken from a name they once gave to a sound they got out of a Prophet 5.
In the three years which have passed since that germination period, the Insects have gone on to do several small tours of Europe. They've also released a 12" single, 'Underworld', on Antenna, and have written the accompanying music to two BBC Wildlife On One television documentaries.
One of the reasons why it took so long for them to create a new album, was that the 16-track studio had gone bust, which meant they had no place to work.
"We need a multitrack recording facility to come up with music", says Bill. "We're not a band to sit down and write songs. In that sense we're flummoxed."
"We're not sure where the next step will come from - we're breaking new ground. No-one has taken this multi-media thing to the extremes we've been taking it to."
Bill: "Before that we'd only used the CX5 for some basic sequencing. Other stuff we just played. Yet, when the Atari arrived, we were very careful not to sequence everything. We made sure that we kept the performance element in our music."
Tony: "We used the Atari only for reasons of time-saving and convenience; we're determined not to make it sound absolutely clean and mechanical. In fact, we programmed the computer to play certain parts with a loose feel, slightly out of time. We programmed mistakes, although they didn't sound like that. The Atari is a wonderful tool, but we don't want to become too dependent on it, because the danger is that music becomes too cerebral, too mental. You're just going dash-dot, using only one finger. But music needs a certain physicality, a performance element."
After recording all the electronic parts at Paradise - with keyboards largely played manually by George - the band came back to their demo studio to reassess ideas and to organise the session players. After that, the acoustic side of the music was recorded at Rockfield. Both Insects stress the blending of acoustic and electronic sounds as being important.
Bill: "It's at the forefront of our minds all the time. It's the reason why we hired those two studios. And with synthesisers, we have a similar thing in that we like to blend analogue synths with digital synths. We don't want to become too digital-sounding. Analogue synths retain a performance element in that you can change the sound of them whilst you're playing. You can't do that with digital synths. That's why we keep things like Minimoogs. The majority of our sounds are analogue, especially on our first album ..."
Speaking of which, what's the reason for the distinct differences between the first and second Insects albums?
Tony starts to answer that question with some views on melody: "There's a lot more melody on the new album, because we do believe in melody. There's a lot of experimentation going on, but I believe that melodies have an emotional impact that you can't get out of any degree of clever experimentation. So possibly the most important feature of our music is the melody content."
Personally I'd have said that last point was debatable, but regardless of that, it turns out that the whole process through which the first album was created was very different from that of the new album. To begin with, the band recorded the first album themselves over a period of nine months, as Bill explains.
"That certainly had a great impact on the way that album came out. We mixed the tracks many times, and although we did some remixes on Curse of Pheromones ourselves, it's not the same as doing it in the studio where you're actually recording, having a chance to come back and re-record things over a long period of time. If we'd done the whole of the new album here, we would have ended up with something different."
Then there was the band's less disciplined way of working, with all that borrowed equipment - though there were no samplers or tape loops.
"We used everything we could lay our hands on", says Tony. "We had no MIDI and no sync facilities, so once a track had gone down we had to push-button play the drum machines we borrowed. Those insect-like sounds you're talking about came mainly from a very crappy synthesiser called the Wasp. We also used its nephew, the Spider." Other electronic instruments used on the mini-album were a Jupiter 8, a Prophet 5, several drum machines and, as Tony adds, "lots of Minimoog: we spent an awful long time creating synth sounds".
Everything startled insects have produced shows evidence of frantic experimentation with instruments, with the musicians showing little or no respect for what their machines were originally intended for.
One odd rhythm sound was created by putting a Drumatix through a vocoder. On 'The Big Wheel', from the new album, a sound similar to that of crushing paper came about as the result of sampling a Minimoog sound into the Prophet 2002. And on 'Glass Mountain' (also on the new album), the Insects sampled a cheap African shaker into the lowest-quality percussion sampler they could find.
Bill, this time poker-faced, reveals that 'Shrimps in Love' features a sampled frog. "I went out at night to some swamps outside Bristol during the frog mating season with a microphone in my hand", he says.
By the time you read this, Startled Insects will be about to embark on their first (none too extensive) tour of Britain. Then after that, according to Bill, "we're doing a new tour of Europe. In Britain we've until now only played in London and in Bristol. I don't know why, but so far there doesn't seem to be the kind of interest here for what we're doing the way there is in Europe. We hope that that's going to change now."
Tony is less specific, but gives a broader view of his band's work which forms a suitable conclusion to our meeting.
"In terms of our own work, we're not quite sure where the next step will come from. We're breaking new ground. I don't think anyone has taken this multi-media thing to the extremes we have been taking it to. It's been a learning process of three years for all of us, and we're as curious for the continuation as everyone else."
Interview
by Paul Tingen
Website: www.tingen.org
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