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PropagandaArticle from Music Technology, July 1990 |
In 1985 Propaganda produced a seminal electronic music album - then they vanished. Five years on they've returned to pick up where they left off. Michael Mertens talks to Tim Goodyer about technology and the German tradition.
In 1985 Propaganda's Trevor Horn-produced A Secret Wish was received as a seminal electronic music work - yet the band regarded the project as "a hobby". Silent for five years, Propaganda are now playing for real.
"If you are going to use a synthesiser you have to work hard and spend a lot of time - if you are pleased too quickly, it becomes like a fashion accessory."
"Once we decided we were ready, we went into the studio and started to lay down the backing tracks, make samples of drums and sections of drums - we let Brian play along and then we took sections of his playing and sync'd them up to the track. That was much easier than it was in '84/'85, although we did it on "Dream Within a Dream" - that's a drum loop on there. It was played by Ian Moseley, a lovely bit of drumming. At that point I realised how good it is to have the perfection of all the sequences and let the human element translate it into something much, much better. I really think that's a great way of making music."
Miller picks up the story: "We spent about a year-and-a-half actual recording time in the studio. We'd go in and record and then we'd go and do some more writing because we'd find out what we had wasn't sufficient or wasn't great enough to put on tape."
If the writing was disjointed - and some of the ideas and sequences date back to shortly after A Secret Wish - the recording was equally disjointed.
"We started at The Wool Hall out in Bath", Miller recounts. "We were there for three months and then we had a break for two or three months, then we came back to London and worked at Abbey Road. Then we spent a bit of time at Marcus before going back to The Wool Hall to finish it. We mixed it at Olympic and Metropolis."
It's an impressive itinerary, but what of the gear? Have 1985's PPGs been replaced by their 1990 counterparts? Exactly what did Mertens use in the recording of 1 2 3 4?
"What weren't we using?" comes the reply. "My setup consists of the PPG system, a Super Jupiter, Oberheim Xpander - Ian has got a Matrix 12 which in connection was fantastic. I love all the analogue stuff very much. Later on in the recording I got a MIDIMoog. It was expensive but I really wanted it - especially for the live work we plan to do.
"I've got a D550 and the Yamaha TX rack. Sampling-wise most of the stuff was either Fairlight Series III or Chris' Synclavier. Some samples we did on the Lexicon 480, which for bass drums is fantastic. I think it's the best quality machine around except for the Synclavier. That's not the point though, it was never our aim to use the newest thing. If that is your premise you've missed the point. You can have a lot of new sounds that are all crap, you know. If you're going to use a synthesiser you have to work hard and spend a lot of time. If you are pleased too quickly, it won't last. It's like a fashion accessory. Two years ago everyone was using the D50, you could hear it everywhere.
"Technology is still a big part of Propaganda. If you listen to the album there are tracks which are heavily electronic..."
"...but there's a human element in it too", concludes Miller.
And what of the past - what was behind the sounds that amazed and confused in the mid-'80s?
"In 1984, when we did 'Dr Mabuse', we had a Fairlight Series II" reveals Mertens. "But everything was all pre-SMPTE then. We had a code on tape and every time we had to start the tape from the beginning and hope that it would catch up. There were always these moments: everything had been programmed, everybody's brain was gone, we'd be hoping that this was the take, and the tape wouldn't pick up. Those were the days. Then MIDI came along and made life much more easy for us.
"Next I bought a PPG 2.3 system with a Waveterm which I still use. It's still eight-bit sampling, I never upgraded it to the Waveterm B because I really like the sound of that machine. I didn't buy another sampler for quite some time. It's very good for some things but these days if you have an S1000 you can put anything in there - you can put down almost a whole track with it and it doesn't lack dynamics. But this isn't the case with the PPG at all. If you do that it sounds terrible.
"Then I got into sequencers and started using an Atari and C-Lab Notator software - although, most of the time I don't use the note display. The way we recorded was that there was a lot of stuff in Notator, there were still a few sequences in the old PPG, which we used an SRC synchroniser for. When we first went into the studio Ian Stanley was suggesting that we should both learn a new sequencer. He was suggesting that we use Opcode Vision on the Macintosh. But I said 'no, Notator's so fast and so reliable'. And we had this argument - he was advocating the Macintosh and, as far as I was concerned, the Atari was good enough. I wouldn't take it on stage, but in the studio environment it's fine."
While Notator won the day in the studio, Mertens is less confident about the Atari's reliability for the gigs the band have in the pipeline.
"The Atari would be my favourite system to use, but I'm not sure how it would behave on a tour. A lot of people have recommended the Macintosh to me but the Yamaha C1 might be interesting. Vision looks good though, so I might prefer the Macintosh. There aren't really any hardware sequencers around any more are there - apart from the MC500? I used the MC500 a lot before I had the C-Lab software, but I prefer the C-Lab now."
The fascination with live performance began back in 1985 when Propaganda joined forces with Forbes and McGee for the ZTT showcases.
"That was one of the things that helped us realise that a step towards being a live group was actually what we wanted", says Mertens. "When Brian hits a drum on stage he hits it very hard, and it's a very earthy feeling. I think that's a very good connection with all the electronic stuff going on around him.
"The problem we had in 1985 was that we would have wanted to put the sort of production we had in the studio onto the stage. And that would have been vastly expensive. There was no way we could have afforded to tour with a Synclavier, so there was no other way to recreate the production we'd done than to use tapes. And that's something we don't want to do again. I'm quite nervous about it actually."
The timing of the tour is still as uncertain as the equipment that will make it possible. All Mertens is sure of is that he will be taking along a second keyboard player to assist himself and whatever he chooses to play his sequences, and that he has a lot of homework to do in preparation.
While he's doing his homework for Propaganda, Mertens is happy to be identified with the tradition of German experimentation in electronic music and to admit that his homework has been done for him by bands like Kraftwerk.
"To a certain extent, if Kraftwerk hadn't been there, I wouldn't be here", he concedes. "They were the ones who prepared all these things for us - without even knowing what they were starting. Nowadays people are doing what Kraftwerk were doing 15 or 20 years ago - without the technical problems."
But while Mertens is happy to be a part of the German scene, the Germans don't always seem to have been as appreciative of his efforts.
"I tell you, in Germany in '85 we had problems with everybody hating us", he says sadly. "I think they hated us being so successful - being linked with a producer who was the producer of the time. We came out of Germany not having done anything, and people probably thought not deserving to work in that sort of surrounding. A lot of people didn't like it, so they were saying it was all down to the production.
"Then in 1987 it sounded like it was all over - the singer had left, we had problems with the record company. When '88 came, '89 came, people were saying 'well, Propaganda, that was a good band'.
While Kraftwerk haven't suffered the same scepticism from their countrymen, Mertens expresses concern over their inactivity since the release of Electric Cafe in '86. Being in a comparable position, he's not sympathetic to the suggestion that they may be afraid to try to live up to their past.
"If you're dealing with popular music I think you should be prepared to take a risk and do what you think is right at the time. If I started to think about what is expected of Propaganda it would make me paranoid. There are people who are doing dance music and doing it very well - it's a very trendy thing to do right now. So I could sit down and say 'I'm doing electronic music, there's a lot of innovative stuff happening in Britain, I'm going to jump on it'. But I'm not like that, I don't try to follow trends and I don't think Kraftwerk do either. So even if Kraftwerk came out with something that's not really good and trendy and didn't fit in with the current scene, it's still quite likely to be a very good record. I don't understand why they don't do something. You shouldn't be afraid of your own myth."
The Art of Propaganda (Propaganda) |
The Price of Fame (Steve Lipson) |
Programmer's Protocol (Andy Richards) |
Action Direct (Act) |
Metal, Machines & Music (Die Krupps) |
Metallurgy - The Return Of Die Krupps (Die Krupps) |
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Interview by Tim Goodyer
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