Anton Fier is a drummer whose next move has always been impossible to predict. From The Lounge Lizards, with their shotgun marriage of punk and jazz, to the ambient funk of The Golden Palominos, this man's career has been notable for its innovation. Deploying Funkadelic bassist Bootsy Collins on rhythm guitar is typical Palomino lateral thinking, enabling Bootsy to chop out a new groove in the process.

Anton himself is a drummer who works with samplers and drum machines to achieve a fluidity of form and composition unusual in modern funk. And far from regarding them as a necessary evil, he positively welcomes remixes of his work.

Now the Golden Palominos have a new album, Pure with some stunning remixes by Bandulu. Pure is a glistening blend of pure vocals from chanteuses Lori Carson and Lydia Kavanagh, funky rhythm guitar from Bootsy Collins and Anton's ecstatic drumming which forges new directions in jazz funk. We began talking about Pure, but Anton was just as keen to discuss the Bandulu remixes.

"I see Pure as very much related to the last record, This is How It Feels. They're both records which use similar personnel and a similar approach, which is strictly rhythm oriented. Lyrically, the themes are very much related in both records. The lyrics basically have to do with spirituality and sexuality and their interrelation. What inspired me to move in that direction I'm not exactly sure, all I can say is that I wanted to get back to a more rhythm-based form of music, and lyrically these themes are ones that I wanted to explore.

"I think the most creative music that's being made today is being done in the remix territory. I feel in rock and jazz people have been basically repeating the same forms over and over for the past twenty-eight years. I feel that in remixes people are going for very creative, very extreme stuff. I've always been interested in the most extreme forms of music culture, and that's just where I feel the most creative stuff is being done right now.

"This Is How It Feels was the first record I made using a particular personnel and approach, although it was all new to me then and therefore I found it a little more exciting. I don't want to say that Pure is a pale imitation, but what it is is an extension of something that I already started more than a year ago.

"I feel that in the next record I will make another drastic change in my music and do something totally different, what exactly I'm not sure. I think most of the influences in music that I listen to find their way into records that I'm making. Most of the music that I'm listening to right now are either remixes or the many and varied forms of techno or ambient or hip hop. I feel that in these areas of music the most innovation is being done. Maybe that will give some indication of where I'm headed next...

"I've always tried to be involved in challenging and interesting music. All of the records that I've made, I consider to be experimental in some form. Even if they may sound like pop songs. I'm experimenting with form. I'm experimenting with process. I'm experimenting with combining different people and different energy.

"The Lounge Lizards was a very interesting thing for me to do for a while, however I've always found being in a band very limiting. Whenever I was in bands, I was usually in several bands at once because no one situation really satisfied me musically. I've always wanted to do a million things at once. The Golden Palominos records are very much a joint effort. I consider them all to be very much collaborations. In that sense it has the best attributes of a band without any of the limiting aspects. I have total freedom from record to record in terms of what I want to do, the only limitations are my own imagination and my own creativity."

As a drummer, Anton was among the first of the breed to wholeheartedly embrace the sampler and the drum machine, with his first being the Oberheim DMX. He still uses a couple of Roland R8 modules as well as a couple of Akai S1000s, and has no hangups about transforming his human thrashings into easily manipulated digital data.

"I sample my own loops. I often just improvise at certain tempos, throw all of that into Pro Tools, and take what bits I think work best.

"I really have very little interest in my records after I've finished them."

All the bass and guitar parts are done the same way, there's a lot of improvisation involved. Everything is done that way, apart from the vocals which are put down last. Having said that, it's a continual process of manipulation, as I said before. The vocals are recorded into Protools, and manipulated with just the same cut and paste methods as I do on other parts. Usually the vocals are recorded many times. It's a constant process. The compositional process doesn't really finish until the record is fully mixed.

"I've always been interested in technology. Even on the first Golden Palominos records I was using drum machines. With every advance in technology you're gonna have some people who say it's not pure, it's not organic, it's not something. I see everything on this planet is here to be used or abused, do with it what you will.

On the last two records I've tried to experiment with process, in that all of the music being played is played by real musicians playing 'real' instruments in an organic sense, but all that information has been digitally recorded and sampled and sequenced and looped and so forth.

"I'm intrigued and fascinated by the combination of organic source material and technological innovation in creating some hybrid which has never yet existed. It's opened up new ways of composition and form, and allowed me to improvise with song structure. Having everything stored digitally and immediately accessible means that the song structure can continually be redefining itself through the mix.

"The next logical step is CD-i and CD-ROM, which I see as a further step in the compositional process. You'll have a version which will be the artist's or producer's vision of what the music is, but it will also have all the individual elements for the listener to recombine in any way which is useful for them.

"I see it as a way to keep the process alive. In the past and even at present, when I've finished making a record, I'm finished with it. I'm talking to you about it now because I know interviews are part of the process, but really I have very little interest in my records after I've finished them. The only interesting part of the process for me is making it, when the music takes on a life of its own, when the record becomes whatever it becomes. I try not to put limitations on that process, but to allow it to become whatever it will based on the various inputs.

"I see CDs and records at this point in time as like paintings in a museum in that they can't be changed, they are what they are and their life cycle is finished. Of course people are always rediscovering things, and how they perceive it is in many ways just as important as the making of it, but the perception of it has nothing to do with me. So the fact that it will be possible in the very near future to be able to constantly redefine the music is something I find very exciting.

"I don't think the technology is there yet, it's just what it hints at that I'm excited by. I think we're just a couple of years away from that form being as common as a CD today. With every innovation it accelerates the process.

Technology is moving really quickly now, people have such access to information, through things like the Internet, and this is just helping it accelerate even faster. Even 'though there are things going on in the world which seem very depressing, I really think we're in for a very exciting age."

Pure album review - Monitor Mix p.84